Some people say history doesn’t repeat itself, but it seems to be doing that in this matter. As with rock ‘n’ roll, Elvis and comic books before them, video games have become the target of pubic scrutiny and are seen as inappropriate for the children of our time.
What I see is an older generation of people (i.e. politicians, parents) trying to protect kids from something they think is inappropriate – but not necessarily what the public considers as inappropriate.
I watched the G4 special report on sexual content in video games Tuesday night, and I have to say that it was very informative. It covered the history of sex found in video games from Atari to text-adventure to the first interactive CD-ROMs to the games of today.
There was an equally informative panel discussion afterwards with opinions from the developer, public, parental, government and retail points of view.
Many of the people seem to be placing the blame everywhere they can point their fingers, starting with the game developers to the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) rating system to poor parental decisions to bad judgment for choosing a game and so on. From what I can tell, trust and honesty are the two things people are most upset about being broken, starting with the ESRB rating system.
The ESRB rating system is faulty – it’s based on watching a video of the game after production has been concluded and looking at an extensive list of possible things that are included in the game like gore, blood, violence, sexual content, etc. The developer fills out this extensive and detailed list before presenting the game for its rating. The game is then watched – not played – to determine what type of rating it will have.
The problem with this system is that the developer can easily lie about what content is actually present in the game, causing the rating to be affected when the game is previewed. But I also understand why the developer does not list everything, since cheat codes are abundant for gamers to get more from the game and have plenty of replay value for the game.
All of which brings up another thing – a cheat code is nothing but a sequence that enables a code that was intentionally turned off by the developer to be turned on.
The developer does not have this on initially or else the game would lose its edge for its difficulty level. (In other words, if you have unlimited ammo, constant armor and are almost to the point of what gamers call “god level” for your character when you start the game, you would become bored with it after 5 minutes.)
This is basically what the “Hot Coffee Mod,” (here, “mod” is short for modification) the infamous code that pulled the controvesial Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas from shelves, really is in its simplest form – a code turned off. Unless the code is turned on, no one will know about it.
Another thing people are bringing up is the sale of “M” or “Mature”-rated games being sold to minors. If the rating system were really honored for what it is, then these games would not be getting to children. It may seem a matter of common sense, but like cigarettes, alcohol and R-rated movies, kids are still getting to them.
And who hasn’t snuck into an R-rated movie or seen a movie they knew they were not supposed to see in their lifetime? What a lot of people don’t think of is the child can still get the game as long as an adult buys it for them.
Some solutions that have been suggested are a better rating system, more strict rules for developers on what content is actually present in the game, more education for parents on the rating system and more explanation in the stores on the rating system where the games are bought.
The solution I think would be best is to have parents rent the game for their kid and play it themselves before they buy it. This way, they can see for themselves if the content is appropriate for their kids or not. If they don’t like to play the games themselves, have a family member that is trustworthy play the game first or have the kid play the game and monitor the gameplay. Either way, they will see the content for themselves and can then take appropriate action.
What a lot of people seem to be hung up on is the fact that Rockstar Games, the makers of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, lied about the Hot Coffee Mod. They lied to the ESRB about the content of their game. They lied to the pubic and the media about the mod actually existing, and they were caught in their lies. Where most of the noise is coming from is from the older generation that feels betrayed.
What a lot of people are now thinking is if the developers have lied to the ESRB about game content, will they do it again? For the sake of cheat codes, I hope they do. And like rock-and-roll, the controversy will eventually fade. We will just have to bide our time until then.
Danielle Moss may be reached at
mossdj@vcu.edu