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Devolver Digital is running into trouble with its game, Weedcraft, despite cannabis entering into an age of legalization. The game is about managing a cannabis business from startup to empire, but the videos have been demonetized on YouTube. Facebook is also causing trouble with the game which covers multiple scenarios from prohibition to full legalization. Treatment of the game on those, and other platforms, has been inconsistent.
"It's really hard to say how the game will be affected," Wilson told me. "A lot depends on how much [digital marketplaces] Steam and GOG continue to support its visibility and how many people share the story. All we can do is try to make a conversation happen around the industry and with gamers about this insanity and try to make changes. "
Wilson also pointed out that both YouTube and Facebook run ads for hyper-violent video games. Assault is illegal pretty much everywhere, whereas recreational weed use is legal in many states, such as California, Colorado, and all of Canada.
"We all know that violence/murder is A-OK, and that sex or drugs are not, even when presented in a thoughtful way to an audience with an average age of 40, but we've all known that for far too long," he said.
See also: YouTube, Facebook put up ad roadblocks for Weedcraft, Inc. business sim
(Score: 5, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Sunday April 14 2019, @08:54AM (9 children)
Keeping our children safe or being on the anti-cannabis bandwagon.
It's all about the almighty dollar.
Remember who Google and Facebook's customers are. They are advertisers, including pharmaceutical companies and the alcohol industry. They're afraid that legal cannabis will cut into their bottom line and will take whatever steps they feel are necessary to protect their profits.
While this game won't do that, more exposure for cannabis is another step in increasing awareness and support for legal cannabis.
How much revenue do Google and Facebook get from the publishers of this game? Not even a rounding error.
When trying to figure out why corporations do things, it's always best to *follow the money*.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 14 2019, @09:08AM (4 children)
That is a large part of it but it doesn't explain the strange US stance "We all know that violence/murder is A-OK, and that sex or drugs are not".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 14 2019, @09:22AM (2 children)
Really?
I thought it was "We all know that free speech is A-OK. Full stop."
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 14 2019, @11:20AM (1 child)
Found the recent college grad. Though the "Full stop" implies he is not from 'Merica
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 14 2019, @10:10PM
AC you replied to here. That's amusing! Thirty years ago, you might have made a case for drugs/sex bad and murder/violence good.
Things have changed significantly since I was a young'un.
And "Full stop." is in use all over the English speaking world. If I want sex or drugs in my media, it's all over the place. Just not on broadcast networks -- which are irrelevant these days.
No, there are no more whores on Seventh Avenue as Paul Simon described [youtube.com], that's mostly moved online. And you can't buy joints at the Bandshell [centralpark.org] any more, although I could probably still find some cannabis and LSD in the Meadow [wikipedia.org].
But there should be recreational cannabis legalization here pretty soon.
You know that old saw about "when you assume..."? The truth is, you only make an ass of yourself.
Culture changes slowly, but there's always an avant garde (does that make me French?) section that pulls us forward. And thank goodness for them!
So you're 0 for 2 so far, champ. I look forward to more pronouncements from you, oh wise one.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RamiK on Sunday April 14 2019, @12:40PM
Violence and murder aren't fine and are only permitted in a context where it serves to reinforce the class system and the law or to educate/terrorize the masses about the perils of not having those. Sex and drugs are similarly fine under the same social hierarchic order like in the case of marriage or a doctor's prescription.
To actually be subversive, this game will have to have the protagonist being a loving single father/mother that deals in a real drug (heroin or the likes) in a comedic family drama way and has the customers be normal functioning members of society. That's to say, Weeds rather than Breaking Bad. Though even Weeds chickened out most of the time and portrayed many pot heads as, well, pot heads. A similar portrayal you'll never see is a good, moral prostitute that has no drug issues or the likes and doesn't die horribly or leaves behind a broken home...
At its most common form you have the trope where young couples are murdered immediately after they have sex in horror movies...
Honestly, it's all propaganda for one cause or the next. When you can't tell what the cause is, it means it's working since you already accepted the premise as an axiom.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday April 14 2019, @09:55PM (3 children)
I'm all for legalization, but let's not forget that cannabis has a rather insidious and potentially fatal side effect: Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome.
Due to the nature of the disease, legalization of cannabis will likely cause a significant increase in ER visits for the medium term.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Sunday April 14 2019, @10:49PM (2 children)
That has not been proven. [wikipedia.org]
What's more, this syndrome is only seen in a tiny population of heavy, daily users who maintained that behavior for *years* [nih.gov].
A tiny minority of cannabis users are long-term, *daily* users. Of that tiny minority, only 6% exhibit symptoms of CHS. It seems as if it's not an issue for the vast majority of cannabis users.
As I said a few weeks ago [soylentnews.org]:
If a few hundred people heavy users out of tens of millions of cannabis users need to go to the ER or take hot baths, it's a small price to pay for stoipping the practice of making up to 1/6 of the US population criminals. What's more, the money saved on enforcement, interdiction and incarceration, plus the tax revenue raised, more than covers any additional ER costs and would easily cover treatment facilities for those who manifest abuse issues.
And even among those heavy users, like most people, if something is making them sick, they'll likely stop without any intervention at all. CHS does affect a very small number of people, but given the size of the population affected, it's neither "insidious" nor potentially fatal (see link above -- in the one fatality associated with CHS, the patient already had a much more serious, potentially fatal disorder [wikipedia.org]).
Note that I am not advocating cannabis use, nor am I claiming that cannabis use is free of risk or potential harms. However, using CHS to advocate for keeping cannabis illegal is absurd and, at best, a strawman.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Informative) by darkfeline on Monday April 15 2019, @02:25AM (1 child)
> That has not been proven
https://www.businessinsider.my/marijuana-syndrome-vomiting-nausea-symptoms-do-i-have-chs-2019-4/ [businessinsider.my]
On her birthday, Denney received her son’s coroner’s report. When Smith died, he had been severely dehydrated, according to the document. The cause of death on the report, which Business Insider viewed, read “dehydration due to CHS.”
>However, using CHS to advocate for keeping cannabis illegal is absurd and, at best, a strawman.
I literally started my post with "I'm all for legalization". We need legalization so we can get more clinical studies about the health benefits and risks of cannabis.
The problem is, CHS is a not at all understood disease with very late, sudden onset. It could be that a lot of people will be affected after using cannabis for 20 or 30 years, such that with the legalization of cannabis there will be a sharp spike of hospitalizations ten years from now as all of the CHS kicks in. We're seeing more and more cases now, but that could still be the long tail of a normal distribution curve. If/when the 60% +-1 standard deviation part of the curve kicks in, it would cause a medical treatment problem.
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(Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Monday April 15 2019, @02:51AM
Yes. Yes you did. And when re-reading your post after I finished mine I saw that and was more than a little embarrassed. My apologies for ignoring that portion of your post in my reply. I shouldn't have implied that you feel otherwise.
And yes, I'm not claiming that CHS is bullshit or that it isn't potentially serious. Research is certainly needed.
However, I'd posit that at least some (if not most) of the nausea/vomiting and ER visits related to using cannabis are folks who are using edibles and ingest too much cannabis all at once. I've seen that happen on a bunch of occasions, even with folks that smoke/vape quite a bit. The symptoms are usually nausea and vomiting, just like CHS.
Which is why I'll agree with you again that more research is needed. But it's not really all that surprising. It seems obvious that putting large quantities of chemicals into your body over years or decades may have deleterious effects (e.g., ibuprofen) on your health.
Another good example is long-term use of alcohol, which is linked to all sorts of maladies which have much higher rates of mortality than CHS.
Once again, my apologies for ignoring the clear and unambiguous statement in your post.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr