Riccitiello vs. Grade: TV, video game violence debate
Some sparks flew at the Royal Television Society’s Cambridge Convention when Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello said that TV is just as bad as the video game industry when it comes to violence. Michael Grade, Chairman of the British media company ITV, responded by saying that video games exist in a “moral vacuum.”
Riccitiello was expressing his views during a presentation, citing violence in TV shows and films to prove that the violent content is just as bad as in video games. As examples he showed clips from shows like 24 and CSI and films like Kill Bill and 300 and compared them to Grand Theft Auto. He expressed how video games are “unfairly demonized” in the press.
He added that the two industries attract the same demographics but in distinctly different ways, saying: “With video games, I can be on the edge of my seat immersed in them, but TV is storytelling – I’m lying back and it comes to me.” Grade of ITV countered Riccitiello, saying that video games are created in a “moral vacuum” compared to TV, which worked within the “framework of a dramatic narrative.”
Some sparks flew at the Royal Television Society’s Cambridge Convention when Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello said that TV is just as bad as the video game industry when it comes to violence. Michael Grade, Chairman of the British media company ITV, responded by saying that video games exist in a “moral vacuum.”
Riccitiello was expressing his views during a presentation, citing violence in TV shows and films to prove that the violent content is just as bad as in video games. As examples he showed clips from shows like 24 and CSI and films like Kill Bill and 300 and compared them to Grand Theft Auto. He expressed how video games are “unfairly demonized” in the press.
He added that the two industries attract the same demographics but in distinctly different ways, saying: “With video games, I can be on the edge of my seat immersed in them, but TV is storytelling – I’m lying back and it comes to me.” Grade of ITV countered Riccitiello, saying that video games are created in a “moral vacuum” compared to TV, which worked within the “framework of a dramatic narrative.”
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