(no subject)
I've been doing a lot of reading on the recent uproar over the video game rating system, brought about by increased public attention on the Grand Theft Auto series after a Dutch hacker created a program that unlocks unimplemented pornographic content in the game. GTA's creators were forced to change the games rating from "Mature" to "Adults Only," the equivalent of changing a film's rating from R to NC-17. This was after Sen. Hilary Clinton and various large, highly-visible parent organizations called for a full recall of the game from stores after the embedded sex content was discovered.
One big problem is the fact that most parents, and people in general, think of video games as a simplistic medium that is solely for children. This is far from the case. Video games have become more sophisticated and geared towards adult audiences since video gaming made it's way out of the public space of the arcade and into the home. As a consequence of these changes, video games have becomes more cinematic, the Grand Theft Auto games being prime examples of this trend. Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City were obvious parodies of crime films, down to the casting of genre actors like Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta to do the voices for the games. Problem is, the public will tolerate a lot more violence and general nastiness in the movies than in video games, which like I said, lots of people assume are strictly for children.
The same thing happened to the comic book industry in the 1940s and 50s. Comics started to produce more titles in the crime and horror genres to appeal to an expanding audience of teenagers and twentysomethings, young men who had read comics when they were away at war or teens who suddenly had disposable income following the post-war boom. Problem was, the general public still thought comics were solely marketed and sold to young children, say five to ten, and a furor erupted over the sales of crime comics and horror comics to young kids. Comics were blamed for the widely-publicized instances of juvenile delinquency that cropped up in the years following WWII, especially those depicting crime and that had criminals as protagonists, with such titles derided by parents, clergy, and politicians alike as manuals for young children to learn delinquent behavior. As the complaints reached fever pitch, the government threatened to step in if the comic industry could not self-regulate itself. They did, enacting a Comics Code that effectively banned crime and horror titles completely, as well as regulating the depiction of lots of other objectionable content. This resulted in immediate economic distress for the entire comics industry, as the titles that had been their bread-and-butter with groups of readers who actually had pocket money (people in their teens and 20s) were cut in favor of kiddie fare aimed at readers under ten. Weekly allowance only goes so far, and many comic publisher went under, until the revival of the superhero comic rescued the industry. But that's another story.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has been the highest selling console game title since it's release last year, roughly matching the incredible sales of the previous two console installments of the series. Kids do not generally go out and buy their own video games. At $50 a pop, they're usually begging mom and dad for said games. The people who are buying up video games are the same kind of people who've been buying comic books for decades: young men, in their late teens and 20s. These are the people video game companies are now making games for, or at least thinking about. Just as R-rated movies are not made with kids in mind, neither are M-rated games. These ratings exist so that parents can decide if they want their child to see these things, while adults can still freely obtain them. I'm sure there are parents out there who wouldn't want their kids playing Grand Theft Auto, but would have no problem with them shooting terrorists on behalf of the US of A in the innumerable war-based video games on the market which are also rated M for violence. A rating system allows those kinds of choices, and acknowledges that the medium contains a broad swath of content aimed at diverse audiences, not just kids.
An encouraging sign is the growth of specialized video game retail stores such as GameStop, etc. These stores are staffed by video game aficionados who have to stay up-to-date on the content of new releases, allowing parents to have someone to talk to about what games are appropriate for their children. Someone working at Wal-Mart is going to have a pretty low chance of knowing about a particular game, and many studies are now showing that employees at such stores often do not even know that a video game rating system exists (again, part of the 'all-video-games-are-for-kids' mentality I mentioned previously.) However, someone working at a video game store is surrounded by the titles and is generally going to know something about them. I know when I go into GameStop the guys there are always trying to tell me about upcoming releases, and they seem to be pretty good at telling parents about what's in different games. I think they might get paid on commission though, which is scary because it might make them likely to downplay adult content to get parents to buy video games for their kids. Retailers need to recognize their responsibility to the industry as a whole and inform parents about adult content in games. There are plenty of good games for kids out there, parents just need to be able to find them. There are also games out there for adults, just as there are films and television programs that are for adults, and if these fall into the hands of your children then it is only the industry's fault if they deliberately ignored or undermined their own rating system. Sadly, this seems to be the case with the makers of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, who kinda fucked up their PR on this one. The fact that Grand Theft Auto is a ridiculously over the top game that lends itself to screenshots seemingly designed to offend the easily offended has not helped the video game industry at all.
This whole controversy has led the Federal government as well as many state legislatures to begin a crackdown on video games unseen in the history of any medium, proposing laws that will impose fines of thousands of dollars for selling games to minors that contain adult content. While it is true that retailers should be taken to task for selling adult titles to children, the government's definition of "adult content" is vague, and their rhetoric backs up people's assumptions that video games are solely for children. Moreover, it criminalizes what is more often a mistake. As I read in one article, "We don't need our police wasting their resources putting careless Best Buy clerks in prison for selling games." (link) I concur. I don't think this is a job for law enforcement. I think the video game industry needs to better publicize the ratings system in the retail setting and make it clear that many video games are absolutely not made for children as the primary audience. I also think parents need to pay more attention to what games their children are playing, and also what they aren't playing, as there are a lot of good kids games that are overlooked in the frenzy over violent games. Basically, everyone needs to do a little more to keep the government out of our own choices about what kinds of media we want to watch and have our children watch.
Oops, looks like I'm out of time. 'Til next episode,...
One big problem is the fact that most parents, and people in general, think of video games as a simplistic medium that is solely for children. This is far from the case. Video games have become more sophisticated and geared towards adult audiences since video gaming made it's way out of the public space of the arcade and into the home. As a consequence of these changes, video games have becomes more cinematic, the Grand Theft Auto games being prime examples of this trend. Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City were obvious parodies of crime films, down to the casting of genre actors like Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta to do the voices for the games. Problem is, the public will tolerate a lot more violence and general nastiness in the movies than in video games, which like I said, lots of people assume are strictly for children.
The same thing happened to the comic book industry in the 1940s and 50s. Comics started to produce more titles in the crime and horror genres to appeal to an expanding audience of teenagers and twentysomethings, young men who had read comics when they were away at war or teens who suddenly had disposable income following the post-war boom. Problem was, the general public still thought comics were solely marketed and sold to young children, say five to ten, and a furor erupted over the sales of crime comics and horror comics to young kids. Comics were blamed for the widely-publicized instances of juvenile delinquency that cropped up in the years following WWII, especially those depicting crime and that had criminals as protagonists, with such titles derided by parents, clergy, and politicians alike as manuals for young children to learn delinquent behavior. As the complaints reached fever pitch, the government threatened to step in if the comic industry could not self-regulate itself. They did, enacting a Comics Code that effectively banned crime and horror titles completely, as well as regulating the depiction of lots of other objectionable content. This resulted in immediate economic distress for the entire comics industry, as the titles that had been their bread-and-butter with groups of readers who actually had pocket money (people in their teens and 20s) were cut in favor of kiddie fare aimed at readers under ten. Weekly allowance only goes so far, and many comic publisher went under, until the revival of the superhero comic rescued the industry. But that's another story.
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has been the highest selling console game title since it's release last year, roughly matching the incredible sales of the previous two console installments of the series. Kids do not generally go out and buy their own video games. At $50 a pop, they're usually begging mom and dad for said games. The people who are buying up video games are the same kind of people who've been buying comic books for decades: young men, in their late teens and 20s. These are the people video game companies are now making games for, or at least thinking about. Just as R-rated movies are not made with kids in mind, neither are M-rated games. These ratings exist so that parents can decide if they want their child to see these things, while adults can still freely obtain them. I'm sure there are parents out there who wouldn't want their kids playing Grand Theft Auto, but would have no problem with them shooting terrorists on behalf of the US of A in the innumerable war-based video games on the market which are also rated M for violence. A rating system allows those kinds of choices, and acknowledges that the medium contains a broad swath of content aimed at diverse audiences, not just kids.
An encouraging sign is the growth of specialized video game retail stores such as GameStop, etc. These stores are staffed by video game aficionados who have to stay up-to-date on the content of new releases, allowing parents to have someone to talk to about what games are appropriate for their children. Someone working at Wal-Mart is going to have a pretty low chance of knowing about a particular game, and many studies are now showing that employees at such stores often do not even know that a video game rating system exists (again, part of the 'all-video-games-are-for-kids' mentality I mentioned previously.) However, someone working at a video game store is surrounded by the titles and is generally going to know something about them. I know when I go into GameStop the guys there are always trying to tell me about upcoming releases, and they seem to be pretty good at telling parents about what's in different games. I think they might get paid on commission though, which is scary because it might make them likely to downplay adult content to get parents to buy video games for their kids. Retailers need to recognize their responsibility to the industry as a whole and inform parents about adult content in games. There are plenty of good games for kids out there, parents just need to be able to find them. There are also games out there for adults, just as there are films and television programs that are for adults, and if these fall into the hands of your children then it is only the industry's fault if they deliberately ignored or undermined their own rating system. Sadly, this seems to be the case with the makers of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, who kinda fucked up their PR on this one. The fact that Grand Theft Auto is a ridiculously over the top game that lends itself to screenshots seemingly designed to offend the easily offended has not helped the video game industry at all.
This whole controversy has led the Federal government as well as many state legislatures to begin a crackdown on video games unseen in the history of any medium, proposing laws that will impose fines of thousands of dollars for selling games to minors that contain adult content. While it is true that retailers should be taken to task for selling adult titles to children, the government's definition of "adult content" is vague, and their rhetoric backs up people's assumptions that video games are solely for children. Moreover, it criminalizes what is more often a mistake. As I read in one article, "We don't need our police wasting their resources putting careless Best Buy clerks in prison for selling games." (link) I concur. I don't think this is a job for law enforcement. I think the video game industry needs to better publicize the ratings system in the retail setting and make it clear that many video games are absolutely not made for children as the primary audience. I also think parents need to pay more attention to what games their children are playing, and also what they aren't playing, as there are a lot of good kids games that are overlooked in the frenzy over violent games. Basically, everyone needs to do a little more to keep the government out of our own choices about what kinds of media we want to watch and have our children watch.
Oops, looks like I'm out of time. 'Til next episode,...