The Manhunt 2 Controversy - Should Graphic Games Be Allowed?

[Hammer]

So, who has been following this? It makes a great follow up to the Sony Vs CoE story

For those that don't know, Manhunt was one of the most violent games ever made for the PS2, Xbox and PC. You play a convicted criminal trying to survive the machinations of an rather insane multi-millionaire by executing members of various street games in a large number of ways, including beating them to death with blunt objects, electrocution and hacking characters to death with machetes, sickles and other bladed weapons. It's known for being extremely bloody and graphic.

Manhunt 2 is more of the same. Not that much is known about the plot, but the main character is a former scientist incarcerated in an asylum for the criminally insane and teh publicty shots show him hack a victim to death with an axe, executing someone in an Electric Chair and breaking someone's neck.

The fun, however, started last week, shortly before Manhunt 2 was due to release. Initially, the American board of censors gave it an Adult Only classification and the British Board of Film Classification refused to classify it, meaning that it cannot legally be sold in the UK.
The Adult Only classification in America means that many of the big chain stores will not stock the game, limiting it's distribution severely.

Following this, several other countries including Ireland, Italy and Germany have stated that it would be banned if released and both Nintendo and Sony refused to licence the game for publication on their consoles.
A few days later, Take Two, who own Rockstar Games and publish the GTA games, amongst others decided to postpone the release of Manhunt 2 for the foreseeable future.

So, the question is, should the censors in various countries have been allowed to ban this game? Were Nintendo and Sony right to refuse to licence it? If this was a film, would the same standards have been applied?

[Timmy]

No.

[Ghostsuit]

Top of my list of games to get hold of straight away .

I don't think it should be banned. Sure make it an 18 or something but banning is just silly.

[DiamondAFC]

If this was a film they'd got some way round it and classified it as an 18.

I bludy want this and will get it anyway from somewhere.

[Timmy]

No point in classifying games in age groups if they don't feel 18+ are old enough to understand its just a game.


Banning is stupid.

[djtoast]

How can it possibly make sense to ban a video game when you can buy a kitchen knife? The latter is more directly dangerous. So this only makes sense if the game will fundamentally change my morality...

... but there's plenty of games whose sole focus is to kill everything you encounter, what's different here? Higher quality graphics certainly aren't gonna persuade me that putting down my wiimote and bludgeoning my real-life neighbour is a good idea.

It's the same as the "gateway drug" argument pish that people use to say

1) some people smoke weed
2) some people later smoke crack
3) if you smoke weed you'll end up smoking crack

which would be more accurate if it included

0.5) some people are born
0.7) some people wear clothes
2.1) some people don't later smoke crack
4) oh look, actually there's no fucking connection

ie yes some people who shoot their classmates may have played video games and listened to music made by rock bands *gasp* but why out of the sum total of all their activities to date is it these factors that are blamed, when those same factors don't cause >99% of kids to go on a murderous rampage, and equally people do kill other people despite not being immersed in gaming / alternative culture?

Really, the logic here is as flawed as the schoolboy syllogism that "proves" my dog is a cat.

[Ghostsuit]

Originally Posted by chris rock

[On the US school shootings] Everybody is wanting to know what music were the kids listening to, or what movies were they watching. Who gives a fuck what they was watching! Whatever happened to crazy? What, you can't be crazy no more? Should we eliminate crazy from the dictionary?

Don't fuck with the crazy people .

[Rio Ohki]

Always thought banning something was a really stupid way to try and stop people getting it/wanting it.

[GoddamnElectric]

I actually see this as having scope for being positive for gaming - it may well act as a deterrent against developers putting out titles that are all shock tactics and no substance, which I suspect this title was. I mean it must have been really bad to warrant a ban, and a total refusal of endorsement from Sega and Nintendo (imagine the lost revenue they're going to take on this, they must have had a really good reason to do this). If it turns out this game was in fact made from the bottom up to play on controversy from day one and actually be a load of over-gored rubbish, then this ban might end up reigning the developers in a bit and prodding them to be a bit more creative.

[Stu]

I think the whole thing is a pointless sham that's done nothing but waste time and money, and I speak as a parent as much as a gamer. With the BBFC banning it, the ESRB rating it AO, and Sony and Nintendo saying they won't allow it, I'm getting one singular message, and it's NOT that my young son is safe from the evils of the world. Hell, it makes me sad to know my son has to live in a world run by such spectacularly stupid people, that's more likely to damage him...

No, the message I'm getting is that video games really are just for children, and how about that, the anti-gaming crowd were right all along, violent video games are marketed to children! I am effectively being told that even as an adult gamer I have no right to enjoy mature-themed games, because there are in fact no such things as adult gamers and mature-themed games are made for children. That's the message I get. Way to take ten steps back, gaming industry!

Hey, I see it when I take my kid to school, some parents are so amazingly dumb that it's amazing they have the brainpower to put one foot in front of the other to walk straight, so there is of course a need to put a label on a box that says 'this isn't meant for your children, dummy'. Yet that's not my problem. I KNOW what my son is playing, at all times, and by the time he's old enough to access these things by myself (or at least old enough to sneak around me), I used to be a kid myself, I know... Manhunt 2 will be the LEAST of my worries...

I don't care if people think Rockstar should be more responsible, or that they're just going for shock tactics, or any of that crap. Good on them, I say. I'm pretty sure George Romero knew what he was getting in to when he made Night of the Living Dead. I'm sure John Lyndon was perfectly aware he was shaking things up when he declared 'fuck it all, and fuck her fucking brat'. These are the things that helped shape popular culture today, for better or for worse. I'm not going to play the 'oh, I'm so mature, I'm above Rockstar's guts 'n' gore!' card, because y'know, I happen to enjoy a little bit of extremity now and again in other forms of entertainment media. I happen to enjoy video games. So I'm stuck with Super fucking Mario?

Y'know, I'm going to call this 'The Exorcist' syndrome. Ban it for 20 years. Then when we finally get to see it, we'll laugh at it for being so stupid. What's funny is that the same day all this Manhunt controversy broke, that evening I was watching CSI Miami with my wife, only to see one of their investigators get shot straight in the eye with a nail from a nail gun, with the scenes following involving said investigator with a nail sticking out of his eye, in all it's gory bloody detail. On prime time TV, considerably easier to access than a video game.

Ironically, all three major gaming systems out right now have parental control systems where you can specifically tell your system not to play AO-rated games unless you put in a code. Yet not one of the major console makers will licence an AO-rated game for their system.... *bangs head on table*

[LesMTS]

I vehemently oppose censorship for adults but I support age restriction on TV, film and videogames that portray realistic or real violence and I think that there is at least an argument that what children can read and listen to should be regulated too.
Children are neurologically programmed to incorporate experience into their world view much more readily than adults are. I don't think kids who play realistically violent video games or watch realistically violent movies will become killers (or even violent) but I don't think it's a healthy thing for them to be exposed to regularly.
So, if I was in charge I'd say fuck censorship, fuck it right in the eye, but impose stricter and more seriously enforced laws concerning supplying minors with age restricted materials. And not just for retailers but parents, siblings, friends, family etc etc too.

[Joe Spinebuster]

Originally Posted by Hammer

If this was a film, would the same standards have been applied?

There are hundreds of movies only available through the internet and such because of censors getting in the way of proper distribution, so probably.

Going off-topic here: djtoast, although you hold a basically good point in your post, your example is flawed because I'm sure there is a pretty good case for weed being a good gateway drug to crack. Of course taking one doesn't mean you definiutely did or definitely will take the other, but to make out like the link is totally unsubstantiated is a little naive. But that's for another thread another time.

[Stu]

Originally Posted by LesMTS

Children are neurologically programmed to incorporate experience into their world view much more readily than adults are. I don't think kids who play realistically violent video games or watch realistically violent movies will become killers (or even violent) but I don't think it's a healthy thing for them to be exposed to regularly.

See, this I can obviously agree with. I see it every day.

An example may be, a few months back my wife was teaching a Grade 3 class (so that would be... 8 years old, I guess), and one of their homework assignments was to write some story about something (don't remember the exact criteria). This one kid brought back the most horrific tale of death and destruction you could never imagine came from a little kid, and he had detailed, blood-splattered pictures of torture and mutilation to go with it. It takes a lot to shock me, and even I was sitting there in slack-jawed awe when my wife let me see it.

Apparently this was a pretty regular kid, always well behaved in class, always well spoken, smart and hard working. In my completely uneducated opinion, this was just the kid's way of expressing input that he'd previously been subjected to (I'm pretty sure an 8 year old couldn't come up with these images on their own)... maybe he got to watch a super-violent movie, maybe his older brother let him play GTA, who knows. The kid was subjected to some kind of media. Nasty, nasty media. We should get rid of these horrible influences, right?

But pull it back a little. What kind of environment is this kid growing up in, where he can experience this kind of media unchecked? What kind of parents does the kid have, if they can not only have a kid to write something so horrible, but sent him off to school with it without even knowing what he'd written...? Looks like there's some bigger issues there, that all the ban hammers in the world can't fix.

This is the stuff that boggles my mind. There's certain areas of Toronto that are rife with gang violence. You see on the TV, some kid got pissed some rival kid, and shot him in the face at school. Blame movies! Blame Grand Theft Auto! Won't someone think of the children! Wait a minute... won't someone point out that the kid's parents are also violent drug-dealing gang members? No, it's much easier to say those poor parents are just more victims of violent and sexual entertainment media. That shit sells newspapers, increases election budgets, and makes household names out of asshats like Jack Thomson. No way we can look at the real issues here when there's so much at stake...

Mind boggling.

Originally Posted by Joe Spinebuster

There are hundreds of movies only available through the internet and such because of censors getting in the way of proper distribution...

Yes, but there's thousands more, unrated and uncut, featuring content that's a hundred times more extreme than any video game I've ever played, all sitting on the store shelves of the same local "family-friendly" Wal*Mart that won't sell AO rated video games.

[endless psych]

Originally Posted by Joe Spinebuster

Going off-topic here: djtoast, although you hold a basically good point in your post, your example is flawed because I'm sure there is a pretty good case for weed being a good gateway drug to crack. Of course taking one doesn't mean you definiutely did or definitely will take the other, but to make out like the link is totally unsubstantiated is a little naive. But that's for another thread another time.

Staying off topic...

http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/addi/ab...195628!8091!-1

Findings: Each of the phenomena used to support claims of a 'marijuana gateway effect' are reproduced by the model, even though marijuana use has no causal influence over hard drug initiation in the model.

The model in question is a "common factor model" for drug use in laymans terms people who are going to use drugs for various social/personal reasons are likely to use marijuana and "harder" drugs anyway. Its the situation they are in personally or socially not a "gateway" effect of the drug itself.

[karbon14]

Originally Posted by GoddamnElectric

I actually see this as having scope for being positive for gaming - it may well act as a deterrent against developers putting out titles that are all shock tactics and no substance, which I suspect this title was. I mean it must have been really bad to warrant a ban, and a total refusal of endorsement from Sega and Nintendo (imagine the lost revenue they're going to take on this, they must have had a really good reason to do this). If it turns out this game was in fact made from the bottom up to play on controversy from day one and actually be a load of over-gored rubbish, then this ban might end up reigning the developers in a bit and prodding them to be a bit more creative.

that was pretty much my view. the BBFC refusal was due to a lack of substance to the game which gave reason for the violence. apprently manhunt had a political message they were trying to give off while this was just midless violence.

Originally Posted by Stu

Apparently this was a pretty regular kid, always well behaved in class, always well spoken, smart and hard working. In my completely uneducated opinion, this was just the kid's way of expressing input that he'd previously been subjected to (I'm pretty sure an 8 year old couldn't come up with these images on their own)... maybe he got to watch a super-violent movie, maybe his older brother let him play GTA, who knows. The kid was subjected to some kind of media. Nasty, nasty media. We should get rid of these horrible influences, right?

we should get rid of these horrible influences because MAYBE he got to do these things? so you're just making up a backstory to prove why he's come up with this story and that's your jsutification for banning something? yea.... totaly read all of your posts... honest guv......