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."

Comments

It's a generational thing.

[meringuoid]

The Nintendo generation is now in its late twenties or early thirties. We're a major demographic, but we're not the ones in power yet.

So there's still a general assumption in the establishment power centres that games are toys for children and therefore need to be regulated more closely than other media. This will change, but probably only when the Prime Minister is a man who grew up playing Super Mario Bros.

Mind you, there is a counterpoint that interactivity heightens the intensity of the experience considerably. I've watched endless horrific violence on film and it doesn't bother me. But in a game it's not some villain doing the dirty deed - it's you. And with modern control technology - say, The Godfather: Blackhand Edition - it feels like it, too. Watching a guy get pummelled on screen is less real than watching a guy get pummelled on screen, while pressing buttons to dictate the manner of the pummelling. Neither is anywhere near watching a guy get pummelled on screen while swinging your own fist repeatedly to dictate the manner of the pummelling. All are equally fictional, but that last one... it feels good, in a very bad way indeed.

Re:It's a generational thing.

[Black Art]

I wonder how long it is going to take. I have been playing videogames since I was a teenager. I am over 40 years old. I still enjoy videogames even more now than I did then.

I have also seen the same argument used on Comic Books. The idea that comic books are "just for kids" has not been true since the late 60's.

The people who make the argument that "product X is always aimed towards kids" are the same people who are looking for an excuse to ban product X.

Re:It's a generational thing.

[meringuoid]

I have also seen the same argument used on Comic Books. The idea that comic books are "just for kids" has not been true since the late 60's.

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.

Re:It's a generational thing.

[morari]

I've watched endless horrific violence on film and it doesn't bother me. But in a game it's not some villain doing the dirty deed - it's you. No, it's not. It's still a character that you are watching. Pushing the buttons on a gamepad to perform a kill isn't all that different from turning the page of a book to read about the grizzly murder, or pressing play on the DVD remote.

Maybe we should start regulating laser-tag and paintball? I hear it's pretty interactive...

Re:It's a generational thing.

[Eponymous Crowbar]

When you talk about the Nintendo generation, I guess you are referring to the release of the NES. I would say that the videogame generation is a good bit older than their 20s or 30s - maybe 40's or possibly early 50s now. I'm talking about arcades and the first home systems. Anyway, they are old enough to be taken seriously for the US presidency or Supreme Court. So, where are they? Fighting other battles?

Re:It's a generational thing.

[Telvin_3d]

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.

Re:It's a generational thing.

[Black Art]

I was thinking of underground comics. Titles like "Zap" or "Bizzare Sex" have been around for about 30 years now. Billy may not blow $4 on a copy of Transmopolitan, but he might blow it on "Cherry Poptart".

Re:It's a generational thing.

[Kingrames]

The average age of video gamers is over thirty and has been that way for a while.

You ARE the major demographic, you just haven't had any reason to point it out to the people in charge yet, because you're having too much fun.

Re:It's a generational thing.

[westlake]

No, it's not. It's still a character that you are watching. Pushing the buttons on a gamepad to perform a kill isn't all that different from turning the page of a book to read about the grizzly murder, or pressing play on the DVD remote.

I respectfully disagree.

You are not watching the action from some physical and psychological distance. You are role-playing the character.

You are being explicitly rewarded for the growing sadism of your kills.

You sre beinh drawn into this environment for hours, days or even weeks, at a stretch. Not the ninety minutes of a theatrical feature. This takes you into territory where even the clinical psychiatrist treads cautiously.

Re:It's a generational thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pushing the buttons on a gamepad to perform a kill isn't all that different from turning the page of a book to read about the grizzly murder,

I was not aware there were books about killing bears.

Re:It's a generational thing.

[morari]

I personally do not think that I would call what most video games produce as "roleplaying". Many simply give you control over a character's basic actions, not their intentions or personalities. I would consider that as a mere character, not an extension, manifestation, or interpretation of one's own being.

Many films reward your dedication and patience, as a viewer, by showing and exposing you to increasingly brutal or "action filled" sequences. Sadism is sadism, even if only vicariously so. Furthermore, the average novel usually takes at least several days for a reader to complete. And I feel that one is typically drawn into the world of the written word even more so than they would be by mere visual stimuli. You may not have direct physical control over a digital avatar, but you are exposed to the very thought process of the characters. Video games require reflex and twitch actions to kill while reading does, in the very least, require an understanding of not just the words but also the concept described.

Re:It's a generational thing.

[fractoid]

I personally do not think that I would call what most video games produce as "roleplaying". Many simply give you control over a character's basic actions, not their intentions or personalities. I would consider that as a mere character, not an extension, manifestation, or interpretation of one's own being. I would argue that being given control over a character's actions, and then using that character to brutally kill another character, would qualify as playing the role of a killer. There's a fundamental difference between watching a third party kill a character, and using a puppet to kill that same character. You're pulling the strings, and the mental states that you use while killing someone in a game easily transfer into real life. Before anyone pipes up "but I'm just pressing back-back-forward-punch and making a hotspot collide with a hit rectangle" - what do you *think* when you do it? Do you think "back-back-forward-punch"? Or do you think "dragon punch! eat it bitch!"?

The only reason anyone (adult or otherwise) should be allowed to play violent video games is if they know the difference between games and real life, and that provides a barrier between the actions in game and the actions in the real world. Fortunately, that's most of us.

On a related note, third-person violence rapidly desensitizes you to itself. Think of the first time you saw someone get bashed in a movie, you were probably a little kid at the time - it most likely shocked you and made you feel sick. The same scene now wouldn't cause you to bat an eyelid. It would be interesting to see a study of whether first-person violence does likewise; let a test group play some game such as GTA or Manhunt, while a control group plays Tetris or whatever, then ask them all to play a game where you can progress equally easily by killing people and taking their stuff, or by solving logic puzzles. I'd put money on the Manhunt people going with the killing while the Tetris people go with the puzzles.

Re:It's a generational thing.

[Gulthek]

If you think that moral outrage over comics started in the eighties, research EC Comics.

Re:It's a generational thing.

[EtoilePB]

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.

Re:It's a generational thing.

[AgentPaper]

Interesting, because among my parents it's the exact opposite. Dad cannot stand ANYTHING animated - not comedy, not action, not drama, doesn't matter if it's hand-drawn, CGI, Claymation or whatever. He refuses to watch any of my anime collection, walked out of Finding Nemo, and hid in the basement the entire time his grandchildren came to visit because they insisted that he watch Thomas the Tank Engine with them. He absolutely adores counterterrorism shoot-em-up stuff like The Unit and 24, but when I tried to get him to watch Stand Alone Complex, he couldn't get away from the TV fast enough. Cowboy Bebop didn't even make it past the opening credits. Gaming doesn't make any sense to him, either. When we got a Wii this Christmas, he fooled with Wii Sports for about three minutes to be polite and then promptly ran downstairs. I went after him to see what the problem was, and found him watching some lame HBO romantic comedy (!). When I asked him what in the name of all that is good and holy he was watching, he replied, "It's better than that cartoon s***." I tried to get him to play Call Of Duty 3, thinking that maybe a WWII sim might be more his speed, but he only got thirty seconds, maybe a minute into the game before developing motion sickness. To this day, he believes that everyone who watches "cartoons" or plays games past the age of 5 or so must be smoking dope. This includes his own wife and children (see below). Meanwhile, Mom is a South Park and Family Guy devotee, thoroughly enjoyed Noir and Cowboy Bebop, and regularly kicks my butt in the vast majority of video games (about the only type of game I can beat her at is first-person shooters). Go figure.

Going by the quote

[js92647]

I'm agreeing with you under the assumption that your last paragraph wasn't sarcastic. I don't see why Manhunt 2 is being brought up so much. It's just a game, nothing more. As someone who's been playing games throughout his life, all sorts of hideous monstrosities down to Nascar racing games (yes, even those are fun sometimes), I think it's fair to point out a major distinction between games and movies/books that has been discussed many times before: passivity. I suppose in a certain sense, it's a double edged sword. Yes, gamers claim that violent games do relax them, that's fine and I agree and see nothing wrong in it. However, on the other hand, that same lack of passivity can make for a very bad childhood, if you catch my drift. My question was serious though... why is Manhunt 2 still such a big deal? I mean, I'm sure that Rockstar loves the attention, however other games are banned too.

relax

[netsavior]

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.

Re:relax

[fractoid]

Our grandchildren are going to be the first generation to grow up with their parents constantly telling them "you don't understand me!" and "you don't know what it's like!" :P

Re:Rating Systems

[Opportunist]

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.

Not Just Videogames

[GaryPatterson]

Here in Australia, South Park is around 8pm, and the channel hosting it also had a feedback show for a while. I remember a letter demanding to know why the channel made children stay up so late to watch cartoons. It's probably just as well they didn't still have the feedback show when they screened Drawn Together, not that the parent was watching the show anyway.

Some people have very fixed ideas about media. Cartoons are always for children. Video games are always for children. They don't listen to advice, don't see warnings because these things must be safe for children or they wouldn't be allowed to air, surely? These people can't seem to grasp that any media can be used to express concepts targeted at infants, children, teens or adults.

It's a game. Games are for kids.

[Opportunist]

Or so the generation 50+ thinks. And they are the ones who wield the power today.

They didn't play as adults. Well, ok, they played a game of cards, or bowling, but they would never think about sitting down with their friends (and without kids) to play a board game. Let's not even touch computer games, since computers weren't used for entertainment when they were kids or young adults.

So in their world, games are kids stuff. Period. Well, maybe there's the oddball adult who plays games, but the target audience has to be kids. The idea that there is a market for adult gaming is alien to them. That people who have (or could have) kids themselves would go and buy a game for themselves and not for their kids, actually keeping the game from their kids because they don't consider it suitable, simply does not fit into their world view.

If we want to crack this image before our generation turns 50 and we finally get to see some power (somewhere in 15-25 years, I'd say), we have to tell our politicians that yes, we're gamers, yes, we are adults, yes, we buy games for ourselves and not for our kids and, mostly, YES, WE VOTE.

"Adult" and "Mature" labeling

[White Flame]

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.

Re:"Adult" and "Mature" labeling

[lucyfersam]

Honestly I find this idea that these things you lable as adolescent are not adult more troubling than the idea that all games are for kids. In part because it feeds the idea that these are really aimed at kids, but more because it effectively makes the claim that these things are never acceptable entertainment. We aren't supposed to enjoy them when we're kids becuase we're not old enough, and we shouldn't enjoy them now that we're adults because we're too mature for that. It's absurd, puritanical, and judgemental. It helps the cause of restricting games on multiple levels, and is probably the most damning opinion of entertainment I can think of.

But is it any good?

[ThirdPrize]

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.

Alpha Mom '07

[Associate]

Someone should create a game where you get to be a self centered, busy bodied cunt, where you ruin the lives of your children by smothering them with attention and activities until they can't think on their own. You could rate their alpha skill level at how long it takes the grown children to move out of the basement.

No it's not generational

[Prototerm]

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.