After the two mass shooting that took place in the US last weekend, many politicians have come forward and blamed “violent video games” as the main reason for the deterioration of human values and cause of ever-rising mass shooting incidents.
Following the public condemnation by President Donald Trump, ESPN and ABC have pulled out of broadcasting the upcoming Apex Legends EXP invitational tournament that was scheduled to take place this weekend. As a result, EA has rescheduled the broadcast for the event with no confirmed date as of now.
Unlike other battle royale games, Apex Legends is similar to the cartoonish style of Fortnite and doesn’t feature blood and gore like PUBG, Call Of Duty, Battlefield, etc. But even with ESRB rating of Teen, the first-ever tournament of the game was stopped from broadcasting live on television.
With the Trump administration blaming videos games for the mass shooting and ensuring stricter regulation of the industry many veterans from the gaming industry were left speechless and opposed this decision.
The Entertainment Software Association refuted President Trump’s claims and said:
More than 165 million Americans enjoy video games, and billions of people play video games worldwide. Yet other societies, where video games are played as avidly, do not contend with the tragic levels of violence that occur in the U.S.
Stopping the broadcast of esports tournaments on live television won’t help in curbing the trigger happy mentality of the people. Rather stricter gun laws and better mental health programs will help in improving the overall situation. But the politicians believe otherwise and are only using “video games” as a scapegoat to further delay the talks about stricter gun laws.
