The Devil's Advocate Had an R Rating Too
Why game producers need to change before the Australian government does.
As you hopefully have noticed, there’s been a bit of discussion on New Enthusiast lately with regard to video game classifications. As an infrequent gamer (due to OS choice) I tend to be a little less passionate about this issue than some of my colleagues here. But I also appreciate that, in any good debate, it’s important to have both sides of the story.
First off, I need to emphasise that I do think an R rating for games is necessary. For too long, the government has been ignoring the fact that video games are becoming more and more realistic (except for the last Soldier of Fortune game – man, what a stinker). It is becoming more important that the Classification Board is given more freedom to do the business for why we, the taxpayers, keep them in bread and water.
However, petitions and media coverage aside, it seemed that with the current South Australian attorney-general holding the wildcard, the chance of it happening in the near future are about as good as Heath Ledger appearing in the next Batman movie. Now that he has finally given in, I don’t want an R rating to allow more games into the country – I want it so the Classification Board and the Australian government will make a more concerted effort to monitor just what goes on.
My biggest problem is the type of game that’s going to get said R rating. This all comes back to Manhunt, one of the more high profile games to get the arse off Australian shelves due to gratuitous violence, and a game that’s always been a pet hate of mine. You see, the point of a game like Manhunt wasn’t the pie-in-the-sky fantasy of something like Grand Theft Auto or even the upcoming F.E.A.R 2 title, where you ran around like a crazed mercenary with a bigger arsenal than Peter North.
No, the premise of Manhunt was deeply ingrained in the world of snuff movies, which, last I heard, is an industry that rarely submits films to the Classification Board.
My point is: do video game producers need to produce this kind of experience? In all honesty, I would find that someone who really got into Manhunt would set off ‘freak’ alarm bells in my head, the same way that I think movies like Hostel really bring out the worst in people. Now, I’m all for blowing away the odd platoon of SS or hordes of demons fresh from Hades, but the idea of stalking someone with only a plastic bag as a weapon very much makes my skin crawl. It isn’t something for why I’d settle down in front of my monitor in order to pass an evening away.
Another argument often thrown up in defense of violent video games is that violent films are widely available and legal in this country, and games aren’t that different, so why the segregation? I, for one, definitely don’t lump the two in the same category. Films aren’t a choose your own adventure where I can pick to watch the scene where Hugh Jackman @#$%-#^%@# (You don’t wanna know. –ed) Nicole Kidman’s eye socket (of course, after the previous paragraph’s tirade, I would never dream of it), yet in a video game I have much more control over what I see, and most importantly, do, on that screen.
Years of horrible atrocities, violent murderers, and god-awful sitcoms have proved that, across the world, there are a huge number of people who aren’t quite wired like the rest of us. My biggest concern is that an improving technology is resulting in more and more hyper-realistic games that go beyond the boundaries society has long built to protect our sometimes fragile sensibilities. The question remains if whether giving some people that outlet actually reduces the risk of acting out in public, or enhances it. Before you can argue that studies have shown no link between violent acts and video games, give another thought to just how difficult it is to scientifically carry out these surveys. In my opinion, not one study I’ve read on violence in video games has been anything but inconclusive.
It’s food for thought. I often wonder that if we might not even need to have this debate if some game manufacturers had taken a step back and thought ‘is this going too far’?
Though, I often think they could stand to get a few more titties in there, right?
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