14 DAY TRIAL // Violent events are far more than a daily occurrence nowadays, and the latest favorite patsy is video games. What rock or rap music were blamed for some time ago is slowly turning towards the gaming industry, as the media or moral groups tend to blame any kind of antisocial behavior on video game violence.
Religious groups demand for mature games to be banned, media companies try to link video games to any kind of real-life crime just to turn nothing into something and governments prohibit more and more mature games from being sold in their countries. And the big game publishers, or at least one of them, are very aware of the environment in which they must survive.
Capcom has had its share of violent, gory and explicit title releases, so it should know very well what kind of problems a misinformed public outcry for game banning can cause, and it anticipates a long and scandal riddled 2010. As the publisher sees the future, its games will be heavily target by the mainstream media, as a “smear campaign” is sure to befall the company. In an official statement released by Capcom, it has voiced these thoughts, and fears that the sale performance of its games could be seriously affected.
“Some of our popular software titles have provocative graphics and text, such as violent and grotesque scenes,” reads the statement. “Accordingly, in the event of violent incidents and other criminal cases involving juveniles, we may be subject to a smear campaign by some sections of the mass media which often point out the correlation between crime and games. Therefore, there is a risk that it may result in having an adverse effect on our business performance, corporate value and narrowed distribution channel under instructions by the relevant authorities.”
While video games have had to put up with this kind of allegations in the past, the thought of things intensifying is a rather bleak one. Game developers and publishers are starting to focus more and more on the casual market, so the public opinion is very important to how games will perform. As for hardcore gamers, the bad news here is that developers might be forced to start moving away from mature games and work more on “public-friendly” ones.