Video Games and Censorship - The Bogeyman of the 21st Century

Abstract

The current treatment of games in the media is remarkably similar to that received by horror films in the 1980s, when the video nasty scare dominated headlines for the best part of the decade; with tabloid editorials and band-wagon hopping M.P's like David Mellor calling for the ban of controversial films such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Last House on the Left, I Spit on Your Grave and many others (some of which, ironically, are now being released in DVD box sets which explicitly play up their previously banned status on the cover). Violent acts have been blamed on all forms of popular culture, from Rock n' Roll and Heavy Metal music to the satanic influence of 1970s Role-Playing board-game Dungeons and Dragons, but at the end of the day, many of the video games cited as the cause of violent actions already have 18+ ratings, especially in Ireland and the UK, which stick to strict guidelines.

This edition of the video games review section takes a special look at banned and censored games, with reviews of Rule Of Rose (banned across Europe and memorably described by no less than the Mayor of Rome as the product of "perverse minds.") and Manhunt, a game cited in the media as the trigger for the murder of an English school boy.

In addition, David Egan, a first time reviewer for the journal, will take a look at Condemned as a counter point between games that are banned for their violent and sexual content and those that are applauded for their innovative look at the world of criminals, yet still retain excessive violence (and lead pipes...).

To open this section we have an article about the effect the media can have on the public response to videogames and how these games are slowly being turned into 'the new video nasties'.

The New Video Nasties?: Censorship and the Video Game

Videogames have been around since the 1960s (albeit initially in a severely limited form), but it is only in the last decade and a half that they've fully entered into mainstream society as an acceptable hobby, career and conversation topic. This change is reflected most obviously in the age of the average gamer, which has been rising steadily for years. At the present time you're more likely to find someone in their mid-twenties or early thirties playing a games' console than a 14 year old. This has resulted in a boom in adult-oriented games (for example, there's even a game where you take on the role of a young Hugh Hefner as he builds the Playboy Empire!). The relatively new level of popularity and exposure has also led videogames into the media spotlight, with many games falling under the intense scrutiny of a suspicious media keen to uncover scandal and shock within this rapidly evolving activity.

This article will discuss the effect the media coverage can have on videogames. It will examine the way in which adverse reporting can shape the perceptions of the general public and consider whether there is any concrete proof that videogames can cause violence. As part of this assessment the games Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (which was heavily criticised and pulled off shelves after the discovery of the mini-game 'Hot Coffee') and Manhunt, which was cited in the media as the cause of a teenager's murder, will be discussed in particular detail, with an exploration of the facts behind the media frenzy.

The current treatment of games in the media is remarkably similar to that received by horror films in the 1980s, when the video nasty scare dominated headlines for the best part of the decade; with tabloid editorials and band-wagon hopping M.P's like David Mellor calling for the ban of controversial films such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Last House on the Left, I Spit on Your Grave and many others (some of which, ironically, are now being released in DVD box sets which explicitly play up their previously banned status on the cover).

However, unlike the video nasty scare, which was generally restricted to low budget films made by relatively obscure directors and producers, the media targeting of videogames is affecting a multi-billion dollar industry, and a single bad headline is enough to influence a game's release or its age rating.

One of the games best known to both the general public and videogame players is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. GTA: SA follows the main character CJ as he returns to his 'Los Santos' home to discover that his neighbourhood is under siege, his mother is dead and rival gangs are selling crack all across the city. The plot follows CJ as he travels across the fictional cities of Los Santos, San Femando and Las Venturas, seeking revenge and trying to avoid the machinations of corrupt cops, who are voiced by stars such as Samuel L. Jackson and the late Chris Penn.

The game follows a 'sand-box' format, with a large game world allowing players to immerse themselves in the gameplay. Unlike other games, the GTA franchise avoids load screens wherever possible, doing away with them entirely in GTA: SA. The sand box format means that gamers can essentially go anywhere and do pretty much anything, unlike most other videogames which follow a linear pathway to ensure the players move from the start to the end. In GTA: SA you can play for hours on end and not move the plot on one iota, but rather just have fun with mini-games, assorted challenges and driving cars very, very fast through city streets. While not a horror game as such, GTA has never been a series to avoid bloodshed, as gamers are able to arm themselves with everything from brass knuckles to a flamethrower (with victims running around screaming as they slowly bum to death).

The sheer premise of the game (criminal tries to gain control of cities whilst wiping out his rivals) means gamers are exposed to the kind of gameplay not normally employed within the medium, as the requirements of the plot encourage you to regularly perform car-jackings, thefts (it has a sub-game where you can break into people's houses and steal their belongings) and pimp female prostitutes.

Unsurprisingly, GTA: SA, like all the GTA games, was released to a chorus of complaints from concerned parents, politicians and church groups alike. They argued that the exposure of children and teenagers to a game like GTA would result in delinquents roaming the streets inflicting GTA style violence on the innocent. Despite these protests, the game flourished as a must-have purchase on multiple platforms and PCs: predictably; the media furor actually did much to add to the game's appeal. Rockstar Games had previously made excellent use of the media to help generate interest in their games and GTA:SA was no exception. However, the media's typical short term interest soon saw the storm of controversy fade as the press moved on to newer moral outrages.

That was, of course, until 'Hot Coffee'...

One of the more intriguing aspects of GTA: SA was C.J.'s ability to get himself a girlfriend within the game (a dream of many pasty-faced, mostly male gamers). Gamers could wine and dine the aforementioned female, and if they were lucky they could get invited into her abode for a bit of extra curricular activity. This was implied by little more than a few suggestive sounds and the sight of a slightly happier CJ leaving the house.

However, an enterprising Dutch 'modder' (someone who hacks into the code of games for the purposing of modifying the code, generally to ad weapons, characters, etc) discovered a hidden code within the game that unlocked another mini-game. To access this mini-game it was necessary to hack into the code of the game, a notoriously difficult task on a console, but much easier on a PC. The code was then made freely available on the Internet: a simple download onto the appropriate PC and the gamer was able to unlock the mini-game. Within a few weeks of the game being released on the PC, videos of 'Hot Coffee' began to appear all across the Internet.

The 'Hot Coffee' mod allowed gamers to actually take part in the bedroom hi-jinks of CJ and his latest girlfriend, with the player able to control CJ's actions and the camera angles. Once they successfully completed the mini-game, the player gained extra 'respect' points. Unsurprisingly, as soon as videos of the mod began to appear on the Internet, Take-Two interactive and Rockstar Games - the game's publisher and developer respectively - came under intense scrutiny by the ESRB (the games industry regulator) and the world's media.

Suffice to say, the same groups who had campaigned against the game's release in the first place again demanded that it be banned. The game and its developers were widely vilified, with a number of countries (including Australia) banning its sale or altering its age certification to reflect the 'Hot Coffee' mod.

As a result of the mod, GTASA was given an increased age limit in the US, going from a mature 17+ game to an 1+ adults only game from the ERSB. Take Two interactive itself reduced its expected profit margin from the game from $170 million to $160 million. This change to just a small section within the game cost the company $10 million dollars (Source: www.gamespot.com).

It must be said that the mini-game it is fairly graphic and could easily offend the "uninitiated". But while it might have left little to the imagination, was the distinctly hysterical reaction from the world's media justified? This mod can only be downloaded via the Internet and loaded on to a PC. In Ireland and the UK, GTA: SA is rated as 18s only.

With the augmented power of next generation consoles, games are attaining greater levels of realism. Such superior levels of realism are, in turn, creating greater difficulties for games in achieving release in markets throughout the world. This is especially the case in light of various groups, including right-wing conservatives in the US and the Australian government, calling for the banning or censorship of specific games.

The argument presented by many of these bodies is that violent videogames played by children will have a subsequent effect on the child's behaviour, creating a greater tendency towards violence.

Research, supporting this contention, was conducted in 2000 by psychologists Craig Anderson and Karen Dill and published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2000, Vol. 78. The research was conducted via two separate studies on college students, one conducted into videogame violence in the real world and the other on videogame violence in the lab. Upon completion of the studies, the researchers stated that:

The present research demonstrated that in both a correlational investigation using self-reports of real-world aggressive behaviours and an experimental investigation using a standard, objective laboratory measure of aggression, violent video game play was positively related to increases in aggressive behaviour. In the laboratory, college students who played a violent video game behaved more aggressively toward an opponent than did students who had played a non-violent video game. Outside the laboratory, students who reported playing more violent video games over a period of years also engaged in more aggressive behaviour in their own lives. Both types of studies-correlational-real delinquent behaviours and experimental-laboratory aggressive behaviours have their strengths and weaknesses. The convergence of findings across such disparate methods lends considerable strength to the main hypothesis that exposure to violent video games can increase aggressive behaviour.

(Anderson & Dill, 2000)

The researchers then went on to point out that the high school students who carried out the Columbine Massacre (Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold) in April 1999 were regular players of videogames, with Harris having redesigned a copy of the videogame Doom so that it featured two players and unarmed enemies; a scenario that is disturbingly reminiscent of the Columbine Massacre.

Further research conducted in 2005 (which involved a review of research and studies conducted on the topic over the previous 20 years) showed that youths who regularly played violent videogames were classed as more hostile and aggressive towards fellow pupils (Six-hundred 8th and 9th Graders, rated by their teachers). Teachers also noted their pupils' tendency to replicate moves played out by game characters (one teacher cited the example of a pupil who was prone to Karate chopping others.). As stated on the website www.mentalhealth.about.com: "The researchers warn about more serious violent behaviour if children played this type of video game over and over again".

However, it must be noted that there is a counterpoint to such arguments. As a child I spent many a happy day wandering the playground acting out scenes from Robocop, one of the more violent films of the 1980s, and I have yet to carry out any mass murders.

The research cited above, although thought-provoking, nevertheless does not prove that violent videogames lead to violence in the real world. Children may copy what they see, whether it is in the real world or a virtual one, but whether they carry these actions to a violent and deadly conclusion is an entirely different matter, reliant on many other factors both psychological and environmental in origin.

The charge of inciting violence and/or anti-social behaviour has been laid at the feet of many forms of media (for instance, consider the banning of fdms like The Evil Dead in the early 80s, now a cult favourite, or the controversy often attached to Rock n' Roll - the Devil's music - in the 1950s). It seems videogames have taken on the role of media scapegoat for the present.

This tendency came to particular pre-eminence in the case of Stefan Pakeerah, a 15 year old boy who was lured into a park by his 18 year old 'friend' Warren LeBlanc and brutally stabbed to death.

The murder provoked an extreme media response when it was reported that a copy of Manhunt, a so-called ' stealth-'em-up' involving the hunting and killing of gang members, was found at the home of the teenage murderer. Reports suggested that he was obsessed with the game.

This sparked a media and public outcry, calling for the game to be banned, with headlines emblazoned across the tabloids:

"Rockstar accused of "providing a template for murder"

- The Inquirer, July 2004

"Video game 'sparked hammer murder"'

- CNN, July 2004

"Teenager gets life for 'Manhunt murder"'

- Daily Mail, September 2004

It was only in the following weeks that it was revealed that not only were the police not considering the game as a motive for the boy's death but that it was actually in the possession of the victim rather than the murderer.

As stated by the Leicestershire Constabulary: "Leicestershire Constabulary stands by its response that police investigations did not uncover any connections to the video game, the motive for the incident was robbery." (www.gamesindustry.biz, August 2004)

The media uproar, which included predictably vehement commentary from the notoriously pro-censorship Daily Mail, (which waged an intense battle to have the likes of David Cronenberg's Crash banned during the late 1990s) provoked widespread reaction, with infamous 'anti-violence in games' lawyer Jack Thompson offering to represent the Pakeerah family in bringing a law suit against Rockstar Games. A scenario remarkably similar to the furor which followed the murder of toddler James Bulger, when the film Child's Play 3 was cited as a possible inspiration for the toddler's murder by two other children. This was despite the fact that there was no direct evidence that the boys involved had even seen the film. Nevertheless, the implication resulted in certain horror films being removed from video stores and pulled from TV schedules. The UK channel, ITV, for example had been running a series of horror films on Saturday nights (screened post-watershed): following the Bulger controversy, they were pulled.

Similarly, even following revelations that the Pakeerah murder was fuelled by the need to pay a drug debt, the Daily Mail continued to refer to the case as the "Manhunt Murder' (Daily Mail, 3rd September 2004). The game was pulled from the shelves by both Game (one of the largest videogame retailers in Ireland and the UK) and Dixons. However, a statement from Virgin Megastores announced that:

"While we take a level of responsibility, ultimately, censorship decisions are up to the consumer."

And surely this is the crux of the matter. Violent acts have been blamed on all forms of popular culture, from Rock n' Roll and Heavy Metal music to the satanic influence of 1970s Role-Playing board-game Dungeons and Dragons, but at the end of the day, many of the video games cited as the cause of violent actions already have 18+ ratings, especially in Ireland and the UK, which stick to strict guidelines. Interestingly, while the BBFC imposes these restrictions in the UK, the Irish Film Board, unlike most other countries, does not have any role in censoring games. The Republic of Ireland is signed up to PEGI (Pan European Games Information) but does not impose its age ratings. Instead there is a reliance on retailers to enforce these age restrictions.

Censorship as a concept is important to any society. While it may, arguably, be imprudent to call for no censorship or banning of any kind, placing a ban on something such as a videogame on the basis of limited research, generally inconclusive evidence and a well-orchestrated media uproar is hardly the right response.

Rather, it is in the home that these parameters must be initiated, with parents being aware of just what it is their children are playing. Not, may it be stated, to stop them from becoming mass murders in the years ahead - as stated previously the average gamer is aged somewhere between their late twenties and earlier thirties, and thus outside of parental control if not the parental home - but to ensure they only view images that are appropriate to their age. This is applicable not just to video games but to television, movies and books. If it has a large red 18+ on it there is a good chance that an 11 year old shouldn't be watching it, and a responsible parent shouldn't give them the money to buy it. Except if it's Robocop, as it has educational value...

Eoin Murphy