Canadian researcher Rob Parungao claims he spent 100 hours playing Shadow Warrior, Warcraft III, GTA III and Kung Fu over an 8-month "research period" and then published a paper on the racial stereotyping within. Jesus christ, could you take a worse sample?

In an interview over at Gamespot, he says:

I was actually amused by the fact that [the main character] ran around with chopsticks and poking people's eyeballs out. But in my university career, I became more and more aware of [regional] stereotypes and hierarchies that continue to be perpetuated in the mainstream media. Not just in video games—[but] television, news, movies, and stuff like that.

This almost happened to me with my "Women in Art History" course. Every class was a bunch of drivel about why various great works were oppressive, phallic records of the Male Gaze and should be removed from their museums and etc.

And as the class progressed, you could see the students being convinced of this, and the joy they felt for the pieces being strangled out of them by indignant rage or impotent guilt, depending on their gender.

Parungao also seems to be a little behind on his game canon. He says he feels "that these games symbolize, in many ways, the constant trend in themes in video games when considering 'Asian-ness' and stereotyping in video games." More like, they were the only games he still had left over from middle school.

The blatant truth of it is that none of these games are representatives of anything current. Shadow Warrior came out in 1997, and Kung Fu in 1985. Asian-ness, my ass.

Way to go, Rob. You psyched yourself into no longer enjoying your childhood entertainments. I just hope no one else is taken in by this gradegrubbing masquerading as "research". Eliza "the man" gauger

Read full article and wearily angry flames here [GamePolitics, and also thanks to Alan for sending this in earlier]