The uprising kicked up in by the de facto banning of Manhunt 2 had some folks scratching their heads. They wondered: why all the ruckus over Manhunt? The original wasn't all that great, after all. Though I count myself among the angry masses, I was never really concerned with the game itself so much as I worried about our ability to, y'know, make our own choices about the content we digest. Y'know, like adults. I just hope it was a one-shot sort of deal and nobody else starts pulling cont--
The ESRB's decision to give Manhunt 2 an Adults Only rating in the US seems to have already sent shockwaves throughout the industry about what it can and can't get away with. Condemned: Bloodshot senior producer, Constantine Hantzopoulos, tells CVG that a few features have already been pulled from the game in light of the ESRB / Manhunt situation.
Crap. Granted, this kind of thing has gone on for years -- in the same CVG article, Hantzopoulos notes that he was the one who removed the sex scenes from Indigo Prophecy in its journey to US shores -- but after the Manhunt debacle, the process looks to be becoming much more transparent, much more public. This can go either way; on one hand we get to see the ways in which the influence of the ESRB and soccer moms everywhere changes the course of a game's development, but we're also playing a big part in the circus by virtue of our complacency.
What's changed isn't anything terribly huge -- I can't put a dude's head in a vice, and some instances of decapitation have also been striken from the title. I just wish I had the option to choose whether or not I wanted to see that stuff for myself. Hope you're developing a feel for this sort of thing, gang -- having already made an example out of Rockstar, the ESRB shouldn't have any issue putting the big squeeze games of comparable maturity.
Nick's got a preview of Condemned 2 on the way, so keep an eye out for that.
[Via CVG; thanks Trevor!]
Contest:
3:33 PM on 07.24.2007
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Hi my name is ZomB I am 25 years of age and in no way can i decide for myself what i should and should not see in a video game. Movies and music as long as i am over a certain age are no problem, but in a world where the average gamer is now 30 i being well over the legal age for everything i can think of am not aloud to decide what is and what is not to violent for my own eyes thanks soccor moms o and SUCK IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You all remember that scene where they were supposed to do it?
And he's the one behind taking it out!!
Long live creativity and free speech!!!
Even our video games are being censored!!!
he creators of these games obviously have their own vision that they want to achieve, but i guess to them shipping games and making cash is much more important than seeing their creation come to life the way they want it to...
They just need to stop being pussies and release games the way they want to, cause in one way or another, the game is going to be played by all age groups regardless of what some self-important ratings board thinks about it. ESRB hasn't and will never work, but the more developers give in, the more it will gain power.
What happened to all the spines in this fucking country...
Guess the kiddies will have to get their fix from torture porn movies like Saw and Captivity. Only 17 bucks at your local big box store!
Eyeball smoothies for the win!
I distinctly remember seeing that in the movie 'Casino' (rated R in the US and 18 in the UK) which was released over a decade ago and is considered to be one of the finest works of an Oscar winning director.
But hey, we wouldn't want consistent standards now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_-FhoPJmBg
I'm not hotlinking it on purpose. It is definitely not safe for work and contains a hell of a lot of bad language.
Having 'your head in a vice' is also probably an apt metaphor for the relationship between censorship bodies and the games companies right now.
Games are just like any media with adult content - like porn. Nobody is going to stop you from making a movie where people take dumps on each other, but that sure as hell doesn't mean they're goona sell it at Wal-Mart or any other place where kids and families shop. If Rockstar and anyone else modify their games so that they can be sold at major retailers it's because they want to MAKE MONEY. Don't think that there is some kind of moral stand being made. They are businesses and if pushing the boundaries = making no money, you can sure as shit bet they won't be doing it for long.