Bleszinski: Violent game critics 'flatter' the industry

Violent games are often said to be corrupting the world's youth, but they're not the only form of media to have ever contributed to the horrid swamp of murder and debauchery we occupy today. Why, when those who are now condemning games were growing up, they too were corrupted to high hell by all that gosh durn 'rock and roll' devil music!

That's right, everything is always worse today than ever before, and everything new is contributing to the collapse of civilized society. Especially Epic Games Design Director Cliff Bleszinski, who unapologetically corrupts innocent minds with images of highly-realistic scenarios involving aliens being killed by guns with chainsaws on them.

"You know, the violence in games, the language and all those issues are issues [that], on one hand, I've always found very scary, that people are attacking the industry," said Bleszinski in a recent conversation with CVG.

"But on the other hand, I have found it somewhat flattering because it's one of those situations where the fact that people think 'ooh, big scary video games are ruining the world,' I guess, means that we're the new rock and roll, the new Elvis, the new Dungeons and Dragons, the new moving pictures."

It doesn't surprise us that Bleszinski would fancy himself a rock star, given that he suggests that he may be the "Tony Stark of videogames" in his Twitter profile. That's not even a real guy who exists. Rock stars do exist though, and while Bleszinski's rock and roll status is debatable, it's an analogy we and many others have made before in reference to the way games are treated by frightened pundits.

Bleszinski has a bit more at stake, though, as Epic and People Can Fly's upcoming Bulletstorm could be fodder for a storm of criticisms over its violent content. Sorry, I meant 'a great deal of' criticisms. Anyway, Bleszinski is prepared to defend the game, using roughly the same line as he has regarding Gears of War - it's all just good fun.

"I could talk all day about the tone of the violence in [Bulletstorm]. It's very tongue in cheek," said Bleszinski. "There wasn't any sort of process [during the game's creation] where we considered ripping off someone's head and shitting down the neck or something like that. It was all in the name of fun."

Wait, so you're saying that killing should be fun?! What are you teaching our children?! It's only a matter of time before some impressionable youngster attempts to fling a muscular, armored mutant in the air and shoot him in the head with an absurdly oversized assault rifle. Only a matter of time...

Feb 7, 2011