Cervantes Magazine Number 23: Videogames

Hello, Steemit community!, since its origins, the video game industry has been harshly criticized by both the media and non-gamers, arguing that this hobby feeds the hatred and anger of young people and is also a "waste of time" for not contributing anything in an "apparent" way, something very far from reality.

---

---

Following the theme of this week, I want to tell you about a very well-known case of relating video games with acts of racism, although the comparison was ridiculous, in those days the news was widely used by the media to discredit the industry.

I’m talking about what happened in 2009 with the long-awaited game Resident Evil 5. The plot puts us almost 4 years after the events of Resident Evil 4 with the protagonist of the original saga Chris Redfield in Africa, analyzing a possible attack of Bioterrorism related to remnants of the extinct Umbrella Corporation, after arriving at the village and investigating, chaos and nightmare begins as he discovers certain secrets of the place,and so the plot of the game starts to develop.

This was harshly criticized by people because, although the main character was fighting against a town full of infected and zombies, there was a very difficult premise to ignore: “A White man killing a group of African Black people”. Although it seems ridiculous to make such a comparison today in the 21st century, many people accused the Capcom company of promoting hatred for black minorities.

After many marketing problems due to the accusations, the company promised that in future deliveries would not feature content that could be taken as "racist and hate generators" and could affect the sensitivity of users.

Sometimes the issue of racism and hatred of minorities is becomes a taboo subject that some people can use a pretext or a simple comparison to generate controversy and discredit something for no apparent reason.

An interesting thing about the Videogame Industry is that imagination and fantasy can go hand in hand to explore these issues without ordinary people demonizing things, and a clear example of this can be the Mass Effect and Fallout games. (None of those were accused of racism or anything of that style although they explore it deeply).

nobody likes the idea of racism or hatred of minorities because in part this ideology should exist in the 21st century, where most of the population is mixed thanks to globalization and technology, but still there are people who look for any excuse to bring this issue to the table and generate precisely what is sought to eradicate.

There are many television series, movies, books and political campaigns that promote these acts, but since that is more common, many people already take it as something normal and even as satire in many cases. With video games the thing changes as people lose their heads because they see a "threat" to the development of a young person, when the reality is that there are many things that can make a person become racist or xenophobic without having contact with a video game.

That is why I invite you to reflect and deal with what can really affect a minority and not look for imaginary fights that all they generate is to divert attention from the main focus and dilute the issue as something normal without any remedy.

The magazine thanks you for taking the time to read this Post, we hope that this information has been useful and we suggest you keep an eye on the next publication, since there is still more material to cut on the World of Video Games.