Poll finds people more offended by sex than violence in games
A new poll conducted at whattheyplay.com (a site oriented towards educating parents about videogame content) shows that people are more offended by sex than violence in games. Keep in mind that this is a thoroughly unscientific study of a very skewed portion of the population (read: parents who care what their kids are playing), but the results are still surprising. According to the poll, the most offensive thing in a videogame is a depiction of a man and a woman having sex (37%) followed by two men kissing (27%), then a graphically severed human head (26%), and lastly, multiple use of the F-word (10%).
As someone who’d like to see the industry mature (and carry games with more mature content), this is pretty disappointing. Really? You’d rather see (or even rather your kids see) bloody severed heads then consensual sex? That sounds insane to me. And don’t get me started on the fact that two men kissing (just kissing) is apparently also worse than a depiction of graphic violence. Give me a break.
Videogames aren’t just playthings for kids and pimply-faced teenagers anymore, and I think we have more than enough proof of that, given the wide gamer demographic. Seriously. It would seem that whattheyplay founder John Davison is just as perplexed/annoyed with the results as I am, as evidenced by his blog
Read [John Davison’s blog] Via [GameLife]
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This is such a horribly skewed population that makes me depressed.
It kind of creeps me out that these parents think it’s less offensive to see a decapitated human head, but not two men kissing. Geeze.
I wonder how this makes all the other gay gamers in America feel. The bigotry extends to our video game playing. Lame!
on April 11, 2008 at 03:39 PM - LINKJosh,
I completely agree. It really says something (sad) about our culture - or even just this pocket of our culture - that violence is more acceptable than sexuality. There are supposedly the “good guys” - parents who care what their kids are playing.
on April 11, 2008 at 11:10 PM - LINK