Taking Out Manhunt 2: A Look at the Failings of the ESRB
By: Nick ArvitesThe views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of VGGEN.com as a whole or any of its affiliates. This is simply one writer's opinion, and should be accepted as such.
Yes. I said it. The ESRB is not working as intended.
According to the ESRB themselves, AO games may include “prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.” Yet, out of the 23 games rated as AO, only one has picked it up for violence (Manhunt 2 would be the second AO for violence), one picked it up for actual gambling, and the rest have landed on the list for sexual content. The Grand Theft Auto Hot Coffee scandal is a textbook case for this situation. Apparently, according to the ESRB, a game designed around committing crimes, killing, and otherwise creating chaos in a law abiding society is an M. But throw in a sex scene—between consenting adults—that can only be accessed from the files of the game through the use of 3rd party modifications is enough to bump it up to an AO rating. So let’s get this straight: killing law enforcement, blowing things up, and generally making an LA styled environment look like a warzone is M, but a sexual minigame makes it AO?
But hidden coffee segments aside, the true problem with the current rating system is apparent when you look at the M rated titles out there. Gears of War, Halo 2, Dead Rising, and Shadowrun are all rated M. Yet, there’s a complete difference in the content and violence in all four of those games. Halo 2 and Shadowrun present a different breed of violence than in Gears of War or Dead Rising. I doubt many people even see games like Halo 2, Shadowrun, Counterstrike, or Half-Life 2 to be bad enough to keep out of the hands of 15 year olds. There have been PG-13 movies with more violence, and you can find worse things on basic cable. Yet, Gears of War and Dead Rising are graphic and explicit enough with the violence (well, Gears also has the language) to where most people would have problems putting them in the hands of minors. Throw in a game like the original Manhunt and you begin to see a huge problem. How do you tell the games with the excessive violence (Manhunt, etc) from the games that aren’t much worse than a standard popcorn action movie (Halo)?
This is the problem presented by the M rating. The entire divide between M and AO is and always has been handled incorrectly. Digging into the past, there are several instances where a game has shown extreme graphic violence but only picked up the M tag. The prime examples of this are Soldier of Fortune and Soldier of Fortune II. The claim to fame for both titles was the ability of players to shoot off various body parts, and it was possible to leave nothing more than a bloody torso. Yet, two games where in the course of the single player campaign you brutally shot and graphically removed bodily extremities only picked up an M rating.
Why don’t games get the AO tag as much as the M tag? The answer can be found by looking at the pure economic factors of the gaming industry. The ESA and ESRB lost control of the AO rating years ago, and the rating has degraded to the point where it functions as the industry’s own scarlet letter. Games with an AO rating are not carried by retailers and cannot be published on any consoles. The main reason that the AO rating serves as a mark of death is because of the general association by retailers and console manufacturers (and the public) is because the AO tag has only been assigned to sex games or for sexual content with few exceptions. Console manufacturers want to control what types of games appear on the system, and retailers—who have no problem renting or selling unrated director’s cuts of Saw—have no desire to put “porn games” on their shelves. The ESRB, up to this point, has taken the same stance on violence as the MPAA: they’ll let it slide with the lower rating so it won’t face restrictions when it is released. Because the ESRB took the teeth out of the AO rating for “prolonged scenes of intense violence” by historically never applying the rating for violence, the AO rating is in reality useless for violence.
Since the AO rating is a death sentence and is essentially useless for consoles and retailers because of the sexual content baggage the rating has attached to it, the ESRB and ESA have failed in their goal to provide an accurate ratings system that not only informs consumers but also serves its members by promoting artistic expression. While I may not particularly like the Manhunt series, and while I may think the game is reprehensible, I do not think that consumers or the industry are well served by having the AO tag act as a retail executioner. This is not the intent of the rating system, and the rating system becomes useless if the rating board has historically shown itself unwilling to use a particular rating because it effectively kills the game’s chance in the open market.
The solution to this issue is simple. The upper ratings of the ESRB need to be readjusted. The AO tag should remain solely for gambling and sex games. The main thrust for any ratings overhaul should be aimed at the M rating. The M rating should be split to a 16+ and 18+ rating. This split would allow the industry to clarify the ratings further. For example, games more in the vein of action movies (ala Halo) would be shifted down to the 16+ mark, whereas games that are heavy on the language, violence, gore, and such would be slotted into 18+. This split, along with the ESRB and ESA informing retailers and selling the new ratings to retailers, would allow violent games and generally inappropriate games to hit retail, allow consumers to make more informed decisions, and ultimately take away any sort of chilling effect that the AO rating will start to have on the developing industry.
I have little complaint concerning the ESRB ratings between E and T. Those work, and the ESRB in general has worked. This problem may seem like nitpicking, but it falls in line with the same type of problem that the MPAA faced in the 1980s that led to the creation of the PG-13 rating. With the increases in graphical capabilities and, in the Wii’s case, controller schemes, the gaming industry is at this point. There needs to be a bigger divide to clearly separate games and to eliminate the AO effect at retail. While the default argument from many people on the Internet is that the Manhunt incident is censorship, I disagree. The gaming industry and the ESRB are trying to avoid forced censorship via government intervention by using a self-regulatory ratings board. The overall process is not broken, but it is going to take an even larger hit as we get closer to Rockstar’s bread-and-butter controversy generator: Grand Theft Auto IV. With Manhunt 2’s effective retail death by AO, outside groups will be looking to pressure the ESRB in the states and government appointed boards in other countries to do the same to Grand Theft Auto IV. While Manhunt 2 will undoubtedly be toned down to an M rating, and Grand Theft Auto IV and others will hit retail with an M rating, this problem is far from over. Until the industry recognizes this problem and takes steps to adjust the upper levels of the ESRB rating system (concerning violent games), expect to hear more talk of effectively banning games whenever a remotely controversial game gets close to release. It is in the industry’s best interests to encourage different forms of expression while providing accurate ratings to the consumer. The AO tag in its current state fails to do either, and because of this the ESRB has failed both developers and consumers.
Posted: 07/02/2007