Within the past few years, we've noticed the gaming industry practically destroy itself, with indie dev titles now paving the way for the only enjoyment in gaming that we have left.

The whole point of the game rating index, or ESRB, is to allow consumers to presume what type of game they are buying before they even have to guess a trailer. Does the game have graphic content like violence or substance abuse? Rated M for mature 17+ or AO for adults only if it contains nudity/sexual scenes. A heavily cleansed, family friendly game? E for everyone. Games that focus specifically on child related content like Disney's Frozen, or My little pony? EC for early childhood. 

The problem with this though, is some games have strayed even further, censoring their own content even if it contains M rated material such as blood or violence and is rated at such. Ready or not, a S.W.A.T. first person roleplaying shooter developed by VOID interactive, has decided that it was going to ignore its own M+ ESRB rating, and sensor out blood splats. The entire point of the game is to roleplay the struggles a SWAT officer and their team would have to go through, often including events that are why real life police officers go through PTSD and struggle with depression. Here is the changed that they decided to go and censor:

Twisted Nerve: The girl is now depicted as sleeping instead of convulsing.

A Lethal Obsession: Nudity involving the ghillie suit suspect has been adjusted

Hide and Seek: Female hostages now wear underwear

Narcos: Police informant hostage now wears underwear

23 Megabytes a Second: 'Photo of Minors' objective model was revised, also to better connect narratively with the later 'Sinuous Trail' mission.

Post-mortem dismemberment has been disabled (note: dismemberment for living characters remains unchanged, and can be seen in the latest Vol. 87 dev briefing

in my eyes, nothing besides the photos of minors changes on 23 megabytes mission id acceptable. The game is meant to depict life like situations a swat officer or other rescue teams in law enforcement would sometimes run into. If you say your game is a simulation of something, DONT CENSOR any content that might be encountered in that real life scenario unless it confines you legally to do so.

I know this seems petty and trust me, in its current affliction it probably is. In an age of already bleach washed to death games, games that are too afraid to be "edgey" or politically incorrect, we're staring at simulator style games already censoring themselves when the entire point of a simulator game is to SIMULATE REAL LIFE even if its graphic or violent.

No content outside of child sexual assault material or minor related crimes should be off-limits, provided that the game ESRB is proper and warnings are given. How different would games like Detroit become human be if it didn't show the domestic violence scenes that kara had to go through? How different would Dead island and dying light games be without the gore? 

My grievances are not with the developers, they are with whoever decided to put the censorship of gore content into effect. 

STOP. CENSORING. GAMES.