I thought this was a really good piece on the subject.

http://www.igda.org/columns/clash/clash_Sep05.php

Mr. DeMille, I'm Ready for My Close-Up

What anti-game advocates are really after


On the rare occasions I contemplate Jack Thompson, I usually just ponder in silence what a publicity-hungry scion of incoherence (http://gr.bolt.com/articles/jack/jack.htm) he's become. Democrat or no, I'm similarly unimpressed by the antics of Hillary Clinton and Leland Yee. It has been rightly postulated that lawmakers attack video games to conceal their failure to combat genuine social problems, but that's not the core of it. These censorious campaigns have little to do with protecting kids (who are not in danger (http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?Story_ID=4247084)); it's about publicity. They attack this medium because it gets them airtime and is sufficiently misunderstood that they can bully it and invent facts without fear of organized dispute. Because we're all “in” the industry, we forget that not everyone (http://retailindustry.about.com/od/seg_toys/a/bl_npd012703.htm) is a gamer. For those that the Yees and Clintons wish to cultivate, knowledge of games comes not from games themselves but from what pundits choose to reveal. And of course pundits only reveal information that benefits or advances their misleading claims, extending their stay in the glow of the cameras. They ignore a whole lot of facts that weaken their crusade, and distort others to further demonize games. They don't really object to game content, it's airtime (http://www.livejournal.com/users/gamepolitics/50924.html) they're after – a fact proven by their staggering hypocrisy.

Consider: last night I supervised the butchery of an entire people in the most resplendently bloodthirsty and uncalled-for blitzkrieg of carnage in the history of imaginary warfare. I slaughtered them as they tried to surrender, sacked several towns and crucified thousands of innocents. They hadn't provoked me. Actually they'd recently declared us BFFs (http://www.quotegarden.com/best-friends.html) and handed over some territory. I did it for slaves and plunder. It pleased me to melt down their holy relics and torch their sacred groves, to decorate my highways with crucifixions. And the campaign furthered my political aims. Yet Rome: Total War (http://www.totalwar.com/) has never been mentioned by anti-game advocates, despite the penetratingly cruel violence, despite the fact that you can marry a 12-year old daughter to a 55-year old perv. Demagogues have no problem with it, any more than they have with American kids killing Arabs in Battlefield 2.

It's because they don't really care about game content. Content is just the red cape; some wave it to pimp their lecture tours (http://www.killology.com/calendar.htm). Hillary wants to run for President and needs a scapegoat for the misery in the world. Leland feels insignificant as one voice among many and turned into a bleating Cassandra to be singled out. Jack was apparently bitten by a ferocious video game as a child, and risks being accused of tainting juries (http://www.livejournal.com/users/gamepolitics/34681.html) to exorcise the memory. Make no mistake – they have no interest in protecting kids. They're not trying to clean up the medium. The issue, for them, is never about childrens' exposure to violence and sex. The issue is about exposure for themselves.

One of the statements below is true and one false. Which makes for more excitingly purple television?

a) “In Grand Theft Auto , you get points for raping hookers and killing cops! ”

b) “Youth-perpetrated violent crime has been declining (http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/ojstatbb/offenders/qa03201.asp?qaDate=19990930) for more than a decade.”

It is not and has never been about freedom of expression. The sooner we abandon the misguided notion that this is about freedom, the better off we'll be. The solution is to build awareness and combat ignorance. Too many people don't understand games, and the industry's mechanisms for educating them are woefully overworked. When Lieberman howls that GTA encourages players to kill cops, people say “oh, gosh, that's awful.” An educated populace would say “no it doesn't, it punishes you, you get mowed down by a SWAT team before you make it five feet.” The self-described enemies of video games thrive on half-truths carefully formulated to maximize the attention they receive , and many in their audience are ignorant enough about games that they accept these half-truths without question.

We also occasionally provoke the attacks. Rockstar, the Bob Guccione of our industry, is now officially Part of the Problem. The misapprehensions (http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/breaking/errorfilled-cbs-story-attacks-gta-113313.php) about GTA nurtured by mainstream media don't change the fact that Rockstar's pathetic seventh-grader antics push all boundaries of propriety. Their deceitful and increasingly shrill denials about Hot Coffee are especially detestable given that anyone who knows anything about Rockstar recognizes that they're exactly the type who would include explicit content, then lie to the ratings boards, then lie about lying. Perhaps the most offensive aspect of their polymorphic campaign (http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2005-07-20&res=l) of bullshit is the smirking implication that they are the persecuted torchbearers of freedom. Rockstar arrogantly invited a hurricane of negative press to pummel an already-beleaguered industry, and to my mind their punishment doesn't go nearly far enough. Not because they put sex in a game, but because they cheerfully lied about it.

Ernest Adams is, in my opinion, never wrong (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/letter_display.php?letter_id=340). Though it's not about freedom, it would be unwise to point to freedom of expression as proof that games couldn't be censored or regulated. Laws change; the U.S. Constitution looks like an advertisement for White-Out these days. Push and eventually they'll push back whether it's “right” or not. It is in no way inconceivable – thanks to Hot Coffee, it's downright likely – that laws controlling game sales could appear, laws that penalize retailers for parental ignorance and possibly even dictate acceptable content. It happened before in television, movies and comics. It wasn't “right” then either.

Homework: reprogram the next nongamer you meet. Be gentle, persistent and polite. Explain some lesser-known truths (http://www.igda.org/censorship/points.php) about games, about how much they mean to those who love them, about the joy and delight they engender, and about the efforts the industry makes to police content. Disabuse them of press-bandied false notions and assure them that no one is more furious with Rockstar and Take Two than the global games industry. In a word, help them understand that the story is a complicated one, and that they may only be hearing a single, carefully manipulated side of it.

Publicity, eh? Man, I never would have guessed.

Good stuff. I think it's high time the games industry started challenging these fear-mongerers to public debates. Given the ties between MTV and Midway, I also wouldn't be surprised to see an MTV "News" special report show focusing on this issue and giving equal opportunity to the games industry to refute the bullshit the fear-mongerers are trying to perpetrate.

...and assure them that no one is more furious with Rockstar and Take Two than the global games industry.

So in other words, this writer wants us (gamers) to lie to the non-gamers?

Because I don't believe there's a genuine broad sense of anger in gaming world toward Rockstar perhaps other than for getting caught.

I guess it depends if you define gamers by the masses or the more core audience. The sites I visit are pissed at Rockstar for bringing uneeded and unwanted attention for something so stupid.

I guess it depends if you define gamers by the masses or the more core audience. The sites I visit are pissed at Rockstar for bringing uneeded and unwanted attention for something so stupid.

Add to that list other game publishers - it doesn't do any of us any good when one of our own lies to the ratings board and slips in content that should be reported.

Wonder if and how the ESRB has changed the way it deals with publishers.

I agree. From what I have read (and certainly don't consider myself an insider in the industry), most publishers and the core audience are pissed off at Rockstar. Most casual gamers (ie, me) probably don't really care all that much because, at the end of the day, it doesn't really effect them.

It makes sense that they would be. I mean, Rockstar pulling a stunt like they did, hurts the credibility of the industry, which, in turn, could hurt the profitability of their business.

Wonder if and how the ESRB has changed the way it deals with publishers.

The current systme relies on publisher honesty. With movies, a board can view what the content of the movie is and judge it accordingly. With games, there's no possible way a review board can know about all of the content in a game, especially when there exists the possibility of unlockable content like the "hot coffee" mod. So they rely on the publishers being honest when sending them samples of the most questionable content.

I suppose they could institute some kind of penalty for when a publisher is caught lying, like refusing to grant any kind of review for their game for a period of time. So long as most retailers refuse to sell games unrated by the ESRB this would be an effective means of punishment.

Wonder if and how the ESRB has changed the way it deals with publishers.
Don't remember if it was formally passed or not, but there was discussion that they were going to make publishers submit all content in human-viewable form, not just whatever game-readable form ships on the disc.

If they are Anti Computer Game Advocates does that make them for or against computer games?

Don't remember if it was formally passed or not, but there was discussion that they were going to make publishers submit all content in human-viewable form, not just whatever game-readable form ships on the disc.
I think that's right. I heard about that, which could add serious delays to games being published.

I think that's right. I heard about that, which could add serious delays to games being published.

It also doesn't really address the issue. Rockstar would've simply chosen not to send the "hot coffee" content for review.

Yeah, I don't really get the difference. Ultimatly the only way to guarentee total disclosure would be to have someone from the ESRB go over the code line by line. Not likely.

It also doesn't really address the issue. Rockstar would've simply chosen not to send the "hot coffee" content for review.
It does close the "but that's not user-viewable content" loophole.

It does close the "but that's not user-viewable content" loophole.

True. I guess my point is, it may help a little bit, but the thing that has drawn the most attention to the ESRB process (i.e. the "hot coffee" incident) wouldn't have been prevented by this change.