Dude, this has nothing to do with going after competitors. Before video games there were comic books, exploitation movies, heavy metal music etc... You wanna tell me the news media demonized those because they considered them their competition?

Is Europe any better?

Not really, they just tend to not be as vocal about it.

I'm not sure about rest of Europe but any game-related news in Ireland is about how it's positive for the economy and is providing jobs, Star Wars: The Old Republic European servers being run from Ireland is an example. I've never heard game being blamed for any shootings or murder in Ireland either.

To some extent,yes, they did. But they're not the same kind of media - very few people spend 4-5 hours at a time reading comic books or listening to music every day, but most people do spend 4-5 hours in front of a screen every day, it only matters if they're doing it to watch TV, or a movie, or to play a video game. The big TV networks and Hollywood know they can't compete with video games, because they can't make any interactive products, so they try to demonize them.

Well... Technically, all of those are forms of entertainment. Buut I would not be surprised if traditional television did feel endangered by videogames - all that you have named were fairly small things, passing, attracting only a small ammount of population. Videogames are huge, and a person who spends time playing a videogame would probably otherwise spend it by watching TV, as the most popular videogames provide people with the very same kind of mindless relaxation.

In Germany the media is JUST as vocal about violence and video games, petitioning for a ban on violent video games.

Germany is not in Europe tho, it has already changed its official location to Asia so it doesn't have to do the paperwork after it conquers the continent :-P

Not to mention that they already are banning most violent video games and many AAA titles can only be distributed in Germany in their heavily censored versions. I love the fact that many "Killerspiel" opposers are asking for stuff that is already in place - shows how much they know.

In all fairness to America, and yes we are mighty screwed up, it is slightly bigger than Ireland. Ireland is the size of one of our average states and we have 50 of those (well I like to think of 51 because I always thought Puerto Rico would make a great cultural, social, and geographic addition). Point being, with more people comes more bitching and with more bitching comes louder bitching and with louder bitching comes more and more press coverage of said bitching.

But it's generally the same in Europe anyway.
That's why IMO America is a country that is too big and with too much differences to be run by one government.

Hard to tell what gamers would do if they couldn't play games (don't know if there's even studies on that topic) - but actually it would be pretty ironic if it would be watching the news and TV shows. "So instead of playing games about mindless violence they are watching us? That doesn't seem right... what do we have in common with video ga... oh, right..."

Anyway, actually I think that the news media and the gun lobby are underestimating the relevance of video games in modern culture and that's what will sooner or later put a stop to blaming video games for everything. They probably aren't even aware what a big portion of their audience is already part of that culture they are attacking, nor that it's growing rapidly.
Nor have I in Poland. Then again, the only school-shooting we've had (according to my memory and Wikipedia) happened in 1925. Damn those video games! Their evil influence is so powerful, they can even cause acts of violence in the past!

We tried a Confederacy for a while, and I'm not talking about the South in the 1860s, I mean right after we won independence; NO ONE wanted a governemental hub of any kind, it reminded them too much of the monarchy they just spent countless lives trying to get away from. States were basically given self rule. It didn't work. I'm not saying you're wrong and god knows it's a different country than it was 200+ years ago but it should atleast be noted that it was tried.

That's all for class today children. For tomorrow please read chapter 5 - 8 and don't forget to get your parents to sign your permission slips for next week's field trip to the tampon factory!

These kind of thoughts is why paradox games were designed....

I'll bite. Huh?