Gamers To Boycott Stores That Boycott Games

Gamers To Boycott Stores That Boycott Games

This idea seems reasonable enough to the undersigned.


Firstly, let's make something clear: Games do not kill people.

Alcohol kills people. Alcohol can be attributed to the deaths of approximately 33,000 people annually, according to an NHS report. Tobacco kills people. 114,000 die each year, according to Ash.org.uk. I can't find a reliable stat to say how many die in car related incidents every year, but it's probably safe to assume that car crashes kill. Big chunks of metal, move very fast, whatever the outcome, it can't be healthy. All in all, lots of things kill people. Roughly 350,000 people have been killed by various things so far in 2004. Of that number, only one death can be (indirectly) linked to a computer game. So games kill, then. Right.

No. Idiots with no respect for others kill people. Murder has been going on since before man was even around, and it exists in most species of more evolved animal. As soon as the brain evolves to the level that it can feel things like desire, envy, and hate, it becomes capable of malicious destruction, of which murder is a merely a logical progression. If you would like to look up the statistics for the numbers of people murdered, beaten up, or mugged in Britain so far this year, you will likely see that the desire to harm exists in society without the influence of games. It is a desire that resides deeply inside the human mind. The difference between civilised folk and thugs, however, is that civilised folk express the desire to destroy what they perceive as an enemy through vaguely civil means, like computer games, movies, wrestling, boxing or through spiteful tabloids like The Daily Mail or the Express. Thugs do it by picking up a weapon and taking someone out.

Studies have been done on the violence inducing effects of computer games, and they have concluded that games do not make people violent. Alcohol does - try offending a drunken ned and see what happens. After your time in hospital, go to your local arcade, locate someone who's playing pretty poorly and inform him that he's playing is lousy. He'll most likely smile and concede that he's rubbish at the game. He might excuse his dismal performance by saying that he hasn't had much practise with the game. Worst case scenario is, he'll be irked and request that you [profanity] off.

Games don't make people violent. If they do, then where is the widespread evidence? Oh, there isn't any. How odd.

So, the conclusion. We gamers know that games don't make us or anyone else violent, and although we're sick of tabloids lying all the time, there isn't really anything we can do about that. What we can do, however, is boycott stores that boycott games because the tabloid press wants to make a headline of them. At present, this list includes Game and Dixons.

We, the undersigned, think that stores like Game and Dixons should obey us, their customers, and not reactionary tabloid rags. As they choose not to cater to our desires, we will not buy from them anymore.