(Untitled)

[dayan]

So "Manhunt 2" is finally coming out this week, in a slightly redacted form (M rating) of the version that received the Adults Only rating from the ESRB last year. In today's "New York Times," Seth Schiesel does a pretty good job analyzing the implications of the rating change and the necessary amendments to "Manhunt 2" that the game's developer,

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scattered thoughts

[lastclearchance]

I remember reading an article examining the implications of Japanese gamers playing Medal of Honor: Rising Sun. The critical theorist in me wants to speak to the other-ness of the enemy and the implications of the frequency of certain sorts of characterizations, but the (admittedly extremely infrequent) gamer and ex-psych major in me wants to say that to the extent that it would make a difference, it would be playing off pre-existing prejudices, and would be determined not at the stage of game design but of game purchase.

Part of me wonders how much of this conflict is strictly generational. A lot of the arguments against violence, sex, etc. in video games come from this third-person paternal "someone won't be paying attention to the games s/he buys for her/his kids" instinct that I imagine will begin to lose traction (although similar issues with the MPAA obviously indicate that the moralizing aspect will never completely disappear).

P.S. It's great that the NYT has a video game writer and all, but I've never been all that impressed with Schiesel's articles or writing.

Also, did you start with the White Zombie joke and write backwards from there?

Re: scattered thoughts

[dayan]

Nah, full credit to djswifty for pointing me toward the RE5 controversy (can't say I've ever been into the series); the joke was a totally gratuitous tack-on. As for Schiesel, yeah, he does a really perfunctory job of actually spelling out what the issue is, but that might just be a factor of editing. Not that the NYT arts section is particularly good at dealing with "low culture" at all (though they def. liked the new Project Pat album!), but that's hardly news.

Part of me wonders how much of this conflict is strictly generational. A lot of the arguments against violence, sex, etc. in video games come from this third-person paternal "someone won't be paying attention to the games s/he buys for her/his kids" instinct that I imagine will begin to lose traction (although similar issues with the MPAA obviously indicate that the moralizing aspect will never completely disappear).

Depends whether or not you buy into the unspoken idea that the gaming audience aging = "adult" content as more than a niche. The generational idea has total merit, and it's going to be interesting to see what happens as the gaming audience keeps getting older, but somehow we decided that video game violence was fundamentally different and more damaging than filmed violence. I don't see that falling by the wayside due to a generational shift anytime soon, if only because the issue seems to be interactivity and AI realism; given the fact that the people within the industry who understand the fundamental gamer experience aren't doing much to advocate for it, it doesn't seem like the environment is going to get more permissive anytime soon. (There's also the old AI issue of how much realism is too much - which, if you can get past the Autodesk-jockey dick-stroking, is actually a very worthwhile thing to talk about in this context.)

In other words, is this based on pure paternalism or an unwillingness/inability to lose the "video game" mindset of dealing with interactive media? (NB: Bear in mind that I'm speaking as somebody who once titled a new media class term paper "Rise of the Sexbots.")

Re: scattered thoughts

[dayan]

Or, if you want to play the Feud: what percentage of 14-year-old Americans know what "Superman that ho" means?

Re: scattered thoughts

[lastclearchance]

That's got to be proportional to the number that have internet access on the regular (a high percentage) and any level of curiosity about song lyrics (much lower) because in my understanding of the world, every 14-year-old American with internet access knows what Urban Dictionary is.

More on your response above a bit later when I have time.