Censorship of Video Games

12/13/2007

Junior Seminar

Video games have become about as main-stream as television and movies, and because of the immense market it has, video games are in a state where they can begin to influence, just like other forms of entertainment media. People from both sides of the coin argue on how much influence video games, more specifically violent ones, are having on the people that play them. Around the United States, bills are beginning to sprout from these debates on banning games based on if they may be harmful for children. However, it is argued that these bills aren’t justified because they work off of declaring if a video game is morally suitable or not, and have no scientific basis. I believe that the completely censorship of games is a bad idea because video games are valid expressions of ideas, the arguments against them are based off of questionable research, and the matter simply cannot be legislated upon because the whole argument is based off of moral values.

Since the 1990’s, video games have become a target for relating bad behavior in children. Early games that featured violent or suggestive scenes such as Mortal Kombat and Night Trap were some of the first titles to be used as a basis for argument. Before then, no rating system existed, until in 1994 the Entertainment Software Review Board (ESRB) was founded. Its focus was to review and assign content ratings to games. For all of their ratings, only the two highest, Mature and Adults Only, had restrictions; you had to be 17 or older to buy an M game by yourself and 18 or older to purchase an Adults Only game. I believe that this was a good idea, because the ESRB’s two-part system, the rating as well as descriptors that explained what content was in the game, used a system where games that they thought may be unsuitable for children would have to be bought by their parents. This placed the decision on the parents, who would be able to decide for themselves if their child could handle a certain game and it didn’t fully censor the game.

Although the ESRB were able to create a review system that was used across the entire United States, legislators and politicians continued to attack video games, proposing to ban video games completely that they considered immoral. What this would mean is that these games would be taken completely off shelves and it would be near impossible for anyone to purchase them. Many times these laws are on the basis that video games are making kids more violent. A common piece of evidence these legislators, such as Hilary Clinton, use is that they say studies show about two-thirds of school fights are started by someone who plays video games. While this is a big number, you must remember that in America almost 90% of boys and 40% of girls play video games. With such a majority of children playing video games, I believe that the statistic on school fights becomes irrelevant; playing video games has become the norm, not the exception. Another problem with these types of arguments is that they only focus on a small percentage of video games that were released. Common examples these politicians use, such as the Grand Theft Auto series, are normally rated M for Mature. However, in 2006 only 8% of all video games that were released were given an M rating; 69% of games were rated E for Everyone or E10+ for Everyone 10+. I believe legislators are failing to acknowledge that the majority of video games are widely considered suitable for most kids, and that this is a weakness to their arguments and are really only supporting their stance based on the minority of video games.

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Most of these types of studies and laws are based in the United States. They call for a censoring of video games by the government. Because of this, associations such as the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) have been using the First Amendment, which declares Freedom of Speech, as ground to keeping these sorts of bills from being passed. I believe that video games should be protected by Freedom of Speech, because they invoke a flow of ideas and haven’t been solely proven to be assaults on Freedom of Speech. I think it is important that games aren’t censored, because it is even stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Article 19 that humans have the Freedom of Speech. Some people, such as U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Sr. stated that games aren’t a form of expression because they do not convey ideas, and therefore believes that games shouldn’t be constitutionally protected. He was showed evidence on why games are bad, however they were only clips of a few games from the same genre that have been sources of controversy in the past. People have rebuked his statements and similar statements, saying that there has always been violence in entertainment media, even in books, that have exposed kids to violence, therefore video games shouldn’t be censored. Video game designer Will Wright stated that video games are the only type of entertainment medium in which people choose the actions of their characters, and that many games, such as The Sims, which tasks the player with creating and making a virtual family successful, are encouraging people to examine their own values based on how their character lives. I believe then that it is incorrect to call video games not art or speech, because they can in different ways invoke thinking within people. And, just like in other forms of art and speech, the thoughts that are transferred to participants range from anger, to peace, and to happiness. So, why should games become censored even when they are one of the most commonly viewed art forms?

All of these arguments for game censorship essentially boil down to how video games are affecting moral values. The problem then is that it is very hard to legislate or make laws based on video games causing bad judgment because there simply isn’t enough hard evidence that supports this. An argument that has said that video games are making a negative effect on a child’s behavior claimed that studies have shown that after playing a violent video game, a child became more inclined to exhibit aggressive behavior. The problem with these studies is that the child is placed in an environment where everything was specifically designed to invoke violent ideas. It is an environment that the subject may simple not be comfortable with or familiar with. In a real world situation, a child won’t be isolated with only a violent video game; there are plenty of other things that make up his environment. Play theorist Eric Zimmerman says that things such as violent video games are within a special moral circle, where the player understands that the purpose of playing that video game is to commit violence. In the same sense, the majority of people know that when in “real-world interactions” there are impulses that are supposed to be kept in check. Therefore you can’t say that a game is causing people to become desensitized to whatever types of actions occur in games, such as violent acts, because they are going into these video games knowing what they are going to do. Another thing is that it is hard to relate video gaming to an increase in violent acts from children, because federal crime statistics in the United States have shown that the rate of juvenile crime is at its lowest since 30 years ago. So, I conclude that video games cannot be used as a sole factor in causing aggressive behavior in children. Studies using violent games and children usually don’t take into account the many other factors a child may have in his or her life that can influence their behavior, such as their parents or what they might see or interact with in the real world or other forms of media. The most these studies have been able to fully prove are that aggressive people enjoy aggressive entertainment, and that this aggressiveness doesn’t come from video games alone, but instead from real-world interaction. I believe that video games aren’t a proven primary factor of aggressive behavior because there are other factors such as family problems that are more solidly proven to make people more aggressive.

I think that it is unfair that video games are being targeted so heavily to be censored. It is unfortunate that video games have become a scapegoat for politicians and parents as the blame for the behavior of children, when it simply hasn’t been proven that video games are a sole catalyst for bad behavior. People such as Florida Attorney Jack Thompson make claims that video games are sources of bad behavior and Thompson has gone as far as calling them “murder simulators” without any solid proof that video games were the source for violence behavior. Arguments that people that cause violent acts are also gamers cannot apply in today’s world anymore, where the majority of kids and adults in their twenties play video games. It is also obvious that just by law you can’t censor video games because they are seen as a legitimate work of art and expression. Sure, there are people that argue that video games aren’t art, but that sort of thing happens with all forms of media. Video games, in my opinion, they are simply being targeted because of the time period we are in and how big a part it is of our pop culture; T.V. was a big target for censorship in the late 20th century simply because it was becoming main-stream at the time. At this point in time, video games are really starting to become a substantial part of people’s lives, and it is because of this that I think is the only reason politicians and activists are trying to employ new laws towards the banning and censorship of video games. The whole situation has really just blown out of proportion because of the media coverage it has received, but in the end you can’t disagree that the complete censorship of video games is just as awful idea.

Bibliography

"About ESRB." Entertainment Software Review Board. 12 December 2007 <http://www.esrb.org/about/index.jsp>.

Dobson, Jason. "Louisiana House Passes Video Game Violence Bill Unanimously." 18 May 2006. Gamasutra. 1 December 2007 <http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=9366>.

"Freedom of Speech." 12 December 2007. Wikipedia. 12 December 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech>.

Henry Jenkins, MIT Professor. "Reality Bytes: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked ." The Video Game Revolution. 12 December 2007 <http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact/myths.html>.

"Jack Thompson (Attorney)." 11 December 2007. Wikipedia. 11 December 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(attorney)>.

John Harlow, Sarah Baxter. "Hilary opens up Morality War on Violent Video Games." 27 March 2005. TIMES ONLINE. 1 December 2007 <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article438332.ece>.

Linnéa, Sharon. "Video-game Values." 2006. beliefnet. 1 December 2007 <http://www.beliefnet.com/story/130/story_13096_1.html>.

(John Harlow)

(Henry Jenkins)

(Freedom of Speech)

(Henry Jenkins)

(Jack Thompson (Attorney))