Frankly, I can’t believe what Senator Clinton is doing. In case you haven’t heard:
Clinton calls for federal game regulation
I’m going to leave left vs. right, Democrat vs. Republican politics out of this, as this is not a political blog. Republicans might say that she’s using this as a vehicle to gun for the White House, or it’s some shady attempt to reach out to “concerned mothers across America” or some other such political speak. While it does concern me that, say, Senator Joe Liebermann, who’s championed this sort of thing in the past is visibly absent now, I’m not going to address whether she’s genuinely into this or not. The reason why is that it simply does not matter. If she believes in it, she will push for it. If she thinks it will help her get into the White House, then she will push for it. Either way, it’s a concern for the average (e.g., adult) gamer, and here’s why.
Establishing laws such as this will send a chill throughout the industry. It amounts to regulation, and developers will be far less inclined to produce games with any sort of potentially offensive content that is in their artistic vision. After all, making the game developers culpable is the logical next step, right? Or perhaps we should ban all mention of God or Jesus in video games so that we won’t offend atheists or those of different faiths. Microsoft’s Flight Simulator series allows you to fly 747 jumbo jets into buildings, should we cease development of that genre because it might train terrorists or our own children?
This largely started at the turn of the century. Everyone in the US knows that Doom was brought up after the incident at Columbine. It became a household name after that, and, in its own way, brought video games a step closer to the mainstream. It was 1999 when that happened, towards the end of the original PlayStation’s life. The PS2 was still a year away, neither Grand Theft Auto 3 nor Halo had been released yet, all events that brought video games out of their niche status as toys for kids. News corporations latched onto a game that nearly was six years old, armed with video of pixellated zombies (and demons, don’t forget the demons) falling to the ground covered in blood as a shotgun held by disembodied hands blasted away. After all, why blame the parents who had no idea what their children were up to or the guns that facilitated the carnage when you can blame someone else, some smut peddlers who are poisoning the minds of our children? When did psychology become more tangible than a trigger?
We actually didn’t see much change in the industry as a result. The ESRB had already been in place for five years, granted it was after Doom’s time, but now games come with options to turn off blood and so forth. A step forward? Perhaps, but I can not think of a single game where turning off blood suddenly makes it ok. Medal of Honor: Allied Assault does not have blood, but the player still points their trusty M1 Garand rifle, Thompson machine gun or sniper rifle at a German soldier and shoots. The soldier shot cries out in pain and crumples to the floor. The Normandy beach landing is so intense in this game that I would strongly advise against the sale of the game to a World War II veteran, or even playing the game in the presence of one. Yet still, any child can walk up and purchase this game - it’s rated Teen.
All it took was something such as Hot Coffee to get the ball rolling again, however. Some novice programmer posted a modification to the PC version of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on a site called GTAGarage.com, not long after the game’s release. This programmer claimed he “toggled a single bit” in the game’s code to enable this rather pornographic mini-game in this title. For those of you not familiar with game coding, he found the right toothpick in a stack several stories tall. Not entirely difficult if you know what you are looking for. Since that time, he has shut down his website and hopefully retained a good attorney.
Here’s the problem. We all know the ESRB isn’t perfect. Some of the content found in Hot Coffee can be found in other games rated M. The first to come to mind would be Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude which is arguably more explicit than what can be found in Hot Coffee. Certainly, some of the jokes found in Magna Cum Laude are far, far worse, but the game carries the same rating. The ESRB responded to the Hot Coffee scandal by re-rating San Andreas as AO (Adults Only, 18+). This was a knee-jerk reaction that was essentially a stop-gap measure to suspend sales of the game (many retailers do not carry any games bearing the AO rating) as a sort of damage control. Since then, the game has been sanitized and the world is again safe for gamers to take control of Carl Johnson again and beat police officers with a large, two-headed purple dildo–while wearing your gimp suit. Oh, no one told you that was in the PS2 version of the game, released nearly a year previous?
It’s this “pick your battles” hypocrisy that bothers me. If Senator Clinton’s staff did any research on gaming at all (author’s note: resume is here), they would have found that this sort of thing dates back quite some time. Take a look at Custer’s Revenge. The one thing that she cannot get past, however, is that these games are clearly not intended for children under 17. San Andreas is marketed to kids only inasmuch as video games in general are marketed towards kids, if not less. The specialty video game retailers–of which there are a shrinking number–will generally card people for M-rated titles. It is the large, warehouse style stores that are the problem. Many cashiers either are not trained to identify M-rated titles or simply don’t bother enforcing the age restriction. This is how children end up with these games, but it is not the only way.
Unfortunately, when you are a politician, or a news reporter, you can’t talk into a video camera and say “You, the parent, are the problem. You need to watch what your children are purchasing, watch what you have purchased for them, and watch what they have borrowed from friends.” You lose votes or ratings that way, I suppose. I, personally, would be refreshed to hear that sort of talk on television or in the print media, but it rarely happens. Parents these days take a laissez-faire approach to video games, and it’s truly unfortunate as there is not only some very mature content out there, there’s also plenty of content that isn’t worth the money, period. I had one instance of a woman who wanted to buy a copy of San Andreas for her 9-year-old son because “his friends have it already.” We sat there for 10 minutes trying to explain what was in this game (I’m almost positive we mentioned the gimp suit at one point) but could not dissuade the woman from purchasing the game.
I truly feel that the ESRB has done all it can to educate parents about the rating system, but it’s just met with too much ignorance or ambivalence. The sales associate becomes the last line of defense, and as I will discuss later, even they are becoming less interested in protecting your children in the name of making the sale. Perhaps Senator Clinton can be applauded for her efforts in making these problems known, but her methods are ridiculous. Motion picture retail has no such laws–parents understand the MPAA’s ratings system and many will purchase and allow their children to view R-rated films at a young age.
There comes a point at which individual culpability becomes the issue, not blanket legislation. However, the proposed legislation could potentially ruin the life of some retail store manager by fining and encarcerating him because his subordinate found the keys to the demo unit and put an M-rated game in it. Think about what is really being considered here. Has censorship really come this far?
