C|Net is reporting that “politicians on Wednesday assailed what one called ‘twisted, homicidal imagery’ in video games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and suggested confining sales of certain games to a sort of red-light district.
“At a hearing [in Washington D.C.], members of a U.S. House of Representatives panel on consumer protection said gaming companies aren’t doing enough to protect children from explicit products and called for a re-examination of the voluntary ratings system used by the industry.”
Can politicians just give up, already? Honestly, we all know the GTA series pushes the limits of free-form gameplay and morals and ethics, but outside of that series, has anyone taken issue with another videogame? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
Fact is, politicians clinging to GTA as a sign of the corruption and deterioration of America’s youth is like calling for the censorship of the entire movie industry because of The Exorcist or Debbie Does Dallas. Products with objectionable content are bound to surface, regardless of the medium, but you have to look at the entire landscape of said medium before making rash decisions about how to treat it.
It’s far too easy to get into a First Amendment debate on this topic, so let’s not even go there. Instead, let’s use common sense. The most recent political uproar calls into question the “voluntary” ratings system for videogames. Last time I checked, the ratings system was compulsory, and although it’s self-imposed by the very industry some politicians want to censor, the Motion Picture Association of America is also (gasp) an industry group. Tell me what’s wrong that.
Didn’t think you could.
This compulsory rating system works just fine in Hollywood. Kids and parents both understand the ratings, vendors enforce the rules by carding consumers as appropriate, and everyone lives happily ever after. Moviemakers make the products they want to make, and the only things determining their success or failure are the financial faith of a producer and public support.
Applying this same model to the game industry should just be a matter of … oh wait, the ESRB has been doing that for years. The difference here, and it’s a big one, is that for the videogame ratings to succeed, parents need to take a more active role in understanding videogame ratings, and vendors need to do a better job of enforcing the ratings so they’re not rendered useless.
Developers will always want to make horrid games, much like Uwe Boll will always want to make horrid movies. Remember the JFK assassination game created a year ago? Bad taste, bad sales, distant memory. Gamers were appalled at the concept, much like many parents (and politicians) are appalled at the content in GTA. But they were trusted to make their own decision about whether to buy it. And funny thing, nobody did.
Would anyone care to tell me how the JFK Assassination game went over in Washington D.C.? That’s right: like a fart in church. But does a single legislator bring up that game in these political witch hunts? Nope. That’s presumably because, deep down, they actually realize consumers are capable of making their own decisions about what’s true entertainment and what’s tasteless trash.
Regardless of where you stand on the GTA series, it’s hard to imagine actually wanting to take away consumers’ free will to determine what they want to pursue as entertainment. Politicians let gamers decide for themselves whether the JFK assassination game was worthy of their dollar (it wasn’t), so why not extend that free will to other games as well, including GTA? Politicians should focus on the real problems affecting American youth, things like child abuse, poverty, hunger and education, and let parents and common sense rule the roost when it comes to videogames.
— Jonas Allen
