Venezuela's Hugo Chavez Calls PlayStation Games 'Poison'

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez won't spare a kind word for video games, calling them 'poison' and accusing them of being proxies for capitalist warmongering. According to AFP, the outspoken US critic who once notoriously referred to George W. Bush as "the devil", used his weekly radio-TV show 'Alo Presidente' to put a match to Sony's PlayStation games brand.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/187114/venezuelas_hugo_chavez_calls_playstation_games_poison.html/

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Fuckin' n00b!

Almost all video games are pointlessly violent, racist, sexist, and homophobic. There's never been any such thing as a progressive video game or one that includes most people with humane values.

Why should anyone CARE if Hugo points this out?

Besides, in his country, only the rich can afford them anyway.

Bullshit. Get your facts in order.

None that depict people of color positively(in that world, POC are pretty much always depicted like the characters in Grand Theft Auto).

There are none that depict women as strong characters or condemn violence against women or encourage men to treat women with respect and as equals.

Progressive video games don't exist.

be making such a silly claim.

There are plenty of games where women are the dominant heroic character (oh, boo hoo, they have to shoot people, wringeth the hands) but there are also plenty of video games such as The Sims which are popular and have zero to do with violence. Plus all the sports games that exist....

It's a far cry from your original statement of "Almost all video games...."

...poorly researched Poutrage is duly noted.

Must suck to always be mad at someone for something....

Fucking Russian geometry nazis.

LatinOs stealing our American jobs (holes that would have been awesome for any other piece).

You're a STINO! (S Tetromino in Name Only)

.

And nothing I've posted here merits tombstoning.

I've done nothing whatsoever that approaches that.

My posts have been on other people's opinions and ideas.

And they've never been unfair to anyone.

So I really don't understand what the comparison is about.

And why would any comments on VIDEO GAMES merit tombstoning anyway?

People with such ridiculous ideas are vanishingly rare.

I never mentioned anything about tombstoning.

n/t.

Not because of "slanderous personal attacks."

So I don't see what's natural about anything you say.

My real point, in this thread, is that the OP is an example of the way some people, even some who pretend to be "liberals", will find ANY reason to bash the Venezuelan government and the socialist model its creating, even when it comes to something utterly trivial like the man's opinion about video games. A lot of pretend "liberals" did the same kind of thing to Nicaragua in the 1980's(with the same snide, superior tone) and the result was the forced election of a "democratic" government in 1990 with no progressive policies at all, a government that in the name of "freedom" as defined by Miami exiles took everything away that the poor and the workers had gained, leaving nothing positive in the country at all. For the next sixteen years, Nicaragua was a country without joy, life, or hope. But that didn't matter because a few people had "property rights" and that's all "freedom" means to "anticommunists".

This is why some of us get a little touchy about people who make sanctimonious comments about "repression" in Venezuela. We know what "freedom" really means to people who oppose Hugo Chavez-it means putting the rich back in power and letting American corporate types strut around Caracas again.

And this is one thing that Chavez deserves to be taken to task over.

At best, they are benign empty timewasting. At worst, they are insanely violent. Why bother calling someone to task about something that is of no meaning?

And even you would have to agree that nothing good would ever come of Chavez being overthrown, since that could only lead to the right-wing coming back to power(or the centrists, which is the same thing in South America).

BTW...why did he ASK to be tombstoned? Couldn't he just have stopped posting? What a weird thing to ask for.

You can't learn anything life-changing from a video game. Your consciousness can't be raised and your soul can't be stirred.
You can't be turned into an activist or a poet through anything that happens in a video game. Nothing can happen in a video game that could be compared to Shakespeare, James Baldwin, Howard Zinn, Zora Neale Hurston, or Molly Ivins. After you play the game, you always still see and think everything in exactly the same way you did before. It's a use of time and nothing else.

And it can NEVER be possible for video games to lead to political change. Anywhere. Ever. Video games are about making everyone forget life and placidly accept their station forever.

Same sort of fucking nazis.

"And it can NEVER be possible for video games to lead to political change."

Then why is Chavez so upset?

Books are disparaged because they lead to thought and action, because they lead people to question and think.

Video games are time wasters. They can provide an escape from life for the moment(and fine, some yuppies need that)but they don't lead to anyone growing as a person. They are about encouraging passivity.

Why are you so anti-Chavez anyway? The alternative to him is putting the right-wing back into power(or putting in "centrists" who "welcome foreign investment" which means the same thing). The forces of capital won't allow a progressive democratic alternative. It's not as though if only Hugo left you'd get some nice pure Swedish social democrat in there. Chavez does things the way he does them(and, in case you haven't noticed, he's always been far less repressive than Fidel)because he's seen how empire works in his region.
If you don't want people like that, work to change how THIS country deals with Latin America. Work to wipe out the Monroe Doctrine mindset. This hemisphere doesn't belong to us. IT belongs to the PEOPLE of the hemisphere.

"Video games are time wasters. They can provide an escape from life for the moment(and fine, some yuppies need that)but they don't lead to anyone growing as a person. They are about encouraging passivity."

Except you were arguing that video games made people think, they just made people think thoughts that you didn't like. Now you're moving the goal posts. Just the sort of thing that comes from people who don't think.

"Why are you so anti-Chavez anyway?"

That's a strawman, another symptom from people who don't think.

That's not the same as saying they "make people think".

And even if I were to concede that it was possible that a video game could be progressive, it still goes without saying that it can't actually have positive progressive effects on a person. A video game can't build resistance to a bad system.

I'm a technologist by trade so your random buzzwords interest me (I've never designed video games professionally, but I create them anyway and distribute them for free on the internets). I once wrote a parody of Civilization that rewarded the erstwhile ruler ("I am Gandhi! Give us 500 wood or we will commence thermonuclear war!") for oppressing his own civ, which wasn't to encourage antisocial behavior but rather to raise consciousness about the actual history being glossed over in these toy soldier strategy settings. Maybe that's a bad example, but there have been isolated examples of progressive and LGBT-friendly video games. The new Bioware epic "Dragon Age", for instance, features a bisexual elf, and your protagonist has the option of only indulging in same sex couplings, as seen on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWc0syUKEfQ

n/t.

I watched a friend role-play a character in Fallout 3 who ended the game by sacrificing her own life so that there could be clean water in the post nuclear apocalypse wasteland, and I was stirred. Maybe you wouldn't have been, but I was. Maybe you had to be there.

If we were to apply your strict criteria of making everyone who reads a book an activist or poet, there would be very few books published indeed. So many books are printed that are written for the very reason you condemn video games: to use time and nothing else. Why single out video games for your abuse? Or for that matter, why burden books with the imperative to improve the reader?

And I also put it to you that at least one video game has clearly led to political change; just not in the direction you prefer: America's Army.

on edit: I forgot to say as an aside that I actually agree with you in the more important area: this quote is so completely blown up out of all proportion. Nothing is going to happen with the law in Venezuela. Sheesh.

Guess it never occurred to me to let everyone die, now I have to go back and try the alternate ending. Don't worry, I'd never commit genocide in real life, in fact I can't quite bring myself to do it in a video game (other than self-defense, e.g., Doom, Centipede)... why bother roleplaying a republican? Unless there's a secret weapon at the end or something.

And are a fucking SNOB to book. Video games are just as much "art" as music and movies.

All he did was to cybersneer at people and act as if he were above having to debate. And for his repeated insinuation that progressives who spoke against non-progressive Democrats were part of a Republican conspiracy.

Nothing I do is remotely like that.

If you disagree with me, fine, that's your right, but it's bullshit to compare me to Benchley. I've never treated people here like he did. Hardly anyone else here ever has.

And you haven't made a case for anything.

If you want to play them, fine, but it's silly to say that comments about the products of technology can be "abusive".

Only living creatures can be subjects of abuse.

Lara Croft

Here are SOME (but by no means all) of the games on my shelf that are sexually and politically neutral (or which place women in lead roles) and which also do not contain graphic violence or disparage women, GLBTs, or people of color (oh look, that's all of your criteria):

Myst (entire series of six games)
Black & White 1 and 2
Mirror's Edge, when attempting the 'Test of Faith' 100% nonviolent, never-fire-a-shot achievement (Faith has more guts than I ever will)
The Movies
Portal (the only two characters are female)
Children of the Nile (not a white person in sight)
Pharaoh (ditto that)
SimCity 2000, 3000, 4, and Societies
Civilization 3 and 4 (lots and lots of different cultures as well as five major religions are represented)
Spore
Roller Coaster Tycoon 3
The Sims 1, 2, and 3 (I almost always have a gay couple with a family somewhere in the town, and the game quite happily lets you do that without any differences between opposite-sex and same-sex couples)
Burnout: Paradise City

Your Wii exception below still does not suffice. All platforms, including the PC, have games that are nonviolent, do not objectify women, promote people of color, and treat gays equally, or do any or all of those at the same time. I suggest you look harder in the future.

Still, it hardly justifies going after Hugo Chavez, the only progressive leader Venezuela has ever had, because he has a thing about video games.

There are some people here who won't stop until they've done unto Venezuela what their predecessor "anticommunist liberals" did to Nicaragua in 1990: That is, until they've forced the people to vote to resubmit to corporate dominance. That's what obsessing about "property rights" and "not welcoming foreign investment is about".

It would be a tragedy for Venezuela to end up lowering itself to a Violeta Chamorro-type government.

and judge things as they come, as opposed to your thing of defending anything he does.

I wish Chavez would ease up on the mild restrictions he's put on the press.

It's just that some of us remember what all this talk about "free speech" led to in Nicaragua. And I think even you would have to agree that that was a tragedy.

then you don't want to be called "progressive."

Yes, you can be a genocidal maniac, but you can also be a peaceful builder (which is often funner and more challenging then blowing everyone up). I love using culture power to cause cities of rival empires to flip to my control! :evilgrin:

I recently started playing the "Rise of Mankind" mod.

It's called google and it's your friend. (Even when it proves you wrong.)

you can play as a black leader and have your civilization rely on culture and peacemaking to win rather than war. What's not progressive about that?

sure, you can also nuke the hell out of everything and win by conquest, but that's generally a lot tougher...the game actually penalizes you for going to war.

Razing cities is quite bad for your diplomatic reputation.

Leaders who think that there is no issue too small for them to meddle in are usually psycho megalomaniacs.

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/37855/Obama-Turn-off-the-video-games

lol

play stations as well as rich and middle class people. And there are lots and lots of games that are not violent or racist or sexist in the least. I'm not a big fan of these things but I am a big fan of accurate information. Oh, and there are many games with progressive values.

"There's never been any such thing as a progressive video game or one that includes most people with humane values."

The Ultima series of games is quite progressive and encourages humane values.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_%28series%29

involve music. The most popular machine (Wii) has tons of family-friendly games.

Your ignorance is noted.

That's not what Chavez was talking about.

Best video game ever!

n/t.

:-)

At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

classy....

That's all there is to it. Do you play modern, mainstream video games? If not, how can you have an opinion on them?

You and your all high and mighty puritanical anti-fun brigade can go STFU.

I suggest you play Final Fantasy 7, Anarcho-Eco-Socialist-minded cyberpunk plot.

Bioshock is actually a fine satire against the right wing types, as they are the villains, as well as a nice eco fable

:shrug:

What about all the kids who play Guitar Hero and could learn to play a REAL guitar instead??

addicting. And non-violent.

Wii is based on human beings making characters like themselves and doing non-psychotic things. Fairly unusual as video games go.

games have. And it makes you get up and move. I am getting Wii Dance soon and will look like an idiot dancing but hey, I will get my kids to do some exercise when it is cold outside.

Oh c'mon. The Wii has it's fair share of violent video games.

Just some examples off the top of my head... Resident Evil, MadWorld, The Conduit...

But Wii isn't violent or anything.

I question how familiar the poster is with video games.

No, wait, it didn't.

Good thing he didn't try a Wii. Wii Sports Resort is full of anti-leftist capitalist propaganda, like when you have to serve the ball in table tennis. If the symbolism isn't clear to you, I weep for the future.

I got error messages.

I guarantee he would love the first 8 hours, which is essentially a leftist critique of Japanese corporatism. I bet the plot's author is a member of the Japanese Communist Party.

But I think generalizing about any kind of media is dangerous and reactionary, and reflects some characteristics that have come to irk me about somebody I otherwise hold in high esteem (which sadly does not extend to Ortega and Ahmedinejad...)

Video Games-- the neo-opiate of the masses and the de-facto sacred cow of Americans everywhere. Disparage a video game and one feels the wrath heretofore reserved only for the Inquisition. Tune in, turn on, and seriously drop out.

Not that I want to see them banned, mind you-- I simply perceive gamers the way many people perceive fundies-- and for pretty much the same reasons.

ed: sp-- must have been playing a video game :P

Didn't mean to overcook your sacred cow.


("...and for pretty much the same reasons.")

Observation.

It seems old Hugo doesn't really like -ANYTHING- that contradicts his message. Ignoring for the moment that Hugo doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, let's just pretend in his woo-woo crazy world that he's right.

In my book, anyone who is afraid of opposing points of view only shows that their own points of view are weak. If it cannot stand up to public scrutiny, then it is pretty clear that it's all nothing more than a house of cards. I'm not afraid of those with different opinions, thoughts, and view points than my own. Why? Because I know facts, logic, and reason are on my side.

This is just another way for Hugo to limit free speech. If Dick Cheney were to suddenly become a liberal, he'd be Hugo Chavez.

Now, let's all ban Tetris, Jeopardy: The Video Game, and Spore.

And even if there could be progressive video games, that's not what we're talking about in Venezuela.

Those here who go on about "opposing points of view" in Venezuela are just jonesing to get the old days back...corporate dominance and austerity. There's no way ANYTHING positive or progressive could ever come of Chavez being defeated. American capitalism won't allow anything good there once Hugo is gone.

He called them "'poison' and accused them of being proxies for capitalist warmongering."

In other words, he's accusing them of being propaganda and promoting a point of view that he's opposed too. There is nothing wrong with having the point of view that video games are a waste of time. It's another thing entirely to make a broad brushed and factually inaccurate claim, which is what he did, and therefore making him look like an idiot in the process.

As for wishing the "old days back" filled with "corporate dominance and austerity." I could care less what type of economic system Venezuela has, but what I *DO* care about is Hugo shutting down TV and Radio Stations that he claims promotes views that he's opposed too. I do care about Hugo limiting free speech and anti-Hugo and anti-government knowledge in his nation. It is anti-democratic and smacks of dictatorship. It is authoritarian.

If the people of Venezuela want communism, socialism, capitalism, corporatism, or some new fangled ism that is cooked up by Hugo himself while on a acid trip - I don't really care. All that I care about is that the people of Venezuela have the ability to get access to all sides of a story, are given knowledge to make their own choices, and then have the ability to democratically express that choice. Then, if it turns out badly, I'd like for the people of Venezuela to have the ability to step forward and go to some other ism that they want.

Hugo doesn't agree. Hugo wants to limit access, knowledge, and anything else that runs counter to his point of view. He treats it as if it is a threat to the Venezuelan government. When I see someone acting in this manner, especially a populist leader like Hugo, it tells me that he has not-so-benevolent intentions for the people of Venezuela. It also tells me that their position is so weak that it will collapse at the slightest breeze. Therefore, the only reason to try and silence the opposition is to distract from his own weak position.

Stop him now! Before he eats another!

I can see why he might be a bit peeved.


"Those games they call 'PlayStation' are poison. Some games teach you to kill. They once put my face on a game, 'you've got to find Chavez to kill him.'"

The firebrand leftist president said any game that "bomb cities or just throw bombs," are sold by capitalist countries to sow violence so they can "later sell weapons."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100118/tc_afp/venezuelainternetvideogamessonychavez%3Cbr%20/%3E

He appears to have just made that up.

The game causing Bono's cash-magnet the problem is Mercenaries II: World in Flames, the tagline of which reads, "If you see it you can buy it, steal it, or blow the living crap out of it," and depicts an America invasion of Venezuela, an invasion seen as a real possibility by the embattled government lead by President Hugo Chavez. The title according to its developer "...is an explosive open-world action game set in a massive, highly reactive, war-torn world. A power-hungry tyrant messes with Venezuela's oil supply, sparking an invasion that turns the country into a warzone."

http://news.spong.com/article/10364/Bono-Looks-Sanctimonious-Cock-as-Game-Investment-Row-Flares

:rofl:

But he does come off as a bit of a killjoy, assuming you can trust PC World.

A few video games (intended for ADULTS) push the boundaries, and people get up in arms without realizing that these games are exceptions to the rule rather than the rule itself.
If kids are playing M-rated games, that's the fault of the parents, not the people who made the games in the first place. It's just like taking your child to see an R-rated movie.

He has the same "purist" idiocy that ruins countries, by purging everything that he views as "bad," while being completely ignorant and blind to common sense at the same time.

Stop whining, Hugo.

Chavez, in his weekly radio-TV show "Alo Presidente," called on Venezuelan manufacturers to make "educational" toys and dolls with indigenous peoples' features to replace capitalistic counterparts like the Barbie doll that "have nothing to do with our culture."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100118/tc_afp/venezuelainternetvideogamessonychavez%3Cbr%20/%3E