Thursday, September 07, 2000 Wal-Mart and Kmart announced a new regime aimed at seizing “M” rated games from children 16 years of age or younger. When a mature game is scanned by the clerk the computer tells them to ask the customer to supply an I.D. to prove their age. Several years prior to this period a Senator by the name Joe Lieberman went on a crusade to put an end to violent video games. From that point on the gaming community has been the target of stereotypical ignorant Americans who are led by their liberal and republican dogs. Targeting mature video games must stop before the government is given power to ban “M” rated games. An “M” rated game is a warning given by the ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board) that provides information on the content of the game. Games such as “Metal Gear Solid”, “Resident Evil” and “Perfect Dark” are all mature games in that they deal with adult situations much like a rated “R” movie. Also I would like to inject that the current movies rating system is not government law. The ratings are simply a way for theater owners to moderate themselves in order to please the region or community of moviegoers. That is another reason that I feel mature violent video games should not be “banned” or even moderated to the point of federal law. In turn it would be quit fair to have the software stores control the selling of mature games. This would be a more reasonable answer to an all out ban or control by law.

Many politicians blame these games for the destruction of morality in America. Only when the upper class opens their collective mouths does everyone hear the unanimous gripe about the social dilemma presented to them. It was when the upper class family’s children died from violent school shootings that the video game community was blamed and obnoxiously attacked. I feel that the gaming industry has an unfair disadvantage when it comes to defending such attacks. For one, most parents of today never played video games so the concept is very foreign to them. Politicians and upper class fat cats referred to mature games as “murder simulators” and decided that was what led to the deaths of their children. It made me sick when I turned on the television only to see that the public and the government were saying the killings were inspired by the hit PC game “Doom”. After witnessing this televised special upper class parents actually got psychiatric help for their sons when they found them playing violent games. Poor kids were wrongly accused and discriminated against because they played violent games and wore dark close. The U.S. government should never have the right to take mature games out of the hands of Americans because that is a violation of constitution and stature. The problem is the people and the politicians. More tangible and reasonable information should be given to the American public by an alternative source such as the game makers themselves or a third party.

Bogus and inconclusive surveys were given out to criminals in the American correctional institutes that asked if they play/played or own/owned any violent video games. A large portion of criminals in our current prisons were of the first and second generation of video game players so why would it be odd that they played games? What I mean by first generation gamers is the time between the late 70’s to the mid to late 80’s and the second generation dealt with the early 90’s to the present.

Nobody thought that a person who killed someone just likes to play videogames. They thought that videogames were the reason that that person killed. So does that mean someone who reads “Silence of the Lambs” cover to cover is going to become a serial killer with a PhD? Or does that mean that the 100,000’s of millions of people who saw “Terminator 2”are going to kill buff bodybuilding looking men in fear that they might be trying to alter the future and destroy mankind? Even today moms tell their children fairy tales at bedtime about wolves that ate poor innocent talking pigs. Does that mean the kids will grow up hating canines in fear of their pet pig “Babe” being torn apart and eaten in front of them? Sure, why not? It only makes sense after all the redirect aimed at gaming companies for their terrible relevance towards school shootings and other upper class things. Video games are created by wonderfully intelligent and excited game designers who are eager to explore new worlds and let people jump into a fantasyland and eat mushrooms. So people will typically ask, “So how do we know when to draw the line between fantasy and reality?” Well I’ve got a question for you. Where do you draw the lines between fantasy and reality between movies and TV shows? Should our children be playing with action figures equipped with guns and weapons? The answer to all of these questions comes down to the individual. We cannot take away all of Americas rights for every bad seed in our nation. 

~Clay