Video games have been the source of much controversy, going all the way back to the days of the Atari 2600. Since the video game crash of 1983 in the United States video games have had a hard time “growing up” as an entertainment medium. In this essay I will attempt to explain why video games come under so much fire and are the center of so much controversy.
To fully understand why many people don’t see the difference between adult video games and children’s video games we have to understand why many people see video games as a toy and not as a form of entertainment like movies or music. It all began with the video game crash of 1983 in the United States. From the introduction of the Atari 2600 in 1977 Atari had a strangle hold on the video game industry in the US and there was very little that the competition could do to change that. Now the founders of Atari were not like the businessman who eventually took over the business and these shrewd businessmen didn’t see the art behind designing video games and paid the developers very little. After a while some of the developers realized that they were being short changed and they decided to band together to form a new company, this new company would produce games for the Atari 2600 and make profit off of what they were able to sell. At this point in time there was no real regulation over who could make games and Atari didn’t think to regulate the games that were produced for their system. This new company, named Activision, went on to make some of the best games for the Atari 2600 including David Crane’s “Pitfall.” But this led the way for many other developers to take a crack at developing games. These new developers weren’t very good at the craft because they underestimated the difficulty of making a video game. Some of these games contained “adult content” like the abomination of a game “Custer’s Revenge.” The basic premise of this game is that you play as General Custer and the goal is to get to the right of the screen by dodging arrows and when you get there you get points for raping an Indian woman. Needless to say this caused tremendous public uproar and is one of the first cases of controversy in the video game industry.
But sex wasn’t the only thing that people didn’t like about certain games, violence was also a big issue especially in the game “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” where you play as Leatherface (the chainsaw wielding maniac) and your objective is to kill little girls. This premise bothered many people and they didn’t know if they wanted to support a medium that had content like this.
As if that wasn’t enough trouble for video games Atari had lost all of its best programmers and they began to put out some terrible games including “E.T” and the horrible port of the arcade classic “Pac-Man.” Though Activision was developing some great games there were too many really bad games flooding the market. The general public couldn’t differentiate between the good, the bad, and the ugly, so to speak. People lost their interest in video games and this led to the downfall of Atari. In 1983 Atari folded and video games were essentially gone from America.
While video games were gone in America, they were still going strong in the rest of the world, especially in Japan where a game company by the name of Nintendo had their eyes set on reestablishing video games in America. Nintendo did some research into the market and decided to create the Famicom (family computer) Nintendo executives brought the famicom to trade shows and invention expos in America with no success. The basic idea was that businesses in America had no faith in video games and saw them as a fad that had died out.
But Nintendo was determined and returned in 1985 with the famicom but it was under a different name, the Nintendo Entertainment System. Nintendo had decided to market it as an interactive toy and not a video game console. They made a robot and light gun to add as accessories to sell the “toy” concept of the system. They had some success selling it but not enough to be satisfied. They went to toy stores and tried to sell the systems door to door, they even offered to buy back the systems that didn’t sell. This got them into a lot more stores but still not enough to make the impact that they wanted to. By now it was 1987 and Nintendo decided to make a deal with the makers of the most popular toy Teddy Ruxpin.
The makers of Teddy Ruxpin, Worlds of Wonder, made a deal with Nintendo so that if a store wanted to buy Teddy Ruxpins they would also have to buy a certain amount of Nintendo Entertainment Systems. This got the NES into many more stores and it took over the market. Video games had taken back America and this represented the shift in power from American game developers to Japanese game developers.
Now you may be thinking “thanks for the history lesson but do you have a point?” Well yes I do, hold on to your butts because here I go. Because of the way in which Nintendo was able to get video games back into America (marketing it as toy) many people saw it just as a toy. So because of this mindset mature games were seen as inappropriate. It’s like if a children’s writer wrote a children’s book about sex, people wouldn’t be very happy about that. The general public does not see video games as an art form or as an entertainment medium but as a child’s toy. So when games like Grand Theft Auto or Halo came out and are violent and involve sexual themes and language parents weren’t okay with letting their kids play those games.
Not only did parents not like their children playing those games but society, as a whole, scapegoats video games as the reason why many kids turn to violence. The shooters at Columbine HS were fans of first person shooters, there have been many examples of people trying to reenact things from Grand Theft Auto, and most recently a boy shot and killed a cab driver saying he got the idea from Grand Theft Auto. These misguided children tarnish the reputation of video games and ruin their lives and the lives of all the people that they hurt.
Many video game activists will be quick to point out that there is just as much, if not more, violence and sex in TV, movies, and music. However there is something that makes video game violence and sex different and it is because video games are an interactive medium. Movies, TV, and music are all forms of entertainment that require no participation on the part of the consumer. However video games require the player to control the in-game character and when someone is shot you (as the player) pull the trigger. It simulates reality and this worries many people and with good reason. It is the only form of entertainment that is interactive and in its nature it is more susceptible to criticism and more easily blamed for real world problems.
So, what is the solution? Well that is a very difficult thing to answer because if it was easy someone would have figured it out a long time ago. My personal belief is that the family and the society share the responsibility of raising children and making sure that violence and sex are moderated and kept from impressionable children. Many of these problems stem from parents buying games for their children without looking into what the game is all about. Most all games are content rated by the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) and if a game receives an “M” rating then children under the age of 17 can’t buy it. This policy is enforced and retailers won’t sell an “M” rated game to someone without valid ID. I know this for a fact because I am 19 years old and I still get carded when I buy an “M” rated game from Gamestop.
Parents need to look into the games that they are buying for their children, and it isn’t very hard. They don’t have to look anywhere beyond the game’s box itself. The rating is displayed on the front and the back with an explanation of what is in the game (much like a movie) for example I own Gears of War for the Xbox 360 and it is an “M” rated game. Prominently displayed in the lower left hand corner of the box is a box that says “Mature 17+ M Content rated by ESRB.” On the back on the lower right there is the same box but with another part that explains why the game received an “M” rating. It says “Blood and gore, intense violence, strong language.” Can this be any clearer? Don’t buy it for your kids unless you are ready to take the blame for its influence on them.
This rating system is in place for just about every game. The only games that aren’t rated are from obscure independent developers and can’t be purchased at retail stores like Gamestop. While I do believe that society has a responsibility here I think they are doing their part, the ESRB rates the games very thoroughly and all content is explained in the rating itself. The parents are the ones who haven’t held up their end of the bargain. It really isn’t hard to look at the back of a box to see if a game is appropriate for your son or daughter. Many parents today didn’t grow up with video games and it is understandable that they feel like it is all out of their league but it doesn’t take a whole lot for them to make an informed decision. If they can decide what movies their kids can and can’t watch then they can decide what games their kids can and can’t play.
In conclusion sex and violence in video games is nothing new but it is monitored and kids can’t get their hands on it unless a parent or other adult buys it for them. Video games as a medium need to get past the stigma of being a “toy.” In reality video game consoles are entertainment mediums just like movies and TV and they should be treated as such. Parents need to do their part and society needs to understand that adult content comes with the territory but it can be done in a correct way, with taste, like in many movies and TV series where sex and violence are a key part of the story.
To fully understand why many people don’t see the difference between adult video games and children’s video games we have to understand why many people see video games as a toy and not as a form of entertainment like movies or music. It all began with the video game crash of 1983 in the United States. From the introduction of the Atari 2600 in 1977 Atari had a strangle hold on the video game industry in the US and there was very little that the competition could do to change that. Now the founders of Atari were not like the businessman who eventually took over the business and these shrewd businessmen didn’t see the art behind designing video games and paid the developers very little. After a while some of the developers realized that they were being short changed and they decided to band together to form a new company, this new company would produce games for the Atari 2600 and make profit off of what they were able to sell. At this point in time there was no real regulation over who could make games and Atari didn’t think to regulate the games that were produced for their system. This new company, named Activision, went on to make some of the best games for the Atari 2600 including David Crane’s “Pitfall.” But this led the way for many other developers to take a crack at developing games. These new developers weren’t very good at the craft because they underestimated the difficulty of making a video game. Some of these games contained “adult content” like the abomination of a game “Custer’s Revenge.” The basic premise of this game is that you play as General Custer and the goal is to get to the right of the screen by dodging arrows and when you get there you get points for raping an Indian woman. Needless to say this caused tremendous public uproar and is one of the first cases of controversy in the video game industry.
But sex wasn’t the only thing that people didn’t like about certain games, violence was also a big issue especially in the game “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” where you play as Leatherface (the chainsaw wielding maniac) and your objective is to kill little girls. This premise bothered many people and they didn’t know if they wanted to support a medium that had content like this.
As if that wasn’t enough trouble for video games Atari had lost all of its best programmers and they began to put out some terrible games including “E.T” and the horrible port of the arcade classic “Pac-Man.” Though Activision was developing some great games there were too many really bad games flooding the market. The general public couldn’t differentiate between the good, the bad, and the ugly, so to speak. People lost their interest in video games and this led to the downfall of Atari. In 1983 Atari folded and video games were essentially gone from America.
While video games were gone in America, they were still going strong in the rest of the world, especially in Japan where a game company by the name of Nintendo had their eyes set on reestablishing video games in America. Nintendo did some research into the market and decided to create the Famicom (family computer) Nintendo executives brought the famicom to trade shows and invention expos in America with no success. The basic idea was that businesses in America had no faith in video games and saw them as a fad that had died out.
But Nintendo was determined and returned in 1985 with the famicom but it was under a different name, the Nintendo Entertainment System. Nintendo had decided to market it as an interactive toy and not a video game console. They made a robot and light gun to add as accessories to sell the “toy” concept of the system. They had some success selling it but not enough to be satisfied. They went to toy stores and tried to sell the systems door to door, they even offered to buy back the systems that didn’t sell. This got them into a lot more stores but still not enough to make the impact that they wanted to. By now it was 1987 and Nintendo decided to make a deal with the makers of the most popular toy Teddy Ruxpin.
The makers of Teddy Ruxpin, Worlds of Wonder, made a deal with Nintendo so that if a store wanted to buy Teddy Ruxpins they would also have to buy a certain amount of Nintendo Entertainment Systems. This got the NES into many more stores and it took over the market. Video games had taken back America and this represented the shift in power from American game developers to Japanese game developers.
Now you may be thinking “thanks for the history lesson but do you have a point?” Well yes I do, hold on to your butts because here I go. Because of the way in which Nintendo was able to get video games back into America (marketing it as toy) many people saw it just as a toy. So because of this mindset mature games were seen as inappropriate. It’s like if a children’s writer wrote a children’s book about sex, people wouldn’t be very happy about that. The general public does not see video games as an art form or as an entertainment medium but as a child’s toy. So when games like Grand Theft Auto or Halo came out and are violent and involve sexual themes and language parents weren’t okay with letting their kids play those games.
Not only did parents not like their children playing those games but society, as a whole, scapegoats video games as the reason why many kids turn to violence. The shooters at Columbine HS were fans of first person shooters, there have been many examples of people trying to reenact things from Grand Theft Auto, and most recently a boy shot and killed a cab driver saying he got the idea from Grand Theft Auto. These misguided children tarnish the reputation of video games and ruin their lives and the lives of all the people that they hurt.
Many video game activists will be quick to point out that there is just as much, if not more, violence and sex in TV, movies, and music. However there is something that makes video game violence and sex different and it is because video games are an interactive medium. Movies, TV, and music are all forms of entertainment that require no participation on the part of the consumer. However video games require the player to control the in-game character and when someone is shot you (as the player) pull the trigger. It simulates reality and this worries many people and with good reason. It is the only form of entertainment that is interactive and in its nature it is more susceptible to criticism and more easily blamed for real world problems.
So, what is the solution? Well that is a very difficult thing to answer because if it was easy someone would have figured it out a long time ago. My personal belief is that the family and the society share the responsibility of raising children and making sure that violence and sex are moderated and kept from impressionable children. Many of these problems stem from parents buying games for their children without looking into what the game is all about. Most all games are content rated by the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) and if a game receives an “M” rating then children under the age of 17 can’t buy it. This policy is enforced and retailers won’t sell an “M” rated game to someone without valid ID. I know this for a fact because I am 19 years old and I still get carded when I buy an “M” rated game from Gamestop.
Parents need to look into the games that they are buying for their children, and it isn’t very hard. They don’t have to look anywhere beyond the game’s box itself. The rating is displayed on the front and the back with an explanation of what is in the game (much like a movie) for example I own Gears of War for the Xbox 360 and it is an “M” rated game. Prominently displayed in the lower left hand corner of the box is a box that says “Mature 17+ M Content rated by ESRB.” On the back on the lower right there is the same box but with another part that explains why the game received an “M” rating. It says “Blood and gore, intense violence, strong language.” Can this be any clearer? Don’t buy it for your kids unless you are ready to take the blame for its influence on them.
This rating system is in place for just about every game. The only games that aren’t rated are from obscure independent developers and can’t be purchased at retail stores like Gamestop. While I do believe that society has a responsibility here I think they are doing their part, the ESRB rates the games very thoroughly and all content is explained in the rating itself. The parents are the ones who haven’t held up their end of the bargain. It really isn’t hard to look at the back of a box to see if a game is appropriate for your son or daughter. Many parents today didn’t grow up with video games and it is understandable that they feel like it is all out of their league but it doesn’t take a whole lot for them to make an informed decision. If they can decide what movies their kids can and can’t watch then they can decide what games their kids can and can’t play.
In conclusion sex and violence in video games is nothing new but it is monitored and kids can’t get their hands on it unless a parent or other adult buys it for them. Video games as a medium need to get past the stigma of being a “toy.” In reality video game consoles are entertainment mediums just like movies and TV and they should be treated as such. Parents need to do their part and society needs to understand that adult content comes with the territory but it can be done in a correct way, with taste, like in many movies and TV series where sex and violence are a key part of the story.
No comments:
Post a Comment