In the several years I have spent on this website, I have seen many stories about attempts to censor video games in many countries. From seemingly censor happy Australia to the relatively censorship free United Kingdom, the world seems engulfed in a debate over the role of video games in society. Fortunately for American gamers, the U.S. Supreme Court recently declared video games to be protected under freedom of speech. This article (and accompanying video) will focus on attempts to demonize and censor video games in the United States. More specifically, we will be focusing on how Fox News repeatedly demonstrate an anti video game bias. This bias is shown by the guests that they have on the air, the "discussions" that Fox News employees have during their shows, and the numerous times that Fox has lied about video games. What lies you ask? Read on and watch the video to find out.
Fox is probably best known for the "Mass Effect sex scene scandal". This interview is included in the video, but the gist of it is that Fox anchors made up that the game featured a full sex scene that gamers were forced to play though. They claimed that the scene was interactive and showed full nudity. In reality, the sex scene was optional. Gamers had to follow a specific dialog tree in the game to access the scene. The scene was entirely in a cut-scene, and there was no interactivity at all. Finally, the ESRB would obviously rate the game AO if it had full nudity. The game featured some partial nudity, which is not at all unusual in games with an M rating (see God of War, GTA). The sensationalist title "se"xbox also does not help. Ironically games that actually do have interactive sex scenes (God of War series) have never been mentioned on Fox.
On the show Red Eye (also featured in the video) it becomes even more evident that Fox News anchors did very little research going into the show. One of the hostesses actually asks what happened to pinball and other classic arcade games, suggesting that she has missed every change in gaming after 1980. They seem to be entirely unaware that video games now commonly have a plot. This type of ignorance leads most of the people on the show to come to incredibly unrealistic conclusions about video games in general, with several suggesting bans.
This opinion piece and the video are all my work and/or protected under fair use. I decided to make this video and write this article because, despite the success of the recent court ruling in the US, many other countries in the world are facing censorship of video games. Even in the U.S. I fear that that battle over video games has not yet quite ended. People like Jack Thompson are unlikely to give up in their endeavors, especially when they are paid so well to do what they do. I hope that my articles and video will continue to inform people about this issue, as gamers around the world must come together to stop groups who wish to slander or censor video games.
Mountains can be moved, opinions too… paradise has never been so presidential in Tropico 7.
Starting today, Game Pass Ultimate drops from $29.99 to $22.99 a month. PC Game Pass will also drop from $16.49 to $13.99 a month. Prices may vary by region.
Beginning this year, future Call of Duty titles won’t join Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass at launch. New Call of Duty games will be added to Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass during the following holiday season (about a year later), while existing Call of Duty titles already in the library will continue to be available.
Its nice there is some kind of drop... but is that all they really value CoD to be, a lousy $7 a month?
I was hoping it would drop by $10.
Can’t wait to hear how this will be spun extremely positive. 🤣
I wonder why knowing Microsoft thick head something must has happened in the background in the levels of Xbox one and Kinect 🤷🏿
Well, they're removing their biggest game from being Day 1 on the service so GamePass users can buy it instead. That's the intention.
They increased the price to $30, then removed COD and dropped it to still be above the old price.
It's an understandable compromise but the consumer Ultimately is getting less.
Think the calculation is that *most* COD users don't play that many games and aren't interested in GamePass. The GamePass users who do like COD would just buy it anyway. MS reportedly lost out a lot of money last year putting COD on GamePass.
Well Call of duty could just be the beginning. What other games can they trim from the service to get the price down? How long before it's just the Xbox core first party studio games and not the one to everquired?
Create an interesting scenario with Call of duty as well. Will people wait a year to play it? Does that split the fan base? Will it hurt to Call of duty more than a benefits Game pass? These are all legitimate questions which we will find the answers to in the coming years
And I don't consider my post negative spin just realistic observation. At the very least this backtracking can be seen as an admittance that the previous strategy of gamepass was not sustainable as most of us said.
They’ll say no one is buying game pass so they had to drop the price , even though it’s been extremely profitable.
In my region, it’s still more expensive than it was before the last price hike, but it’s a far more viable price point.
Losing Call of Duty from the service, honestly, has zero effect on me, and given they chose to make it so, it’s probably not the big seller they originally thought. Overall, it’s really good news, but I still think they have work to do on the tier structure, having Premium and PC at the same price point with different features feels odd.
Yep take COD out. Them waiting a year is interesting but it make sense. They don't want certain ppl waiting 4 to 6 months they want fomo and maximum sales. Wait a year while the new one releases.
Ok so far so good.
Today, Team Coreupt officially announced its next title in development, an action and hack-and-slash game called Kirk Mephisto.
Fox is trying to force their views on everyone just like the other news companies like MSNBC, CNN, etc... Although sometimes I think they are just trolling.
Its Fox News, since when did anyone with a brain care what they say?
One thing ill pick you up on though is that Australia isnt censor happy at all, its just that we have stupid laws in place that mean we currently dont have an 18+ category for games, and in order to get one the attorney generals for all the states have to agree that we need one. There has only been a push for the 18+ rating recently, and for most of that time a nutter (AKA fairly hardcore Christian) has been one of the attorney generals and voted it down. He's gone now, so hopefully we will be getting an R18 category soon.