How The Game Is Played

Return of the grouchy old programmer

We just had some tounge in the cheek fun. Now I'm going to get serious on you again.

My buddy, pal, and fellow sun game industry guy, Chris Melissinos has written a BLOG entry on a subject near and dear to my heart. The never-ending noise over video-game violence.

http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/ChrisM

I can't not weigh in on this one myself.

For me this is a bit personal. I was in the industry writing video game code when the whole ESRB thing happened. At the time I was working for a very skittish game company and had to watch what I said. Luckily, Sun allows us more freedom to express ourselves.

I hold a dual BS in both Computer Science and Film Production. As such I was very aware of the two ratings debacles that set the stage for this one-- the movie industry and the creation of the MPAA and the comics industry and the creation of the comics code.

In both those cases, self-serving politicians/demagogues whipped up a frenzy over the "evil influences" of the "new media." A frenzy easy to whip up because the adults they were talking to were totally ignorant of the media in question. In the end, the industries imposed self-administered rating systems to calm the public. They say those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it, and we're going on round three in this case, so a little history-study is in order.

In the case of the comic industry, the impetus was a very very badly researched and argued popular "psychological study" (using the term more loosely then my wife the BS in psychology would be comfortable with) called "Seduction of the Innocent." It basically argued that all of the horrible awful juvenile behavior that was suddenly occurring was the influence of evil comic books. "Our children are having their innocence taken away by comic books!" Sound familiar?

Folks this was 1954. I haven't honestly read the book. I can stomach only so much, but I suspect it was on the order of "hanging around pool halls and listening to that horrible [word beginning with N deleted for sensitivity reasons] jazz music."

Nonetheless the cry of wolf went out and a finger was pointed at the media. The result was two-fold. First, the rest of the comics community singled out one publisher to sacrificer on the altar of public opinion. That company was EC Comics and a good half the code made the names of most of the titles of their comics against the rules. The second was the stunting of the medium for a good 30 years were it was relegated to trite juvenile story telling with no socially relevant content. It was not til the mid 80s that American comics finally got to grow up into real adult literature.

The final demise of the code was in large part due to the sudden financial success of import adult comics from Europe where there was no code and independant "underground comics" in the US that purposefully flaunted their disregard for it. Nothing speaks in America like money and it was enough to get the main-stream comic book companies experimenting with code-breaking on their own. The eventual result being some of the most amazing story-telling ever to come out of comics. (Watchmen. The Neil Gaiman Sandman series, The Dark Knight, and so forth.) The whole industry, and Id argue American culture, owes a debt of gratitude to the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Heavy Metal, and the other pioneers of adult comics.

The comics of the 80s and early 90s proved that comic books could be more then just juvenile kiddie reading but real culturally relevant art. Imagine what might have come out of such cultural situations as the Vietnam War era had it not been so crushed in the 50s.

So lets take a look at example number 2, the movie industry. At first the industry responded with a comics-code like seal. That however broke down as the major studios discovered a demand for movies that couldn't qualify for the seal, and therefor found ways around needing to acquire it. The end result was the system I grew up with-- the ratings of G,PG,R,and X. Rather then set s single code of what was and wasn't allowed, the idea was to give the consumer information and let them chose.

Unfortunately, this turned out to have a stifling effect on the industry. Movies were cut and re-cut in order to achieve the desired rating. Whatever was seen as the "sweet spot" for the largest audience was the one targeted. This turned out to be R in the long run and the result was that many movies had unnecessarily graphic sexual or violent content added just to push them to R. Something that, if the founders of the Catholic Legion of Decency, a primary mover in the original urge to restrict movie content, understood they would, I think, think twice before interfering in media again. But those who don't study history...

Worse, in my opinion, the X rating quickly became associated with porno-trash and was eschewed by the industry. Many very artistic and serious adult-oriented films have had to trim valid and relevant content in order to avoid it. (There is a classic story about Angel Heart but I won't bore you with it here.) The industry has tried to address this recently with the creation of a new "A" adult rating but its fighting the perception of being "the new 'X'" and unfortunately not very successfully.

So that brings us to the late 90s. And another political furor over "the corruption of innocent minds." This time the targets are rap music and video games. I will leave my opinions and observations on the rap thing to another day and focus on the video games. Again it was an easy political target because parents don't understand video games, and where there is lack of knowledge-- there is fear.

The whole ugly business was painfully predictable to those of us who know some history. The demagogues made speeches, the parents made anguished cries, and the industry responded with a rating system.

And what was the result of that rating system? I will tell you. The equivalent of an X in the video game rating system is an M for "Mature users only." The first video game released with an M rating was Mortal Kombat 3. In the first week of its release, Mortal Kombat 3 did more gross income then the first week of the movie The Lion King.

Well, that was effective wasn't it? At least we know the sweet spot, its an M. And lots of M titles followed. Ones you hear a lot about when people talk about video games and violence, like the Grand Theft Auto series. They were arguably the direct children of the video game rating system. People voted for M with their wallets, so thats what they got.

I addressed a group of parents about the video game industry the week after MK3 came out and I brought the clipping about sales because I knew the issue would come up. When it did I read the clipping and then posed this question back "YOU told us you need ratings. YOU told us our customers were 13 year olds (which, as Chris M points out, is patently false). Why are YOUR 13 year olds all buying a game WE marked as for mature adults???"

The somewhat embarrassed answer I got was "well we can't control our children."

And THAT my dear friends and readers is what really creates delinquency. Its not the media messages, its the parents who abdicate their responsibility to teach their kids and instead leave them to the wilds of the media. When I was a child, I was allowed only 2 hours a day of any TV that was not PBS. That was so my mother could monitor what I was watching and make sure that I learned the right things, not the wrong ones. I did not go to a movie without my parents approval. Movies they thought I might not understand, they often took me to themselves and discussed with me afterwards. And that was all true until I entered high school.

There were certain shows I was not allowed to watch at all until high school. One was "All in the Family." Its not that my parents thought it was a "bad show." Quite the contrary, they thought it was one of the most brilliant TV shows ever written. But they knew it was an adult show. That I wouldn't understand that your not supposed to like Archie's attitudes.. or Michaels all the time either.

Which gets me to my conclusion. There are two constants in America, that if anything have only gotten worse over the generations. One is that lack of active parenting leads to screwed up kids. I may not agree with everything the Church of Latter Day Saints believes but I do think they are dead on in the importance of active families and active parenting. When I was a kid they used to run TV ads to encourage people to do that, I hope they do again.

The second is that lazy inactive parents will always latch onto something to blame their screwed up kids on. And generally, its the media.

Posted at 11:11PM Apr 19, 2005 by gameguy in General  |  Comments[1]