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AO Rating Basically Bans Manhunt 2 From Release
Yesterday we discussed Manhunt 2's AO rating, and what it meant for the game's retail outlook. Gamespot points out that effectively an AO rating means that the game will never be released in the first place. "Both [Nintendo and Sony] forbid licensed third-party publishers from releasing games rated AO for Adults Only on their various hardware platforms. Though Manhunt 2 isn't slated for any of Microsoft's systems, the company has also confirmed that it does not allow AO-rated titles on the Xbox or Xbox 360. The sole exception to this rule was in 2005 when the already released Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was retroactively rated AO, at which point retailers pulled it from shelves and Take-Two suspended production of the game."
Wait...So console makers do the whole "morality police" thing regarding what games are released on their consoles? WTF? So much for catering to the only demographic that actually has the money to buy one of their consoles. I've got about as much desire to play Manhunt 2 as I do to attach electrodes to my nuts, but it still pisses me off that they would pull crap like this.
Chalk up another one for PC gaming.
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So first we've got the BBFC and now Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo who have decided that adults aren't capable of deciding if they can play a game. That's gotta be the most patronising thing I've come across in quite a while. "Oh sure you can go out and die for your country, but we've decided this game isn't suitable for you. We think this is for the best". Thank God we've got NGOs and multi-national corporations to protect us from this immoral world of mature themes.
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The consoles make all their money from licensing. So, in order to develop for a console you have to get a license to do so (and then split your profits with the console maker). They can refuse to license anything they want to, so there is effectively no legal way to release content for a console that the manufacturer doesn't want released.
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Nobody said they had any obligation, of course, so the strawman aside...
People are merely expressing their outrage - as is THEIR right - at the censorship.
They have every right to do things that make people angry, that's just not normally good business policy. The only message this sends to me, for example, is "don't buy a Wii or PS3 because we might just decide you're not allowed to play games you like because we personally find them too 'offensive'".
Hey, whatever. More power to you if you think you can maintain a "kiddy system" by eliminating adult games from it, but I'm the adult holding the purse strings here, and this doesn't make me want to open them up.
The AO rating is appropriate.
Denying them the ability to release for the console is silly, though obviously within their rights. I wish they would reconsider, because that's a kick in the balls after so much money, time, and effort has been sunk by developers to create this.
I expect the developer to leverage the power of their other games to convince these companies to relax this AO-ban on their consoles in order for them to at least recoup some of the costs of making Manhunt II.
That said, Manhunt was a terrible game. I'm a gamer, not a violencer. I'm entertained by the gameplay not the violence. It was a severely dumbed down Splintercell, but instead of grabbing and incapacitating guards, it tried to sell itself by incapacitating them with snuff-film kills. Whoop-de-freaking-doo, it adds up to the same thing. The violence doesn't excite me, nor does it repulse me. It -nothings- me, and since that was the main draw of this game, it is filled with mainly nothing. I'm still open to the idea that Manhunt II could improve on this formula, but its predecessor leaves me with little confidence. I'd be more upset about this game not getting released if the first wasn't so boring.
The distribution model is only relevant when big store like Walmart refuse to sell such titles. The main problem here is that console manufacturers refuse to even *licensed* those AO titles. You still need to go through Nintendo/Sony/MS in order to have your game published, online or not.
With PC games, since you don't need Microsoft's, Apple's, NVidia's, ATI/AMD's, or Intel's blessing (dev kits and graphics hardware) to release games, ratings can actually be relevant (or irrelevant) since there are far more methods of distribution for the games (e.g., Steam, selling it online in general whether it be a downloadable or from a site like Amazon). With PC games, you don't need to self-censor yourself in order to publish the game (e.g., JFK Reloaded, all H-Anime games). Hell, you don't even need to get it rated by the ESRB! Just look at all the mods for games (e.g., Half-Life/2, Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, Unreal Tournament, The Sims) and games themselves (mainly indie games) that people play or buy that aren't rated.
As an argument against the ESRB's practises, however, look at other art and entertainment. Books aren't rated, yet they can be as grotesque (if not more) than Manhunt. Movies more grotesque and violent than Manhunt get away with an R rating (MPAA != ESRB, though). Not only that, but movies can be released as "unrated and uncut" (i.e., all extras haven't been MPAA-rated), yet the stores will still sell them. Hell, the news can be more grotesque on a regular basis than Manhunt, yet that doesn't get rated as TV-MA or anything like that!
If anyone has examples of other arts that have been effectively self-censored due to its rating system (e.g., a movie that was originally rated as NC-17 that had to tone it down to get R for a theatre release), please provide them. This is quite a hypocritical situation going on in the videogame world, but perhaps it used to be like this in another art and I'm just too young to have experienced that.
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There are only 23 games with an AO rating. They can be seen here
Rockstar can chalk up the loss of a Wii sale.
The real problem here is will this set a standard for the future of ratings on the Wii. If a game like Manhunt can't appear on the Wii because of the way that you swing the controller to kill your pray is AO, then why wasn't Zelda? Because you're not killing humans? Okay, fine. Why not Medal of Honor? Red Steel? Personally I have no interest in playing any of the Manhunt series of games, but I believe the ESRB knows what they're doing.... I just hope this isn't the new precedence for rating Wii games. I don't want to play Manhunt, but I would love a Tenchu game or similar.
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That rhetoric is old and bullshit. You now have a fresh generation of adults who grew up on consoles and arcades during the '70s and '80s. You have people who are now in the 18-34 demographic (one of the largest targets for advertisers, especially the male side) that are not only buying consoles for themselves but buying video games to play for themselves. Video games are a new form of entertainment which are gaining a widespread appeal, in large part because consoles like the Wii have made games more enjoyable and are not focusing on the hardcore gaming crowd that MS and the X-Box line have been accused of going after.
You see, the problem with your whole argument is that the console makers have decided they do not want these AO games on their consoles; probably for one of two reasons: 1) the stigma around AO has always been sex, sort of like NC-17 to the movies and/or 2) they do not want their consoles directly attached to these rated games because of the crap they have to put up with from the zealots (and we do not need to name them). Because the distinct impression I'm left with, is that they want to both make a "duh, it was for adults game" _and_ then sell it to kids anyway. Please explain to me how you came to this conclusion? The game would have gotten an 'M' rating otherwise, which for those keeping score, stands for Mature and mentions for 17+. AO increases that required age by one year to the whopping age of 18+, so what difference does this one year make? If they were ranking it 'T', I could see more anger because that would carry a much lower age. However, it should also be noted that not all 'M' rated games are created equal.
This is slashdot, so let us use an analogy (and one that hopefully isn't too bad). There are many 'R' rated movies that I would not want my children to see (assuming I had any) until they were probably 18 or older. Some of them are movies that I myself cannot even stomach to watch (the Saw series and Hostel come to mind). While other movies are far more acceptable in my eyes because their violence content is much lower and the worst thing some of them have is foul language (Lethal Weapon series comes to mind). Look at another 'R' rated movie, "The Passion of The Christ". People took their kids to this movie (some rather young), despite it being considered somewhat graphic by people. I doubt these same people would be quick to let their children watch other 'R' rated movies. If we are to agree that 'M' most closely related to an 'R' movie rating, then how can a game whose violence level has been compared Saw and Hostel be given a rating that denotes anything worse? In the end, ratings should be only a guide for parents and other consumers in the purchase of a game, whether it be rated 'E', 'T', 'M', or 'AO'.
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Oh, also, you'd have to do that for every game your company produced from then on, good luck getting Nintendo to agree to let you produce licensed software after you've produced one unlicensed game.
The original NES wasn't protected by the DMCA... because at the time there was no DMCA.
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Personally, Sony has the right to decide what is on the hardware, as does Nintendo and Microsoft.
The ratings board just rates games.
Honestly, I have nothing wrong with this whole scenario.
I say Rockstar should release the game on the PC and sell it on the cheap, say $35-$40. Let people download it through Steam since most major retailers probably won't carry it.
Between people buying it through online retailers, and Steam, if the game still manages to sell, it will be an object lesson to those who won't carry AO titles.
More adults game than children. As a parent, I want to keep content like this from my kid's hands.
But I'd like the opportunity to play it myself.
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The game is worthy of an AO rating, nobody has any doubt this game deserves an AO rating.
Rockstar knew it would get an AO rating.
Rockstar knew no console maker would allow an AO rated game.
So basically; where's the news?
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You say that now, and it's simple enough it seems. However, what if in the future, AO ratings start getting handed out more and more easily, due to people being paranoid over "the influence on children?" I mean, AO *does* stand for Adult-only, right? So maybe things might get to a point where any game that seems inappropriate for children will start getting AO ratings. For example, I could easily see God of War 2 having earned an AO rating, under a little more harsh of a comity. Now, so far, that right hasnt been abused. But people like Jack Thompson are pushing awfully hard to see that it IS abused. For example, the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas being retroactively tagged "AO".
And I say your movie-theatre comparison is flawed. It's more like if someone made said snuff film, and then were told they werent allowed to put it on VHS, DVD, HD-DVD, or Blu-ray, because they all had proprietary licensing schemes to them. Once you've eliminated someone from using any accepted form of distribution for a product... it's simply a lockdown. Censorship always start out small. It's the future implications of it that I think people are so concerned over. Maybe it's time to put some limits on the outdated notion that once someone makes a console, they have control rights over all the media that comes out for that console (maybe not, Im not saying Im on that side, just playing devil's advocate). Also, this is exactly why people here are/were so against blu-ray for so long, because of the proprietary licensing control Sony has over blu-ray. If proprietarily licensed mediums become all of the prominent ones, then we could very realistically reach a case where movies were declared "Too inappropriate", and werent allowed to be distributed at all.
An inch at a time, my friend. An inch at a time.
1. During the McCarthy era the government actually sent letters to businesses and otherwise bullied them into toeing the party line. In this case I don't think it's the ESRB who's telling Nintendo and Sony to not publish AO games. You know, what with both being Japanese companies and all.
Right, because Sony of America and Nintendo of America don't need to rate their games.
2. McCartyism made sure that you'll never work again, while this at worst means not publishing a game. For extra points: a game they should have had a good idea from the start that it'll get an AO rating. I'm sorry but there's a freakin' massive difference between the two.
You're right, all the development effort put into the game is worth nothing after all. Also, when you release a game that's actually tamer than the first version (and much tamer than many R rated movies), you expect to get an AO rating.
And incidentally: no, you don't have a sacred right to make a profit at all cost. There's a difference between freedom of speech, which is what the McCarthy era was infringing on, and the right to make a profit by selling ultra-violent games to kids. I mean, what next? The right to open a cocaine stand in a school?
Ahh, I'm glad we have you to decide what is an infringment of free speech and what is not. Who said this game was marketed at kids? The previous version was rated MA, which is also not for children. Take your 'think of the children' argument and shove it up your ass. Its the parents job to keep inappropriate things from thier kids, not society's. Finally, there's no proof that kids playing violent games has any real effect on them. I imagine there are millions of kids that grew up playing things like Mortal Kombat, and turned out just fine.
3. Sorry to dawn some reality upon your self-righteous parrade, but the ESRB is the gaming industry's own organizations. It's not like that AO rating came from some oppressive congressional comission. It's the gaming industry's own organization, and it uses people who are unaffiliated with either the government or the devs to judge a game's suitability for kids. So basically it's some people like you and me who judged that, nope, a game where extreme violence is the _whole_ game is unsuitable to kids.
You need to research why the ESRB came to be. If the industry didn't build the orginaization, there would have been laws passed banning or putting restrictions on the games. You don't seem to remember Congress debating Mortal Kombat in the 90s do you? MA also indicates a game isn't sutible for kids as well, but stores don't have policies against those ratings.
And let me say that again: I'm a gamer too, but I _don't_ think it sounds like a game I'd buy for my kids.
Fine, then don't. But don't pretend that you aren't supporting this to prevent adults from buying the game too.
And finally, lemme say another thing: I'm sick and tired of the whole retarded hypocrisy. Whenever someone complains about kids and violent games, what's the standard retort? "Yeah, but it wasn't for kids, most gamers are adults, adults have a right to buy a violent game if they want to, blah, blah, blah." Then the game gets an Adults Only rating, and what happens? "Auugh, censorship! McCarthyism! The government is trying to stop me from selling the game at WalMart! We'll be ruined without them selling our game!"
Its not just Walmart that won't sell AO games. You realize its possible for citizens to attempt to censor each other right, and that its just as wrong. Unfortunately our consitution doesn't provide for protection against that, probably because our founders never imagined that we as a country would be trying to strip others rights..
Well, the industry should freakin' make up its mind already. Either A or B, not both. Either you're genuinely making games for adults, in which case freakin' learn to live with a rating that says just that: "Adults Only." Or you want to sell those games to kid
The DMCA has nothing to do with why there were plenty of unlicensed games on the NES but only one on the SNES. This is the answer that the GP is looking for. Lock-out chips basically have gotten a lot better since the 10NES; now-a-days the big reason why no one will commercially release an unlicensed game for an active console is because the methods required to get around the DRM (usually involving a modchip) aren't practical for most consumers. Obviously the DMCA makes circumventing a lock-out illegal to begin with, but that's not even necessary to keep unlicensed games off of the shelves anymore.
Rob
Now, should people be allowed to make gruesome scat-porn if they want? Well, I guess so. Should people be allowed to make video games that are outrageously brutal? Sure, why not. But by the same turn, Rockstar has no right to expect that the marketplace will greet them with open arms.
The ESRB has effectively made it so the marketplace CANNOT embrace or reject it. It IS censorship, as much as the full ban on the game in the UK is.
I have no taste for these sorts of games, I'd be happier if they got released and failed. But Sony and Nintendo are shielding themselves from lawsuits from BAD PARENTS, who will try to sue them when they buy Little Johnny "Evisceration 4", and try to blame the companies for their own lax attitude and lack of involvement. These people expect the products to take care of their kids for them, figuring "video games = for children", which is why Nintendo and Sony have taken the policy of "No AO games". The parents+kids demographic is much larger than the AO one.
The policy that needs to change is Nintendo's and Sony's, to allow an AO market to happen, whether it's horror, vulgar, pornographic or whatever content. They won't shift until they have evidence that they will be protected from lawsuits from idiot parents, that is, until when the courts determine that parents are responsible for their own decisions in bringing up their children, and that they can't blame the government or product creators for not protecting their kids. Until then, we'll all be treated like 10 year olds, incapable of making our own decisions or deciding for ourselves what we want.
If by "movie theaters" you mean private screening rooms and home theaters where people can view content that they have purchased without anyone else seeing it then yes.
A much better analogy would be should DVD players refuse to play NC-17 or X rated movies, or any other content that the hardware maker doesn't approve of. Why should I need corporate permission to, in the privacy of my own home, use a piece of hardware I've purchased (video game console, DVD player, VCR, etc) to access content I've purchased (game, movie, music, etc). If a individual store wants to refuse to stock it that's there right but a hardware manufacturer shouldn't be able to dictate what content you can watch (or do you want to have to buy a Sony licensed DVD player that plays only Sony movies, a Fox licensed DVD player for Fox movies, etc)
Legally they can't stop you. You're welcome to release your game. The trick is, it will only run on modded hardware, same as any other homebrew game. They're not preventing you from *releasing* it, it just won't run on most hardware without the magical cryptographic signature that licensed games get.
So, they can't sue you to stop you from releasing it. But they don't need to, because it won't work anyway. And if you manage to break the cryptographic signature and release it in a manner that actually works, well, that's where the DMCA comes into play. Nintendo/Sony/et al. have all their bases covered.
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Heh. Trust me, religion for a change has nothing to do with it. It makes for some popular bullshit rhetoric in some circles to blame everything on religion, but it's rarely that simple.
Let me say it loud and clear: fear of violence has _nothing_ to do with religion, and wanting to protect your kids has _nothing_ to do with religion. If you think society fears murder and murderers only because of some arbitrary commandment in the bible, then, sad to say, you may be a psychopath. No, seriously, medically speaking. Ditto if you think that it's only some arbitrary religious commandment that makes people try to protect their kids.
Now whether censoring games actually helps with either, that's not clear indeed. But a religious thing it isn't.
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