Dissertation in the making and censorship in the wrong-doing.

Not the most interesting of updates, but it'll have to suffice for now. At least it shows promise that I'm not giving up on this thing in one week like I thought I would!

So, even though it is just a couple of months into the summer holidays I've made a start on my dissertation. Mainly out of boredom, also due to the fact that disturbingly I like academic research quite a bit. At the moment this has mainly consisted of reading up on my Video Game Theory Reader and taking a few notes whilst looking at Wikipedia on various Video Games adaptations. Yep, not the most academic of resources yet but considering I won't need to hand this in until next year I think it is a good start!

In the course of thinking about my dissertation I've come up with so many other threads of debate that I could talk about. Some less controversial than others. You see, discussing the idea that critics who review films nowadays come from an era when video games = levels, bosses, scores and violent beat 'em ups, not to mention that this was perpetuated by early films (Super Mario Bros 1993, Street Fighter 1994, Double Dragon 1994 et all) as to why they are usually panned; is far more acceptable than arguing that one day Video Games may one day surpass films as a dominant story-telling medium. Something I probably will leave to the end of the whole thing, if at all!

In other thoughts on future writings, I am rather disturbed by the story of censorship in doujin ero games in Japan are being censored and in some cases, banned. Now, I'm not about to get into a huge argument as I believe there have been many far more eloquent ones than mine. I'm not about to say that games simulating rape are necessarily good or worthwhile, but censorship is a whole different thing. Especially when that censorship came about because a Western country found a three year old game on Amazon that was passed in and only intended for Japan. I feel that, as someone who wished to study more into these games and their cultural effects, that the fact that international voices can have such an effect on something that should have been an internal affair, is somewhat wrong. By all means, if the Japanese government and governing bodies had decided that this was right for them, then that would be fine. However, because a game that was sold in the wrong place, to the wrong market caused so much fuss? I feel that it perhaps should have came around differently.

Well, I'd probably write more about this if it wasn't 1.30 am. I don't trust that I can use words correctly after around 1.20 am. Sooo. That's all for today. Fun, no?