Who watches the Watchdogs: how accurate are media reports on video games

I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback about this blog recently and I just want to say I appreciate all of it.  Some of the best  feedback I’ve gotten has been from people who are self confessed game haters, so it’s really cool that they find my blog interesting and fun to read.

One of the reasons I stated writing this was to change people’s ideas about what being a gamer is all about.  Unfortunately most media coverage about games goes the other route.  Rarely do you hear media outlets praising the achievements of new games, unless they include a gimmick like plastic guitars or motion controls.  Most of the time when ever gaming comes up in the news it’s becuase some one cries foul claiming that games caused a murderer to murder, or a rapist to rape.

So I was really encouraged when I read What They Play, a web site dedicated to helping parents understand the games their kids play did a little digging into how the media reports on games and how accurate their reports were.

Among the most high profile stories are reports linking gaming to school shootings, both Columbine and Virginia Tech while following up on the dubious evidence support these claims. But Topics also range from sex in video games (and how it’s pretty much a non issue) and gaming addiction.

What the web site as a whole, and this article in particular is trying to do, is to remind the public that there is more to video games that what you hear on the news. It just so happens that in these cases the media reports were mostly wrong. Most of ten the problem stems from unconfirmed information that comes out right at the beginning of a story that is never backed up or investigated. It’s really unfortunate becuase it’s the media’s job to make sense of this information for us, but as this article shows, their track record isn’t very good.