Should violent images and language be censored or banned from national media - Essay Example

14 August Should violent images and language be censored or banned from video games?Sex and violence have conventionally been employed as the means to increase the market value of certain video games. A number of video games have been banned in the past because of their extreme display of violence and sex. Such video games include but are not limited to BMX XXX, Dreamweb and Left 4 Dead 2. It is absolutely right to ban or at least censor video games which use violent images and/or language. Few decades ago, parents appreciated their children playing video games because they thought that their kids are involved in a mental exercise.

Nowadays, parents have to sneak into the room every now and then to make sure that their innocent child is protected from the impacts of evil forces trying to reach their child through video games. This may also have a negative impact on the parent-child relationship in which the parent has to spy on the child. This may, for the least, inculcate curiosity in the child’s mind regarding the spying parent. In extreme circumstances, the child may become violent and abuse the parent and force him/her out of the room.

Even if all the deleterious effects of incorporating sexuality and violence in the video games are overlooked, the fact that these factors are incorporated into the video games on the cost of their quality can not be ignored. Video game makers that do not have a nice strategy in mind for the plot or theme of the game may still have their product do good business in the market by making the audience attracted towards the violence or sexuality incorporated therein. In this sense, makers of such video games are essentially committing the crime of tarnishing the image of video games in the public’s eye.

A vast majority of the proponents of violence and sexuality in video games suggest that access to such games should be allowed after a certain age limit. They emphasize that this is a useful way to prevent the minds of innocent children to go wild before they physically mature up. But this argument is totally flawed. Although it apparently seems an easy way to end the debate, yet anyone with the desire to curtail sexuality and violence in the video games can easily challenge this argument for several reasons.

This is because of the fact that age restrictions when placed upon something play a fundamental role in making that thing a social taboo, and taboos often happen to be the biggest adventures for juveniles and adolescents to explore. The idea of placing age restrictions on the violent video games makes them all the more exciting and appealing for the young audience. Besides, it is not smart to question the intelligence of today’s juvenile or think that they would not make access to the restricted stuff anyways!

Concluding all that has been said before, violent images and language should be completely censored or banned from video games. Video games are meant for the in-door entertainment. They should not be introduced to the society as a means of deriving sexual pleasure or satisfying the widest cravings for sex or violence.