Rockstar Fights Back Against BBFC

Rockstar has launched its appeal against Manhunt 2's rating rejection in the UK. At the first hearing on the matter, Rockstar representative Geoffrey Robertson took the British Board of Film Classification to task: "Robertson went on to accuse the BBFC of being 'simply ignorant of the gaming experience' and 'throwing adjectives with hyperbolic abandon at the game ... Their reputation is not at stake; if it were we could show how, over the last century, they've been derided for some of the most stupid decisions in censorship history ... But we're not going to go down that road.'"

Comments

Sour grapes

[ddrichardson]

From TFA:

Rockstar today launched its appeal against the BBFC's decision to refuse Manhunt 2 certification, accusing the board of putting its reputation above the interests of gamers.

I should hope that the BBFC puts its reputation above that of gamers, movie goes or anyone else for that matter.

The article talks of the BBFC's use of hyperbole but if you read their press release, they say:

Manhunt 2 is distinguishable from recent high-end video games by its unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone in an overall game context which constantly encourages visceral killing with exceptionally little alleviation or distancing. There is sustained and cumulative casual sadism in the way in which these killings are committed, and encouraged, in the game.

None of this to me suggests that the BBFC is out of touch with games. In fact I'd accuse Mr Robertson of hyperbole suggesting the BBFC is the British Board of Videogame Censors as a quick search of their records shows that Manhunt 2 is the only game currently listed as rejected.

Re:"Their reputation is not at stake"

[Sigma 7]

Smooth, frankly, after rockstar got caught lying to the ratings boards with GTA:VC, Citation needed. In particular, there's no way you can reach the hidden content without attempting to mod the game - and furthermore, the rating change was from 17+ to 18+ (one year.) Just remember that the ESRB at the time did not factor game modifications into account even if it was a minor 1 byte change in a file that's not easily modified.

Oblivion was also re-rated by the ESRB as well, with the 'T'een rating changed to 'M'ature. The developer's response claimed that they already advised the ESRB on the violent content (although they disagree that red pixels and "inaccessible" content should bump a rating from 'T' to 'M'.)

Classification

[Carrot007]

All the BBFC ought to be doing is Classification.

As such everything should come under one of their classifications, even if that is R18.

They are not about censorship, that should fall down to one of two places. a. the content owner self censoring in order to gain a certain certification or, b. the government, for not allowing illegal things.

Other that that please certify things and leave it up to the consumer.

Re:Nanny State at Work

[Krinsath]

And short of requiring licenses to pro-create, there's not much you can really do to stop parents who don't pay attention. However, these parents have been a constant since before technology and video games were even thought, so clearly society hasn't found a way to fix that particular problem in the past few centuries.

I agree with your point that many parents are oblivious, and that even one such parent can destroy the diligence of an entire neighborhood's worth of them, however it does go back to staying involved with your child's life and teaching them right from wrong (and wrong is not "when you get caught" like many people seem to think). As a personal example, my mother forbade me from playing Mortal Kombat as a child...but I played it anyway at friend's houses. Did it make me a violent criminal? Not until they find the bodies! Kidding. However, I know exactly of whence you speak but in the grand-scheme it would have been more productive for my mother to go over WHY she didn't want us playing it (*cough*mediahype*cough*) instead of simply saying no. Still, she had taught us that violence against other humans is wrong, and for some reason neither I nor my brothers grew up to take part in fighting or mass murder rings. Still, going over the reasoning of "why not" places proper context on the title, as well as giving the child a chance to demonstrate if they're ready for such a thing through debate and discussion.

All in all however, one simply cannot shelter children indefinitely, and there's a strong case that you shouldn't do that since they will hopefully at some point stop being children. One day, they must grow up and become their own person, and all the "bad" things they're exposed to will have just as much meaning as the "good". As long as the parent has been conscientious about making sure their child understands the context of everything, I don't think there's any more that can be done. Will every child be able to cope with all these things at once? Odds are no, but children have this funny way of meeting the expectations that people have of them (for good or ill).

Once again I'm drifting from the main topic, but the national government's role is not to meddle in family (or neighborhood) affairs. If another parent makes different choices than I do, that's their right. It's not the government's place to say "No, nobody can have any sort of access to this material because we said so", which is effectively what the BBFC has taken upon itself to do.

Re:Manhunt 3

[Von Helmet]

Meanwhile, the grown ups will be playing the follow up to Mario Galaxy.