Opinion: Revocation of Chicago’s game ad ban reminds us of gamers’ responsibilities, rights

As an avid video gamer, I know all too well the extent people go through to ban certain games in their stores and businesses, especially game advertisements.

The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is guilty of this by recently banning advertisements of more violent and racy video and computer games on its trains, buses and stations. This is not only a violation of free speech but, by doing so, CTA is intentionally singling out video games to ban, seeing as it still advertises movies and TV no matter how violent or racy they are.

However, the US Supreme court decided that enough is enough and last Thursday (January 7, 2010) by issuing an injunction against the CTA saying that it must lift the ban at least until the case is finally resolved, which was a huge victory for the gaming industry who seems to deal with tons of prejudice.

By choosing to ban specifically video games, the CTA is attacking the video game industry as a whole, which leads me to wonder why are they singling out video games, and furthermore, why is the CTA being picky about what they advertise at all? They get paid by advertisers to put up their stuff, so they are basically getting money to fund their buses and trains (or whatever they choose to do with the money) by video game companies, and the company in-turn gets to have their product advertised on buses and terminals all over America. It’s win win. Maybe they decided that saving America from the evil threat of video games was worth more than extra money in their pockets.

This is also not the first time us gamers had to suffer because businesses decided to be America’s parents. How often have you gone to a mom-and-pop game store only to find out it doesn’t carry games like Grand Theft Auto and Fable because they are “not appropriate?”

As long as we are adults who understand the extent of violence in these games, we should be allowed to make the decision to buy a game. If you are a parent who does not want your child to play a violent game, then that is your choice, not the stores. This kind of behavior is infringing on the rights of us gamers.

There is a group that understands the need to end these bans, and that’s the The Video Game Voters Network (VGVN). The VGVN is an organization where gamers can unite and defend against threats to video games by registering to vote to let Congress know how serious a problem this issue is to the community. Perhaps you never realized how serious the problem is getting but think of this sort of action (the banning of games and advertising) as a threat to our first amendment rights. The VGVN is constantly in the fight – and looking for people to help – to protect against any possible violations to our rights as gamers

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Photo Source: EdgeOnline