This may not exactly original but i have the urge to ask about it.

Lately there was the Manhunt 2 rating incident that had the whole gaming community up and shouting. Now most people that i have come across say that there should be complete freedom when it comes to creating games. But don't you think that we're slowly crossing the line when games where the main objective is to soley kill people (like in Postal) or where it's recommended to kill to achieve full gameplay experience?

Obviously we've come a long way since Mario Bros, yet shouldn't there be some kind of ethical boundry for games?

What say ye?

Are movies to violent ? Adults buy consoles, why shouldn't there be adult games.  Gaming is not just for kids.

Art imitates life.

I understand your thinking. I see it in a different light since with movies we only are viewers of the "action", if you will. In games though we actually decide what to do...and sometimes just how to do it. Don't those actions that we might actually take say something about us? Our psyche?

No, these violent games are just exceptions.

Naw. Just look at action games on the 2D systems...lots of shooting and blood and such. Though it is more realistic now...I think it's ok...as long as parents keep track of their kids.

I never understood the point behind GTA, I always preferred Driver because as an undercover cop, their was at least some point to killing a bunch of people.

I do think some of them are too violent (like games where you kill anything that moves) but I don't make a uproar over it. I just simply ignore those... I don't get what's fun with that and I'll never understand but I just don't buy those... If some people have fun with that, then let them be...

If we had to supress violence in gaming all we would be left with would be Brain Age, Nintendogs and such (I have nothing against those titles but I would go crazy after some time without Zelda/FF).

Another point is that parents shouldn't blame companies for violent games... If there's anyone to blame, it's them for being dumbass ignorant parents. It's like with movies, they have to get informed about the game to know if the kid's mature enough to play it.

The day that people stop censoring games and accepting them as a medium to show any issue and material, no matter how violent or controversial it may be will be a good day.

It is my perception that American adults are, on the whole, relatively more lenient on the depiction of violence in video game than Japanese are. Of course, this is not to say that Japanese gamers hate violence (e.g. see some violent anime). But I highly doubt that violent games like manhut2 will have the same level of support/appeal in Japan as it has in the US.

What is interesting to me is that American parents are generally very strict about sexual contents while Japanese counterparts don't care that much. Put a few nipples in a game then American parents often go berserk. A cultural difference, I suppose.

I do see that core games have become more violent these days. If American game developers want to succeed in the Japanese market, they might want to trim down the level of violence and instead to put some cute character designs to appease them.

 The Japanese don't care about sexual themes, because it's natural. What they do care about, though, are highly exaggerated violence themes, which is what Americans usually create.