January 12, 2008
Will the government of India ban violent video games?
Indian video game site GameGuru believes the nation's government is close to such a move:
The nascent videogame industry in our darling country has been made target recently in the wake of preventing the future generations from taking or experiencing any form of violence,...
Neelesh Mukherjee, who penned the GameGuru article, has a theory on how the violent game issue came to be in the crosshairs of the Indian government:
[Political figure] S has two grandchildren... So Grandma and Grandpa... decide to gift the kids a Sony PlayStation 2... they also let the 10 year old grandson pick a game of his choice. The grandson named Z has experienced the delirious heights of R*’s controversial yet abysmal game Manhunt 2 on his friend's console... He tells his grandparents that he wants the very same game... The grandson on receiving the game happily and merrily hacks and slaughters virtual beings on screen.
Next morning there is an article in a newspaper... about this game being banned in the UK. The father suddenly remembers that his son has been addicted to the game... Mommy S gets petrified and worried and calls a meeting... They decide to go on a banning spree and draft out a proposal that will regulate content of “official” games released in India.
Over at Desicritics, editor Deepti Lamba picks up the story:
Games like Grand Theft Auto may not be legally available in India soon. Video game players may shrug this off since most aren’t dumb enough to buy legal games when pirated ones are available at less than half the cost of their legal brethren.
The point though is, who wants the Indian government to play au pair to our children? Mrs. Pataudi reportedly bought her grandkid a Sony PSP, and helped him get a game he had been wanting forever from the US and let him merrily hack away on his PSP without blinking an eyelid. But once the lady realized the game... was banned in UK, she decided to [draft] a proposal to censor and regulate the kind of games that enter into the Indian market.
This does not come as a surprise... Censorship comes easy to our politicians... The anti-obscenity law could easily have stifled the creative spirit in India but Indians, being enterprising folks, always find ways of getting what isn’t legally available; pornography, books, movies, electronics and even video games are easily available even in the smallest towns of India...
Comments
At least Tirany doesn't care about what you think. (Old Skool tirany here, not the soviet/nazi style.)
So instead of just taking the game SHE bought for her grandkid away, she fights for a law to punish all gamers for her willful ignorance?
so they should make it illegal to say things people object to because Indians don't know how to be civil?
i mean i knew India was backwards thinking, but i didn't know they were that bad.
Anyways, I suppose this shouldn't be too surprising considering what little I know about the government of India and the current cultural climate over there.
Land of the free, home of the whopper.
I happen to be an American-born Hindu, and I could take offense at the hamburger-worshipping comment. But I'll focus on the story here instead starting an argument.
It's a shame that we've managed to outsource not only our jobs, but also the beliefs of those convinced that the government should be raising children, to India and the rest of the world
Also, completely off the subject, but every Bollywood movie has the EXACT SAME STORY. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, girl likes boy but pretends she doesn't, boy makes a fool of himself, then there's a big song & dance number, the end. No wonder they pirate so much porn.
She buys her grandson a PS2 and lets him pick a game. He picks Manhunt 2, a game that is rated 18+, and apparently DOES NOT REACT, she just buys it.
And when she sees what you can do in the game, what does she do? Does she take the game away? No! Why do that when you can ban the filth altogether?!
And apparently this is partly/mainly because Britain has banned the game.
I called bullsh*t on this one as soon as i read it. It can't be said too many times, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BUY THE GAME, NOR DO YOU HAVE TO PLAY IT.
We're not outsourcing the idea that the government should be raising children to India - if anyone's doing that then my money's on the UK.
The actions that they're taking and the response to it are much more similar to UK legislation then US.
Pardon my french, but... HOW FUCKING STUPID CAN YOU GET?!!!
Do these parents have absolutely NO free will or common sense at all?! "Offspring asked for game. Must get game. Must disregard rating. Must disregard name of game. Must disregard blatent box art."
...i'm sorry, this is just... BEYOND stupid.
the other day, i met a confused grandmother in a gamestop store. i overheard that she bought a wii for her six year old grandson. she was completly confused on what she should by for her grandson. i told her about the esrb system and that was the end of her confusion. but one thing i did realise was that she tended to eye games with less violent cover art. so even if you dont have any knowlege of your local rating system( im not shure what video game rating system india uses) you should be ablwe to identify violent games based on cover art. so this woman has no excuse.
unrated, your comment. toatally uncalled for. i could bash your religon( athiesim) all i want but i dont.
i know, which is why i listed it sepratly.
it was a typo, meaning to say ( or athiesim) instead of (athiesim)
For a country that did so much to end English Colonial rule and run your own damn country, you sure do a lot of British ass kissing. Just because the UK wants to do something does not mean the bandwagon is your only way. The only person who is hurt by a useless law is yourself. Remember that. Oh, and I want my $10.50 back for that Bollywood movie about the guy who ate flowers. It sucked.
Signed,
Archgabe
ps. can I have my old job back? Thanks.
pps. Yes, my first job was outsourced.
ppps. On second thought, you can keep it. The boss was a jerk.
pppps. No really, keep the damn job.
half my job is already at india, and people complain about it .
@ TBone
Only cuz the Aussies can't handle it when someone chooses to reply to their sledging.
ex: free ham radio for undergoing a vascetomy, a one time thing that occured decades ago.
I mean no offense to any Indian posters.
LULZ "wronger"