Comment Re:Not so sure about Bully (Score 1) 207
Perhaps Bully uses violence to make an interesting statement about the nature of bullying in schools. Perhaps it encourages players to consider whether the violent activities, while fun in the game, may actually be a poor course of action in real life. Perhaps the game suggests that violent retaliation is a legitimate response for a victim of bullying. We'll have to wait for the game to come out for us to assess its merits, but developers in Rockstar know the answer right now.
The reality is that the current political climate does not make the First Amendment a sufficiently bulletproof document to fall behind in the face of proposed governmental censorship. Games like Bully could either be making important statements that the First Amendment was intended to defend, or they could just pointless tripe designed to move large numbers of SKUs. Either kind of game will spark outrage from certain outspoken politicians. If loud enough, such outrage leads to the possibility of the governmental imposition of censorship standards in the future. Games haven't managed to earn the respectability of older media, which means its future is still very much subect to the whims of senators, congressmen and judges.
Some battles are worth fighting and some aren't. The games industry is in a position to pick its battles based on the games that it chooses to release. At this point of time, it's important to make sure that games that have violent (or sexual) content do have positive traits that would also make them defensible in the vocal-public court of opinion, so that court precedent can be set that protects the right for all kinds of games to be published in order to protect the few that use potentially objectionable material in a moral or thought-provoking manner.
Part of this can also be helped with sufficiently stringent industry rating. I am of the opinion that adult gamers should specifically consider taking the extra effort to seek and buy AO-rated games so that publishers can see the AO rating as economically viable. But that's quite a different discussion, best saved for another thread.
The reality is that the current political climate does not make the First Amendment a sufficiently bulletproof document to fall behind in the face of proposed governmental censorship. Games like Bully could either be making important statements that the First Amendment was intended to defend, or they could just pointless tripe designed to move large numbers of SKUs. Either kind of game will spark outrage from certain outspoken politicians. If loud enough, such outrage leads to the possibility of the governmental imposition of censorship standards in the future. Games haven't managed to earn the respectability of older media, which means its future is still very much subect to the whims of senators, congressmen and judges.
Some battles are worth fighting and some aren't. The games industry is in a position to pick its battles based on the games that it chooses to release. At this point of time, it's important to make sure that games that have violent (or sexual) content do have positive traits that would also make them defensible in the vocal-public court of opinion, so that court precedent can be set that protects the right for all kinds of games to be published in order to protect the few that use potentially objectionable material in a moral or thought-provoking manner.
Part of this can also be helped with sufficiently stringent industry rating. I am of the opinion that adult gamers should specifically consider taking the extra effort to seek and buy AO-rated games so that publishers can see the AO rating as economically viable. But that's quite a different discussion, best saved for another thread.
