Controversial American talk-back radio host Rush Limbaugh has spoken out against video game censorship.
Speaking with a caller about the impending US Supreme Court case that could deprive video games of 1st Amendment protection, and thus make them subject to increased scrutiny and censorship, Limbaugh slammed Schwarzenegger’s putsch to put the federal government in direct control of what games Americans are allowed to play.
Your video game is your video game and you don’t think the government should have any role whatsoever in applying any artistic sanction to it or any stamp of approval — you can say that but you can’t say that — because that’s not permitted. The market should determine this…
If you want to buy something raunchy in a video game, you should be allowed to, and if it’s too raunchy the market won’t support it? Fine, it dies.
If the market likes it, then we got a cultural problem to deal with, but the government ought to have nothing to do with it…
If you’re gonna tell people they can’t watch a raunchy video game then how do you allow 90% of what’s on HBO or Showtime in terms of their original programming?
You can read the transcript in full by clicking here. This is not the first time Limbaugh has defended the rights of gamers — three years ago he stated that it would be wrong to blame the V-Tech massacre on the influence of violent video games.