Positive values are not learned in 'society'

The discussion of values in video games is a very interesting and heated topic usually brought forth by those who like to highlight the negative values violence in video games instill, of course, however, that is another topic in itself. Both readings this week offer a very in-depth discussion on this topic, however, it is my personal opinion they are making a number of very huge assumptions in their entire argument, which causes me to raise a number of questions. First, outside the professional, corporate and capitalistic realm, how is bias in computers necessarily a bad thing? Why do video games have to portray positive values as TV, music, and other mainstream forms of entertainment also portray the same negative values some video games do?

In the second article, A game design methodology to incorporate social activist themes, Flanagan, M. & Nissenbaum, H. (2007) comments, “Games are a cultural medium, carrying embedded beliefs within their representation systems and structures, whether the designers intended them or not.” This statement could not be any more ambiguous. I could substitute TV and music straight into this quote as replacements for 'Games' and it would be a perfectly logical statement with empirical evidence. I'm not saying negative values in games is a good thing, negative values are just that, negative values, however, children should be learning the right positive values from their families and within the school setting, furthermore these learning avenues should be identifying to children that a set of negative values are just that, negative.

“By adding values to design considerations, we hope to assist designers in making games that better reflect social themes,” Flanagan, M. & Nissenbaum, H. (2007). Here again is another statement I think is very much paradoxical of itself.. Stating to “better reflect social themes,” is a huge laugh in itself, the social themes are essentially controlled by the mass media: TV, music, and film. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, a book by Edward S. Hermanand Noam Chomsky published in 1988, argues that since mass media is owned by these large corporations, the pressure to create a stable, profitable business invariably distorts the kinds of news items reported, as well as the manner and emphasis in which they are reported. How in any way is this different from video games and computers?

You essentially have 3-5 major video game publishers such as Activision-Blizzard, EA, Square-Enix, Nintendo, Ubisoft and Microsoft that control the majority of the video game market, its developers, and the means to market games to retailers. How many successful games that a good majority of the video game market play do not come from one of these top publishers? I certainly can't think of one. The point I'm trying to make is not that the idea of putting positive values in games or removing bias in computers is a bad idea, but more so that video games are not the only major outlet where negative values are shown to youth. In a perfect world, it would be great to create games with only positive values that minimize the negative, however, in sticking with that perfection you would have to do the same in TV, music, film, newspapers, books, magazines, and all other forms of mass media. Which in the end comes back to my original thought process, while society (video games, TV, film, books, music etc) may expose children to both positive and negative values, it is our parents and teachers job to instill the positive over the negative and point our values in the right direction.