Thursday 29 August 2013

Random Ramblings #5

Hmm... I think I feel something... What could it be? Oh right! THE RANDOM RAMBLINGS ARE BACK! Brace yourselves folks. This one could get messy.

Iran Bans Female LoL Champs

Where to begin with this one? It was revealed on Reddit earlier this week that the Iranian branch of the World Cyber Games have banned almost all female champions in the upcoming League of Legends tournament, with Annie being the only exception. There is a small caveat with Annie though, the volume of the headphones must be lowered.

What?! So as Redditor Paydrum explains, these decisions have been made to comply with laws enforced by the Ministry of Ershad. In order to obtain the permits to run the tournament, the organisers made the changes to "jump through their hoops". Regardless of the fact that this has to be one of stupidest rules I've seen in my time of following E-sports, they have even banned Anivia a character who is a giant blue bird. I can understand the more scantily clad women in LoL being banned to comply with the social and political setting of the region, but a bird who happens to have a female voice?

Boy Shoots Grandmother: "Video Game to Blame"

On to something equally as depressing, an 8 year old boy in Louisiana shot and killed his grandmother. Immediately the news was broken that police had found that the child was playing Grand Theft Auto IV prior to the shooting, leading the media to blame the game for the violent act.

Let's look at this objectively though. The boy was left under his grandmothers care, had access to both a game CLEARLY aimed at adults and a loaded firearm. Who is to blame here? Video games or poor parenting? I personally am sick of the media trying to find any way to blame anyone other than parents for a child's actions. If those parents had of taken a slight interest in their child, he would not have been playing the game for starters (as that game is definitely not the sort of thing a child should be playing), and he would have been educated about firearms or even better, not had access to the loaded weapon in the first place. This was clearly not a video game causing a tragic act, this was poor parenting.

And that concludes this edition of the Random Ramblings. Sorry for it being both short and mildly depressing.

As always folks,

GAME ON!

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