Violence in Video Games - Part III

Over the last 4-6 years, I have been reading articles about illegal activities such as street racing, school shootings, drug usage and extreme violence that should never take place in reality. In some sort of way and form, the investigations have lead to the results that the person that caused the problem has been playing some sort of video game that inspired them to take actions like this. Now I completely understand the problem here and I am going to try and stay open minded. I honestly believe that the video game should not be blamed. But my decision depends on a few things. As long as the game has been approved by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), then it is ok for that game to be out in public. But if the game has been denied by the ESRB or even never went through the process and still managed to get in public, then that’s when I blame the game. I believe that the ESRB rating is fair and it works. Those people know what they are doing and how a game should be rated. I also believe that the game developer should come in clean with every little secret about their game and not hide anything. If they don’t and after a little while the secret is revealed, then they should be fully responsible for not being honest at the first place.

I still remember the lawsuit that took place in 2005, just months after the release of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for PC. Some hacker discovered that the game contained a sex modification that allowed you to have sex with different female characters throughout the game. It caused quite a lot of controversy. Many parents and politicians were angered by this and had some terrible comments against the ESRB and RockStar for allowing such thing. A man named Jack Thompson was assigned to take on this lawsuit. Thompson believes that violent media such as video games are one of the main sources of violent crime in America and has protested against RockStar on several occasions for previous games they have developed. United States Senator Hillary Clinton also jumped into this by suggesting new regulations be put on video games sales. By the end of the lawsuit, RockStar had to pull all of the GTA:SA copies off the shell and add a Adults Only rating to the cover.