Government Regulations on Violent Video Games

The Effect of Government Intervention in the Enforcement of Video Games

The aim of this paper is to assess the effect of government intervention in the enforcement of video games based on their levels of abuse. When most teens are questioned, they believe that they should be able to pick their own video games, regardless of how brutal they are. Most parents, though, are hesitant to allow their children to play games that they have not tested. Furthermore, as a result of the prevalence of national research relating suspected violence to computer gaming, governments have recently contributed to this quagmire by enacting regulatory limits regulating specific games. This topic is of significance due to the dissenting opinions of parents around the world on whether the government should get involved in regulating these games. Following that, the essay will focus on comparing and contrasting opinions on whether the government should pass laws restricting children’s access to violent video games.

Legal Perspective on Government Restrictions and Bans

From a legal perspective, the imposition of government restrictions and bans on certain violent video games both protects and also violates certain laws. All over the world for instance, the imposition of these restrictions shields businesses that trade in the games from any liability resulting from any government approved game. This could be the case even when it is established that the game could be traced back to the motives and influences of a juvenile offender. The contrasting facet of this legal perspective is that imposing governmental bans and restrictions on these games is a stark violation of the first amendment. According to the first amendment of the United States Constitution, “Congress shall make no law ... prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech ...” (Hall, Day and Richard 193) Therefore, prohibition of the free exercise of playing the violent video games is in itself an act of opposition to the constitution. However, when contrasting there two viewpoints, more weight should be given to the second. Thereby, even though the government may be protecting certain businesses from indictment, it should not ban video games as that would be unconstitutional in certain aspects.

Societal Viewpoint on Government Bans

From a general societal viewpoint, there are both benefits and demerits of governmental imposition of bans on certain violent video games. It is an accepted notion in the contemporary world that certain levels of violent depictions are harmful to young minds (Weber, Ritterfeld and Kostygina 361). Laws passed by governments to restrict children’s access to violent video games help to reduce the overall exposure of children to depictions of this violence and thereby possibly avert psychological traumas that such children may incur and consequently the possibility of actualizing the violence exposed to them. Even with this apparent benefit of government regulation, a demerit exists in the form of too much power being wielded by the government. Currently in the United States, it is not mandatory for video game developers to rate their content although it is considered good practice. This is since the government may use this information to assign fees to certain content. However, if companies making violent video games stop rating their content altogether, the government may cite market failure and impose mandatory rating schemes that would destroy the creative aspect of the video game industry. This is decidedly an evidence of too much power of the government stemming from its increasing involvement in the video game sector. In the light of the above exposition, one can assert that because children have since long been toying with violent themes as part of their play, not much has been improved by reducing their exposure to violent video games. Coupled with the fact that censorship gives the government too much power, its involvement in the restriction of violent games should be discouraged.

Parental Perspective on Government Regulation

The final comparison and contrast of effects of governmental restriction of video games involves a look into the parental perspective. In the eyes of the parent, the involvement of the government in video game violence regulation provides the advantage that the probability of accidental acquisition of a violent video game for their child is greatly minimized (Vastag 1822). On the flip side of things, even though the government may assure the parent of non-violent games in stores, it invariably denies the parents their right to choose the games they want for their children. From this perspective, it can be concluded that the government does not seek the input of each parent but rather the panicked opinions of some parents to impose laws that affect all parents. This is a negative project by the state meant at diminishing the opinions of more liberal parents who may see no harm in the amount of violence in video games.

Conclusion

The above evaluation of the effects of governmental intervention in restricting violence levels of children’s video games is beneficial since it gives different perspectives of considering the problem. It looks at the problem from a legal, general and parental approach. When comparing and contrasting the effects in all perspectives, the paper has found that governments should not impose laws that restrict children’s access to violent video games. This is significant since it is the mandate of each parent to dictate the media he or she feels comfortable exposing their children to.

Works cited

Hall, Ryan, Terri Day and Hall Richard. “A plea for caution: violent video games, the supreme court, and the role of science.” Mayo Clinic Proceedings 86.4 (2011): 183-199.

Vastag, Brian. “Does Video Game Violence Sow Aggression?” Jama 291.15 (2004): 1822-1824.

Weber, René, Ute Ritterfeld and Anna Kostygina. “Aggression and violence as effects of playing violent video games.” Playing video games: Motives, responses, and consequences (2006): 347-361.