This is no ‘Grand Theft Auto’

Video games are often accused of promoting violence, but a few of the new ones are trying to promote peace.
One game in the works calls on players to negotiate peace in the Middle East. Another — which the United Nations recently released — asks players to feed thousands on a fictitious island. And MTV is holding a contest to see who can design the best game that deals with the Darfur, Sudan, crisis.
“Activism needs to be rethought and reinvented with each generation,” said Stephen Friedman, general manager of an MTV channel shown on college campuses. “This is a generation that lives online — what better way to have an effect?”
Posted by Melissa Cooley

4 Comments

  1. Damoon
    Posted October 28, 2005 at 8:40 am | Permalink

    Sounds good to me, why not try to instill kids with a sense of resposibility for our fellow man? Probably won’t sell as well as the violent, mindless crap though.

  2. k
    Posted October 28, 2005 at 1:54 pm | Permalink

    There was a push in the late 80s for games other than the shoot’em ups and those failed miserably. I forsee these doing the same. Kids don’t want to feed the starving masses or negotate peace. They want fast paced and action filled.

  3. TRACY
    Posted October 28, 2005 at 2:41 pm | Permalink

    I like the idea of a new game where devout Catholics can drive the “PopeMobile” through the adoring crowds without hurting anyone or being late for Mass.

  4. Norman Schwartscraft
    Posted October 28, 2005 at 7:28 pm | Permalink

    Hey cut the bad talk about violence and video games. This is a major plan by the pentagon to save on future training costs. We train our kids to be killing machines and if they get out of high school ….. then we have one hell of a killing Army of one!

    Think how much money the Army will save in training costs over the next 20 years! It worked well at Columnbine. Now in an age of remote control pilot less airplanes we don’t even have to train pilots! The just come in and play video games. We will make the USA number one and save money too!

    Schwartzcraft over and out!