Are video games harmful?

[yovargas]

If you choose to check it out, or maybe rent it, let me know whatcha think, cuz I've been curious about it for a while.

[Primula Baggins]

Sure, yov. But it will be a while. As in, probably not until next summer. I'm a bit swamped.

[yovargas]

I can't imagine why.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It's all my fault.

(Well, not all, but partly.)

[Primula Baggins]

It's only your fault until the end of the week.

Then it's my fault.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Well, I suppose we could say that it is partly Ace's fault.

[Primula Baggins]

Yes! Ace Books! Darn them all to heck!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Or praise them with great praise!

[Primula Baggins]

Y'know, Ace is the company that "pirated" LotR back in the '60s. (They took advantage of a loophole in copyright law to put out a paperback edition for which they paid no royalties to Tolkien.)

Of course that was many decades ago and no one there now had anything to do with it, but all the same, it's . . . ironic.

[Crucifer]

OK, this is interesting, so let's bring it back. Video Games are only harmful if the people playing them believe in them and/or think that what happens in Video Games can happen in real life.
I played GTAIII for a whole Summer, and I have no urges to go out and shoot my classmates, teachers etc.

[yovargas]

Big news in video gameland. Manhunt 2 - the upcoming sequel to the controversial game who's purpose was to torture people in the most sadistic ways you could - has been banned in the UK. In the US, it will receive the death-knell AO (for Adults Only) rating - the game equivalent of film's NC-17. (Wal-mart and others will not stock AO games.) If the rating holds, it will be the first ever console game released with the rating.

Rockstar, the game's developer (and developer of the Grand Theft Auto series) , responded:

Rockstar Games has responded to the BBFC's rejection of Manhunt 2 for certification in the UK, making sale of the game at retail illegal in this country. Rockstar states that it "emphatically disagrees" with the decision, arguing the Board failed to consider Manhunt 2's intended target adult audience.

"While we respect the authority of the classification board and will abide by the rules", a spokesperson for Rockstar Games stated, "we emphatically disagree with this particular decision. Manhunt 2 is an entertainment experience for fans of psychological thrillers and horror. The subject matter of this game is in line with other mainstream entertainment choices for adult consumers.

"We respect those who have different opinions about the horror genre and video games as a whole, but we hope they will also consider the opinions of the adult gamers for whom this product is intended. We believe all products should be rated to allow the public to make informed choices about the media and art they wish to consume. The stories in modern video games are as diverse as the stories in books, film and television. The adult consumers who would play this game fully understand that it is fictional interactive entertainment and nothing more."

Both PlayStation 2 and Wii versions of Manhunt 2 have been rejected by the British Board of Film Classification on the grounds of what it considered to be its "unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone... which constantly encourages visceral killing with exceptionally little alleviation or distancing". The BBFC reviews all videogames containing gross violence, sexual or criminal activity likely to earn the game a PEGI 18+ rating. In the UK, unlike the rest of Europe, games expected to receive the PEGI 18+ grade are automatically referred to the BBFC under the Video Recordings Act.

Essentially the argument is, films like Saw and Hostel that revel in sadism and gore receive R-ratings and their equivalents and get free passes, but a game with similar horror content gets banned. Double standard - fair or not? Any thoughts?

[nerdanel]

yov -- I have exactly two minutes. So, in very brief form: I think that relevant distinctions between a violent/horror movie and a video game with comparable violence/gore are as follows:

1. A viewer of a movie is passive, while a player of a video game is active. This allows the player to engage with/relate to the characters shown on screen at an entirely different level. Put differently, a player is not watching A "torture" B; the player IS A performing the virtual "torture" of B.

2. A viewer of a movie sees the material for 2-3 hours. Maybe they'll see the movie 2-3 times, leading to a total exposure of say 10 hours max, in most cases. Someone who plays a video game may engage with the material for dozens of hours, at least (so I understand, based on the prices - you have to play for more than a couple of hours to make it worthwhile!)

I'm not advocating for one thing or another at this point. I'm just trying to think how I'd be affected by the material in a movie as opposed to playing a violent video game. I think that the latter would have a far deeper impact on me personally, for better or worse. And I think it'd be largely for the above two reasons.

[yovargas]

Nintendo said today they won't publish an AO-rated game so, while not technically censorship, in effect, the ratings board has banned the game in the US too.

[The Angel]

1. A viewer of a movie is passive, while a player of a video game is active. This allows the player to engage with/relate to the characters shown on screen at an entirely different level. Put differently, a player is not watching A "torture" B; the player IS A performing the virtual "torture" of B.

I don't really have too much truck with that theory. I think game players (of any age) are aware that they're playing a game, that what they're doing is not real. It's a popular theory amongst the "video games are the devil's work!" crowd though, most of whom don't play games . NB, I'm not advocating that young children play violent games. Parents should expose their children to content that they believe is appropriate, and bodies like the BBFC, ESRB and PEGI exist to help them do so. I'm merely making a point about how gamers interact with their media.

2. A viewer of a movie sees the material for 2-3 hours. Maybe they'll see the movie 2-3 times, leading to a total exposure of say 10 hours max, in most cases. Someone who plays a video game may engage with the material for dozens of hours, at least (so I understand, based on the prices - you have to play for more than a couple of hours to make it worthwhile!)

This is a much more valid point, IMO. But, then again, I don't think it's relevant in most cases, since increasingly games are not longer than 10-12 hours, due to the practicalities of creating high quality art assets that provide suitable variation for games longer than that. Games which are significantly longer tend to achieve this by two techniques; considerable re-use of assets and having simpler assets overall.

It's also worth nothing that even in Manhunt 2, you don't spend the full 10-12 hours ripping someone's testicles off, it'll happen, I'm guessing, maybe a dozen times.

Another point that comes to mind is that when there is frequent repetition of a given action in a game, it serves to abstract the process even further. To give a personal example, when playing the fantastically violent game God Of War (and I use the term "fantastically" in the context of fantasy, not as a superlative), there are moments where the player controls the protagonist in "mini-games" when defeating the larger monsters. These usually take the form of visual indicators on the screen showing which button to press next, the aim being to respond to these perfectly to kill the monster in a spectacular way. As I progressed through the game, I found that performing a perfect chain of button presses was rewarding in of itself, and the graphics on the screen of the protagonist stabbing a hydra through the eye (or whatever) was less important -- the repetition increased the abstraction, not lessened it.

To take another example, through its centuries of evolution, chess has become almost totally abstracted from the simulation of military strategy it was originally intended to be. To the extent that laypeople such as myself have difficulty in following a game at all, never mind seeing how the game applies to military conflict. Video games are similar, but without the extreme levels of evolution and abstraction that make chess what it is today.

To comment specifically on the Manhunt 2 case, while I am always vaguely uncomfortable when the BBFC reverts to being a censor, rather than a classification body, the feeling I get is that Rockstar (the developers of Manhunt 2) have increasingly used clashes with the regulators as free publicity, and I'm actually quite pleased that both the ESRB and the BBFC have made such definitive statements. Based on what I heard about the previous game and on what I've picked up about the sequel, the Manhunt series is without any artistic merit whatsoever and I don't think it's any loss to society at all that it won't be released in its current form.

There is, however, speculation in gaming circles that Rockstar sent the current "cut" of Manhunt 2 to the regulators never intending to release it. The regulators are pretty consistent and predictable and given Sony and Nintendo's policy of not licencing any game rated AO for release on their platforms, Rockstar must have known what they were doing, and will have an edited cut to be released in short order which will pass muster both in the UK and the US, and sell well thanks to the controversey surrounding the "banning".

[yovargas]

The US AO-rating bothers me less - that is just a question of whether the standards are consistent with the ratings of other media and nel makes fair poitns as to why perhaps they shouldn't be.

But the straight banning in the UK is disturbing, IMO. That's no better than banning books. That's something that wouldn't happen in the US and that is something that still makes me proud of our country.

[anthriel]

I don't allow my son to play violent video games, OR to see violent movies. Nor would I let my daughter do these things, if she had any desire.

And I HAVE played video games, btw. Liked 'em, too.

I also will not let my boy play internet-based games. I have had too many other parents comment on how addictive those are, and my boy has enough time plugged into the computer doing what he is doing. No more room for extra addictions, thank you very much.

Yes, I am Momzilla.

So sue me.

[The Angel]

Yov, you know, if it was a game that I thought had a shred of merit, I'd be more than just slightly uncomfortable. As it is, I'm tempted to just shrug.

The BBFC has been steadily liberalising since Andreas Whittam-Smith took it over ten years ago, and even though he's no longer its president, I still agree with the vast majority of its decisions. In fact, the refusing of certification to Manhunt 2 is the only one I can think of. Personally, had I been classifying it myself, I'd have been tempted to give it the "sex shops only" R18 rating, rather than banning it outright.

But it really does seem that this cut of Manhunt was never actually intended for release, so meh.

Edit: Just to play devils advocate, while the US's freedom of speech laws may prohibit a national censor like the BBFC, what the US has in practice is censorship by corporation, rather than by government. See also movie distributors refusing to distributes films rated NC17. At least the BBFC has public accountability, which is more than the MPAA does.

[Griffon64]

I've played plenty of computer games in my youth. I remember the addictive feel of them. That's one of the reasons I nowadays seldom play a new game. I'll play my old favourites from time to time, but I really can't afford the time sink of getting hooked playing a cool new game.

I remember initially feeling uneasy playing violent games. Then I got used to it. I found it a bit disturbing that my mind would start processing something that it balked at initially as "normal". It is a side effect of the human being's ability to adapt to its environment, of course. Nevertheless, it doesn't seem entirely harmless or wholesome to me that my mind would adapt to any form of horrid violence.

I suppose it varies from individual to individual, though, as does each individual's ability to make choices that are best for them. That's one reason for rating boards, I suppose. Much as many minds balk at the thought of an entity presuming to tell others what's best for them, some individuals do need the service - sometimes for the good of the community at large, too. A fuzzy line.

[solicitr]

At least the BBFC has public accountability, which is more than the MPAA does.

On the other hand, the MPAA can't put people in jail.

[yovargas]

I don't mind ratings boards in the least. I think they're great, mostly. I just wish they'd be more clear and transparent about their decisions. EG. I'd like explicit reasons why they feel this game deserves an AO.