Censorship: How far is enough?

[Emanzi 0]

I wasn't to sure where this thread would fit but I wanted to ask for the opinions you guys have on sensorship. Would you say its ok to make a game with full out sex, drugs and swearing be it that its rated 18 or would you find it disturbing for a rpg maker game?

 

I think too much use of swear words, sex and drugs just to look cool is slightly disgusting in games, they feel really immature but then again some reference sometimes helps make things feel fresh or more "real".

 

For Indie game developers like us we pretty much have no real authority telling us not to make any games that are a bit over the edge, its all about independent creativity and sometimes that may lead one to make something more raw than the mainstream titles. 

 

Not too sure about your opinions, do you think games would be better off without any censorship or do you think its absolutely necessary to limit the content of your game to something more socially acceptable with or without warning ratings (18+ 16+ e.t.c) I've played some 18+ games that are really ridiculous ( namely GTA: SanAndreas )and even as a kid I knew this stuff was just unreal, I would never in my right mind pick up a bat and "beat up someone with a purple shirt to represent the groove" in real life, maybe only for pretense but I wouldn't actually hit them with real intentions and I know most people aren't really that ignorant or are they (<_<)???

Edited June 4, 2013 by Emanzi

[madanchi 18]

18+ Games shouldn't be restricted at all apart from the extreme cases, and I emphasize extreme, however for 12+ or 16+ rates games then there should be a limit to bide by.

[dolarmak 23]

Personally i do not think censorship is necessary in any medium. The people who the censorship is intended for are children and "very sensitive" people,  who should know what is in a game/movie/anything before getting into it which is why these mediums should still have a rating system. Censoring for children is stupid cause their parents shouldn't be allowing them to play or watch something that is clearly rated 18+ and so the fault fall on the parent not the creator. For people who are sensitive they should also use the rating system (most now include why the product got its rating, like contains violence, course language ext.) and stop bitching about how they couldn't watch Freddy Vs Jason because the movie contained swearing and violence. If you want more games/movies without violence then stop bitching and make your own or shut up and let us be.

 

As for if you should make your game 18+ or not, I say "Go for it!" You should not feel restricted what so ever when making your own vision. If you want to include drugs, violence, swearing, sex or all of the above it's your right as the creator to do so. I would put a warning on the title so no one can bitch that they didn't know about it's content, but otherwise have at it! lol

[Marked 197]

I disagree dolarmak. I'm just gona say this real quick coz I'm supposed to be studying. Media influences people. The exceptionally sensitive people will go out and replicate the act, the average person will influenced on some level. I'm not really talking about violence at all. I'm really talking about how hollywood and movies are creating a sexualized society. My point is that media is a huge influencing factor, though only to a realistic level, such as drinking and smoking is cool in movies, so I'll do that. Sex is a primal thing, whether in movies or games, I think it will influence. Espicially kids today with smartphones, seeing stuff in games can lead to some curious google searches.

 

Probably doesn't apply to games so much. I don't think a game really needs hardcore sex scenes. I see stuff like that as an indicator of low quality because they're resorting to that to get attention. If I want to see sex I'll use my browser, that's where it should stay. Games should stick to the storyline and keep it classy. You can show a quick sex scene or get your point across without being graphical about it. Otherwise you're kidding yourself, it's a treat for the player. It's not needed. Censor dat.

[Arkbennett 16]

I'm inclined to agree with Dolarmak. I think censoring is to overbearing and only adversely affects the the target audiance of any given medium.
I don't see middle-aged women in their 40's reading the back of a Grand Theft Auto game case and thinking, "Oh gee, I always wondered what it'd be like to be a gang banger." They aren't the target audiance. So because they take offense over a product they do not consume, people who do consume and create the product are getting punished. This is wrong.
My least favorite case of censorship is Drakengard, a game that didn't reach its potential partly due to censorship (Not to mention bad development decisions).

"Oh, but, think of the children!" shouldn't ever be a valid arguement in censorship. This movie is rated R, this game is rated M. End of discussion.
It isn't up to private and public organizations to babysit your kid. Stop being lazy.

 

 

I disagree dolarmak. I'm just gona say this real quick coz I'm supposed to be studying. Media influences people. The exceptionally sensitive people will go out and replicate the act, the average person will influenced on some level. I'm not really talking about violence at all. I'm really talking about how hollywood and movies are creating a sexualized society. My point is that media is a huge influencing factor, though only to a realistic level, such as drinking and smoking is cool in movies, so I'll do that. Sex is a primal thing, whether in movies or games, I think it will influence. Espicially kids today with smartphones, seeing stuff in games can lead to some curious google searches.

 

You have a valid point Marked, people are sensitive. But Hollywood isn't the problem. Hollywood only reflects human nature.
Smoking Cigerettes was a thing a couple hundred years before Cinema even existed. Prostitution has existed before cinema. Armies of almost any age used to pillage villages and rape women and men. Hollywood has not sexualized a generation, it has only validated a sexualized race.
My counterpoint: It can be Cinema, Video Games, Music, Book, Theatre, Dancing, Nature, Religion, etc. All of the above can influence a person to do good and bad things, and I don't feel that censorship is going to sufficiently prevent the bad things.

[Marked 197]

You have a valid point Marked, people are sensitive. But Hollywood isn't the problem. Hollywood only reflects human nature.

Smoking Cigerettes was a thing a couple hundred years before Cinema even existed. Prostitution has existed before cinema. Armies of almost any age used to pillage villages and rape women and men. Hollywood has not sexualized a generation, it has only validated a sexualized race.

My counterpoint: It can be Cinema, Video Games, Music, Book, Theatre, Dancing, Nature, Religion, etc. All of the above can influence a person to do good and bad things, and I don't feel that censorship is going to sufficiently prevent the bad things.

I agree, but just because it is in our nature, in my opinion, isn't a valid reason. Of course we are like that. Without laws and society will become uncivilized animals, right? Smoking was considered healthy back then and it is becoming more and more unpopular, now cinema is being used to try and stop that (more like TV series). Hollywood has sexualised a generation, despite it being inherent in our nature, etc. It's popular because we want to see it, right? Well censorship is the answer to stopping that if that's what we want to stop. It may be our fault, but consider the position without hollywood. That is why it is to blame.

[Emanzi 0]

Hollywood is indeed commercialized so they are probably aware of the influence that the media has on human behavior but that's not their concern, their more targeted at creating media that people would want to consume, movies that are considered cool usually have some slightly more raw or exaggerated aspects of human nature that's already a part of our society like violence and sex. We get more exited watching a full out fight scene with blood and guts than watching a one with heavy censorship which is not at all true to life, sometimes this is even more dangerous like Tom and Jerry has no blood in it but is very violent, the blood was probably cenrored out but kids would think that its safe to whack someone over the head with a frying pan, i'd rather it have a warning for violence and have the full consequences animated within the show, its normal to bleed and kids should be aware that such stuff is very violent and un-acceptable with the warning label not censorship..

 

I think that if Hollywood where to censor out all the "bad stuff" that's already within our society then we would only be lying to ourselves, sure we can try and strive for a more socially justified and safe society for the sake of betterment of the human race as a whole but the fact remains the same, there some ugly things that have and maybe will always be a part of the world such as crime, prostitution, drug abuse e.t.c but to hide away from them will only result in a build up of hidden evil. Like in the Medieval days where by you where stabbed for not obeying the church, or in the dark ages where by they would bleed you to death if you where ill thinking you had a demon inside you, sometimes we need some eye openers to show us that we cant force perfection and social justice in the world without first accepting our bad side, our devils. 

 

I agree that rating systems should be enough to stop the kids from loosing their innocence but the fat remains the same, at some point you will find out about the dark side of things and at some point will be forced to face this reality weather you have censored it from yourself or you are aware of it.the fault is always yours on how you act and react to such things in your life, you cant blame Hollywood, its just business and after all we are the ones who WANT Hollywood to sex-up movies and watch violence e.t.c because its just another part of the human being that has otherwise been suppressed with religion and censorship laws.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Emanzi

[Marked 197]

I think that if Hollywood where to censor out all the "bad stuff" that's already within our society then we would only be lying to ourselves,

Two things. Firstly, the influence is slow and accumulative. "Within our society" is very broad. Let me put this example to you. Smoking is in our society, so lets blatantly advertise it. The result is that more people will do it. That's the key. It's not about lying to ourselves, its about promoting undesirable behavior. The tricky part to this argument is believing that it influences people because chances are it doesn't influence you (refer below). In a movie = promotion = influence.

 

 

the fault is always yours on how you act and react to such things in your life, you cant blame Hollywood, its just business

For me, this is the key to the discussion. It may not influence you, or any of us here, but it does influence. There are teenage girls around the world making suicide pacts. They kill themselves because their friends did it, oh how trendy. As a general rule to protect our society must set the general rule to being that people are stupid. They will do stupid things. Young people are extremely impressionable, you can get them to jump off a cliff. Therefore censorship is imperative, hollywood is to blame (but to make you happy, to blame in a non-legal sense). But for hollywood, this influence would not exist.

[dolarmak 23]

Two things. Firstly, the influence is slow and accumulative. "Within our society" is very broad. Let me put this example to you. Smoking is in our society, so lets blatantly advertise it. The result is that more people will do it. That's the key. It's not about lying to ourselves, its about promoting undesirable behavior. The tricky part to this argument is believing that it influences people because chances are it doesn't influence you (refer below). In a movie = promotion = influence.

 

 

For me, this is the key to the discussion. It may not influence you, or any of us here, but it does influence. There are teenage girls around the world making suicide pacts. They kill themselves because their friends did it, oh how trendy. As a general rule to protect our society must set the general rule to being that people are stupid. They will do stupid things. Young people are extremely impressionable, you can get them to jump off a cliff. Therefore censorship is imperative, hollywood is to blame (but to make you happy, to blame in a non-legal sense). But for hollywood, this influence would not exist.

 

I don't agree with you on this one Marked. People will always do stupid things without the help of Hollywood. Your argument is the same as what parental groups were saying for the Columbine school shooters, "Well they played video games so it must have been the reason why." The truth is people who do these things (be it killing, suicide packs or smoke) all have other underlying problems. School shooters couldn't have done what they did if they didn't have access to guns, children who smoke can't do it without access to cigarettes. And people who make suicide packs have major psychological and emotional problems within their lives which they can't handle. Pack or not chances are they would have killed themselves because the problems isn't that it's cool, but that they're damaged and need help. Censorship doesn't help them, having parents who can identify their problems and are willing to help them will solve the problem, getting them the professional help they need will solve the problem.

 

Censorship is a mark of a lazy but over protective parent. They are lazy in that they can't be bothered to take the time to learn why their child is acting out and how they can fix that problem or they ignore the problem thinking their child is perfect and blame other sources. So they focus their attention on media, saying "it must be the bad thing cause my child is perfect" and so they shouldn't put bad things in it. But they also arn't monitoring what their children are watching or playing.

And yes media does influence people a bit, but not as much as you would think. Healthy people don't watch a movie with gang bangers and prostitutes and think to them selves, "Killing people and beating hoes is cool."

 

The Artist should have the right to make what they want to make. I'm all for putting a warning saying what the content contains so that parents and "sensitive people" (by that i mean religiously crazy people) can make sure they don't see it. But it all comes down to Parenting, if you won't stop your 8 year old from playing GTA4 but bitch about how the game has violence, sex, drugs and blood, clearly you have not been doing your job as a parent.

[Marked 197]

I don't agree with you on this one Marked. People will always do stupid things without the help of Hollywood. Your argument is the same as what parental groups were saying for the Columbine school shooters, "Well they played video games so it must have been the reason why." The truth is people who do these things (be it killing, suicide packs or smoke) all have other underlying problems. School shooters couldn't have done what they did if they didn't have access to guns, children who smoke can't do it without access to cigarettes.

Again you're missing the scope of my argument :P I believe I addressed this above in my post, but I see where I made my mistake: take away hollywood and what do you have. That's the last thing I said and you got me there, I actually take that back. The quote I have above is pretty much based on that, therefore:

 

This argument is pretty much the same as the previous poster. My counter argument is simple, Hollywood is still a promoter. You take away hollywood and you still have it, yes, but less of it. Hollywood is a contributor, and in my opinion a big one because it covers a whole range of things. When you counter argue that, it's important to take that scope into account. Getting to Columbine is going right out of what I'm talking about, but doesn't exclude violence.

 

"Well they played video games so it must have been the reason why."

What I said at the end unfortunately inferred that, but from my this post I'm saying that 1. it is a reason why (not the reason why) and 2. I do doubt that you can place blame on media for such an extreme event, I am saying we should place blame on them for promoting and gradually and accumulatively influencing undesirable social attitudes toward such things as smoking, drug use and sexualisation.

 

Put it this way. Do you want your daughter losing her virginity at 12? Parents will try as the might to raise their daughters properly and you no doubt will say its on them or the individual, but its hard to deny the influences of media on them either directly or indirectly via their social group (which is the big one).

 

At the end of the day we're like our generation, not like our parents, and media reaches as all approximately equally so if we're not exposed to it directly, it will get to us from our social groups. 

 

[dolarmak 23]

Put it this way. Do you want your daughter losing her virginity at 12? Parents will try as the might to raise their daughters properly and you no doubt will say its on them or the individual, but its hard to deny the influences of media on them either directly or indirectly via their social group (which is the big one).

 

At the end of the day we're like our generation, not like our parents, and media reaches as all approximately equally so if we're not exposed to it directly, it will get to us from our social groups. 

I admit that I took this a step too far, but the point is that media doesn't have as profound influence on people as you might think, given that they are healthy and have proper parenting.

 

The problems with censorship is who is advocating it and why. Censorship isn't being used in the way you're describing Marked, It's being used by religious and parenting groups (mostly in Canada and the US, but the UK has some big groups too) who are looking to blame other people (in this case media and video games) for their children's behavior instead of looking at the real problem which is bad Parenting.

 

Do I want my theoretical daughter to have sex at 12, no and neither does my sister who has a real daughter that is 12 years old. What I can say is that if she wants to do it there is no stopping her from doing it. What we can do as good parents is explain to her what the truth about the situation is, how she can protect herself, and raise her to see and make good decisions over bad ones. This is why my sister has faith in my niece that she won't go out and get knocked up at 12. My sister explained why it would be a bad decision and how media does play up these things. All you can do in the end is hope she makes the right choice.

 

But Censorship doesn't even allow for the conversation, it wants to eliminate the discussion about these problem because the advocate groups believe by talking about it you become evil or influenced. But the problem is that children are not getting the proper discipline or the proper information about the world. Parents are not explaining to their children about sex, drugs or violence. They are not explaining to their children that these things they see in movies arn't really like that. Violence isn't sexy or cool, drugs will kill you, sexual abuse is a real thing. The discussion needs to happen and Censorship is blocking that by making new parents believe that the media is responsible for all their children's problems and that there is nothing directly the parent can do....WHICH IS WRONG! the parent is directly responsible for their child's behavior. Its a proven fact (yay for 50 years of university studies on children) that children gain 90% of their personality by the time they are 2. And who are the people influencing them? Their parents! But these days Parents leave their kids in front of tv and ignore their social and psychological needs.

 

Now NZ might not have the same parenting problem we have here in Canada and the US, and so these issues might be much less relevant to you. But here it's a big problem. And where do you hear about all these problems I was talking about, US and Canada. And where are the biggest advocate of Censorship, Canada and the US.

[Emanzi 0]

On limiting influence on others I think discussions and education is a lot more effective than censorship, like dolarmark mentioned censorship cuts out the discussion or information about such negatively influential matters ( like drugs, sex, violence e.t.c ) but Its true that even without media social groups will always have influence on our behavior even if its just subtle while media is like a "megaphone voicing and empowering" social behavior and what we see others do say, we imitate to some level. If everyone stopped smoking and cigarettes became socially unacceptable for health reasons then I'm sure a vast number of potential smokers would be stopped dead in their tracks and those who do would quit, having something as wide reaching as the media to spread this social message around would result in a large social movement from smoking cigarettes to totally rejecting them out of our society but I would say this would be more of a result due to the underlying reasons as to why its bad for you, the more people are becoming aware that cigarettes are unhealthy the more this is already happening albeit they will always be those who stick to their old habits regardless of social influences.

 

We have age restrictions, their is a certain age roughly that you reach where by your characteristics as a person and influences get set in stone and it becomes very difficult to change, If someone was to start smoking at 12 and continue into adulthood they would probably continue to smoke even if the entire world saw it as taboo ( maybe they would only do it in secret ) because its a set characteristic or an addiction, and only if they where to become aware of the effects and consciously see it as harmful will they have initiative to quit, social groups would have little effect on their behavior regarding smoking and media would maybe only slightly effect their decision BUT the decision would be there's and they would do it out of knowledge not social influence.

 

Right now I'm 20, If my friend killed him or herself I would be devastated and try my best to stop him or her but wont go about and kill myself even if I had psychological problems because I would understand that these are my emotions and I would feel horrible about it all but at the same time detach myself and probably seek therapy or talk to someone close about it and come to let it go albeit maybe slowly.

Me again being lets say 14 or a young teenager would probably over-react and these psychological issues would become serious and I might get myself into trouble blaming god and life and getting really angry ( we where all teenagers once and some of us have experienced depression and emotional problems during our early teenage years, its hormones ). Its then the role of my parent to help talk me through this so that I can grow from such a situation instead of hiding it or my parent "censoring" it ( not talking about it ) to protect my "young mind" then get shocked when I kill myself and blame it on videogames. 

[FranklinX 37]

Censorship is very necessary. Alot of people think censorship is just for kids. However, it is for adults too! Adults are influenced by media such as video games. 

 

I don't think censorship kills creativity for most game developers. There are many ways to send a message to the viewers. You don't have to go all out extreme to prove that a villain or hero is a great character. 

[Broken Messiah 20]

As far as censorship goes, I would prefer games to not have sex, just like in movies, its awkward when you're sitting there with your parents and a girls gone wild commercial keeps showing and you see your dad eye the screen and then lol, and personally I've grown tired and sick of all the blood and gore that modern entertainent. Its not even in good taste. A prime example? The Hills have Eyes movies and of course the later Saw movies.

[dolarmak 23]

I just can't agree with you Franklin, censorship isn't necessary at all. A proper rating system is necessary, letting us know what to expect so if we don't want to see violence/sex in a movie or game we can chose not to watch/play. And if you can't take responsibility for your own choices then clearly something is wrong.

 

BM, your choice is totally legitimate, if you don't want to see super gory movies that's your choice and these movies have ratings letting you know that they are violent and gory. So if you still watched them isn't that your fault, not the creators?

 

Censorship isn't just about protecting the minds of "innocent" people from blood and violence, they censor religious and political views as well which means their over all goal isn't protection but to control the message that's being spoken and ultimately controlling the media itself to prevent independent thought and creativity. 

 

They are even taking it as far as censoring scientific data to fit their own needs. If you want prof, look at the history of climate changes over the last 2000 years. We had a mini cool down in 16th-19th centuries that people are removing from our history books, and the fact that during the 13th century was warmer than it is today. This shows that the global warming crisis isn't as big a deal as the government would have you believe.

 

Over all Censorship is a terrible political trick to confuse and control us.

[Saltome 16]

It's ironic that both sides are fighting for the same thing, but instead of working together they are fighting against one another...

Everything people ever do seems to come down to that conclusion, and I'm really fed up with it.