I skimmed a portion of the chapter on violence. My comments are more to do with stylistic concerns; I didn't read it thoroughly enough to comment on the substance of the paper.

I don't want to sound harsh, but I do want to give honest feedback that hopefully will be helpful to you. I have to ask, is this paper still in a "draft" stage? I ask this because the grammar and sentence structure are frequently rather awkward; many paragraphs read as though they were hastily written with the intent of "getting it all down", but haven't yet had their final polish applied.

Grammar quirks aside, though, the biggest issue is that you simply need to organize your thoughts better. For one thing, you badly need an intro paragraph that does a better job explaining what point you want to make in this chapter. It was clear to me that you want to show that games tend to promote violence as the only solution, but it was not clear to me what you thought about that or what point you intended to make. Perhaps that becomes clear later or is stated elsewhere in the 'conclusions' section, but it is enormously helpful to the reader to have it clear from the outset.

Similarly, the way you organize individual paragraphs could use some improvement. Your current format tends to go like this: "Assertion. Laundry list of examples. New paragraph: Assertion. Laundry list of examples." The problem with this is that your lists of examples are often so long that by the end, the reader has forgotten what they were supposed to be examples of. To illustrate this, look at the second paragraph of your section "Kill or be Killed", the one starting with "To begin with". Though the first few sentences are a bit dense, I'm still able to follow the general idea that you're listing examples of non-violent character interactions that are not commonly seen in games. But then you go off on a prolonged tangent about the history of stealth mechanics, and pretty soon I've completely forgotten what we were talking about. A good way to deal with this is to periodically explain why the examples you list are illustrative of the assertion made at the start of the paragraph - it may seem self-evident, but it serves as a "signpost" reminding the reader of where they are in the overall argument. You never want the reader to be having to go back to the start of a paragraph to remind themselves why you're talking about something.

Another way to improve your paragraphs would be to use more transitional sentences at the beginning and/or end, in order to link them conceptually with the paragraphs above and below. Without good transitions, the chapter will read like a bullet list of loosely connected ideas, rather than a coherent argument in which each point flows logically into the next. (In other words, it will sound like you are saying "And here's another thing about violence, and here's another thing about violence...") For instance, one of your paragraphs begins "The whole genre of horror games is kind of an example too." An example of what? Don't expect me to remember, remind me.

None of these issues are fatal, but they all make for extra work on the reader's part. You want to smooth that road as much as possible so that the reader can focus their mental energy on engaging with your argument. Anyway, I hope some of that is helpful to you, and that I haven't been too harsh; I'd be happy to go over more specific examples with you at some point if that's something you want.

I have actually forgotten where the title came from. It's a bit silly and dramatic, but at the same time it fits pretty well and I decided to keep it eventually. It intends to be a far-reaching criticism of the industry of video games, so, if you are not interested in that, it may not be for you. Although it can also show you many things and ideas you did not know about.

The book is based on a negative premise on the industry of video games, so, more than a biased title, it's a sincere one. You get what the title suggests. The book is full of useful information on the industry, nonetheless, so I hope this will attract people that may not agree with its conclusions too.

I agree with F4LL0UT's answer to this post of yours, let's see if I have something to add.

First of all, I'm not entirely sure if you have read the conclusions of the chapter where some of your criticism are answered and it's also true that the introductory chapter is important to understand what the book is talking about. Still, there are a couple of things I can add here.

The first one is that I do believe violence and frivolous and/or glamorized violence is a huge part of the medium. I acknowledge a few genres where there is no violence, some of them very important (sports), some of them quite forgotten (managerial, graphic adventures) and most of them quite niche or temporary (rhythm games, games about minigames, puzzle games, Japanese flirting simulators). If you think about story-driven games in present years, a huge majority of games use and present violence in the way I show in that chapter. In addition, they are the most influential ones.

This ties with the second idea I wanted expose here. There is always this debate about how much responsibility an audience has on a medium and how easily influenced humans are when receiving messages from others. You believe it is very little, I believe it is a lot. However, let us forget about the responsibility and influenciability of the audience for a moment.

I try to analyze why there is so much violence, why it is as it is and why it is so influential on the industry. I reach the conclusion (partly in other chapters too) that violence exists because it is good for marketing and sales, because it gives a reproducible insta-satisfaction to players, because it is easier and cheaper to do games with dumb violence, etc. Producers and developers have entered a vicious cycle that limits and homogenizes story driven video game production, limiting the art of video games, manipulates basic human instincts and spreads a culture of violence that trivializes this and makes it the solution for everything. And they do this knowingly. Regardless of the role of the audience in this situation, isn't this something that deserves criticism and denunciation? Do the producers and developers not deserve to be called on this?

the point is though, the first chapter was not that useful, it was a long list of game descriptions and a conclusion which was no grounded in reality. If you really want something to create a informative discussion on both sides you need to take a more neutral tone, and ground it better. Like this it will just be easily dismissed as a biased opinion piece, nothing more. But if that's the effect you want to achieve, then fine, I have read worse.

(and in the conclusion, why don't you tell the boy to stop watching films like for example Rambo II and go play games like Journey or Shadow of the Colossus instead?)

Yes, but you do not address any reason WHY this is so, your reasoning more or less boils down to "because they are bad". There is a huge amount of films, tv, books and so on which are also very violent and glamorising war, though there are genres like Romantic Comedy which do not. Are you saying this applies to them to or not? if not, why not?

(Edit: do you know about Seduction of the Innocent, which lead to the self-censorship in American comics in the mid 50's? If not the this is a good starting place, but make sure you focus on the critiques also)

You misunderstand me, I believe the audience has complete control over the medium, which is why it is as it is. They are getting what they want, not nessecary what is best for them, but what the majority actually want. Games are being made in all genres, but the ones that sells the best is the ones that dictates the trends. It is the audience fault that we have the mainstream games we have, for the rest it is the fringe and indie market. This is not because the industry says so, but because they don't sell as well.

and this is where I do not agree at all, and you do not provide any evidence. There are a lot of games, even mainstream, that do fall outside your game examples and category. though you are completely ignoring this. You also ignore the effect of the market and the inherent structure of games. This is what makes it a biased opinion piece without much believability. A book like this is only going to preach to the convicted, you will not reach someone else....

What the book tries is to bring to the spotlight ideas that I consider largely missing on the discussion and do so in a rigorous and extensive way. It does not try to be balanced because I consider the discussion quite unbalanced on the side of the interests of the big companies.

I'm not sure what the intention of the word "biased" is here. This book agglomerates my analyses and conclusions on the industry and I think I give extensive proof of what I say. Biased sounds as if I had a hidden agenda or something and it is the kind of word that does not have a place in a honest discussion.

(the problem is that the marketing spendings on films like "Rambo II" are many, many times bigger than those for games like Journey or Shadow of the Colossus, making it very difficult for that boy and most of the audience of video games to even know they exist)

That's fine then. I have read your first chapter, and the titles of the other ones. To be honest, I am not going to read any more as I already know what you are going to say in them. This is not a book for me. Good luck.

Well I find it pretty impressive that you wrote a whole book on the subject. You obviously spent a lot of effort on it.
With that said, after skimming through this thread and some of the chapters, I don't think the book is for me either. I have a few small beefs with the mainstream videogame industry, but overall I'd say I still enjoy it. This book sounds only slightly more fun than reading one with the title "Why You Should Actually Be Depressed About the Hobbies That Help Bring Fun into Your Life" or "The Ugly Truth About Your Dog: He Doesn't Actually Love You"

Thanks a lot for your advices on style. Don't worry on being harsh. I understand that you have only read the first chapter, which means it may improve in the following ones. Please, let me know if these issues improve in the following chapters or if they don't.

Yes, what you read is all in a (nearly) final state, not a draft, and I am a bit worried I may not have a solution for your concerns. In fact, I was aware of some of these problems and what you are reading comes after various rewrites trying to address them.

The problem is that it was conceived as a laundry list from the beginning, that is why I call it a compendium. It is conceived in a way tha,t taken any section, subsection or paragraph alone, they would make sense by themselves. But I guess I should raise the autonomy bar at least to subsection level. I'll definitely try to use more transitional sentences.

I'm not sure if the grammar awkwardness can be solved, though, I'm trying to communicate complex ideas and I haven't find a better way to express them unless I expand them even more. I think part of the awkward sentences come from trying to be brief, while not forgetting any idea and the solution could lead to unending paragraph. Can you give me a particular example that you think could be rewritten more cleanly?

And, as for the structure, I kind of prefer giving the "facts" without explaining where I want to get to and then explain everything at the end. This way the reader can develop their own analysis before reading mine. I think it is a more honest approach, but maybe it is not a very sensible one. I'll consider expanding the introduction of the chapters, though.

I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding here. I'm not sure if it is me misunderstanding you or vice versa. For example, you mention Seduction of the Innocent and I'm not sure if you believe I'm doing similarly with video games or not.

I do acknowledge there is tons of non-violent games or games with only meaningful violence, but I think it is not an exaggeration when I say the industry is clearly overusing violence as a central mechanic, a theme for setting and plot and a marketing tool. Biggest budgets for production and marketing go to games where violence is everything (or a few sports franchises). Nintendo invests a lot on certain games that are hardly games, but I'm not sure if those count. And when we speak of story-driven games I can only count a handful of games that are either non-violent or keep violence at a reasonable and coherent level. Which are the examples you are thinking about? Remember I'm talking about mainstream games. In any case, the thesis is that violence is too influential and prevalent on the medium, not that there are no non-violent games.

And as why it is a bad thing, I think I give various reasons for this. Of course I don't believe our children will become violent for playing games, but I think the medium is a very, very poor cultural reference at the state it is right now (because of violence, but also because of sexism and competitiveness). And even if we disagree on how culture shapes people's ideas, at least you would agree with me that the prevalence of violence in the medium is terribly limiting from an artistic and thematic point of view, wouldn't you? That alone should be an important issue.

Sorry to take the discussion too far, this is the kind of criticism I like to understand well.

That pretty much sums it up.

I finished reading the introduction and first chapter last night and I share similar concerns as the other posters. Indeed, it feels like there's too many references and too little of your own analysis. I understand that you mostly want to provide a list of "sins" and give brief explanations at the beginning and ending of the chapters, however, I felt that within the chapters one looses the connection to the premise. For example one starts thinking "oh, there's indeed few civilians in games" but the text itself provides IMO too little explanation as to how this is a problem. Of course I do know that that's the case and video games deliver a dishonest depiction of war (in fact one that perfectly supports the western governments' propaganda that tries to present military interventions as something clean with almost surgical precision) but it should not be up to the reader to come to this conclusion, I think the book should at least hint at the larger issues tied to this.

I've also made lots of notes referring to minor issues, not sure if I should post this wall of text here or send you an email. I think that amount of critique/advice is better suited for an email, on the other hand I think it would be better to post it here in the forum as this would support critique and discussion.

No not to far, it is a good one.

One problem is that you are ignoring the buyers in this equation, and putting the blame squarely on the producers. After all it is they who make the marked what it is, since you say that there are a lot of different game types out there and these are the dominant ones. While you are describing this phenomenon (from one side only...) there is very little about what to do about it. Do you want the re-educate gamers? Or deprive them of the games they want to play? Not to mention the underlying premiss, are this games really bad? if not, then why bother?

Neither have you acknowledged that one of the underlying premises of games are a struggle, some form of opposition, a problematic etc,as mentioned before. The feeling let in me as a reader is therefore that game designers put in violence only just because they are bad, which is not quite true.

You do not try to make any critical approaches, but are only preaching from a very distinct pre-disposition. This is why I do not feel like reading the rest of the book, as I know that this is how the rest will read also, and reading the chapter headings I know exactly what you want to say in each of them. And yes, this is also why I do draw parallels with this to for example Seduction of the Innocents, though you appear to be more careful then Wertham, you still do exhibit the same fault, only presenting your case from one viewpoint only. It may be the language, if so I am sorry, but the chapter is making a very polarised statement and this polarisation has not been grounded in anything but your own opinion, if you understand what I mean.

You say you want to spotlight some of the things missing in the discussions, but all these have been said many times before on many blogs, there is nothing really new... If you want to take the discussion further then this, then you also need to bring the rhetoric and reasoning further then this stage also.