Gaming

Weekend Hot Topic, part 2: Are video games too violent?


I’m often baffled by gaming standards in the West. Violence is generally seen as OK while anything to do with sex is taboo (increasingly more so of late). Personally, I don’t feel as though video games are too violent as long as they are properly certified and the same applies to games with sex in them.

I understand that parents should have some discrepancy when deciding what video games are suitable for children but I’ve seen cases where children as young as seven have been playing GTA V, which I feel is far too young. And there was that report last year, I believe, which found parents often buy games for children younger than the advised age.

Violence may manifest in other areas that can be related to gaming: competition and more worryingly addiction. Against my warnings to my brother It’s only just recently that I found out my six-year-old nephew ‘stole’ my brother’s credit card and used it to buy skins in Fortnite and has also thrown and broke his phone in anger at losing a match. Similarly, I’ve had a friend come around to play games with his young boy. I put Mario Kart on, which I think most would consider to be very child friendly. During one race my friend’s kid just snapped and threw my Joy-Cons on the floor. Games don’t need to be violent to elicit a violent response.

On the sex aspect, I’m not a huge fan of the West’s prudish attitude towards sex. It feels impossible to have mature dialogue about it due to our culture. It seems to take a very much bury your head in sand route. How do we go about resolving issues with sex when some people are so instantly dismissive or embarrassed about talking about it?

I’ve seen many people talk about Japan and its alternative values, where sex is seemingly OK and violence isn’t. Resident Evil 2 remake has two version in Japan, a Cero D censored version and a Cero Z ‘uncensored’ version (I believe compared to the Western release there is still some censorship of gore).

It isn’t strictly true that Japan is OK with sex, as it’s one of the few countries I can think of that requires censoring of genitals in adult content. Simulated sex or bare breasts are essentially banned by even Cero Z classification. Dragon Age Inquisition and The Witcher 3 are a couple of major games to have censorship in place due to this.

I do feel there is some hypocrisy too, when people compare the two types of games. People are more often than not happy to kill people in video games but when nudity is involved, suddenly the same characters may be given more human traits and it’s bad to look at them sexually. Looking at someone like they are cannon fodder or a sexual object in real life is bad no matter what, yet in video games only one standard is generally applied.

Mature gamers should be able to play mature games. It’s hypocritical of Sony to censor games because they need to protect children, especially when they do nothing to stop loot boxes and promote other gambling mechanics in games children often play. Parents need to take more responsibility in what games they allow their children to play.
Syao





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