The confirmed censorship policies put in place by Sony on their Playstation Store are, in my humble opinion, some of the most unfair decisions made by video game distributors in recent memory. With the recent crackdown on sexually explicit content, developers and gamers are having their rights to creative expression and media consumption infringed upon.
Sony has a responsibility to provide developers a platform to freely express their creativity in whatever form that may manifest, R-rated or not.
Is the “safety” of children really a higher priority than the freedom of game developers, when even Nintendo is allowing explicit games on their eShop?
Is Sony really so afraid of the social impact of the #MeToo movement that they'll make developers remove features from their games and get anticippated releases delayed?
Of course, I’m not trying to say that explicit content should be made readily available to minors, but why try and tear down the creative freedom of creators, when there are many much better methods available, such as ratings boards and systems, in-store age restrictions and parental control options? These methods and many others have been in place for years and are being used by other distributors and publishers to this day, so why is Sony going for censorship now?
I believe it is in the best interest of consumers, developers, publishers and distributors to bring an end to such censorship in video games, and we as a society should be taking more steps in protecting our right to freedom. Sony’s policies mark the beginning of an end to creative freedom and expression, and we should be doing a lot more to stave off the day where we can no longer enjoy a good old mature game without intruding lens flares and severe content cuts.
