Video Games and Sensationalism

Most gamers know who Jack Thomson is. For those of you who don't, he is a disbarred lawyer that campaigns for the banning of games with violent and sexual content in order to protect the interests of children.

At first glance, this doesn't seem like a bad thing. Surely content should be restricted like in the movies, so that kids do not see images that are too extreme. Thomson's take on this stance is slightly twisted, and his logic fails on two points.

First of all, he points the finger at game publishers for pushing inappropriate and obscene content at kids through games such as Grand Theft Auto. These games are already rated "Mature" and aren't sold to kids. Selling a Mature rated game to a minor at major video game retailers such as GameStop is often a fireable offense.

Secondly, he also points his fingers at games like The Sims for providing nudity to players. Thomson claims that The Sims contains nudity; however, anybody who has played a Sims game knows that whenever a character would be naked they are in fact blurred out with the classic censoring pixilation.

Thomson continues to press that if one modified the game, the pixilating blur could be removed to reveal the naked models underneath. But, much to the chagrin of Thomson's argument, this claim fails on two fronts. Not only does removing the pixilation show nothing more than smooth, doll-like bodies on the Sims characters, but the player must actively modify the game in order to do so. This means that not only is the sexually obscene content non-existant, but that the players must go out of their way to realize this. With approximately the same amount of effort, a player could find a nude skin for those characters, but it would be absurd to lay blame against EA for something like that.

Thomson is only a small part of the sea of sensationalism, disinformation, and outright lies in the videogame censorship camp. They prey upon clueless parents in order to ramp up fear and gain support. Below is Fox News finely displaying such tactics.

Throughout the 20 and 21st century, society has always pushed back against the younger generation's "hip new thing." At one point, it was novels. Then it was comic books. In the 50s and 60s it was rock music. Now, videogames are the scapegoat for everything wrong with today's youth, showing that technology is simply a small facet of culture and, like all new things to a culture, will be treated with mistrust if it is not understood.

References:

"Video Game Cases – The Sims 2." JackThomson.org. 9/2/09 http://www.jackthompson.org/video_game_cases/the_sims_2.htm