Sex, Lies and Videogames

It has been said, “Censorship is the bastard child of technology.” Technological advances in video gaming software have created a rapid evolution from 1970’s arcade game technology to today’s role playing games, featuring an almost life-like level of realism, which mirrors the natural world in all of its graphic violence and sexual activity. In tandem with electronic gaming’s rapid evolution and realism has been a meteoric rise in popularity and revenues which now rivals that of the motion picture industry. This tremendous growth and change has also spurred protest from family values groups. The fact that violence, sex, and videogames seem to play well in the media has brought out a fair number of lawmakers, eager to prove their “family values” mettle by answering the call that something be done at the legislative level to control access by minors to this increasingly violent and sexually-explicit game content.