For the rest of us who were indirectly affected, I think that knowing that a scene was removed (and any evidence of such) is far more of a painful reminder of this whole fucked up world than watching Metal Gear Ray blow up some once-existing buildings. Sure, it would make me sad to see the WTC depicted in a game after recent events, but altering the game to deny their very existence (and, in essence, everything that has transpired) seems like a much worse tragedy.

The sad thing is that most people will never know that it was edited. Just like most people will eventually forget what happened on 9-11. Heavens forbid that anything entertaining should ever remind us of something painful.

Ah......fudge....I hate talking about that damned event but it really needs the discussion. DAMN THE MEDIA!!!!!!!! Okay, well, not entirely just the media. But anyway, yeah.....it sucks.... and even though Bush specifically said that we shouldn't change anything...it happened. Ain't that fuggin' great? Don't yah love how well people listen to our monkey we have in the white house? Oh wait, who would? Ungh.....I needed that. Maybe the US government will make a law forcing Bill Gates to give a large portion of his money to the country. That'd be amusing.

Anyways, like I said, feel better :)

PS: Why didst thou not preorder thee holy game of ICO?

~Subtle Silence, who is surprised he can still function after only 15 minutes in front of Silent Hill 2

I can hardly believe you've been getting those types of letters. Your column is wonderful. I don't even really play video games any more, but it's columns like yours that keep me interested when nothing else does. It's also nice to be reading a woman's writing without her using those cheesy smilies like ^___^;;;; all the time. (God, I hate that.)

Keep up the great work. From reading your column, ICO might be the first game I purchase in almost two years.

As for tomorrow's topic: I don't see the 9-11 tragedy as having much effect on the video game industry. There may have been some initial panic--isn't there always when something like this happens?--but I think the vast majority of people are intelligent enough to realize the terrorists didn't formulate their agenda after playing a damn flight simulator. If there are cases in which video games warp people's minds, they're the exception and they don't undergo media scrutiny for long. I expect a short-term increase in church attendance and patriotic bumper stickers (for however long this "war" goes on) and a negligable affect on the video game industry. With a tragedy of this magnitude, whatever hand electronic gaming had in creating it will be obscured by the escalating racial suspicion and political rhetoric already circulating. I hope the public gets its priorities straight.

Kaitlin

~http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~kk203600/

Damn you! Does it not have story?? Are you not playing a role?! Of COURSE it's an RPG!

Anyway..

About the censorship. As terrible as it was, the stories of MGS and the others should not be censored because of what happened. I guess I can't really say "shouldn't" but rather, I wouldn't want them to. The game hasn't even come out, and we're already buying a censored version? I guess it's because the majority of people may see it as distasteful, so there really is only one solution I can think of: Wait some time before putting these things out. Then again, it may be a bad marketing move..or whatever.

I don't know. Maybe it's one of those paradox things...with no answer and all that. Hah. Wooh.

~Frank, who's brain's switch is seemingly on the 'off'.

I work in an electronics retail store, which I shall not name... and we sell games. Recently there have been stories in the news about the store in which I work pulling games from the shelf. Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 was the first to go, followed by Microsoft's Flight Simulator. We haven't pulled any other games since then, and probably won't.

Now, neither of these two games are particularly popular relative to some of the bigger console titles. Also, they had both had a good bit of time on the shelf, so most of the folks who wanted these titles had them already. Perhaps that's why I haven't had a single complaint about it from any of my customers.

This weekend a lot of our customers began to notice that the Fight Club DVD was also taken off the shelf (if you've seen this movie all the way to the end, you can probably guess why). This is a college town, and Fight Club is a very, very popular movie here, so I was expecting quite an uproar. Some customers were angry when they found out it was gone. However, when I explained why, they were surprisingly understanding.

Speaking from my own perspective, I don't condone this sort of censorship, but I don't think it's going to have much of an effect on the industry, either. For one, it won't be very widespread; second, the general public seems to understand that these titles were removed partly to keep terrorists from learning how to fly at home and partly out of respect for those who lost loved ones in the incident.

-Nij

-Makkuro

I remember making a gallows joke about not selling Microsoft Flight Simulator to the Middle East. But...Flight Simulator is one of the first 'games' I played on a PC. I know it's not really a game, it's not about kamikaze flight training even if that's what I did with it mostly, crash my plane in new and spectacular ways (think SimCity: build City, send Godzilla).

Flight Simulator is a gold standard, a program over 17 years old--yes, some of you, no, most of you out there were in diapers when Microsoft made Flight Simulator the first time. Yanking Flight Simulator is like yanking four function calculators because someone used them to figure out the proper ratios for bomb materials.

That's reactionary to the point of being stupid.

But...I don't know if it's reactionary in games like Metal Gear Solid 2. Is there someone out there that knows what role the World Trade Center had in the game? Was it merely skyline? If it was...maybe it should have been left intact, as a memory and a reminder that this game is fiction. We already know the Metal Gear timeline and the Real World timeline don't converge; Metal Gear Solid was timed several years after it was made, sort of the same way that the Day of Lavos came and went and that Star Trek's Eugenics War never occured.

Or did the WTC get destroyed? Was it some bizarre synergy of life imitating art, something unintentionally prophetic? A lot of people have said in the past that New York would be attacked first. If that's the case, then taking out a 'prophetic' destruction of the WTC is probably a wise move. This is something America isn't going to get over or forget about anytime soon, and it may strike too close to home for many, MANY gamers to see it happen again.

Then again...it might serve as a cathartic. It might let the gamers of America vent at the fictional people who destroyed the fictional WTC rather than take the anger they may feel out on targets that have nothing to do with it, targets as varied as the psyches of gamers, not just "expected" targets like innocent American citizens that happen to have immigrated from Pakistan.

In my opinion though, if the WTC is destroyed by terrorists in MGS 2, Konami has done the more noble thing by removing a small scene, as there are many other ways to achieve a safe cathesis, while leaving it in would guarantee to stir up dark feelings in a number of Americans.

I'd rather Konami stir up a philosophical debate about the integrity of art versus cultural sensitivity than to stir up the very real sadness and in some cases agony that seeing the WTC fall in a game intended to be a form of escapism might.

People get angry about philosophical debates, but they can set them aside. The people in the WTC aren't coming back. That's real. The debate...we can deal with that, it's mist and vapors in comparison.

Do I think this will effect the industry. Of course it will. Everything effects the industry. A couple of idiots decide to go on a high school killing spree, and Doom/Quake/Duke Nukem gets blamed. Books get taken off the shelves (sorry, Stephen King). Movies get pulled from your local Blockbuster (sorry, Basketball Dairies).

The funny thing is, the only thing that should be pulled isn't: Easy access guns.

So, do I think this is going to effect the industry. Everything does. People love to play the blame game. The parents say, "Oh, we couldn't possibly be at fault, because we're such good parents. It must be the school system's fault." And the schools say, "But we do our jobs so well, it must be the government's fault." And the government says, "But we're such a good government, it must be the media's fault." And the media says, "But we're just giving people what they want, it must be the parents' fault."

Kind of funny how the people who actually committed the crimes don't get blamed nearly as much as everyone else. Of course, I'm of the "it takes a town to raise a child" ilk. So, in my eyes, everyone is at fault, including and especially the perpetrator(s).

But we aren't talking about some highschool shooting. Forgive me for sounding calloused, but that is a relatively minor occurrence in comparison to Tuesday's attacks. The sad thing is, we were always in that much danger, and I knew it. Everyone around me is amazed that it happened. I'm just amazed that it wasn't a nuke. Next time, it probably will be. We think we get it so bad, what with the first WTC bombing, and Oklahoma (which, by the way, was done by a local boy. I don't understand why that possibility wasn't even brought up for this), but that's not even a noticeable percentage point for what the rest of the world sees on a daily basis.

America has been, for the longest time, a terrorist's virgin. On Tuesday, we got raped.

And what about all the other countries of the world? I don't see anyone burning a candle for Ireland's 30 elementary school students, gunned down by a madman, or the 50,000 killed in the bombing of a pharmaceuticals plant in Khartoum, Sudan, done by our own government, I might add. Although, in complete honesty, 50,000 is a rough estimate, since the UN blocked the official investigation, and no one cares enough to start a new one. I don't see anyone waving a flag for all the other terrorist bombings and shootings, so why all of a sudden to people stand up and care? Because it's America? Well, if that ain't the biggest crock of shit. America has a lot of severe problems, and those problems don't go away just because a bunch of idiots decided to take out a couple of buildings. We have terrible health care, our schools are under equipped and teachers underpaid, our government spending is more than any other country's, we produce more waste! than any other country, and we boast the largest prison population. Yeah, I'll wave a flag for that.

Will this effect the industry? Oh, you bet it will, and games are only the smallest piece of the pie. There are those in Washington just itching to take just a little bit more freedom away, install a brand new missile defense program, and impose their will on the uncaring/frightened out of their wits American public, and this whole "national tragedy" has given them the opportunity. My own roommate told me he'd gladly give up a lot of freedom if it meant he could feel a little safer. Yep, that's America for you: Making the country safe for hypocrisy, one bomb at a time.

Oh, and if anyone decides to chastise me for being un-American, chew on this: There's a local Walmart near where I live being called "un-American" because it doesn't display it's flag prodominantly enough. Walmart? Un-American? We're talking about a place that censors all it's music, but will still sell a shotgun to any eighteen-year-old with a hundred dollars. Pissed of teenagers with guns that can't get a decent copy of Marilyn Manson's latest CD. Now I ask you, what's more American than that?

- Banjax, mad as hell, and not going to take it anymore.

"You can go a week without love. You'd die without food." -Cibo Matto

Luxsol ^_^

I suspect that the aversion to plausible violence is an abberation. Its idiotic to remove all mention of terrorists from videogames when they are the topic that everyone is talking about. Also, since terrorists are at the top of everyone's list of least favorite people, their permanent exclusion from the role of villian would be rather curious. However, the fact the a unified government (an anomaly which probably won't last in the run-up to the 2002 elections) is currently deciding which inconvenient rights to abolish or modify indicates that in the short term, a high level of caution when releasing entertainment products is probably justified. Regardless, as you pointed out a while ago, the media has always drawn inspiration from real life tragedies, and I doubt the September 11th attacks will prove any different. Doubtless a game where you invade Afghanistan and kill Osama bin Laden (or a look-alike, which would probably be prudent if he is still living) would prove tremendously popular.

- Mark

Video games, the gaming industry and the entertainment business as a whole have long been a target for every self-righteous parent and quasi-political organization seeking to place blame anywhere but on themselves.

Somebody goes and shoots up some kids at their local high school, poisons their teacher or flies a plane into a building and suddenly the fact that they MIGHT have spent a few hours, or even days playing a popular game or just saw an equally popular movie makes it the game/movie's fault. Never mind the THOUSANDS of people who have also played said game who DIDN'T do anything of the sort except enjoy it for what it was, enjoyable escapism.

Nobody plays a game looking for strategic or tactical advice. While some games may require a good sense of strategy or tactics that's not where you go to LEARN them to use in day to day life. It just wouldn't work. When's the last time you needed to find the seven crystals of whatever to save the world? Me either.

But this attack has managed to do what no other called boycott, threatened legislative action, or out right demands of frightened (read ignorant) parents has ever managed to do; Change the entertainment and gaming industry as a whole. Sweeping changes. The "Hey-maybe-we-DO-have-a-responsibility" changes that are sure to come won't be fun and they won't be pretty. But they ARE coming. They've already started. We won't see the end of it soon but we WILL see the end of it. You simply can't so limit yourself and still be functionally creative. It defeats the purpose. If you spend all your time trying to determine whom you might insult with each graphic or character quirk you will never create at all. It simply can't be done in such a stifling environment. So eventually people will realize it can't be done and move forward.

So in answer to your question:

Yes in the short run it will have a huge effect on the industry. In the long run, none at all.

Now that was pithy. Why couldn't I just say that to begin with?

~A