Tuesday 26 April 2011

Representation of violence

A game on Facebook called Crime City involves your character going from place to place shooting people, making heists, robbing shops etc to make money, get gemstones and level up so that you can get further in the game. Also, you can beat up members of other people's mafia gangs in order to get respect (in the form of silver coins) so that you can buy cars and you usually get extra items/body parts off of the people you beat up so you can trade the items in for rewards. This means that the game promotes violence and  represents the violence in a positive way. The reason for this is because the player's character can freely steal and beat people up in the game without being at the risk of getting caught by the police or beaten up/killed by someone else and stealing things from buildings is very easy to do in the game because all your character needs is enough energy to perform the task (which he will have less and less of depending on the number of tasks he does in a certain amount of time).
The game doesn't have a specific BBFC classification but judging by the fact that there is a lot of violence involving guns and blood as well as censored swear words it would make sense for it to be labelled as a 15 and most 15 year olds would have a Facebook account so lots of people this age would be more aware of the game. Also they can socialise with each other while they're playing since it is a multiplayer online game. The game could also be considered addictive because the more tasks you perform the more locations you get to and the more stuff you can buy for your hood.
The main issue with this game however is that anyone who has a Facebook account can access the game and play it, and since they get rewards for crimes this encourages them to behave violently and agressively towards others. Also, the idea of stealing without anyone arresting the player's character could encourage younger children to steal from other people because they think they will get something out of it if they do.

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