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[JayDubya]

Just make it, sell it, let the market decide. Of course, we have some fairly strong de facto censorship since many stores don't carry NC-17 or AO content, which is lame, but there's some that do, and if the demand is strong enough, the places that don't carry it will be pressured to stock it.

Basically, point by point...

Stores need to not sell mature content to kids. When they do, they need to be boycotted. There's no reason for anything more than that.

Stores need to stock mature content for adults. Give us the choice to buy it or not. It's lame that games like Fahrenheit get neutered for American audiences or face a near total ban from the marketplace. What places do stock AO? I would hope gaming boutiques like Gamestop would.

End the double standard with videogames versus other media. They are NOT only for children - obviously, with more and more titles catering to older gamers - and yet things that in film would warrant a PG-13 rating get an M in games. Things that would warrant an R gets an AO.

* * *

There's nothing inherently wrong with nudity, sex, or extreme violence in video games. Hell, for an easy comparison, Daggerfall had full character nudity and it was no big deal. Then nowadays, everyone was all up in arms because it's easy to fan mod Oblivion to allow for some tits, so the game had to be re-rated. So stupid.

 

[Razoric]

Could someone who've played the first game please tell me what's it's all actually about?
People keep talking about the meaning behind the violence in it, that there's some purpose why you're brutally killing people (I do know it's done in some rather brutal ways), and since I haven't played it myself (really doesen't look like a game I would enjoy, rather the opposite, but I have been tempted to try it out now just to see what's it all about) I would like to know what the actual meaning of the game is, if not to just to slaughter people.

Cause to me, as one who hasn't really seen much of the game, it sounds just like a big brutal-slaughter-party :z. For all I know there could be very little of that those things, but since I haven't played it as mentioned earlier I would realy like to know.

Please enlighten me.

I don't think there is any deep meaning behind the Manhunt games, they are just like any other game... only the dark nature behind the games is pretty raw and brutal and is not normally seen in gaming (think Se7en atmosphere but in a game instead of a movie).

The first Manhunt was about survival. And it's influence is the movie "The Running Man" where you are playing a game for this sick twisted asshole who is filming you the entire time. He puts you through different scenerios and forces you to kill or be killed by the people hunting you. He is basically a movie director and you are the actor being forced to make the movie for him. The more brutal you kill, the more he likes it. It eventually ends with you escaping his henchmen and going to the source (ie him).

Again, there is no deep meaning behind it, it's just a story they were telling.

Manhunt 2 seems to follow the path of a person who has been tortured and experimented on by a Private or Government (?) agency and now you are killing to escape the insane asylum.

These games really aren't 'murder sims' where you are just walking around a city street brutally murdering everyone in your path. There is a storyline oriented reason why you do what you do. Similar to why you kill guards in Splinter Cell or Metal Gear Solid.

Obviously it's over the top gore / violence because that's their shtick.

I can see why people hate these games, they obviously aren't ment for everyone. But it seems a bit much to be happy that this game is banned. There is room in this industry for all types of games, yes even violent horror games.

 

[Droog]

That's the common perception, but the research done in this area has done nothing to bear out the hypothesis that interactive entertainment is any more harmful than passive entertainment. Not surprising, since research hasn't done much at all to support the hypothesis that video entertainment can be harmful at all.

I hope I didn't imply that I thought that interactive entertainment was more harmful than passive as I personally don't feel this way. Merely bringing up the point that I think that this perception that interactive = bad, passive = ok mentality does exist.

I would like to see real research done into this field to try and prove what most of us know already; that games aren't harmful to people who can tell the difference between reality and fiction. (Obviously a biased person like me shouldn't do it! )

 

[Mmmkay]

Given the fundamental differences in the rating systems, this didn't really seem to fit in the ESRB Manhunt thread, so I'm bumping this one instead of starting anew.

IGN has a story on the BBFC and how they rate games and a little more on their Manhunt 2 verdict:

http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/799/799506p1.html

While there's certainly some justification for confusion regarding the Board's decision, it seems that many games players, including us here at IGN, are still somewhat mystified by the inner workings of video games ratings system here in Britain. With that in mind, we approached the BBFC's press office manager Sue Clark to find out more about the classification process, its ratings criteria and, of course, Manhunt 2.

Curiously contradictory:

Unlike some ratings bodies, all classification decisions at the BBFC are made following extensive hands-on experience with each title: "We have examiners who are specialists in playing games. They're keen games players themselves," notes Clark. "We do actively play the game and we have people who know how to play games very well, so we feel that we do get a very good feel for the game." That said, the Board rarely plays a game in its entirety, usually limiting itself to around five hours with a single title: "Because we have the cheat codes, we can obviously get through levels very much quicker than you can if you're playing under normal circumstances. One of the requirements we put in place for games distributors is that they provide a list of all the key features in a game - they can't sort of say 'Well, if they don't spot that, we won't tell them about it.' They do have to tell us all of the things which are likely to impact on the classification or it could affect the outcome of our decision."

While it might appear from the outside that the BBFC operates under two different sets of classification rules where games and films are concerned, Clark insists that isn't so, with the Board's full list of guidelines readily available on its website. However, Clark does concede that the Board does make concessions for the innate differences between active game playing and more passive film consumption: "We are aware there are interactivity elements and you can control what is actually going on. You can repeat play - if you're watching a film, you have to watch it from the beginning to end in a cinema. You can obviously do that on video, but there's not much more you can do - it becomes a bit tedious watching a scene over and over again. We might say 'Okay, if that had been a film, it would be okay in a linear format but with the element of interactivity in games, with the ability to do it over and over again, we might bump the rating up to a higher category.'"

With that in mind, we were interested to hear what research the Board draws on when considering the addition of interactivity in games and how that impacts the audience: "We did do some research recently which looked into why people play videogames: what games they choose, why they choose them and what they find attractive in a game", revealed Clark. "We basically talked to games players aged from seven to 40-odd. We also talked to their parents and to games developers and people who review games, so we got a broad range of experience and interest in games playing. We talked to them about what it was they enjoyed about playing games and the issues that they thought were important in terms of games playing."

While the apparent absence of any scientific research might surprise some people, the BBFC's own admission of its findings is even more curious: "The interactivity element of it, one of the things we found, which we weren't really expecting, was that people felt that the interactivity slightly distanced them from the game. What with having to press buttons, you are more likely to be aware that you're playing a game." Of course, that somewhat contradicts the Board's self-admitted tendency to "bump the rating up to a higher category" in certain instances where videogames are concerned, while massively exploitative films such as Wolf Creek and Hostel navigate the classification process unscathed.

"We obviously have given games 18 ratings because we think that they are only suitable for adults. But also, under the terms of the Video Recordings Act we have to bear in mind the fact that these games will be potentially accessed by younger viewers", noted Clark. In fact, referencing Manhunt 2 specifically, Clark elaborated, "We are required under the terms of the VRA to take into account potential harm - it's not spelled out, we're not told what that potential harm is. We're not even told that we have to prove it - we're just told that we have to take it into account and bear it in mind when we're classifying games. And so, in this case, we did look at this and we felt that, in the case of this game, because we felt that that was the only thing on offer, we felt there was potential for harm and obviously we were concerned about the possibility of younger aged viewers getting it. We know that games are very, very attractive to under-aged players, particularly the 18 rated games"

"We haven't singled out Manhunt 2 and we're not singling out games, despite what some people have said to us. We are classifying a work: we give it very careful consideration - several examiners have played Manhunt 2 and it was seen by our Director and it was seen by our presidential team and a lot of discussion was had about whether or not it could be classified. The problem games face, which don't necessarily apply to film, is that it's much more difficult to make tweaks and changes to a videogame than it is to remove two or three seconds or several frames from a film. It's a much more complex issue and in the case of Manhunt 2, as in the case of 'Terrorists, Killers and other Whackos', the amount that you'd have had to have changed or removed would have not made it a viable work which is why it was rejected."