Ready at Dawn’s Ru Weerasuriya talks about violence in media

It’s nice to see game developers with a little flexibility for their intended target market. Aside from catering to a wider audience of gamers, it’s just good business sense. This was probably what was going through Ready at Dawn‘s mind when they followed up their very wholesome platformer, Daxter, with the upcoming mythological hack-and-slash game, God of War: Chains of Olympus.

With the God of War series already infamous for its bloody appeal to gamers everywhere, you have to wonder, especially with the growing attention people have been giving to violence in media, if there’s any hope for violent games left in the video game market. Ru Weerasuriya, founder and vice president of Ready at Dawn, wrote an article on the subject, giving his opinion on the effect of violence in media.

He focuses on the inevitably bloody theme of God of War: Chains of Olympus and how it compares to the many violent games being criticized in the market (and of course the name of Mr. Jack Thompson just had to come up in his article). He says that because the game is based on Greek mythology, it is inevitable that the theme of violence and sordid tales will be inserted into God of War. In introspect, the violence the game depicts is tame compared to the actual mythology and even the history of Greece.

Of course, you can’t help but insert the advocacy of freedom of expression when defending a medium which you find yourself prolific in and a majority of Weerasuriya’s arguments focus mainly on such. Saying that the advent of the interactive entertainment industry cannot be blamed just because some feel threatened of the way such medium is presented that offends them and threatens their comfortable way of living.

The full article along with Mr. Ru Weerasuriya’s stirring comments on violence on video games after the jump!

It’s nice to see game developers with a little flexibility for their intended target market. Aside from catering to a wider audience of gamers, it’s just good business sense. This was probably what was going through Ready at Dawn‘s mind when they followed up their very wholesome platformer, Daxter, with the upcoming mythological hack-and-slash game, God of War: Chains of Olympus.

With the God of War series already infamous for its bloody appeal to gamers everywhere, you have to wonder, especially with the growing attention people have been giving to violence in media, if there’s any hope for violent games left in the video game market. Ru Weerasuriya, founder and vice president of Ready at Dawn, wrote an article on the subject, giving his opinion on the effect of violence in media.

He focuses on the inevitably bloody theme of God of War: Chains of Olympus and how it compares to the many violent games being criticized in the market (and of course the name of Mr. Jack Thompson just had to come up in his article). He says that because the game is based on Greek mythology, it is inevitable that the theme of violence and sordid tales will be inserted into God of War. In introspect, the violence the game depicts is tame compared to the actual mythology and even the history of Greece.

Of course, you can’t help but insert the advocacy of freedom of expression when defending a medium which you find yourself prolific in and a majority of Weerasuriya’s arguments focus mainly on such. Saying that the advent of the interactive entertainment industry cannot be blamed just because some feel threatened of the way such medium is presented that offends them and threatens their comfortable way of living.

He goes on to say that the most important thing about violence in games is the way we should learn from them rather than be ignorant of how we choose to thrust aside our children in front of the TV to play a game which we know nothing of, and therefore, neglect the proper education and instruction to those who willingly play the game without a wider perspective about the moral issues involved.

He tops off his article with a well said statement:

Is there violence in games? Yes. But do games engender violence? No. Ignorance does. And from the look of things being said and written lately, ignorance is abundant. To the people who blame videogames as the cause of violence, pour your energy into a worthwhile cause. Fight ignorance–first and foremost within yourself.

Wise words from someone with an inside look into the industry itself. It may give people something to think about the next time they try to criticize games for their content rather than what it means to understand them as a whole.