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The Defenders: More porn and violence popping up in video games

Fortnite is the one we keep hearing about. But now some Charlotte-area moms are raising the red flag over some video games they say could be even more harmful -- and not just to the kids playing them.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Nudity in video games is nothing new, but a new game takes an especially aggressive approach and has moms everywhere -- including right here in Charlotte – on high alert.

Fortnite is the one we keep hearing about. But now some Charlotte-area moms are raising the red flag over some video games they say could be even more harmful -- and not just to the kids playing them.

“The porn industry has creeped in. They’ve figured out the video game market is a market they want to be in,” said Melanie Hempe who runs Families Managing Media.

She has serious concerns about the amount of porn now popping up in mainstream games. A recent study from the National Center on Sex Exploitation found the number of games with nudity on the largest digital distributor site, Steam, nearly doubled from last year to this year with nudity in more than 1600 games right now.

"When a teen is exposed to silent porn, it changes the whole way they think about relationships."

There’s also concern over the increasingly violent nature of the nudity in games.

"The heavy gamers do have a very different view of dating. This is the culture when they get to college, on Tinder, never had a lot of experience, their impression of women and sex is through porn, video games, violent porn and that somehow gets normalized in their brain.”

Steam recently released the first ever 100 percent uncensored game that some say promotes sex abuse.

"This is happening all the time with young boys. They're playing these games, and they're learning about their sexuality and how to treat women through these games and its opposite of what the whole #metoo movement talks about."

Families Managing Media started off as a grassroots movement but is now a well-oiled machine because so many parents are looking for guidance when it comes to their kids and video games.

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