I read an article today about two children in Saudi Arabia committing suicide due to a game called “The Blue Whale Challenge”, and as a result their government banned 47 different games including The Witcher 3, Bayonetta 2, Okami, Life is Strange, etc etc. This sounds like quite the over-reaction more so than one might realize considering the game itself is social media based, the challenge has become infamous enough to have been given its own Wikipedia article. Basically the Blue Whale Challenge is a list of 50 challenges that a person has to complete with proof of doing so, and each challenge or task is given to someone calling themselves a “administrator” or “whale”. These challenges start off innocently enough (if you call following stupid instructions from a random person on the internet innocent) such as drawing a picture or waking up at 4:20am, but then it gets darker when they start telling you to carve sentences and words into your arm or leg, poke yourself with a needle, among other acts of self harm all the way up to telling the person to off themselves. The whole process is designed to break the person down, to manipulate them into doing whatever they want, and sadly it seems quite a few children have fallen victim to these sick assholes.
Now, how does this relate to the 47 games that have been banned as a result of these two suicides? Nothing really, a good portion of the games on the list aren’t even multiplayer… and why is Okami on the list? That’s like one of the most calming games I’ve ever played. O_o I’m actually surprised that out of all of the games on the list Dishonored isn’t included, it still would be just as stupid to ban but it DOES have things pertaining to whales. 😛 At least there would be some form of an attempt to tie things together.
This reaction makes about as much sense as banning commemorative dinner plates because people masturbate. Why go after video games over an act that took place on social media? Wouldn’t it make more sense to, I don’t know… ban social media instead? That’s still an extreme measure and that’s clearly not the best answer either, but it would at least relate more to the offending act itself. In some ways this reminds me of our government in the states trying to relate violent video games because of gun violence, which went up in smoke. Our government is not as religious however, at least not yet. They’re working on it…