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- Indian Parliament to Ban Violent Games?
- Posted 12 months ago by Sean
In a fascinating and terrifying article on Game Guru (found through GamePolitics), writer Neelesh Mukherjee raises the very real possibility that the Parliament of India will ban violent video games.
According to Mukherjee, the spectre of censorship began to take form when a member of the Indian film censor board (identified only as "S") purchased a PS2 for his 10-year old grandson (called "Z"). S tells Z that the boy can have any game he wants. Z asks for Manhunt 2, having already spent time playing it at a friend's home. S asks a friend in the U.S. to pick up a copy of the Rockstar title, and the Z can't be happier! The next day, the boy's parents read in the paper that the game had been banned in the United Kingdom. The mother gets terrified for what will happen to her son and calls a meeting of the same board that picks India's Oscars. During the course of that meeting, the board drafts a proposal to regulate content of "official" games released in India.
Now Rockstar knows how Richard Gere must have felt...
Let's just take a second and look at this. First of all, there's a censorship board in a "democratic" nation? That's strike one. Next, Z's grandfather purchased this Mature-rated game for his grandson. For me, that's strike two. Finally, the boy was playing the game in his parents' home for at least one night without mom and dad batting an eye. Strike three, out.
It doesn't matter where you live, what games you play, or what your personal feelings are on the issue of violence in video games. As I've said time and again, the responsibility for issues like this fall squarely on the shoulders of the parents. Z's parents were clearly lax in monitoring what their boy was doing, and now every resident in the second-largest nation on earth may end up being "grounded" as a result.
Stay tuned for updates on this one gang. This speaks to my angry side. And you wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
Yeah, Photoshop was never my strong-suit...
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Comments
What works in the US always doesn't work in India oh well sucks to be them. Isn't censorship wonderful.
Hillary's been barking up this tree for years
It all comes down to parents being irresponsible and not wanting to admit that they've done wrong in doing so. This is the same reason why I can't buy fireworks!
3 problems with Video games and kids (like me I guess)
#1: Parents must know what their kids are playing and watch them carefully so that they know their not some immature/phyco 10 year old who wants to kill eveyone in school, and then buys him a copy of Soldier of Fortune payback
#2: The kid must be responsible enough to realize that these are games strictly for entertainment value. These are not murder simulators, and when your not playing, its the real world again.
#3: Censorship. Things will be free and ok to use as long as their not seen as a threat to the general public. Are video games a threat to the general public? No, crazy sedistic killers are. If we are responsible enough, we won't have to have things banned and kept away from us becuase we can handle these things without people being affected negatively.
Let video games live in India! woo!! (except for the 10 year. even me, almost 16, shouldn't be playing manhunt 2)