Games Under Attack From Both The Left And Right, Says Free-Speech Lawyer
Whilst the video game industry may have successfully fought off morally-outraged critics like Jack Thompson, they could now come under fire for political incorrectness, according to a free-speech lawyer.
Speaking yesterday at the Game Developers Conference in California in a session titled “Silencing The Censors”, attorney Lawrence Walters said that the industry was in a “culture war”.
Like it or not, the video game industry is on the frontline of a war between the family values groups on one hand and the civil libertarians on the other hand. We didn’t ask for this–we’re just trying to entertain people with a product the public seem to want.
Perhaps in light of recent debate over racism in Resident Evil 5, he went on to say:
The leftist thought police are now wanting to impose their view of propriety on modern cultural discourse. We’re now seeing objections to racial slurs and sexist video game content that feminists and minority groups take offense to. Now without taking a position on the propriety on that content in modern video games, this trend is just as damaging to free expression rights.
Walters pointed to new laws in New York that would make illegal the sale of games to minors with racist stereotypes and other derogatory language or actions.
Over in the UK, the government recently defeated a “free speech” amendment to a bill designed to make it illegal to persecute someone for their sexual orientation. Whilst this bill has not been explicitly linked to video games, comedians such as Blackadder star Rowan Atkinson have been fighting the bill, which they say could stifle creativity for writers and comedians – in other words, no gay jokes.
Theoretically the law could also be used against video games making use of gay stereotypes, such as Grand Theft Auto 4 which featured effeminate characters like Bernie Crane.
The way to combat such moves is for the industry to become more proactive, says Walters. Rather than responding to laws that have already been passed, the industry should lobby with a “cohesive and united voice” when it comes to censorship.
Via: Gamespot.
On racism: Drop a white guy with a bunch of guns in the middle of Africa and tell him to start shooting everything he sees, then see how the locals react. Why is honesty classed as offensive?
I love playing UT3 because I get to kill lots of Izanagi. Therefore, UT3 must be racist against an army who’s trying to fucking kill EVERYBODY. I must be a horrible person.
I quite enjoy Dungeon Siege 2, where my goal is (in part) to hunt down and destroy the Dark Wizards. OMGWFT IM A RACIST N00BLOL GTFO
On political correctness in games: get the fuck out of here. Games are created as a BREAK FROM REALITY, not another place politicians can inject their filthy, greedy fingers into trying to pocket another buck or five billion. “Political correctness” has absolutely NO PLACE in the arguement against video games.
On censorship: trace through the annals of history and find a time when censorship or prohibition of ANYTHING accomplished something more than free-roaming mafias killing anyone they didn’t like.
@timeshifter: Um… dude… you realize that laws prohibit things, right? By your argument, all laws banning child pornography, rape, and incest are useless… not exactly helpful to the pro-gamer argument…
Do laws actually stop any of those things?
Uh… yeah… not all of it, but most of it… there are other things laws prohibit, that should prohibited… I agree, censorship is useless, but some things need to be banned. It’s called human decency.
Wrong. If the human race had any decency left, we wouldn’t need to explicitly state what is wrong and right. There was once a time when people just lived, and that was that. Why does our government have to shove their noses into every little detail of everybody’s lives? If anything, it only pisses them off more.
You do realize that laws are there because the government needs guidance? There is a government, and there is an executive branch of the government. With laws, we know what needs to be punishable and what is not. if we didn’t have laws, there would be mass corruption. It’s the way government and society functions.
But do those laws need to dive in to the personal life so deeply that they can destroy innocent people for innocent thigns?