Emmanuel Williams
English 1101
Professor Jewell
November 23, 2019
More Solutions Than Problems
The problem that I am presenting is on how the YouTube company wants to censor the amount of violence that some games present. Such as fighting games that have blood and gore in them, but the only reason that YouTube trying to censor those games being easily accessible to watch is because the sponsors who support YouTube wants to keep the split between what is considered adult content and what is considered kid content. So to keep the content under control YouTube decides to keep the game from being streamed by gamers accessible to everyone unless they meet the age requirement. Additionally, this may affect society to have a domino effect may occur. Where fewer views for YouTubers means less pay for them and fewer views means that people won’t know about certain games coming out which then means those games will get sold less and eventually that company selling the game will go out of business. So ultimately, the censoring can have a lot of really bad effects on gamers, youtubers, and the economy for gaming companies.
Gamers are facing danger of having certain games being available for them. Especially games that contain blood and gore inside them. For example, YouTuber Upper Echelon Gamers made a video on how the censorship of violent games might affect him and other gaming broadcasters. From his point of view, he sees that this will actually create a problem with how gamers will get information on games coming out or even updates on a game that is already out. (https://youtu.be/JBOVAh3Fb4A). Upper Echelon Gamers goes further on to explain that the effects of how games are priced and what this does to the economy for companies and games together seems detrimental. But he also brings up a point that the widely played game of Fortnite, which is just as violent but without blood, doesn’t make it easier for his argument because he is at a disadvantage to bring in a rebuttal.
Another source would be an article talking about how Youtube is the biggest source of gameplay for a lot of gamers. There was at least 850 million people who watched YouTube for game play in 2018. With big numbers like that Youtube should promote more gameplay rather than take away, even if it is on bloody content. The source that I found was also explaining that MortalKombat11 the hot new fighting game out for the year wasn’t selling as good as it was supposed to due to most gamers not even knowing about it first hand, and with that, the game didn’t make as much profit as it should have. (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newsweek.com/mortal-kombat-11-youtube-content-algorithms-rules-1400525%3famp=1).
An additional source of information that I found seems to show that video games being censored by Youtube won’t solve the problem of how violent kids are or even how other kids may buy the game. The article proves that there are other factors of people that can cause young gamers to be violent, which seems to be their environment and their IQ level. Also, people can purchase other violent content other than video games, and according to the article, it can also have the same effect on young kids so censoring games won’t actually help the matter because it will simply transfer over to other content. And that will leave game creators at a disadvantage because they won’t be about to figure out games in their platform that will be good enough to get out there in the media of Youtube to get sold. (https://techcrunch.com/2012/12/20/violent-video-games-do-cause-some-violence-but-censorship-wont-help/).
Dear Youtubes’ chairmen,
I know that you aren’t trying to take away gamers right to watch what they please but with the more regulations you have it can actually have an effect on some YouTube gaming channels. Some channels can’t post anymore of their gaming content and other channels are getting shut down because of this censorship. The censorship can also put those YouTubers out of business since they are getting either lower views or no views at all. If that’s the case then the channels can’t make as much money as they used to. Being that you guys are supported through sponsors there are rules that you have to follow as well, for one the free will to watch what you want should be one of them. If you want to make sure the split between adult content and kids’ content is kept separate then there are other ways to do that rather than regulating everyone’s content. First off, I do have evidence that there are YouTube channels and YouTubers from an article called the verge, and it explains how YouTube has been damaging some people channels and their livelihood. (https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/1/12753108/youtube-is-over-party-advertising-monetization-censorship). That article speaks a lot on the effects YouTube censoring certain content really can have horrible effects on multiple channels, which is unfair to those YouTubers because some have taken a while to make them reach the point they’re at. Now, all that hard work and dedication is down the drain for some of them. Another source that I have found additionally shows that parents are the ones who can tell their child or teenagers what they can and can’t play. If they seem to get out of line that shouldn’t be anyone else’s fault since it’s between the parent and the child. The source also uses the first amendment right to prove their point. (https://www.firstamendment.com/game-censorship/). Lastly, I would like to propose that you provide an option where there are just parental controls to regulate the censorship, so the parent and child can have more control over what content they are allowed to see. Also, there should be an option where you get to choose for yourself if you can watch the video or not.
Sincerely,
Emmanuel Williams
Work Cited
https://youtu.be/JBOVAh3Fb4A. Upper Echelon Gamers. 2019 YouTube. April 22, 2019.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newsweek.com/mortal-kombat-11-youtube-content-algorithms-rules-1400525%3famp=1. Steven Asarch. 2019 Newsweek. April 18, 2019.
https://techcrunch.com/2012/12/20/violent-video-games-do-cause-some-violence-but-censorship-wont-help/. Gregory Ferenstein. TechCrunch. December 20, 2012.
https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/1/12753108/youtube-is-over-party-advertising-monetization-censorship. Adi Robertson. The Verge. September 1, 2016.
https://www.firstamendment.com/game-censorship/. Lawrence G. Walters. Walters Law Group. Walters Law Group 2001-2019.
