Let us gently open this topic for discussion, and see if we can keep it from blowing up into a flamewar.<\/p>\n
I’ve always been in favor of lots of freedom when it comes to producing media: TV, Movies, Computer games, Music, etc. As long as people can choose not<\/em> to experience it, and as long as you didn’t hurt anyone in the process, you can be as offensive as you like as the worst I’ll do is complain about it because the controls sucked and the save points were too far apart. (Or whatever.) I realize this sounds like the beginnings of a political rant, which says more about the sad state of politics than anything else. So to head that<\/em> off – let’s just keep this in the realm of personal opinion and no use this discussion as a launching point for or against a political group. <\/p>\n Sometimes I’ll articulate this and someone will throw me a “me too!” for my troubles. Now, as much as I like having people agree with me, I’m always curious if this person really<\/em> agrees with me, or if they just don’t like the idea<\/em> of censorship. <\/p>\n In which case it’s time for a blend of the hypothetical and rhetorical:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n At some point on this continuum, nearly everyone stops and says they would be in favor of banning a videogame. Maybe a videogame like this will turn a normal person into a monster. Maybe it will act as a scratching post and keep a monster from doing something destructive. Maybe the real monster is the guy who makes the game in the first place. I don’t know. It’s a difficult thing to study and even when you do, the data is easily dismissed if it doesn’t say what people expect. <\/p>\n\n