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Defending Games For Adults on National Television
N'Gai Croal, at the Newsweek blog LevelUp, had the chance to talk about the Manhunt 2 ban/re-rating fiasco on the CNN program American Morning. It's an interesting discussion of the issue, and it sounds like for the most part he got a fair shake; this wasn't yet another 'ambush the games journalist'-style cable program. The one thing N'Gai tried to make clear - and may have gotten lost in the shuffle - was that this title categorically is not for kids. "We bring this up not because there's anything sinister at work, but rather because [co-anchor Kiran Chetry] isn't alone in her bedrock assumption that all videogames are primarily aimed at 'kids.' After all, had we gone on the show to discuss Ang Lee's NC-17-rated erotic thriller 'Lust, Caution,' or the upcoming horror movie '30 Days of Night,' we doubt that we'd have been asked 'Would you let your kids watch it?' It would have been assumed that those movies, like certain TV shows, books or plays, are not intended for children. Yet videogames often don't get the same recognition."
The days of moral panic about the contents of comics seem to be long gone, though. 2000AD used to upset our moral guardians back in the eighties, when kids started coming home with Judge Dredd instead of Desperate Dan. But since then... Well, there's been Sandman, Preacher, Hellblazer, Lucifer, and God knows what else. These make the old 'Tales from the Crypt' comics that caused so much upset look feeble, but nobody minds because they're plainly intended for adults, and that idea's more or less got through now.
Well, that or the perception is now that comics are for geeks instead of for children.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Maybe we should start regulating laser-tag and paintball? I hear it's pretty interactive...
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
I think part of that is the fact that kids really don't buy comics any more. Mom isn't worried about little Timmy coming home with a copy of Transmetropolitan because little Timmy would rather be hit with a baseball bat than blow his allowance on $4 comic books.
When the young are old and the old are dead, our battle will be won.
generational problems will always eventually see the young as the victor.
But that's the problem with zealots. They cannot accept that their point of view is not the definite truth. For them, it is.
Their point of view is their truth, and for them, anyone who does not agree with them is simply and plainly wrong. And since they are wrong, they have to be stopped from doing what is wrong. It needn't even be religious zeal, I know a few people who are anything but religious but still consider their point of view the only permissible one.
And since they are intrinsically right, their point of view should be law. Because everyone has to share their point of view. Not sharing it is in their opinion wrong and thus not allowed.
You can neither reason nor argue mit people like that. Logic and reason simply bounce off them, no statistic, no argument can sway them. If anything, when their arguments are gone, they'll let you know that "it is impossible to argue with you", turn around and leave.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You can't get more adolescent than just a bunch of swearing, nudity, and gore. There's nothing mature or adult about it. While things deemed culturally vulgar can add more bite and reality to good entertainment, they do not make it any more mature or adult-oriented, and the overemphasis of such qualities is solely targeted at adolescence. Dealing with the implications of such things and other complex decisions, catch-22 moral conflicts, clashes of norms, power struggles, destruction that comes with change, and other such things are far more in the realm of those things that would pique the interest and imagination of mature-minded adults in all forms of entertainment.
This is a multifaceted issue. What you do not want to expose to pre-adolescent children, and those things that adult-minded people will understand and enrich their experience, are independent factors. Labeling both as "adult" or "mature" is an oversimplification that really hinders the acceptance of mature-minded games, lumping them in with the well-known tide of those that solely ride on adolescent shock value.
If we are talking film analogies then I suspect Manhunt 2 is more Saw or Hostel than Godfather or Scarface. In which case I suspect the answer to my question is no.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
I'm on your side (I'm in my 50's), but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a sea-change if I were you.
I started playing video games when the original Atari 2600 was first released (Pong, anyone? How about Space Invaders?), and still play video games today (favorites now are Unreal Tournament and Postal 2). so I dispute the idea that there's some sort of generational thing going on. What's happening is that a large segment of the population is clueless when it comes to video games. This group prefers to lie back on the sofa and passively watch television. Why in heaven's name would anyone want to *participate* in the entertainment? Actually pay attention and *do* something? Hell, if they wanted to work *that* hard, they'd read a book (albeit a novelization of a movie or television show). They should read "The Marching Morons" sometime and see themselves in *that* mirror!
On the other hand, when gamers want to relax and vegetate, they don't turn on the TV, they turn on cheat codes (hey, we all have guilty pleasures). As for the games themselves, we should start calling them "Interactive videos", which is a much more accurate description of what they're all about (particularly games like the original Deus Ex or System Shock 2). But then, I guess we'd chase away even *more* of the Mainstream world.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
The days of moral panic about the contents of comics seem to be long gone, though. 2000AD used to upset our moral guardians back in the eighties, when kids started coming home with Judge Dredd instead of Desperate Dan. But since then... Well, there's been Sandman, Preacher, Hellblazer, Lucifer, and God knows what else. These make the old 'Tales from the Crypt' comics that caused so much upset look feeble, but nobody minds because they're plainly intended for adults, and that idea's more or less got through now.
I would agree with you, mostly, except that the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund still has plenty of work to do. I will agree, though, that there have been leaps and bounds there in the last twenty years. It's almost -- ALMOST -- a non-issue.
This may sound like a strange argument, but I think that what's going to bring society-at-large around on gaming is going to be getting the women more involved. And there's progress there, slowly. (Disclosure: speaking a an adult female gamer, myself.) But the "won't somebody think of the children" argument against media (or against anything), though hardly exclusively female (Jack Thompson, shut your trap) is historically either dominated by or geared towards mothers. Mamas, protect your babies from scum and filth!
Indeed, in the world as it stands now, its my female peers who think less of me for gaming. In men, the unspoken theory runs, it's acceptable because theirs is the domain of all things immature, juvenile, and boorish -- the category into which gaming inevitably falls. Why don't you know better?
But then, there was no pink DS Lite in the 1970s or 1980s. And there was no Nintendo console specifically generating widespread advertising featuring non-traditional (parents, the elderly) gamers. And there wasn't a computer in most homes, let alone more than one per person. The times, they are indeed a-changing and I am pretty confident that by the time I have grandkids, 30 or 40 years from now, the gaming world will have had the same transition that film, comics, and television have had, and the concept of "material in this medium for grown-ups only" will be well understood.