Regrettably for gamers at large, there are several people who are trying to attack video games by trying to censor them and penalize them with unfair laws. As of this date, there are no laws that prevent an R-Rated movie being sold to a child, other then strict company policy. Yet there have been several attempts at producing laws that will fine places that sell and rent games for renting/selling M rated games to minors. These people admit to not playing any video games, and yet they point to studies that say video games are causing more aggression and thus more violence.
However, there is very strong evidence to prove that violent crimes have gone down dramatically in our country from 1993 to 2005. It seems to me that a lot of people are attacking that which they don't understand, as these people have never played a game, and so they allow their paranoia and bias to run wild. That's why I believe one of the many reasons why you see this issue less in movies, is that the majority of Americans watch TV and movies, but many of them don't play video games.
I think another problem is that too much focus is being given to video game players who are minors, when the fact of the matter is, a lot more people who play video games are 18+. The infamous Jack Thompson in particular has a rather large vendetta against the video game industry, and yet hasn't waged war against any obscenely violent movies, such as horror films!
I find it rather shameful that
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has a ready-made list against the scandals of poor games such as BMX XXX and Playboy: The Mansion, and yet they didn't have any records of people working up a frenzy to get any violent out of theaters. I feel that such inconsistencies must first be addressed with the movie industry, before the media and politicians can start pointing the finger at the Video Game Industry for violent crimes, or just violence in general.
Video games are not a passing fad; they're not just a form of media or entertainment that's just going to disappear from our society. The media is using it's power of sensationalism to blow certain issues out of proportion such as the fact that BMX XXX had nudity in it, despite the fact that it was rated properly, and that critics in the video game industry were giving it poor ratings.
Video games are also not the cause of violence and violent crimes, and in fact that one could assume that it's because of video games that violent crime has gone down since the advent of more violent video games with more graphical abilities; thus allowing people to channel their violent tendencies into fantasy, instead of reality.
Studies show that video games can give back to the community, increasing the skills of surgeons, relaxing medical patients, and using special video games to help Leukemia patients with accepting their treatment, and more! Video games are a form of entertainment that rivals the movie industry and if you look at the studies, the average age of video gamers today are above the age of 18.
However, it seems with all the media outrage at games made for older audiences, which causes an uproar about anything overly sexual or violent in video games, as if the game was rated T for Teen! I believe that the media needs to stop it's double standards, and that if it's concerned with senseless violence and sexuality, then they need to look at all forms of media entertainment, instead of singling out the video game industry just because they don't understand it, or have little to no knowledge of it.
If we worked together as a community, I believe we could shape the video game industry to do more then provide entertainment, but to help people become even more productive members of society such as better surgeons, teachers, students, etc.
