Abstract:
We all know about the havoc created by AI generated deepfakes. Today virtual images have become so real that it’s practically impossible to distinguish between reality and virtuality. One of the many industries which were completely revolutionized due to this innovation is the gaming industry. Such level of hyper-realistic simulation would make anyone believe in the Simulation Theory which states that what we humans experience as the world is actually a simulated reality.
This hyperrealism in video games makes us feel as if though we are living the experience in the real world even though the events are actually taking place in the virtual world. One feels as if he is, driving the F1 racing cars, flying the battle helicopters, cooking food, petting animals as well as fighting and killing the characters and experiencing the sexual content in the video games, in reality. These virtual graphics have become so realistic that the person consuming such content feels as if he is experiencing it in reality. What consuming such content in excess does is, such a
person becomes more and more insensible towards these evils which are unwanted by the society. The person may become so obsessed with such experiences that he may crave to practice those in reality when he feels that experiencing these in virtuality isn’t enough.
Now, it is not that realism is the main culprit here but it surely have added to the already existing problem that the society has with vulgar dialogues, suggestive and violent themes and storylines that video games come with.
Some people maybe of the opinion that banning these video games will solve all the problems. But we have two major problems with such opinion.
- The story and graphics in a video game is protected by the right of expression.
- Video games have become such an innate element in the world that it cannot be discarded.
In this paper we are going to understand in detail how violence and adult content in video games impact us negatively, the various rules and regulations that have been enforced by different countries and if they are enough to tackle these problems.
Keywords:
Video games, Virtual world, Violence, Pornography, Gaming laws, Virtual Violence.
Introduction:
The gaming industry was estimated to be about $217.06 billion in 2022. In such a juggernaut of an industry we are bound to find a diverse plethora of genres of video games like RPG, action, adventure, simulation and the list goes on. Now in order to efficiently understand the impact of suggestive and violent contents in video games on its players we need to choose a specific category of games. This is because the gaming genres are so diverse and scattered that it will not be possible to analyse every single genre. In this paper we would only be dealing with the areas which ought to be more impactful.
The criteria we have set to choose the games are:
- Popularity- Games with a large number of downloads and active players. This will give us the games which are in trend and thus have a higher chance of impacting the masses.
- Streaming- Games which are getting streamed on platforms like Youtube, Twitch. We included this because even the game is being played by one individual the content of the game is getting absorbed by people around the globe. Thus they are getting impacted by it.
- E-sports- The games which are being used for e-sport tournaments. In recent years esports have become a big thing with prize pools as huge as $4o million. These tournaments reach viewership of 6.4 million, therefore they have a huge fan following.
Therefore even though games like Subway Surfers, Temple Run, and Candy Crush have a lot of downloads and active players but we are not going to consider them for this research as they are not played at e-sport events and streamed as much as games like Call of Duty, GTA, League of Legends, Tomb Raider, etc. As a rule of thumb we can say that for this research paper we are only going to consider Teen and Mature rated games.
Violence and sexual content in video games is nothing new. In a research published by “MedGenMed” in 20041 it was found that from a sample of 81 T-rated games (games suitable for 13 years and above) 98% involved “intentional violence” and 90% of the games required or rewarded the players to injure characters. It was also stated that on an average 122 deaths per hour of game play totaling in 11,499 deaths in the 81 game titles was observed.
Another research made in 20182 on video games released in between 1994-2013 found that about 13% of video games contend sexual content. Mature rated games had 34.5% of sexual content, Teen rated 30.7% and E10 rated (ages 10 and older) had 21.3%. The top sellers depicted an excess adult content of 10.1% during the study period. Additionally it was found that in video games that has been rated as suited for the teen and matured consumers the quantity of sexual content has increased over the past 20 years.
Similarly a study done to understand the effects of playing videogames with sexualized female characters found that game-playing with a sexualized woman may instill tolerance for sexual harassment and acceptance of rape myths3.
In a research done to study the relation that exists between the prevalence of violence in video games and the level of aggression in thoughts and behaviour, a positive correlation was found between the repeated exposure to violent video games and the rise in the level of aggression in one’s behaviour and thinking pattern. In total three experiments were conducted. In the first experiment it was found that the consumption of video games with prevalence of violent content increases the levels of aggression in thought process. In the second and the third experiment it was discovered that the consumption of this violent content increases levels of aggression even when the arousal and affects were controlled4.
Another experiment conducted to understand the relation between the prevalence of violence in video games and the physiological desensitization of violence in the real life demonstrated that playing violent video games even just for 20 min can make a person less physiologically aroused by real violence. It concluded that when players consume violent gaming content they get used to such kind of violence and gradually become numb to it5.
If we try to find real world evidence of violence caused by game addicts we can many such incidents. Some of them are:
- In the 1999 shoot outs at Colombia High School the two teenage shooters were reported to have played Doom a pioneering first person shooter game.
- A 33 year old Norwegian who killed 33 people was reported to have trained from the popular video game Call Of Duty.
- The 2012 Aurora Theater shooter who killed 12 and injured 58 was found to have an obsession with violent role playing games.
Now as we have understood the prevalence of suggestive and violent content in video games and also how grave of a problem it creates in the society, we are going to look at the various government initiatives started to prevent such issues. We are also going to analyse them and see if they are enough to control the ever increasing harmful impacts that violent and suggestive video game contents have on the society.
Research Methodology:
This is a descriptive paper and it comprehensively researches on the impact of violent and sexual contents present in video games on the players and consumers of such content. It also explores the dynamic landscape of laws regulating these genres of games and also seeks to find the loopholes present on such laws. Secondary sources like articles, journals newspapers, laboratory experiments and research papers of authors from around the globe has been sited to get a holistic understanding of the topics this paper is based on.
Review of Literature:
- Violent and Sexual content- Haninger K, Ryan MS, Thompson KM. “Violence in teen-rated video games” helped us in understanding the amount of violent content present in video games. It showed how the top rated games depicted more violence than the others.
- American Legislations- “Exposure of Video Games to Children and Public Policy Implications” by Joel E. Collier, Pearson Liddell Jr, and Gloria J. Liddell helpd us with comprehensively understanding the domain of gaming legislation in the U.S.A.
- Indian Legislations- “Sexual Violence depicted against Women in Video Games: The Effect of Virtual World on the Real World” by Ahmar Afaq & Mohd. Imran gave us all the information regarding the Indian legislations governing video games.
Method:
American Legislation6:
America is one of the first nations to lead the rest of the world in the domain of laws relating to the content of video games. The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is a self-regulatory, non-profit organisation is responsible for categorising video games on the basis of the content of the games and also which games are suited for which age groups across USA. It was established in 1994 by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) to tackle the problem of excess violence and sexual content in video games following the release of Mortal Combat, Night Trap and Doom.
Rating process- For obtaining a rating the publisher of the game submits a comprehensive questionnaire which describes the graphics and extremity of the content present in the game, along with a video document demonstrating this content. This information includes the context, storyline, game mechanics present in the game as well as the all other elements that may affect its rating. After this information is reviewed and deemed to be complete and appropriate by the ESRB staff, it is sent for further testing to no less than 3 different anonymous raters. These raters are taken from different demographics like parents along with casual and hardcore gamers. After this review is done the publisher receives the final report as to what rating the game will carry.
There are a total of 6 age based ratings and 31 content descriptors. The age based ratings are:
- RP- Rating Pending. It is used in promotional materials for games which have not been rated yet.
- RP LIKELY MATURE 17+ – It is used in promotional materials for games which have not been rated yet but anticipated to carry a “Mature” rating.
- E – Everyone. This rating means the game is suitable for all ages. These games are believed to contain minimal or no violence and mild language.
- E 10+ – This means the mage is suited for everyone who is 10 or more years of age. It may include infrequent use of mild violence, moderate language, and mild suggestive themes.
- T- Teen. These games are suited for ages 13 and above and contains violence, suggestive themes, and moderate to strong language.
- M- Mature- Games with this rating are for ages 17 and more. It includes intense violence, strong language, sexual content, drug abuse and nudity.
- AO- Adults Only 18+ – Games with these rating are limited to only 18 years and above ages. These games contain prolonged scenes of intense violence, blood, and graphic sexual content.
Content descriptors provide details specific types and levels of improper content such as violence, language, nudity, drugs, blood and other objectionable themes of such nature.
Problems:
“We can use things like the American Constitution’s guarantee of free speech as a shield to legitimize virtually any content . Indeed, the very essence of art is that it has no boundaries.”- Doug Lowenstein the then President of ESA. With statement like this from the organizations that was meant to regulate the objectionable content in video games we can understand what priorities of the organization are.
The legislation regarding the prevalence of repulsive content in video games has never been successful due to the following problems.
- The legislation of the USA has equated violence with sexually obscene content. The Supreme court of the U.S.A in Winters v. New York 1948, pp. 518-20 has recognized the difference between vulgar and violent speech content. Despite this long standing rule the legislature always tries to legally equate the two, this is very much evident from the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down the ban on the sale of violent games by California. The court hinted that if the wordings “to plow new legal ground by equating violent video games with pornography” had contained sexual violence instead, the court would have ruled differently.
- Secondly the legislature has failed to prove that violent video games psychological harm the children. Though there are multiple researches as well as real life evidences showing that violent have detrimental impact on children the courts cannot take decision based on any conjecture. In the judgment of United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group Inc. 2000, p. 822 the court stated they will not entertain any conjectural harm, the legislature must demonstrate that actual harm that is caused and that the regulations will reduce these harms directly.
- The third shortcoming is that the legislature has not been able to narrowly tailor the least restrictive means to impose legislation to restrict access to violent games. One of the reasons for this is their unconstitutionally vague wordings. The state of Washington tried to enact H.B. 1009 to regulate the sale of goods portraying violence towards law enforcement officers. The courts concluded that it was too wide and suppressive. Even a E 10+ rated game would require the person to be above 18 years of age to purchase the game.
Indian Legislation7:
In India the last few years saw a humongous boom in the gaming industry. This boom is particularly because of the availability of cheap gaming devices and internet. India has become one of the top 5 mobile gaming market and the gaming industry is expected to reach 153 Billion rupees by 2024. Even though India has encountered such unparalleled growth in the gaming industry there is still no law specifically made to govern the contents of the games.
However there are some laws which are used to regulate the objectionable contents in video games. These are-
- Indian Constitution- Article 19 of the Indian Constitution just like the American First Amendment Rights gives the right of free speech and expression. Art 19(2) however restricts this right by adding the criteria that only the speech and expression that is decent and moral will be protected by Art 19. Art 39(f) states “that children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity and that childhood and youth are protected against exploitation and against moral material abandonment”. This article can be used to put up the argument that video games with violent and suggestive content are harmful for the proper psychological development of children.
- “The Bharatiya Nyaya (Second) Sanhita”, 2023- Section 294 of this act prohibits “sale”, “hire”, “distribution” and “public exhibition” of any obscene material. Here though video games have not been mentioned but in subsection (1) out of many things “obscene” item has also been defined as “display of any content in electronic form” this is exactly what video games are “electronic visuals”. Section 295 separately extends the regulation mentioned in sec 294 to children.
- “Information and Technology Act” , 2000- Section 67 of this Act further states the same thing that whoever publishes any material which is obscene through electronic from. Sec 67A of this act further states that publishing or transmitting materials containing sexually explicit acts in electronic form is punishable.
- “Indecent Representation of Women [Prohibition] Act”, 1986- This Act punishes the representation of women in an indecent manner through “advertisement publication”, “writings”, “paintings”, “figures”, or in any other manner. Sec 6 of this Act penalizes any person, taking part in any of such activities. This provision can be utilized to regulate how women are depicted in the video games.
- “The Young Person’s (Harmful Publication) Act” 1956- It prevents the publication of “book”, “magazine”, “leaflet”, “newspaper” or other similar publications consisting of stories told with the aid of pictures or without the aid of pictures or entirely in pictures portraying the “(i) commission of offences” or “(ii) act of violence or cruelty” or “(iii)indecent of a repulsive or horrible nature” which would “corrupt a young person, whether by inciting or encouraging him to commit offences or acts of violence or cruelty”4. Here a young person is anyone who is 20 years or lower.
Conclusion:
In the “11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11)”, the World Health Organization included “gaming disorder” in its list of mental disorders. Gaming disorder has been defined as a pattern of digital or video gaming disorder which is includes impaired control over gaming and increased priority given to gaming over other activities so such an extreme extent that gaming takes precedence over daily necessities, and continued escalation of gaming despite such negative consequences.
WHO states that gaming disorder results in significant damage to personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning and these would be present for at least 12 months. The WHO decided to include this disorder in the ICD-11 so as to-
- Develop treatment programs for people with this condition.
- Direct the attention of health professionals around the world towards the risks of development of this disorder and, accordingly find relevant prevention and treatment measures.
It is high time for India to enact a law specifically for the regulating the content of video games. India doesn’t even have its own rating system therefore it cannot efficiently restrict the access of video games with intense violence and sexually graphic content to the children. This is a huge shortcoming considering the detrimental effects that we have seen objectionable and violent video games have on the children.
Application of the Miller Test (Miller v. California, 1973) can be of tremendous help when it comes to the question of which content should and should not be completely banned. The Miller test has three parts:
“If the average person, applying contemporary community standards, finds that the work as a whole appeals to a prurient interest,”
“If the work depicts or describes sexual conduct or excretory functions in a patently offensive way,”
“If the work taken as a whole taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value,”
If all the three are present then the work is considered to be obscene.
Another important legislation that can be used to reduce the impact of violent and sexual games is to limit the daily usage of the games. Restricting the daily consumption of such content could help prevent people from getting addicted to such themes.
Lastly as J. Patanjali in A.K. Gopalan Case has stated that “man as a rational being desires to do many things, but in a civil society his desires will have to be controlled with the exercise of similar desires by other individuals”. The legislators need to keep this in mind and try to tailor a reasonable restriction policy for limiting the consumption of violent and adult contents prevalent in video games.
-Debjit Khan, Student, Department of Law, Calcutta University.
References:
1 Haninger K, Ryan MS, Thompson KM. Violence in teen-rated video games. MedGenMed. 2004 Mar 11;6(1):1. PMID: 15208514; PMCID: PMC1140725.
2 Vidaña-Pérez D, Braverman-Bronstein A, Basto-Abreu A, Barrientos-Gutierrez I, Hilscher R, Barrientos-Gutierrez T. Sexual content in video games: an analysis of the Entertainment Software Rating Board classification from 1994 to 2013. Sex Health. 2018 Jun;15(3):209-213. doi: 10.1071/SH17017. PMID: 29321095.
3 Driesmans K, Vandenbosch L, Eggermont S. Playing a Videogame with a Sexualized Female Character Increases Adolescents’ Rape Myth Acceptance and Tolerance Toward Sexual Harassment. Games Health J. 2015 Apr;4(2):91-4. doi: 10.1089/g4h.2014.0055. Epub 2014 Dec 17. PMID: 26181802.
4 Tracy Markle, Video Games… Do they contribute to violence? Digital Media, https://digitalmediatreatment.com/video-games-do-they-contribute-to-violence/
5 Nicholas L. Carnagey, Craig A. Anderson, Brad J. Bushman, The effect of video game violence on physiological desensitization to real-life violence, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 43, Issue 3, 2007, Pages 489-496, ISSN 0022-1031
6 Joel Collier, Pearson Liddell Jr., and Gloria J. Liddell, Exposure of Violent Video Games to Children and Public Policy Implications, May 2008.
7[1] Ahmar Afaq, Mohd Imran, Sexual Violence depicted against Women in Video Games: The Effect of Virtual World on the Real World, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3654016