Violence is probably the key issue within games and how they supposedly effect peoples every day live's. In video games, violence is often a key element to the gameplay as the player usually has to carry out a violent act at least to some degree, even if it is not as extreme as other games. The key issue is whether violence in games actually has an impact on peoples live's and whether or not it encourages people to become violent and commit violent acts in real life. The theory, is that if someone was playing a game like Grand Theft Auto V, in which they commit various violent acts from small levels of assault to murder to huge scale destruction, that this would have an impact on their live's and actually make them want to go out and commit similar offenses. There is much debate on this subject and there is no real proof that violence in video games actually has any effect on peoples real live's, and it often seems that when violence is caused in real life people are always looking for something to blame, in many cases video games are blamed.
In Louisiana, there was a case in which a young by, only 8 years old, shot his 90 year old carer in the back of the head while she was watching television in her mobile home, killing her instantly. Because the boy had recently played the game GTA IV, the link was instantly assumed to be the cause for this violent act to be committed by Louisiana police, stating the game is, “a realistic game that has been associated with encouraging violence and awards points to players for killing people.” Not taking into account any other possible causes or concerns, not considering the young boys mental health or lifestyle, but straight away jumping to the conclusion that the game itself is to blame.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/8-year-old-boy-played-violent-video-game-killed-90-year-old-woman-charged-cops-article-1.1435828
Personally, when it comes to the relation between violence in video games and violence in real life, I really don't think that violent games are to blame for the acts that someone commits, such as murder. For a person to murder, rather than blaming a video game straight away, you have to take into account their mental health and state at the time they committed the crime and their personal lifestyle and upbringing , because there has to be so many other aspects involved that would lead to someone committing violent acts, if anything, a game where you carry out these acts is an outlet of any frustration and an outlet of any anger or violent tendencies which would relieve people of the need to commit violent acts in real life. I can safely say, that video games are not the cause of real life violence, they are a solution to it.
Explicit Sexual Content
In video games, quite often in games that are rated 18+ or sometimes 15+, there are often a lot or at least some sexual references or sexual visualizations, but sometimes games take it far further than others and it can cause some controversy. The main issue with explicit sexual content is that it can be quite offensive, particularly to women, as they are often painted in an unrealistic picture. For example, with the game Grand Theft Auto 5, as the player is cruising through the in game streets they can come across stereotypical prostitutes that just jump into your car to carry out sexual acts with you. This feature in the game as well as the in game strip clubs, are not meant to be taken seriously and are mainly there to reflect on what the characters in the game are like and to reflect what the fantasy game world is like. Some people take this too seriously and see it as possibly something that could affect players minds, maybe thinking that they can just drive up to a random women, beep their car horn and pick up someone for sexual acts, though all players of this game that I know and I doubt there are any that think differently, are fully aware that this is just a game and everything that happens and you can do within the game, is very fantastical and very far from reality. Prostitutes do exist in reality and are a problem, but there is no way playing a game would make most people, if not all, go out and find one when they know of the consequences and the laws that they will breaking, also, someone that prefers to spend there time playing video games as a distraction from reality, are definitely not the sort of people to be extremely social, so they would definitely not be the type of people to just go out and look and speak to a women asking for sex or sexual related acts.
Abusive/Inappropriate Language
Language that is seen as abusive and inappropriate is quite a big issue to some, but not to most players of video games. Bad language that is often in games rated 12+, 15+ and 18+ but players are used to it and don't really see it as an issue, though language in games can be quite abusive and inappropriate, players know that this type of language, should really not be used in certain instances in reality. Video games are obviously not the soul type of media that are responsible for the use of bad language, it would be ridiculous to say so, as with films and with reality itself, in our day to day live's people use "inappropriate language", but to most these are just words and unless someone is taking their own time to use "abusive language" to demonstrate their hate towards someone, then it should not really been as an issue, especially when it comes to video games. Video games themselves, though they may have some impact on peoples "inappropriate" vocabulary, if they were not hearing these words in a game, they would hear them from somewhere else, you can censor games, films and other medias, but you cannot sensor peoples choice of language in real life and they often wont think who's around before using "inappropriate language". I can safely say though, games do not have any impact on people using abusive language, they do not encourage language that would be seen as abusive as that would defeat the purpose of creating a game to entertain people and would not paint a very good picture of the people who created the game.Addiction
Addiction in games is something seen quite often, it is when people obsessively play games or particular games. Addiction to game is not seen as much of a threat though addiction to games can take up a lot of your time and distract you from reality and other things that you need to do. Addiction to gaming usually comes from the fact that a game is of a very big scale and there is nearly an infinite amount of things to do and people crave a sense of completion with a game so they will usually prioritize the game they are playing in their life and put it before everything else. In some extreme cases addiction to gaming has proven to be fatal, as some players play for extreme amounts of time and even forget to eat.
In one extreme case an 18 year old Taiwanese gamer named Chuang died in July 2012 after a marathon 40-hour Diablo III session at an internet cafe at the time. The reason for his death was and still is uncertain, Chuang managed to fall asleep after the computer had crashed, but we he woke up he stood up and collapsed and was pronounced dead at the scene by police.
This story brought a lot of attention to the internet cafe in which the young man had been playing for so long as they had no policy or set rules on how much time and individual could actually stay at the internet cafe, there should have at least been someone to monitor the activity of Chuang to ensure the safety of his health and well being.
http://www.ranker.com/list/8-people-who-died-playing-video-games/autumn-spragg?format=SLIDESHOW&page=1
Personally, I do see addiction as an issue, but I don't think laws should be implemented to dramatically reduce the amount of time someone can spend gaming, as it's usually down to someones general health how much time they should spend gaming, some people can actually withstand such long gaming sessions without it having any effect on their health, though I do not encourage such extreme gaming sessions.
Stereotyping and Representation
Stereotyping and representation in games in a well know issue surrounding gaming, it can often be offensive and misleading, especially when someone is unfamiliar with the character being represented and the character is represented in an inappropriate manner. The type of person that is represented and stereotyped usually is often characters relevant to war and, other races than white and quite often, women. One common stereotype is of how african american people are portrayed, particularly in games like Grand Theft Auto. If you watch the video below you can see that the african american characters act in a very stereotypical way, a way in which is assumed that similar people often act in real life, which is correct in some cases, but not all, some people can take great offense from this.
Personally I myself see stereotyping in games as a slight problem, as it can lead to people making assumptions about different people from reality that they do not regularly associate with and this can lead to trouble in their real live's.
I think that in fictional video games, the false representation and stereotyping of different people from all aspects of life should not be taken too seriously and this type of content is only implemented into games for the purpose of entertainment.
Censorship
Censorship in games is a very tricky subject, although it is an issue that some people see necessary, most people do not agree, especially people of the general public who are predominantly gamers. Censorship is bought into games when certain content has been deemed completely unsuitable to be featured in a game and often causes some controversy and annoyance within the gaming community. The main reason censorship is considered a nuisance to most people, is that they willingly buy an 18+ rated game and are fully aware of what it will contain and will not be surprised by what it will contain and would not even complain of graphic content that they did not even expect, when you are of the maximum age that exceeds all ratings, meaning you can buy whatever game or film you want, you do no expect to have censorship in the games you play. Understandably in game like Sims 4, you would understand that censorship is needed in instances like when the players use the shower and it is blurred out, as this game is a rated a 12+. When you buy an 18+ rated game though, you expect the freedom to make your own choices on what you want to see in a game, and you usually do not care at all for censorship, it should at least always be an option that you can change yourself, which in some cases like Call of Duty, you can toggle things like blood and choose which scenes you want to watch or skip, but this does not apply to all games.
One example of a game that has been censored recently, is the game Sothpark: The Stick of Truth. This game has been censored multiple times as some of the content is deemed to extreme and over the top, though the people who make the decision to censor certain aspects of the game are not the people that would typically play it or even enjoy the humor involved in the game.
As you can see in the picture above, this is a screen that pops up during one of the scenes while you are playing the game that has specifically been censored in Great Brittain and the EU, though not the USA. This scene, as you can see is quite explicit, though people who buy this Southpark game are more than aware of the Southpark franchise and expect to see things like this, like they usually do in the TV series, so when they play the game based on their beloved TV series, they do not expect any content to be censored.
I personally think that censorship should be alterable by the player in video games and not predetermined by anyone else.
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