Go Figure…Duke Nukem Forever Captures Fox News Controversy

What business Fox News has covering a video game is beyond me, but the excuse they’re trying to make, that “the game may have crossed the line this time,” is really just conjecture at this point. Since Fox didn’t really attempt to generate an actual, intelligent conversation in their article, I’ll give it a stab and try and discern why Gearbox Software would create Duke Nuke Forever, a game they admit has overblown, ridiculous elements. One reason is simple: for the same reason that Fox News has Glenn Beck parade around with a blackboard like a glorified, political version of Carrot Top, and why Bill O’Reilly has a segment called pinheads and patriots and seven variations of the same book with a catchy name…to get people’s attention.

“If Duke Forever can help further [a] cause by being that focal point? Happy to do it,” Steve Gibson, the VP of Marketing for Gearbox, told Ars in a prior interview.

Is the “Capture the babe” mode ridiculous? Of course, but again that’s part of the point. One could argue that today’s news media is at times about as constructive as a video game where you run around slapping a girl’s bottom, it just pretends to be above it by giving us tid-bits of information and insights that are really just charades and showcases for their on-air personalities. Bias amongst journalists and vacuous news segments (like this) are arguably more damaging to society than a video game that you turn off and on.

But there’s another reason for the game’s antics: to create a world that allows us to escape from the mess organizations like Fox News continue to perpetuate…the world that bombards us with warnings on why our pet’s dog medicine will cause us cancer and why Capri Sun may stunt childrens’ growth. We’re smothered with so many stupid rules in society today, I think it’s only fair that we should have something that allows people to mess around and poke fun at a world spinning out of control (at least for those of us outside of the No Spin Zone). They’re games after all, not target practice and the assumption that the depictions in the video game translates into actions in the real world is tremendously overblown.

The Fox News Duke Nukem Forever piece tries to paint a distorted picture, and warn us that the game “might have gone too far” but it’s all just histrionics. It’s another empty, one-sided news story from Fox News intended to do nothing more than stir up controversy, but it’s really just a microcosm for why “Fair and Balanced” has evolved from a tag to a punchline for the network.

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