Pushing Back

Why? Violent and pornographic movies are fine because they're intended for adults. Videogames with violent or sexual content, on the other hand - and we're not even approaching the level of either that can be found in everyday movie releases - apparently are not; the obvious implication being that even after all these years, videogames are still "for kids."

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Yeah, you know what? How FUN are those pronographic or violent video games?

I can't take this sort of nonsense anymore. I don't care about 'moral decency', I care about playing a game that's FUN. There are many games out there that has no violence, no porno, nothing at all, instead, focusing on gameplay rather than graphics, storyline instead of 'cheap thrills'.

Do I really need to see blood to know I killed someone? Do I really need to see me having sex to know that my girlfriend loves me? No. We don't. If you really have to see "blood" or "sex", go on Youtube. You play a game to entertain yourself, mostly by pressing buttons in order to acheive a goal and complete it. So instead of wasting time ensuring that the
OMGZCONTERVERSY scenes look right, why not devote the time to fixing the stuff that makes our games overly complex and utterly forgettable.

Well, you know what? I can't take letting people defend stupidity any longer. We must move beyond violence and sex, and try having games that can dig deeper and actually might be important. Peacemaker, Hidden Agenda, Balance of Power, whatever. Even Zuma is better than most junk FPSes out there.

Yes, The Escapist, I am pushing back too.

SilentScope001:

Do I really need to see blood to know I killed someone? Do I really need to see me having sex to know that my girlfriend loves me?

Still, imagine where other entertainment would be if they took that same approach. Right off the bat: no Sopranos.

"I suppose it's easy to be cavalier about censorship when it's applied to something you dislike or just don't care about, but the game's quality is absolutely irrelevant."

I agree totally in theory, and I agree totally that people shouldn't want to see any game get censored regardless of quality, but let me give a different take on the issue in terms of real-world strategy.

Think of the days of the PMRC. We all got lucky in that Dee Snyder was an articulate and thoughtful witness, and out of the blue John Denver came in to defend freedom from misinterpretation.

Maybe some of the relief is because Manhunt 2 and Rock Star games are no Dee Snyder and John Denver. Maybe some of that sentiment comes not from the conclusion that this game isn't worth defending, but that this game is indefensible. That this is some of the most unfavorable 'ground' to fight this 'battle' on one can imagine.

You don't need to see blood to know you've killed someone or sex to know you with your lover but thats what actually happens in real life, if you shoot someone or have a girl friend.
All i'd like to for games to actual sometimes reflect the harsh reality we live in, not this kid mentality that everyone has green blood when they get shot :P

I usually like Fox News, but only one person in this story seemed to have half a brain (the last guy at the table). Even the "video game expert" from Spike was retarded. Of course, this story would've probably played out the same way on any other major network.

Anyway, I have not played Mass Effect nor do I watch much network television, but I'm guessing that EA was right when they said that Mass Effect is no worse than most prime time television shows. +1 to them for using their pedestal to shoot back. They need all the help they can get in my book.

eh the article as where i know talks about why the games are so... blamed and all that when we see stuff like the movies saw or hostel going into the cinema without trouble

TheNecroswanson:
What?

++

@jedimario: That you usually like Fox News makes me want to ignore you outright, but maybe my view of Fox News is skewed, since I only ever see clips shown me by The Daily Show. They've got to be cherry-picking, to find that many outrageous, ridiculous items, even from a 24 hour news network. So we'll put my prejudice aside for the moment.

I agree that the last guy to talk made sense, and while I disagree with his root assumption that the media is full of horrible things that your children need protecting from, I wholeheartedly agree with his solution: it is up to the parents to take the initiative in their children's lives.

I would be interested to know why you think Geoff Keighley was "retarded"? To me, he seemed to handle having blatant lies thrown at him pretty well. He didn't devolve into name-calling (as, I think, most of us would), he simply held his ground that what they were saying was simply untrue, and called them on their ignorance.

[sarcastically inflammatory]And, lastly, I will be happy to accept that this story would've played out the same way on any other major network, as soon as you point me to a video of another major news network playing a segment with blatant disregard for fact-checking, and intentionally inflammatory headlines across the bottom. Go ahead, I'll wait. (I'll be patient, as I've been told that reality has a well-known liberal bias.) [/sarcastically inflammatory]

Malygris:
Howling about injustice on gaming forums and Facebook may be cathartic, but it doesn't amount to much in the real world; that kind of demographic impotence, real or not, can spur individuals, organizations and even governments to reckless and agenda-driven behavior, based entirely on the belief that they can act with impunity.

As much as I totally agree with your position in this piece, there's definitely an appreciable irony to the fact that you're preaching to the choir right now.

And while it is nice to see an industry entity stand up and speak like a respectable adult for once, I hunger for a direct avenue of action myself. But how do we get the world to listen? Major news outlets don't have as much interest in what Thaddeus: Video Game Geek and Freelance Writer has to say about how gaming is just a "new" form of art/entertainment, no more crippling than any that came before.

I guess the thing that sickens me most is seeing people swallow this cultural policing line that politicians so love to pitch. Censorship makes my skin crawl to a nearly embarrassing degree. Honestly, I pay more attention to this issue than I do to what I'm told are serious social problems, like drugs and violence.

What can I say? I see it as thought-murder.

If people want to keep their kids away from violent video games, why not just... oh, I don't know: pay attention to what their kids are doing? And I know they don't. I've worked retail. I've seen parents not care.

But I'm just choir-preaching, too.

Maybe we should start an anti-censorship viral campaign.

I really don't see what all the fuss is about with the supposed threat of anti-videogame legislation. I've said it before, videogames make far to much money, and are the profit instruments of too many enormous companies, to ever see significant legislative restriction.

Ten or fifteen years ago the prospect of legislative consequences against videogames was far more real than it is today. The industry was relatively small and vulnerable. Now the videogame industry is thoroughly vested in the interests of shareholders at large. We will see more games become "examples", but this will not slow consumer's demand for the GTA's of the future, nor will legislators have any desire to impede fuel for the ever important consumer economy.

Also Americans shouldn't be too concerned about The Manhunt 2 ruling in Britain. Britain's censorship standards are notoriously fickle such that a movie like A Clockwork Orange can be banned from the screens for decades. Americans have seen some effects of the moral majority with the current conservative administration, particularly in the aftermath of "nipple gate". By and large though censorship has largely remained untouched. The porn industry, expecting a crackdown of Reagan administration proportions, retains Clinton era regulations. The Supreme Court, with a decidedly conservative lean, essentially struck down laws regulating sexual acts between consenting adults. All this is to say that, despite a political atmosphere that could've have created significant reinterpretations of first amendment rights, censorship in the mass entertainment media remains largely unchanged.

I can't take this sort of nonsense anymore. I don't care about 'moral decency', I care about playing a game that's FUN. There are many games out there that has no violence, no porno, nothing at all, instead, focusing on gameplay rather than graphics, storyline instead of 'cheap thrills'.

Your comment is pretty irrelevant; You seem to be missing the point of free speech. Allow me to summarize:

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
-Voltaire (not really - http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Voltaire#Misattributed )

The author even specifically says in the article, the quality of Manhunt 2 (or any other "shock" game for that matter) isn't relevant. It's the fact that some people don't even have the legal right to obtain such materials. I find that a disturbing state of affairs in the UK. In the US, no matter what the ESRB and retail stores say, you can always sell it yourself via downloads or mail-order or whatever. Correct me if I'm wrong about the UK.

But how do we get the world to listen?

Apparently we have to pick a relevant book and give it the worst reviews ever on Amazon.com in order to get some attention. :) The article references EA's very unthreatening letter directed at Fox News, but Fox News has done NOTHING to apologize for such crappy reporting. The retraction was from the author, who clearly did so because her book was not likely to sell with 95% 1-star ratings after 400 ratings.

It really depends on the source, though. When its a news program, it's probably a program that gamers don't watch (eg Fox News), so we can't do anything (like stop watching). When its Jackie boy, he gets his money from the grieving family members of psychotic teenagers, so there's not much we can do there either. I think what made this different was that the source of the lies was someone who we could indirectly target, via Amazon and other book review sites, as a group.

We should try that again sometime :)

I've said it before, videogames make far to much money, and are the profit instruments of too many enormous companies, to ever see significant legislative restriction.

I would think Manhunt 2 is empirical evidence to the contrary. Would you say being prevented from releasing a AAA title on schedule due to some bureaucrats' opinions on family values is not a "significant... restriction"?

As I said, some games will become examples, but they will be few and far between. And the occaisional game that becomes a politician's example, will not have an effect on the overall liberalization of game content. I think that more often than not games that will have publicized censorships will have received that treatment because they were looking for negative attention as a sales tool. Mass Effect wasn't looking to stir up controversey, and as a result it has been successfully and publically defended, in spite of mainstream criticism. Likewise Bully never received attention for its most subversive act, the option for male on male kissing, because it simply wasn't marketed for that feature, nor is that really the point of the game.

Finally, people will say that GTA San Andreas never marketed, nor even really made available, its "hot coffee" sex minigame either, but it proved to be an explosive issue because the game mixes violence and illegal activities in such a way that the minigame becomes a gratuitous exercise in an already controversial and violent atmosphere.

its starting to feel to me that the legistlature feel that this is a easy win fo them. Its been annoying me for a while now we know the truth about videogames, its just telling everybody else thats the hard part. Video Games are awesome.

Video game sexuality is just creepy anyway. Most who think otherwise needs to lay off the hentai.

It usually doesn't add anything to the game that couldn't be done just as well w/o it. I'm tired of "because we can" being a supposedly good reason for this stuff.

I always find it a bit funny when people tend to go up in arms about such things, but seemingly seem to have little knowledge of a neighboring country, namely Germany, which actually has a sort of screening (more like censorship) bureau just for these type of games. During my years growing up there plenty of games had been banned, only available "behind the counter," or altered in some fashion in order to garner that much wanted store shelf space. Zombies in Carmageddon and cyborgs in the C&C games, anyone? Yes, it was pretty dumb.

Well, I haven't lived there for the last ten years, but I'm pretty sure that institution still exists. Talk about taking away a gamer's freedo