Choose Your Avatar: Video Games or Censorship
Grand Theft Auto V is an action/adventure video game released in 2013, set within a fictional state called San Andreas, based off of south California and the single player’s story follows three criminals and their efforts to commit heists. This game in particular has sold for over 1 billion dollars only two weeks after its sales, which targeted a lot of controversies found within the game, including the representation of women, as they are either bit-part players or set dressing: strippers to throw money at, prostitutes to pick up. The great tragedy of GTAV is that too much of its audience is comfortable with it. The satirical barbs at its target demographic are too heavy-handed, the industry too much in its adolescence leads to many of its male players to revel in its frat-boy humor, rather than feel repelled by it. The video games industry is one that struggles deeply with the treatment of women.
This may seem fine to many people since after the US court ruling in 2011 decision struck down a California ban on selling violent video games to minors (Matthews, 2015). Nevertheless, this hasn’t stopped minors under the age of 17 to play popular games such as GTAV as there are many articles circling the internet under the name of “GTAV 11-year-old boy” and “getting GTAV to my 11-year-old son’s birthday”. And according to Limelight, around 85% percent of gamers get their games online for free from the dark web, spending more than 20 hours per week on them. This could only mean that the new generation is growing up exposed to unethical behaviors for almost an entire day a week, which could only later on translate into their personal lives, viewing horrific acts as normal. Unlimited censorship on everything and anything without exact explanation should not be acceptable, however, free speech ends when you are ending someone else’s and leaving a mark on a large number of people.
Freedom of speech is an essential human right that supports self-determination (Greenawalt, 2005), thus, a producer of a game company such as GTAV has a responsibility of not crossing a line by introducing hate speech, discrimination, inequality, and racism into a huge media. Especially as of 2018, the World Health Organization added “gaming disorder” to their mental health conditions as gaming behaviors interfere with the individual’s real life behavior (Loria, 2018). Usually, when studying censorship, the law of each country comes to place on whether a film, television show, or radio show should be advertised and sold in a specific country. However, video games do not follow country’s censorship laws, since as mentioned, they can be easily downloaded online or bought from pirated shops in the country, disregarding age ratings.
Censorship, just like freedom of speech, has many aspects to it, and should be put to action under certain circumstances. Freedom of speech is different to a normal every day citizen than to a journalist: a journalist may lose their job if they state something without a source. A journalist realizes their stand, and that whatever they say will be heard from a good number of people. Same thing goes with game design, but on a psychological level. Video games are harder to censor after being produced by the company as they go unnoticed by the government (unlike films). As previously mentioned, video games become a part of the gamer’s life, and not just something they play once. The individual gamer tends to play in the point of you of the player in the video game, thus, all the horrific acts such as abuse, killing, and racist acts are being done by the gamer himself, because the rules of the game asked him. And that is why, video games are in no way to be compared to films and every day freedom of speech. Someone else’s freedom of speech should not silence the weak.
According to Matthews (2015) “parents have the opportunity to monitor what types of media their children consume and by paying attention to what kind of games are played, and what ratings they have, parents can have a say in how much violence a child digests”, and this seems to be the ideal way to deal with games with unethical implicated behaviors. Yet, this is not the reality we live in with the rise of networking. Parents can no longer monitor their children no matter how hard they try, and whatever measures they take. Moreover, the pressure should not be on the parents and children, but on those creating unethical content. Some things such as abusing women, and putting people of color in horrific positions in a game portrayed as real life should no longer pass as acceptable in 2018, seen as how influential human beings are. According to psychologist and theorist Bandora, young adults tend to imitate those they perceive as role models, thus, playing a highly influential game in which the hero acts unethically may result in imitation. One of the biggest examples are the school shootings occurring in the United States of America. One example in specific is the Jacksonville, Florida shooting, in which a 24-year-old gamer, and according to Falvery (2018) “he was playing in a video game tournament, and the two people he murdered with a handgun were both video game contestants, winners of the tournament in 2017 and 2016”. Children are growing up into adults learning that violence is normal, as 85% of games played by children contain harsh violence, according to a research conducted by York University.
As mentioned by Zagal (2012) games may be an ideal medium for players by guiding them with experiences that make them reflect on their ethics and moral reasoning. Nonetheless, many games including GTAV contain harsh violence, some that may reinforce old racism and sexism that young people are trying to demolish. To conclude, decisions need to be made ethically considering the audience, and the current political era when publishing a video game worldwide. If we continue to allow children and adults to play in the point of view of an abuser and a killer in order to earn money, how do we expect to grow as a society? Habits are created through experiences, and video games are creating memories and experiences for the player.
References:
1. Falvery, D. (2018, August). Florida shooting: Could videogames be to blame? The Irish Times.
2. Loria, K. (2018, June 19). How playing video games affects your body and brain. Business Insider.
3. Matthews, R. (2015). Ethical Responsibility of Video Game Manufacturers. Demand Media.
4. Zagal, J. (2012). The Video Game Ethics Reader.
