Top 10 People Who Give Video Games A Bad Name

Uwe Boll is the director of such Oscar-worthy video-game-to-film adaptations as Bloodrayne, Postal, House of the Dead and Far Cry (all of which, as we all know, totally sucked).

He's #1 on this list because no matter how much attention people pay to the news, no matter what legislation goes through and no matter how much social stereotypes are enforced by a certain demographic, nothing sways people who are ignorant about the art, challenge and passion involved in gaming away from a positive opinion more than seeing "another crappy video game movie".

Uwe Boll = Roger Ebert fuel

The man is an endless factory of these "just another crappy video game movie" things and we are sick of it.

If he was just a horrible director who was trying his best and was well-intentioned that would be one thing, but he's not. He's just a horrible director who's trying to make endless amounts of money and knows how to get a movie distributed.

At 01:44 in this video (a great video to make you realize why he's such a huge enemy to gaming) he says the following about why he makes video game movies:

"We have focused on video game movies because video games are known worldwide and already on sale in the individual countries and then it's naturally much easier to sell the film. So basically this was a pure marketing measure. I do not play video games at all."

After seeing him do to an angry fan what he does to video game properties we enjoy or could possibly enjoy if the movie was directed by someone who cares, you realize that he's a brilliant business man for even getting people to pay for what he does.

You know who else is a brilliant business man? Lex Luthor.

He's one of the worst offenders of people who give gaming a bad name and every time any of us buys a ticket to any of his movies, we're basically saying "yeah, sure, go ahead and make The Legend of Zelda, we don't care. You have carte blanche on ANY property that might deserve an audience, but has that chance taken away from it once it's hit your clutches".

Roger Ebert is a brave man and one of the most intelligent, well-read and respectable movie critics of all time.

But he doesn't know a thing about gaming.

Recently (as this hot girl to the left with the unfortunate YouTube video still image will tell you), he went on record as saying that it is impossible for video games to be art.

This, again, is tarnishing the great leaps and bounds games are making lately by slowing down public opinion of them and setting the clock back YEARS on what it would be with the right support from such influential critics.

The close-minded, myopic view that Roger Ebert has is that which was given to films when they first came out, one that used to be applied to television and one that will seem just as outdated and ridiculous once video games get the respect they deserve.

Even after considering such groundbreaking and artistically astounding games like Braid and Flower, Roger Ebert maintains that at best, these video games viewed by most as well-made and artful are at best "pathetic".

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/gamesmith/2010/04/roger-ebert-video-games-can-never-be-art.html#more

So, these are pretty much the worst of the worst. Some people just have stupid opinions and motives when it comes to video games as a medium, but these are the people in the public that need to calm down about the whole thing the most.

Don't get us wrong, there's so much to be taken from gaming and a lot of passions drive us to get that next achievement, to progress to the next level up or to beat that next boss... but there's a difference between caring about what you're doing and taking it too far.

These are the sick, twisted individuals with intrinsic problems in their thinking that will do things like the following cases. They give all of us a bad name because they get so much media attention, people assume that more of us are like this. All (many) of us are not really this twisted:

1) So, recently a man killed a kitten (that's right, he did what ALL of us jokingly accuse the most EVIL people of doing) over that kitten unplugging his console. He threw the kitten against a wall when it unplugged his game, and did so in front of a young child and his mother.

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2010/06/man-accused-of-killing-kitten-for-unplugging-game-console/

2) Kid kills his mother because she took away his Halo, almost fatally wounds father.
(Video to the left)

3) Two kids fight to the death over whose turn it is to play a certain video game, one wins (dah dah dah dah dah dun-den DAH DUN DUNDUN...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5DAPaBAy8I

And these are just a few examples of the worst POSSIBLE kind of person to represent gamers in the news. They inspire witch-hunt style retaliation (see the clinton and lieberman items below) and ignorant people to assume that all video games are the CAUSE of this and that we are all evil.

Alright, I know I know. We're not trying to say anything about anyone of a particular weight or aesthetic nature.

We're just trying to say, that anyone who acts like people in this South Park episode (a.k.a. someone who finds trouble telling the difference between reality and the game they're in), gives gaming a bad name.

They are to gaming what alcoholics that beat their kids are to alcohol. Alcohol is generally harmless, it's a LOT of fun in moderation, it makes people's lives better sometimes, but can often consume the right people with the wrong personalities: much like video games.

This social stereotype has plagued gaming throughout its entire run and people that function well in society and are actually quite awesome, funny or even attractive have a hard time not being seen as one of these guys.

You mostly see this social stereotype on games/films that are trying to make an easy joke on the very few who actually go this far, but when anyone in the world stops taking care of themselves and starts caring more about a game than reality, they are making ALL OF US look bad.

The guy who died in an internet cafe, the people who leave their spouses for people on Warcraft (not the fault of the game, but of the happiness in their relationship), as well as the people who deteriorate like Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman did in this episode are doing themselves a disservice and are giving real people an example of why they should think like Tipper Gore, Joe Lieberman and Glen Beck.