Future Implications On The Digital Home: Adults Only Video Games

Each Thursday here on The Digital Home, I will be discussing a current topic of interest that may have serious implications on your home in the coming days, months or years. The topics may range from groundbreaking new products to government legislation to adults only video games -- our topic of interest today.

In a setback for Take-Two Interactive, the company's Manhunt 2 video game has been banned from sale in the UK because of its ESRB Adults Only rating. Even worse for Take-Two, Best Buy and Wal-Mart -- two significant video game retailers -- have historically banned Adults Only games from shelves as well, leaving very little wiggle room for the company to make a profit.

But unlike most other Adults Only video games, Manhunt 2 was not designated the rating for nudity or questionable sexual content. Instead, the game was given the Adults Only rating because of extreme violence. What kind of violence you ask? Oh nothing too special, just castration with the help of pliers and the ability to saw someone's head in half without much trouble.

Usually I am strongly in support of video game developers having the ability to express themselves in any way they deem fit -- within reason. Being given the ability to castrate someone with pliers or sawing their head in half goes too far.

I understand I am playing in a virtual environment and performing these heinous acts on a bunch of virtual people on my screen and blah blah blah, but is castration truly necessary to have a good time playing a game? I have played numerous games without that ability (Halo anyone?) and have enjoyed it beyond belief. And if Manhunt 2 is anything like the original, no wonder why they are including these abilities -- they need all the help they can get.

If games like this become the norm, I am truly worried for your Digital Home. Granted, most people who play video games don't run out to school and lob domes off and castrate people, but at what point will the inundation of violence have a lasting effect on tomorrow's youth?

To me, a Digital Home is a place where the home is covered in electronics that help make life just a little easier for everyone. And while today we have the ability to simply flip a switch and turn off that violent video game our children are playing, in ten years it may not be so easy. We are living in an age that is rapidly evolving and our feelings on what the Digital Home will look like in one year will be obsolete by the time we get there.

Now before you start making Jack Thompson references and tell me that I'm a fool, consider this: how many Adults Only games have you played in the past decade? Did you stop playing games because there were very few Adults Only games available? One step further, would you only play Adults Only games once you get your hands on Manhunt 2?

The simple fact is we enjoy video games for the level of enjoyment they provide us with; not the level of violence. Wii Sports is a great game that packs quite a bit of fun and enjoyment for a single player or a group of people. Do we need violence in that game to make it better? Some may argue that we do. I don't.

Take a step back from your own biases (whether they are for or against my own) and consider how much the technological world has evolved over the past decade. Even better, consider how much the video game industry has evolved over the past five years. Now take a moment to imagine Manhunt 2 with its head slicing and castration becoming the norm as we move into the next generation of video games. If you're anything like me, you see significant advances in reality and a slew of Adults Only games populating every store in town. And while you may think that is fine and you have the right to play those games in your home (and you do), would you really want your children to play those games?

Believe it or not, I have no problem with children who are mature and responsible playing mature rated games, but I must draw the line at that. I realize the title says it all: Adults Only, and I hear the argument that so many people make of "well the parents need to watch their kids." Did you ever wonder why most of the people making that argument don't have kids and may not have even reached the age to see a college campus yet? As the old adage says, "you can't watch your kids all day. Eventually you'll need to go to sleep."

The future of the Digital Home will be an exciting evolution to watch. But Manhunt 2 is setting a dangerous precedent that I hope people can realize and understand. I'm not asking for you to change your mind if you disagree; that is your opinion and you are more than entitled to have it. But before you begin outfitting your home with video game consoles and HDTVs galore, consider this for your own well-being: do you really want to teach little Johnny how to castrate?

For more information on the Manhunt 2 story, check out CNET News coverage here.

[danight]

bandwagon riders.

I hope microsoft gets involved and bails them out. It would be a shame to see a good dev team take a huge lose from this.
I remember way back when night trap for the sega cd got hit with a recall because it showed women in nighties.

I can understand nintendo backing down since they have always been "the family console". But sony? This is just jumping on the bandwagon. This isn't a adult movie. Funny how people have horror movies on tv and in theaters and no one cares. The rating system isn't fair. Adult only vs M. I mean whats the difference in being over 18 to buy a rated M game vs AO? At 18 your legally a adult.

At least Microsoft hasn't commented and maybe they can help save them from losing a ton of revenue from this so called rating.Im a adult and i would like to do more on my wii than pretend im cooking. Lets not forget there is games for the wii like redsteel that show you sword fighting and shooting people. Gears of war makes nice use of a chainsaw in a game. Oh how about condemened. That game has pipes, 2x4`s,shovels, shotguns and is overall a creepy game but i didnt wanna go bash someone over the head because i played it.

My point being is why this rating system can dictate what we can even buy or play on a system is not fair. I should have the choice as a adult. But applying adult only makes it so the system it self wont be allowed to run it. So with wii and ps3 out the question it leaves only the 360 for me and many gamers to have a chance to play a horror movie. But slap a M rateing on it and i could play it with no prob and buy it from almost every where.

If they do persist on the AO rating then i hope microsoft gets them and maybe offers the game on xbox live as a means of mass distribution. Im sure the devs are thanking sony and nintendo for their support in this matter also. I mean why not work with them to see whats over the top and ask them to remove it instead of banning the entire game.

So let me ask this if movie theaters wouldn't allow adult only movies what movies would they not allow? Would saw 3 or hostile 2 or something like that be allowed? As a adult i should have the choice. This is clearly goverment trying to enforce what they think we should or should not be able to do because some old person doesnt think it could be fun and probably doesnt play video games.

In any case i hope microsoft helps them and doesnt jump on the bandwagon like sony did.I wanna play this game and its looking more and more like other people do think i should be allowed to because they think they know whats best for me.

[Klopzi]

No easy answers...

As a parent, I agree that you can't watch your kids 24/7. However, a large number of kids playing "M" rated games are having the games purchased or rented by their parents. I firmly believe that if your child plays video games, you'd better be sure you're into video games yourself. It takes more than a simple interest in the game industry to properly educate and guide your children through the pitfalls of poor or inappropriate game selection.

One thing that does concern me is the graphical detail of newer games. It's one thing to kill an NPC in an older game with poor graphics, such as Golden Eye for the N64.

It's another thing to castrate or de-crown someone in a PS2 game (which seems pretty gratuitous and unnecessary to me, but I felt the same way about Saw and Hostel). Sure, these acts of violence are awful, but still fairly cartoon-ish and unrealistic in appearance.

However, I shudder to think of a child playing a game like Manhunt 2 on a next-gen console, killing an NPC who looks real and screams in pain as the playable character goes through the motions of cutting, castrating, or otherwise harming the NPC. Playing a game that allows you to do these things in the context of a realistic looking world could be seen as causing real-life psychological damage to children and adults alike.

There is no easy solution to the problems the game industry will face in the years to come. I don't think anyone has the right to tell me what I can and can't play; however, the same does not hold true for my children, their friends, or the creepy 17 year-old freak down the street living in his parents' basement.

[davecazz]

The Market Should Decide

"Is castration truly necessary to have a good time playing a game?" - Try telling that to Eli Roth in reference to Hostel 2?

While there are a lot of entertaining movies that don't feature castration, Eli Roth used castration as a means of driving home his HORROR movie. Manhunt 2 is not doing anything that you havent seen anywhere else. It is simply trying to grow the game industry by looking at genres that are not usually represented in game format but have been around for decades in tv, movies, books, and dvd.

I really dont understand how people can critisize manhunt 2 when content that is just as gory (Rome on HBO, Hostel, etc) are even easier to get into childrens hands than this video game. How many adults do you know have successfully password protected HBO or on Demand from their kids?

Have you ever heard of the video, "Faces of Death"? My friends and I used to rent this movie from the local video store when we were around 14 years old. I can guarantee that the violence and gore in faces of death is 10 times worst than what manhunt 2 offers. I'm not saying that it was a good thing that we were able to watch this video but with the current focus on ratings enforcement, I would say that Manhunt 2 is a lot harder for a child to play without their parents knowledge.

That said, I truly belive that we should create a system that protects our children and that under no circumstances should a game like Manhunt be allowed to get into the hands of a child. The same thing should go for gory movies and adult content in any format. Theer is research that suggests that the Video Game industry is the best at self policing and even today it is much harder for a child to buy a M rated game than to sneak into an R rated movie and much easier than just downloading extreme content from the internet.

Since these protections are already in place for the game industry, I belive the market should decide what is appropriate or not. Rockstar should have the right to create content that is at the same maturity level as any content you can find on late night HBO or any R horror movie. As it stands, companies like Rockstar are crucified for PG-13 level material like the hot coffee patch, a PG-13 level game like Bully, and manhunt which would be a weak R rating in movie form.

Very much like Nintendo, all Rockstar is trying to do is expand the market. Where Nintendo focuses on casual gamers, Rockstar is looking to grow the industry by providing Mature content to a market that is looking for it. We need to stop looking at the game market as chilren only. We are way past that point.