Censorship Hypocrisy; Games vs Movies
By Ravenhawk | October 29, 2007
In a recent gamesindustry.biz editorial Johnny Minkley discussed the grand hypocrisy and controversy surrounding the British Board of Film Classification presently. A rather commonly known story by now; The BBFC refused to give a rating to Manhunt 2, even after the game was revised and reapplied for rating. Effectively this means that the game, which recieved a M rating from the ESRB, is banned in the UK.
Despite their excuses, this is rather obvious censorship, not merely on the grounds of it being disgustingly violent. At a time when the argument between games censorship vs other forms of media is at it’s peak, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that it wasn’t banned because it was violent but because it was a violent game. The BBFC also recently rated the film Eastern Promises, which is worse in content than event Manhunt. The game was given an Adult rating on the grounds that, it ‘isn’t the BBFC’s duty to censor, merely to rate and adults can make up their own minds about what they watch’ (Paraphrase, the GI.biz article has the actual quote in it)
But alas, apparently, being an adult doesn’t mean that you can make up your own mind about what you play.
There have been no studies that weren’t already out on a vendetta that have actually come to the conclusion that games have any effect on violent behavior, let alone having a larger one than movies. Their claim is the protection of children, but isn’t that what an adult rating is for? An adult rating already says that children shouldn’t be playing it. If children get their hands on it, that isn’t the fault of the people making the games; it is the fault of the irresponsible parents who buy the game for them, or of the corporations for not having their wage-slaves check IDs.
We put our trust in ratings groups so that they can tell us what the content of games are before they’re purchased, not so that they can censor our access to content…
Tags: Video Games, Politics, Games, BBFC, Censorship, Manhunt 2, Movies
Topics: Video Games, Politics, Games | 3 Comments »
ESRB puts it Foot Down on Trailers
By Ravenhawk | June 26, 2007
The ESRB recently warned a couple of game publishing companies (Take 2 and D3 Publisher) Over trailers they released that did not properly screen their trailers availability to younger audiences. Basically, companies that don’t set up an age-gate for their trailers for rated M and A-O games are liable to have “The Man” crackin’ down on them. And even if they have an age gate, they still have to adhere to “responsible advertising guidelines” which basically say nothing excessive.
While I don’t dig censorship on too large of a scale, I am rather pleased to see the ESRB stamping down on people put up super gore-y trailers and things without any sort of warning that it is inappropriate for younger viewers. I have a lot of respect for the ESRB, they do a good job of labeling things so you can tell exactly why it got its rating. Generally if people who’re too young get their hands on a game, it isn’t for a lack of proper warning, it’s because A) Parents are lazy/irresponsible or B) Store workers are lazy/irresponsible.
Read the original news article here.
Tags: Games, Censorship, ESRB
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Censorship of Videogames
By Ravenhawk | April 27, 2007
Earlier today I attended a Xfire debate on censorship of videogames. As usual, they had an interesting cast of guests at the debate.
They were:
California State Senator Leland Yee
Hal Malpin from the ECA
Dennis McCauley from Gamepolitics.com
Russ Pitts from Escapist Magazine
Dan Isett from the Parents Television Council
And Henry Lowood from Stanford University.
A prettty “reputable” group of people who first had a debate amongst themselves with Lowood acting as moderator and providing questions. Then the floor was opened up for the gamers to ask questions. Typically, None of my questions got answered. But it was still an interesting debate. At least the part I partook in. I had a math test smack in the middle of the debate.
A large number of people were focusing on the ESRB, as though it was their duty to more thoroughly censor games. In my opinion the responsibility of censoring children’s access to adult games falls on two people: The parents of the children and the stores which sell the games. The ESRB gives the most thorough rating system of any form of media. However once they’ve marked the games, its up to the parents to pay attention to what type of games their children are trying to play.
And its up to the store owners to make sure the people buying the game can actually buy it. If a twelve year old asks to buy a M rated game, the answer should be “No.” It should be like the movies. You want to get in to the grownup show, you get carded. It should be the same with Mature games.
Sure, some teenagers will complain about this. But you know what? If they’re going to try to censor the games, they could at least do it right.
Until next time, comrades.
Tags: Video Games, Censorship, ESRB, Xfire
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