Game Warnings

[SAS]

After the initial media frenzy on Manhunt, the government has been taking a look at young gamers who are getting their hands on 18+ rated material.

You wouldn't let your child watch the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So you shouldn't let them play an 18-rated game
- Tessa Jowell, culture, media and sport secretary

The government seem to have turned away from banning violent games. After all there is no scientific evidence to support claims games cause children to turn into psychopathic killers. Instead they are looking to enforce measures to ensure game classification is made clearer and anyone selling games to underage kids, will face a huge fine.

The full article can be read here on the BBC.

 

[Falcon]

Only thing that makes me want to kill people is idiots in the media like Trevor McDonald and co. twisting the facts just to make a story. Their false reporting and outright lies (Manhunt being owned by the murdered kid, not the murderer anyone?) make me far more angry than any other computer game ever has.

Time would be better spent making sure there's better parenting by the parents who bring up the kids who would be murderers/criminals with or without the games.

I've played games since I was a young kid, I'm now in my early 20s and I'd struggle to bring myself to punch anyone unless I was really forced to defend myself, let alone kill anyone.

 

[SAS]

ITVs coverage was pretty shocking with Manhunt, and it makes you wonder what else the media blow out of proportion?

 

[Dillinja]

ITVs coverage was pretty shocking with Manhunt, and it makes you wonder what else the media blow out of proportion?

Everything?

 

[SAS]

nahhh surely there was weapons of mass destruction???

 

[Uriel]

'tis a big topic tbh. Way too big for the kind of slap dash, self-righteous nonsense spouted by many of the various commercial media organs at least. I always thought the most shocking thing about Manhunt was just how inane the whole thing was. An aspect perhaps borne out by its pretty poor sales prior to the aforementioned controversy.

Whilst it's probably tempting to rage when some grandstanding oik proposes banning or criminalising a certain game(type) you can probably rest safe in the knowledge that if it's going to sell it won't be banned (unless it's illegal, naturally). On the other hand, given that what tends to sell best is MOR mush, if you want violence it'll probably be set in some far flung country and it'll probably be a foreign soldier whose face you're filling full of metal. Which, perhaps not unusually, is generally seen as a perfectly acceptable pastime for people to engage in as it’s er… historical.

So. Yes, the media will say almost anything to sell advertising space. Yes, said companies appear to have no sense of irony in that they denounce easily castigated, violent forms of entertainment whilst increasing adopting the worst excesses of slomo war-porn style reportage. Yes, games should be restricted in the same way films are because whilst there's no 'killer' evidence to suggest that watching/playing violent films/games turns children into psychopaths you gotta wonder about the possibility of long term desensitisation to such acts and question the merit in exposing your kids to what is often a pretty miserable and essentially meaningless take on life. But, no, the press aren't the government, despite what they believe and getting all reactionary over the comments of some desk bound attention seeker isn't going to do anyone any good.

Maybe once all the noise settles down and the industry matures a little we can get games for adults that don't play like they've been designed by and for a sex starved, emotionally insecure 14 year-old.

 

[PLightstar]

Theres a whole feature on this weeks ON THE SPOT on gamespot about the US side of things, its quite intresting even for us Brits