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Television Media Entertainment Games

Defending Games For Adults on National Television 134

Posted by Zonk from the hard-not-to-blink dept.
N'Gai Croal, at the Newsweek blog LevelUp, had the chance to talk about the Manhunt 2 ban/re-rating fiasco on the CNN program American Morning. It's an interesting discussion of the issue, and it sounds like for the most part he got a fair shake; this wasn't yet another 'ambush the games journalist'-style cable program. The one thing N'Gai tried to make clear - and may have gotten lost in the shuffle - was that this title categorically is not for kids. "We bring this up not because there's anything sinister at work, but rather because [co-anchor Kiran Chetry] isn't alone in her bedrock assumption that all videogames are primarily aimed at 'kids.' After all, had we gone on the show to discuss Ang Lee's NC-17-rated erotic thriller 'Lust, Caution,' or the upcoming horror movie '30 Days of Night,' we doubt that we'd have been asked 'Would you let your kids watch it?' It would have been assumed that those movies, like certain TV shows, books or plays, are not intended for children. Yet videogames often don't get the same recognition."
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Defending Games For Adults on National Television

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  • It's a generational thing. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @04:56PM (#20918127)
    The Nintendo generation is now in its late twenties or early thirties. We're a major demographic, but we're not the ones in power yet.

    So there's still a general assumption in the establishment power centres that games are toys for children and therefore need to be regulated more closely than other media. This will change, but probably only when the Prime Minister is a man who grew up playing Super Mario Bros.

    Mind you, there is a counterpoint that interactivity heightens the intensity of the experience considerably. I've watched endless horrific violence on film and it doesn't bother me. But in a game it's not some villain doing the dirty deed - it's you. And with modern control technology - say, The Godfather: Blackhand Edition - it feels like it, too. Watching a guy get pummelled on screen is less real than watching a guy get pummelled on screen, while pressing buttons to dictate the manner of the pummelling. Neither is anywhere near watching a guy get pummelled on screen while swinging your own fist repeatedly to dictate the manner of the pummelling. All are equally fictional, but that last one... it feels good, in a very bad way indeed.

    • Re:It's a generational thing. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Black Art ( 3335 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @05:01PM (#20918183)
      I wonder how long it is going to take. I have been playing videogames since I was a teenager. I am over 40 years old. I still enjoy videogames even more now than I did then.

      I have also seen the same argument used on Comic Books. The idea that comic books are "just for kids" has not been true since the late 60's.

      The people who make the argument that "product X is always aimed towards kids" are the same people who are looking for an excuse to ban product X.

      • Re:It's a generational thing. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by meringuoid ( 568297 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @05:07PM (#20918261)
        I have also seen the same argument used on Comic Books. The idea that comic books are "just for kids" has not been true since the late 60's.

        The days of moral panic about the contents of comics seem to be long gone, though. 2000AD used to upset our moral guardians back in the eighties, when kids started coming home with Judge Dredd instead of Desperate Dan. But since then... Well, there's been Sandman, Preacher, Hellblazer, Lucifer, and God knows what else. These make the old 'Tales from the Crypt' comics that caused so much upset look feeble, but nobody minds because they're plainly intended for adults, and that idea's more or less got through now.

        Well, that or the perception is now that comics are for geeks instead of for children.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Telvin_3d ( 855514 )
          I think part of that is the fact that kids really don't buy comics any more. Mom isn't worried about little Timmy coming home with a copy of Transmetropolitan because little Timmy would rather be hit with a baseball bat than blow his allowance on $4 comic books.

          • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

            by Black Art ( 3335 )
            I was thinking of underground comics. Titles like "Zap" or "Bizzare Sex" have been around for about 30 years now. Billy may not blow $4 on a copy of Transmopolitan, but he might blow it on "Cherry Poptart".

            • ...but he might blow it on "Cherry Poptart".

              Eeeew, that explains why all the pages are stuck together.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by p0ss ( 998301 )
            I think that online comics have also contributed to the decline in comic sales.
            • quite the opposite really. Ever since the crash in the nineties comics have slowly been rising. If anything I'd say online comics like penny-arcade and comic-based movies are the cause of this.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Gulthek ( 12570 )
          If you think that moral outrage over comics started in the eighties, research EC Comics [wikipedia.org].
          • If you think that moral outrage over comics started in the eighties, research EC Comics.

            Actually, I meant that moral outrage over comics ended in the eighties - the bother over 2000AD was the most recent I could think of. Certainly there were earlier examples - I believe I did mention EC's Tales from the Crypt as well.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by EtoilePB ( 1087031 )
          The days of moral panic about the contents of comics seem to be long gone, though. 2000AD used to upset our moral guardians back in the eighties, when kids started coming home with Judge Dredd instead of Desperate Dan. But since then... Well, there's been Sandman, Preacher, Hellblazer, Lucifer, and God knows what else. These make the old 'Tales from the Crypt' comics that caused so much upset look feeble, but nobody minds because they're plainly intended for adults, and that idea's more or less got through
      • I'm on your side (I'm in my 50's), but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a sea-change if I were you.

        I started playing video games when the original Atari 2600 was first released (Pong, anyone? How about Space Invaders?), and still play video games today (favorites now are Unreal Tournament and Postal 2). so I dispute the idea that there's some sort of generational thing going on. What's happening is that a large segment of the population is clueless when it comes to video games. This group prefers to li
        • Heh. My sister sold enough subscriptions to Grit to get the Coleco? Pong one-trick console. Two paddles, two nine-volt batteries, a select button, and a start button were about all it had. No cartridge slot at all, just Pong. The 2600 was a leap forward from hooking different boxes up to the RCA jack on our slide-switching adapter box attached to the antenna screw posts for different games.

          Then, impressed with what we'd gotten out of the 2600 (actually, a Sears VCS) we bought a 600 XL as the family's first

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Creepy ( 93888 )
        While I'm not as old as you, I've been playing videogames since I was 3 or 4 (on Magnavox Odyssey and Pong, later on a 2600). I don't play as many as I used to, but I still play them nonetheless.

        Its not just comics (which to be quite honest, I've never seen as "just for kids" - I think that stigma was a generation before) - cartoons as well. Despite Anime and popular adult cartoons (mostly aired late at night), the genre is still seen as "for kids" by many parents in their mid-30s or later. Until Robotec

    • Going by the quote (Score:2, Interesting)

      by js92647 ( 917218 )
      I'm agreeing with you under the assumption that your last paragraph wasn't sarcastic. I don't see why Manhunt 2 is being brought up so much. It's just a game, nothing more. As someone who's been playing games throughout his life, all sorts of hideous monstrosities down to Nascar racing games (yes, even those are fun sometimes), I think it's fair to point out a major distinction between games and movies/books that has been discussed many times before: passivity. I suppose in a certain sense, it's a double

    • Re:It's a generational thing. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by morari ( 1080535 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @05:11PM (#20918327) Journal

      I've watched endless horrific violence on film and it doesn't bother me. But in a game it's not some villain doing the dirty deed - it's you.
      No, it's not. It's still a character that you are watching. Pushing the buttons on a gamepad to perform a kill isn't all that different from turning the page of a book to read about the grizzly murder, or pressing play on the DVD remote.

      Maybe we should start regulating laser-tag and paintball? I hear it's pretty interactive...

      • Re:It's a generational thing. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by westlake ( 615356 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @06:53PM (#20919381)
        No, it's not. It's still a character that you are watching. Pushing the buttons on a gamepad to perform a kill isn't all that different from turning the page of a book to read about the grizzly murder, or pressing play on the DVD remote.

        I respectfully disagree.

        You are not watching the action from some physical and psychological distance. You are role-playing the character.

        You are being explicitly rewarded for the growing sadism of your kills.

        You sre beinh drawn into this environment for hours, days or even weeks, at a stretch. Not the ninety minutes of a theatrical feature. This takes you into territory where even the clinical psychiatrist treads cautiously.

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by morari ( 1080535 )
          I personally do not think that I would call what most video games produce as "roleplaying". Many simply give you control over a character's basic actions, not their intentions or personalities. I would consider that as a mere character, not an extension, manifestation, or interpretation of one's own being.

          Many films reward your dedication and patience, as a viewer, by showing and exposing you to increasingly brutal or "action filled" sequences. Sadism is sadism, even if only vicariously so. Furthermore, t

          • Re:It's a generational thing. (Score:4, Interesting)

            by fractoid ( 1076465 ) on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @12:46AM (#20922845) Homepage

            I personally do not think that I would call what most video games produce as "roleplaying". Many simply give you control over a character's basic actions, not their intentions or personalities. I would consider that as a mere character, not an extension, manifestation, or interpretation of one's own being.
            I would argue that being given control over a character's actions, and then using that character to brutally kill another character, would qualify as playing the role of a killer. There's a fundamental difference between watching a third party kill a character, and using a puppet to kill that same character. You're pulling the strings, and the mental states that you use while killing someone in a game easily transfer into real life. Before anyone pipes up "but I'm just pressing back-back-forward-punch and making a hotspot collide with a hit rectangle" - what do you *think* when you do it? Do you think "back-back-forward-punch"? Or do you think "dragon punch! eat it bitch!"?

            The only reason anyone (adult or otherwise) should be allowed to play violent video games is if they know the difference between games and real life, and that provides a barrier between the actions in game and the actions in the real world. Fortunately, that's most of us.

            On a related note, third-person violence rapidly desensitizes you to itself. Think of the first time you saw someone get bashed in a movie, you were probably a little kid at the time - it most likely shocked you and made you feel sick. The same scene now wouldn't cause you to bat an eyelid. It would be interesting to see a study of whether first-person violence does likewise; let a test group play some game such as GTA or Manhunt, while a control group plays Tetris or whatever, then ask them all to play a game where you can progress equally easily by killing people and taking their stuff, or by solving logic puzzles. I'd put money on the Manhunt people going with the killing while the Tetris people go with the puzzles.
            • You are most certainly not using the "same mental states" killing someone in a game and in real life. I'd really like to know how you came up with this idea. When you're playing the game, you're thinking about getting to the end of the level and seeing what happens with the story next. You're not sitting over every corpse getting whatever thrill it is murderers get in real life.

              Games and real life are distinctly different, and I would honestly like to know how you could even rationalize that the "mental st

            • I'm a game developer, so there are where my biases are.

              There's a fundamental difference between watching a third party kill a character, and using a puppet to kill that same character.

              There's also a fundamental difference between fiction that reads, "Then Frank took the knife and neatly cut the woman's thigh as she screamed in pain," compared to, "Then I took the knife and neatly cut the screaming woman's thigh as she screamed in pain." First-person perspective in writing is generally intended to allow the
        • Some books are written in the second person... Those claim "YOU" do certain actions, yet no one complains about those... (not that there are many, but still). -Taylor
        • If you have to act it out... better a video game than reality, right?

        • I respectfully disagree. You are not watching the action from some physical and psychological distance. You are role-playing the character. You are being explicitly rewarded for the growing sadism of your kills.

          Let me respectfully DISAGREE. Many horror movies are much worse then you will ever find in modern games, and to top it off most games havea cartoony bent and feel to them. Should we call the censorship police on bugs bunny and all the other violent cartoons for kids?

          This reminds me of the "bl

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Deagol ( 323173 )
            I have to agree with you here, in some respects. While in college, I hung out in a frat house a lot for a few months. One of the more disturbing things I witnessed was the gleeful enjoyment many of the members got out of watching "Faces of Death" and the horribly drawn out, disturbing rape scene in "I Spit On Your Grave". The experience gave me a new low opinion of the human race.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by brkello ( 642429 )
          I will do my best to respectfully disagree with you. Do you know the definition of physical? Heck yes you are playing the character from a physical distance. You don't get blood splattered on you if you kill someone. And as far as psychological distance...maybe you have problems with this, but normal people don't. I am not role-playing Kratos. I still strongly know the difference between myself and the character on the screen swinging around weapons. Kratos is explicitly rewarded for his kills. I pe

        • You are not watching the action from some physical and psychological distance. You are role-playing the character.

          No, role-playing killers is what happens when your concerned parents take away the console and send you to yard, where you and your friends will start playing "cops and robbers", "indians and cowboys", "ninja turtles" or some other wholesome game consisting of shooting imaginary bullets, arrows or throwing stars at each other in a real-life murder simulation.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Pushing the buttons on a gamepad to perform a kill isn't all that different from turning the page of a book to read about the grizzly murder,


        I was not aware there were books about killing bears.
        • Well, what with the 2nd Amendment guaranteeing the Right to Keep and Arm Bears, it was all but inevitable.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Eponymous Crowbar ( 974055 )
      When you talk about the Nintendo generation, I guess you are referring to the release of the NES. I would say that the videogame generation is a good bit older than their 20s or 30s - maybe 40's or possibly early 50s now. I'm talking about arcades and the first home systems. Anyway, they are old enough to be taken seriously for the US presidency or Supreme Court. So, where are they? Fighting other battles?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by JoshJ ( 1009085 )
        Pac-Man and Pong weren't "violent". Neither was Super Mario Brothers, unless you're a turtle or walking triangle-shaped head. You'll have to wait for the Mortal Kombat generation to be old enough to run for office. Most of us are in our early twenties.
        • Pac-Man and Super Mario Brothers ARE violent.

          In Pac-Man you consume ghosts and Super Mario Brothers you throw shells at enemies and stomp the heads of others.
          • I think the distinction is which were the first games to involve killing people on screen. YOu can't count Space Invaders and Pac Man as the characters are too abstract to relate to. Games like Tekken and Commando are different as those sprites are recognisably people.
          • Ahem:

            Computer games don't affect kids. I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."
            -Kristian Wilson, Nintendo Inc. 1989

            (I've seen the quote all over, but hadn't seen the attribution until I went searching for it just now.)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hawk ( 1151 )
          I'm a ghost! Pacman devoured my entire family, you insensitive clod! :)

          hawk
        • Contra was violent. It came out (in the US at least) in 1988.
    • Many western cultures, America particularly, have a popular belief that games, comics and animation are just for kids. As such, if you produce an adult game, adult comic or adult animation you're immediately considered to be corrupting children by the vast majority of ignorant adults.

      Example: Here in Australia, Channel 7 bought Greg the Bunny. Because it had puppets in it, it had to be for kids, right? They showed it in the normal children's TV time slot. Once. I wonder how many executives at 7 learnt
      • You are of course talking about Australia, the country that literally bans any game which isn't suitable for 15 year olds.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Kris_J ( 10111 ) *
          I am, of course, talking about most of the western world. The example I gave was Australian, but the attitude can be found in Australia, the UK and America without looking too hard.
    • The Nintendo generation is now in its late twenties or early thirties.

      The parents of a teenager does not think like a teenager.

      The generation raised on Mario Brothers may be even less tolerant of games like Manhunt 2 - perhaps because some threshold has been crossed which the gamer-geek was too blind to see.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Kingrames ( 858416 )
      The average age of video gamers is over thirty and has been that way for a while.

      You ARE the major demographic, you just haven't had any reason to point it out to the people in charge yet, because you're having too much fun.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by brkello ( 642429 )
      Yeah, but acting out horrific acts in a video game doesn't bother me either. Obviously, I have a clear line between fantasy and reality. Some people don't and they are the ones you have to watch out for. But you can't really know what will set those people off. They could have seen a video on the mating of black widows. Should we ban nature?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 7Prime ( 871679 )

      Neither is anywhere near watching a guy get pummelled on screen while swinging your own fist repeatedly to dictate the manner of the pummelling. All are equally fictional, but that last one... it feels good, in a very bad way indeed.
      Wasn't Manhunt going to come out for Wii? In which case, it likely WOULD be swinging your own fist repeatedly to dictate the manner of pummelling.
    • Your just assuming that interactivity heightens the intensity of the violent experience. The actual research on this doesn't actually point that way. The British classification scheme concluded that Violence in video games is less impacting then sequential mediums since your actually controlling an avatar which distances the player from the experience because you are always aware your controlling a character. Personally I believe future research will reveal video games heighten certain experiences and dim
    • I have the opposite feeling. Seeing guys get pummelled with blood thirsty glee onscreen (Goodfellas) is more distressing than being some cartoonish character in a FPS where I'm shooting some guy who just repawns and says "crap!". On screen it looks real and happens to characters I recognize as people. I can't say the same about a video game.

  • relax (Score:3, Insightful)

    by netsavior ( 627338 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @05:41PM (#20918705)
    When the young are old and the old are dead, our battle will be won.

    generational problems will always eventually see the young as the victor.
    • When the young are old and the old are dead, our battle will be won.

      At which point we find out what appalling projects the even younger have in mind...

      • At which point we find out what appalling projects the even younger have in mind...
        Then we will die while still questioning why dudes are sagging their tight girl pants and listening to Emo while they wear their hat sideways in such a way that their entire face is covered by their awkwardly chopped hair.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by fractoid ( 1076465 )
          Our grandchildren are going to be the first generation to grow up with their parents constantly telling them "you don't understand me!" and "you don't know what it's like!" :P
    • Not if the AARP has anything to say about it.
    • I'm not looking forward to nursing homes full of guys playing artificially slowed down "Senior" versions of FPS games, old ladies with blotched "Juicy" tattoos above their ass cracks, and guys walking around with baggy pants with the tops of their diapers hanging out talking about how they hate the new wave of classical music kids listen too instead of gangsta rap.
  • A rating system is rendered null when there are zealots who can't comprehend that their views aren't the reality. It is sort of an, "I think it is so, so it must be so."
    • Much as I would like to agree, "rendered null" isn't how it works. Try "enforced more vigorously and with more strident insistence".

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by KGIII ( 973947 )
        It'd be awfully ironic if these were the same people who'd promoted the idea of the rating systems in the first place.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Opportunist ( 166417 )
      But that's the problem with zealots. They cannot accept that their point of view is not the definite truth. For them, it is.

      Their point of view is their truth, and for them, anyone who does not agree with them is simply and plainly wrong. And since they are wrong, they have to be stopped from doing what is wrong. It needn't even be religious zeal, I know a few people who are anything but religious but still consider their point of view the only permissible one.

      And since they are intrinsically right, their p

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by KGIII ( 973947 )
        I wonder if there's some sort of term for the Teflon® brains of zealots? I am, personally, zealous about not being a zealot. :D

      • You can neither reason nor argue mit people like that...they'll let you know that "it is impossible to argue with you"....


        So..they're glue and you're rubber?

        This is the problem with zealotry: we all think we're reasonable and open minded. And that the other person is too much of a zealot to realize their arguments are stupid and come around to our way of thinking.
        • I tend to pride myself with the ability to ponder every argument offered. But "because I say so" is none.

          I try to find my point of view through discussion. Offering pros and cons, discussing the various points and finding the synthesis. Unfortunately, too many people are unable to produce any sensible arguments. They pick up an opinion from a newspaper (ok, tabloid), from some "independent" news network and rehash it. When you should dare to ask them to support that opinion with some reasons why I should ad

  • Not Just Videogames (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GaryPatterson ( 852699 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @06:38PM (#20919223)
    Here in Australia, South Park is around 8pm, and the channel hosting it also had a feedback show for a while. I remember a letter demanding to know why the channel made children stay up so late to watch cartoons. It's probably just as well they didn't still have the feedback show when they screened Drawn Together [wikipedia.org], not that the parent was watching the show anyway.

    Some people have very fixed ideas about media. Cartoons are always for children. Video games are always for children. They don't listen to advice, don't see warnings because these things must be safe for children or they wouldn't be allowed to air, surely? These people can't seem to grasp that any media can be used to express concepts targeted at infants, children, teens or adults.
    • Anime also. I see a lot of stories from people who work at video stores and desperately try to explain to the parents renting films that no, Ninja Scroll and Urotsukidoji may NOT be what they want to get their 8 year old... "But it's a CARTOON!"

  • It's a game. Games are for kids. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @06:40PM (#20919249)
    Or so the generation 50+ thinks. And they are the ones who wield the power today.

    They didn't play as adults. Well, ok, they played a game of cards, or bowling, but they would never think about sitting down with their friends (and without kids) to play a board game. Let's not even touch computer games, since computers weren't used for entertainment when they were kids or young adults.

    So in their world, games are kids stuff. Period. Well, maybe there's the oddball adult who plays games, but the target audience has to be kids. The idea that there is a market for adult gaming is alien to them. That people who have (or could have) kids themselves would go and buy a game for themselves and not for their kids, actually keeping the game from their kids because they don't consider it suitable, simply does not fit into their world view.

    If we want to crack this image before our generation turns 50 and we finally get to see some power (somewhere in 15-25 years, I'd say), we have to tell our politicians that yes, we're gamers, yes, we are adults, yes, we buy games for ourselves and not for our kids and, mostly, YES, WE VOTE.
    • Or so the generation 50+ thinks. And they are the ones who wield the power today.

      They didn't play as adults. Well, ok, they played a game of cards, or bowling, but they would never think about sitting down with their friends (and without kids) to play a board game.

      The Atari was in Sears "Big Book" Christmas Catalog in 1977. That $200 console wasn't left sitting idle after the kids went to bed. Monopoly carried your great grandparents through the Depression and was played by adults "for blood." from the

      • True, but show me a single person aged 50+ that they bought that Atari for themselves more than their kids. It's a bit like model trains. I remember getting a rather elaborate model train setup at christmas from my dad when I was 3 and barely able to understand the concept. Looking back, I hardly spent any time with it. Or rather, I was hardly allowed to touch it, I could've ruined something.

        For many of our parents and grandparents, games (if not played for money or making it otherwise some kind of "serious
        • That's an excellent point. Perhaps it's not that we're playing games, but that we are seen as wasting our time.
          • Well, what else should we do? Hang out at the mall? Vegg away in front of the TV? Drown in booze?

            Personally, I think playing games is a relatively harmless pastime compared to those. For your health, your sanity and mostly for your brain.
    • Will, just wanted to say that speech you gave at PAX was powerful and moving. I wish that you could give it to a group of Politicians.
    • Games are for kids.

      Why do we play games? Kids do it to simulate world experience in a safe environment. It's part of learning.

      As we get older, our concept of gaming changes. Generally, people still use gaming to learn; but the games become... different. We take up bridge, chess, and physical leisure (skiing, etc.).

      Playing a twitch video game -- may sharpen your vision system, given sufficient play, but really doesn't teach anything.

      • So twitch games are only for kids, because adults only play games that teach them something? Or games that require complex thinking patterns like chess?
        • I'm a fan of BF1942 (yah, old game) and I'm technically an adult. It is mostly a twitch game but there is a lot of psychology involved. I've watched players learn the same patterns as others, others learn those patterns and counter them, the first group has to adjust, etc. It is really interesting to watch. It has also taught me the power of teamwork which, sadly, rarely occurs in the game.
          • BF2142 here, else the same.

            In 2142 it's even worse, since teamwork would actually be a killer on most (public) servers. The game is built for teamwork and cooperation, you can augment the firepower of your team by magnitudes when you work together properly, not to mention the commander's powers, firesupport calls and so on. There's no way to overcome a well placed and well cooperating team. Mostly because there's just as much teamplay on the other side as there is on yours.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Zelos ( 1050172 )
        Games are entertainment, just like films or books. Not every film you watch has to be a deep meaningful exploration of the human psyche, not every game has to be a 'learning' experience.

  • You can't get more adolescent than just a bunch of swearing, nudity, and gore. There's nothing mature or adult about it. While things deemed culturally vulgar can add more bite and reality to good entertainment, they do not make it any more mature or adult-oriented, and the overemphasis of such qualities is solely targeted at adolescence. Dealing with the implications of such things and other complex decisions, catch-22 moral conflicts, clashes of norms, power struggles, destruction that comes with change,

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ajegwu ( 1142365 )
      You're overthinking it. Its FOR adults or FOR mature people. As in mature people can handle this. I thought it was obvious that Grand Theft Auto 3 isn't considered mature content, but it is reserved for a mature audience.
      • The point I'm making, which your association to GTA3 might reinforce, is that the "Mature" label is a de facto indicator of "This game is mindless, degenerate offensiveness. So no kids allowed." While this is attractive to many game buyers, it does not fit the direction that gamers nor game industry say (or at least give lip service to) they want to go with artistic expression in gaming taken seriously. When games tackle serious well-made content and get the "M" branding, they're automatically associated
    • I always thought the labels meant "only adults can approve this material" not "only adults can enjoy" this material.

      That means that adults MUST review the material before exposing younger minds to it. Not that it means it can be interesting to you by itself.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by lucyfersam ( 68224 )
      Honestly I find this idea that these things you lable as adolescent are not adult more troubling than the idea that all games are for kids. In part because it feeds the idea that these are really aimed at kids, but more because it effectively makes the claim that these things are never acceptable entertainment. We aren't supposed to enjoy them when we're kids becuase we're not old enough, and we shouldn't enjoy them now that we're adults because we're too mature for that. It's absurd, puritanical, and ju

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Targon ( 17348 )
      Strange that you say this about swearing, nudity and gore when most movies have these elements to a certain degree. The difference between most(not all) movies and computer games is that there are very few games that include nudity, swearing and violence from an artistic point of view.

      Take a show like The Sopranos for some great examples of what works and what doesn't. In some cases, you have nudity, not as the focus of a scene, but in the background(in a strip club for example). Sure, you have nudity

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Targon ( 17348 )
        Ok, no edit feature...after re-reading the parent, I realize that he/she was talking about how these elements being the primary focus is the problem, not just having them in games in particular.

        For moderators, yes, the preview button is there, but that doesn't stop people from mis-reading a post, responding to it, and then realizing it after the fact and wanting to go back to edit their post.
  • If we are talking film analogies then I suspect Manhunt 2 is more Saw or Hostel than Godfather or Scarface. In which case I suspect the answer to my question is no.
    • Why are films like Saw or Hostel allowed to air (with massive publicity and positive media coverage, no less) when a computer game with the same style of content is deemed unfit for consumption? Both are forms of entertainment.

  • Alpha Mom '07 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Associate ( 317603 ) on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @07:26PM (#20919783) Homepage
    Someone should create a game where you get to be a self centered, busy bodied cunt, where you ruin the lives of your children by smothering them with attention and activities until they can't think on their own. You could rate their alpha skill level at how long it takes the grown children to move out of the basement.
    • You could rate their alpha skill level at how long it takes the grown children to move out of the basement.

      It is difficult to suppress the thought here that the sterotypical Slashdot poster hasn't poked his head of Ma's basement since the summer of '89.

    • ...where you ruin the lives of your children by smothering them with attention and activities until they can't think on their own.

      I don't think it's possible to ruin your childrens' lives by giving them too much attention. Spoiling them and letting them get away with behaving like brats, yes. Attention, no. The problem with today's kids (fetch me my walking stick, young'un) is that parents opt out of actual parenting, deferring that onerous task to electronic babysitters like TV and computers. The answer is more active parenting, not less of it.

  • "The more sophisticated the mind, the greater the need for play" From the episode "Shore Leave"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tgd ( 2822 )
      Spock isn't real.

      I hope you don't have the same confusion while playing Manhunt 2.
  • Is it time to give up the old name that reminds everyone of "Wonder Years" and the old "Atari" and move on to an adult name for an adult product?
    It's time to take the respect that $300,000,000 in one week sales demands.
    It's time to face the fact that it has changed and the name should change to convince the "old people" that it's not just for seven year olds no matter how much they try to force it to fit using their 80's mentality.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Vokkyt ( 739289 )
      Won't matter. Cute idea, won't matter. Whether it's the unholy successors of people like Mr. Thompson who are on a personal crusade to ruin something for their own gain, or just people who don't get the concept of there being more to games than just games, whichever term you slap on video games is going to be considered a child's title, though in some cases it may take awhile.

      Also, Interactive Entertainment sounds like something which self-lubricates and vibrates a lot. Not necessarily the best name, tho

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