EDIT: I feel I must mention before you read this, if you choose to, that I wrote this very quickly in about 2 hours in order to organize my thoughts after seeing Jon Stewart discuss the Supreme Court decision on Video Games by using clips of Mortal Kombat. Basically I wanted to write something that my parents could understand to see where I'm coming from and why this is important to me. I didn't write it for the Escapist's forums but I posted it here anyway to get other opinions. If my opinion clashes with your's, I'm sorry it's just the way I feel about this issue. Enjoy.
I have never liked Mortal Kombat. Maybe that's just because I don't enjoy fighting games, or because I'm more suited to playing role-playing games than button mashing my controller. I will admit to playing games like Dead or Alive 4 or Street Fighter IV, but they're only fun when I'm playing them with my friends. See, I wasn't around a few decades ago when the original Mortal Kombat came out, back when it was THE example that people kept using for violent video games. Back then games like Mortal Kombat, Custer's Revenge, and Leisure Suit Larry became the reason that the ESRB was created after many concerned parents discovered their children playing them, those games the kids had only spoken about in hushed whispers because even back then they knew what they had.
The ESRB was created in the hope that developers wouldn't try selling a game containing massive amounts of sex or gore to children. It consists (as of now) of the ratings E (Everyone), E10+ (Everyone 10 & Up), T (Teen), M (Mature), & Ao (Adults Only). Now, let me clarify, I am ALL for this. Some children should not be shown some things at certain ages. This was one of the main reasons my father didn't let me watch Scarface until I was in my teens, and even then he wanted to watch it with me. My father has always been open with the fact that he has allowed me to be exposed to many more things than most of my friends, and I am forever grateful to him for that. And I agree that he waited an appropriate amount of time and that I would have seen that movie entirely differently had I seen it when I was a child.
But I do NOT believe that information should be restricted. NO information should ever be restricted. As American citizens we have the right to be exposed to anything and everything should we so choose.
When I turned 18, in the eyes of the state I legally became an adult. My parents could no longer speak to my doctor about my health without my consent, I was allowed to vote (meaning I will be able to vote in the upcoming 2012 Presidential Election), I became eligible for the Military Draft (with the possibility that I could DIE IN A WAR FOR MY COUNTRY) and in some states I became allowed to smoke cigarettes (I never will, but it is something I am legally allowed to do now). Another perk I was allowed was the ability to buy M rated games without needing my father present to consent to my purchase. Prior to this, my dad needed to be present to tell the Gamestop cashier that I was allowed to play this game.
One such game was Grand Theft Auto IV. The Grand Theft Auto series has long stood as Rockstar Studios' flagship series. Before the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, they had released 5 earlier games all adhering to the fictional storyline beginning in the previous installment Grand Theft Auto III. Encompassing the nearly 3 decades in the series' fictional storyline, these games allow the player to assume the role of several men all participating in criminal activities involving the (in the 80s) the Mafia's Cocaine trade around the country, (in the 90s) the massive violent gang presence that surrounded poorer inner city areas such as Los Angeles, and (in modern days) the fading of the power of the mafia. On the whole, the Grand Theft Auto III era presents an engrossing storyline that not only highlights the rise and fall of Organized Crime in American, but also parodies certain elements of it and points out several absurdities and hypocrisies not only with these criminal characters but also in the culture of the times as they evolved over time and the effect they had on these criminal enterprises. In my opinion the Grand Theft Auto III era told a crime story that even Martin Scorsese couldn't capture in its entirety.
Then came Grand Theft Auto IV, the story of a Serbian man named Niko Bellic who comes to America searching not only for resolution for the bloody events he witnessed in the Serbian Civil War but also to start a new life for himself in Liberty City (the game's amazingly rendered analogy for New York City). The game makes no secret that in his past life Niko was a deeply flawed human who committed several atrocities that he holds deep shame and regret because of and that he seeks redemption and resolution by tracking down the man who betrayed his unit during the war who now resides in Liberty City. He is very skilled at violence, but he doesn't exactly want to indulge in it anymore than he already has. Unfortunately, (mostly in an effort to protect his cousin Roman from the various criminal bosses he owes money to via gambling debts) he finds himself drawn into the criminal underworld of the city ultimately becoming engaged in a turf war with mob kingpin Jimmy Pegerino when he attempts to just get out and away from it all. Ultimately, Niko finds the man who betrayed him and his men in Serbia and it is left to the player to decide whether or not to kill this man. The choice has absolutely no bearing on the plot and is only presented to give the player resolution to the story. By the end of the game, Niko has become so tired of the crime and the violence that even though he has nearly single-handedly dismantled the mafia of Liberty City, he wants only to start over a new life for himself and put down his guns forever.
Grand Theft Auto is the title that was constantly being used by Jack Thompson, an anti-gaming attorney who sought to ban their sale to minors all together (before he was disbarred from practicing law in Florida), as an example of how violent video games corrupt our youth. Now I do admit, the Grand Theft Auto series is filled with swear words, blood, and (in some instances) nudity and it does give the player the ability to shoot and kill anyone they want as well as the ability to visit prostitutes on the street. Because of this the game is rated M for Mature by the ESRB and is marketed only to those over the age of 18. The game's violent content is made very clear in any ad made for it with this M rating and any TV commercial made for it is aired later in the afternoon, a time where it is assumed that anyone not old enough to buy the game is either in bed or away from the TV. And finally, as I have mentioned earlier, legal parental consent is needed to purchase such a game if you are under the age of 18. In fact the actual M rating actually is shown on game boxes as being only suitable for players over 17 years of age, but many retailers such as Target or Gamestop restrict the age to 18 instead, as it is the legal adult age.
Okay, admittedly I have gone off on kind of a rant but I do have a point to all this. Tonight on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart brought up the California Supreme Court decision that was recently debated that had it passed would have banned the sale of violent video games to minors. The decision was monumental in that it proved that violence in video games was a matter of free speech, citing some of the violence in literature that is readily taught in schools across the nation. Jon spoke of this story and then showed clips of the recent HD reboot of Mortal Kombat.
I have absolutely no idea why a new Mortal Kombat game was even made. Perhaps it was because many of the kids who played the original are grown now and are now capable of purchasing the game and playing it, perhaps with all their now grown friends over online play (which was obviously not available years ago). As a party game or one that is played between good friends, I can see the merit of Mortal Kombat as it is admittedly a true GAME. It has some version of a mis-matched "international fighting championship" storyline that is used to readily in some really crappy pseudo-paranormal ninja/karate movies but really it isn't compelling, engrossing, or even really very interesting as it only serves to give each fighter some semblance of a back story to explain why a ninja somehow has power over the elements of water and ice. The FATALITIES of course are what the Mortal Kombat games are famous for. Whenever one of the fighters is about to die, the iconic announcement of FINISH HIM is played and an animated FATALITY is played out that gruesomely dismembers or slaughters the losing player's avatar, which serves as a final insult to the losing player and allowing the winner to celebrate their win against their friend. It's obviously all in good fun between two mature friends who realize that all of this is just digital violence that they use to have friendly competition between another.
Why a new Mortal Kombat game was released in these times when games are being debated in the way that they are is completely beyond me. Frankly I stop and have a moment where I ask "REALLY!? NOW!? You do know that they are all WATCHING us right now and WAITING for us to SCREW UP!?" I mean really, didn't the "Hot Coffee" scandal hurt us enough? A new Mortal Kombat game is the last thing we need, especially after FOX News pundits (even though we all know that they're about the worst of the worst of the puritanical crazies) accuse the game Bulletstorm (which used its own hyper-violence to essentially parody and poke fun at itself) of causing gamers to become RAPISTS.
One thing I do have to mention though is that the marketing for Mortal Kombat was minimal at best. I had only heard that there was a new Mortal Kombat game mere weeks before it came out and even then I only saw a handful of TV commercials promoting it, and this is coming from someone who is very much in tune with television & gamer culture. This is an example of marketing done right. The TV commercials portrayed exactly what I would imagine a Mortal Kombat game being used for, two 20-something friends playing on a couch, one succumbing to a FATALITY and having to listen to his friend gloat over the win. It was a perfectly innocent ad for a famously violent game and I found that it was very tasteful. The game was not marketed to children and several times it was reminded to the viewer that the game was rated M for Mature.
An example of marketing done WRONG for example would be the marketing for the games Dante's Inferno and Dead Space 2. Both of these games were made by EA (Electronic Arts), the former attempting to update and modernize the epic poem on which it is loosely based and the latter being a sequel to an earlier science-fiction horror game about an abandoned space ship and the aliens that caused it to become abandoned. Neither game was a really massive success, but both are infamous among the gaming community for being horribly mishandled by the marketing department.
You see, the idea of Dante's Inferno being shown to a new audience was intriguing to me as a fan of Dante's Divine Comedy. Even if the game wasn't a success at least it might garner interest to a new audience who had never heard of the poem. Unfortunately, EA's idea for marketing was to hire fake protesters to picket the game at game conventions such as E3, describing it as "hellish & disturbing" (which is kind of the point because Dante's Inferno is set within the Nine Circles of Hell). The strategy was almost immediately seen through and failed miserably, being remembered as an increasingly annoying piece of marketing gone wrong. The marketing of Dead Space 2 was somehow more appalling than this of course, with the ad campaign of Your Mother Wouldn't Like This Game, where footage of some of the games more violent and disgusting scenes (it's a game about parasitic aliens, so there are some disgusting scenes) were shown to 30-50 year old women and their recorded reactions were used in commercials where they obviously reacted negatively to the game. People were outraged because in a nutshell, EA marketed this Mature rated game to a Teen audience. And I agree with this outrage, and from this we have learned.
Violent video games do not destroy our youth and encourage violent behavior. They just don't. Every game I play is plastered with warning labels telling me how much violence and/or sexuality is portrayed within them and I feel like I am very informed as to what I am purchasing and playing. Do I believe that there are some games that should be held back from a young audience? Of course I do. I certainly am not going to expose my future children to Scarface or Grand Theft Auto when they're 5 years old. That does NOT mean that I agree with a government court restricting the flow of information and entertainment to anyone. It does not rest in the hands of a few men in a court to decide what I can and cannot view in my own personal time, that is what the First Amendment gives me, my own free choice. Video games are still evolving. Some games are marketed to the family, like those made by Nintendo on the Wii. Some of them are simulators like Forza or Need for Speec and any of the multitude of Flight Simulators on the market. Many in fact are educational puzzle games that I encourage young children to be exposed to. The ones I am fighting to defend are games that, while featuring violence, still deliver an enjoyable, interesting, and in many cases very cathartic experiences. A stress study at Texas A&M even proved that video games are fantastic stress relievers by allowing the players to virtually take out any anger they have on digital avatars because it allows their violent primal urges to manifest in a safe virtual environment.
Video games should be regulated, never banned. It is your right as an American citizen to be allowed to view any piece of information or entertainment you wish to be exposed to. And if you are concerned with what your child may or may not be playing, get to know them, learn about the games they play and if they show interest in a game you deem too violent for their sensibilities then it is your responsibility to choose whether or not to allow them to play it. Educate yourself fully and thoroughly, because one out-of-context clip from Mortal Kombat doesn't do this industry justice. Try critically acclaimed games that many people regard as "interactive art", games such as Shadow of the Colossus and Limbo. I promise you, this medium I love is not infectious and evil just because you don't know much about it. I will admit that we are not perfect, far from it. But then again nothing is perfect. Some of the greatest films and books of all time have also been some of the most violent or controversial. Shakespeare was no stranger to madness and violence and he's renowned as one of the greatest poets who ever lived. There was once a time when people believed that it wasn't healthy to indulge in fiction novels because it distracted you from reality. I look forward to one day when I don't have to constantly defend myself because I'm a gamer.
I have been a gamer for over a decade now. I remember my first game like it was yesterday, Crash Bandicoot 2: The Wrath of Cortex. And since then my taste has matured and evolved with me, to today where I am eagerly awaiting the sequels to games like Gears of War and Mass Effect. I am able to distinguish between reality and virtual reality because I am of rational and sound mind and body. I have not been driven to psychosis and I do not have any plans to commit violent acts to anyone or anything. I have been exposed to violence, sexuality, swearing, and all many of things in my 18 years through music, movies, television, video games, and reality alike and despite this I have graduated high school with Honors and some of the highest grades in my graduating class and I look forward to attending Rider University's Media and Communications program in the Fall of this year with multiple scholarships and honors. I accomplished all of this all while also proudly calling myself a part of the Video Gaming Community.
Now tell me. What do you think?
I have never liked Mortal Kombat. Maybe that's just because I don't enjoy fighting games, or because I'm more suited to playing role-playing games than button mashing my controller. I will admit to playing games like Dead or Alive 4 or Street Fighter IV, but they're only fun when I'm playing them with my friends. See, I wasn't around a few decades ago when the original Mortal Kombat came out, back when it was THE example that people kept using for violent video games. Back then games like Mortal Kombat, Custer's Revenge, and Leisure Suit Larry became the reason that the ESRB was created after many concerned parents discovered their children playing them, those games the kids had only spoken about in hushed whispers because even back then they knew what they had.
The ESRB was created in the hope that developers wouldn't try selling a game containing massive amounts of sex or gore to children. It consists (as of now) of the ratings E (Everyone), E10+ (Everyone 10 & Up), T (Teen), M (Mature), & Ao (Adults Only). Now, let me clarify, I am ALL for this. Some children should not be shown some things at certain ages. This was one of the main reasons my father didn't let me watch Scarface until I was in my teens, and even then he wanted to watch it with me. My father has always been open with the fact that he has allowed me to be exposed to many more things than most of my friends, and I am forever grateful to him for that. And I agree that he waited an appropriate amount of time and that I would have seen that movie entirely differently had I seen it when I was a child.
But I do NOT believe that information should be restricted. NO information should ever be restricted. As American citizens we have the right to be exposed to anything and everything should we so choose.
When I turned 18, in the eyes of the state I legally became an adult. My parents could no longer speak to my doctor about my health without my consent, I was allowed to vote (meaning I will be able to vote in the upcoming 2012 Presidential Election), I became eligible for the Military Draft (with the possibility that I could DIE IN A WAR FOR MY COUNTRY) and in some states I became allowed to smoke cigarettes (I never will, but it is something I am legally allowed to do now). Another perk I was allowed was the ability to buy M rated games without needing my father present to consent to my purchase. Prior to this, my dad needed to be present to tell the Gamestop cashier that I was allowed to play this game.
One such game was Grand Theft Auto IV. The Grand Theft Auto series has long stood as Rockstar Studios' flagship series. Before the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, they had released 5 earlier games all adhering to the fictional storyline beginning in the previous installment Grand Theft Auto III. Encompassing the nearly 3 decades in the series' fictional storyline, these games allow the player to assume the role of several men all participating in criminal activities involving the (in the 80s) the Mafia's Cocaine trade around the country, (in the 90s) the massive violent gang presence that surrounded poorer inner city areas such as Los Angeles, and (in modern days) the fading of the power of the mafia. On the whole, the Grand Theft Auto III era presents an engrossing storyline that not only highlights the rise and fall of Organized Crime in American, but also parodies certain elements of it and points out several absurdities and hypocrisies not only with these criminal characters but also in the culture of the times as they evolved over time and the effect they had on these criminal enterprises. In my opinion the Grand Theft Auto III era told a crime story that even Martin Scorsese couldn't capture in its entirety.
Then came Grand Theft Auto IV, the story of a Serbian man named Niko Bellic who comes to America searching not only for resolution for the bloody events he witnessed in the Serbian Civil War but also to start a new life for himself in Liberty City (the game's amazingly rendered analogy for New York City). The game makes no secret that in his past life Niko was a deeply flawed human who committed several atrocities that he holds deep shame and regret because of and that he seeks redemption and resolution by tracking down the man who betrayed his unit during the war who now resides in Liberty City. He is very skilled at violence, but he doesn't exactly want to indulge in it anymore than he already has. Unfortunately, (mostly in an effort to protect his cousin Roman from the various criminal bosses he owes money to via gambling debts) he finds himself drawn into the criminal underworld of the city ultimately becoming engaged in a turf war with mob kingpin Jimmy Pegerino when he attempts to just get out and away from it all. Ultimately, Niko finds the man who betrayed him and his men in Serbia and it is left to the player to decide whether or not to kill this man. The choice has absolutely no bearing on the plot and is only presented to give the player resolution to the story. By the end of the game, Niko has become so tired of the crime and the violence that even though he has nearly single-handedly dismantled the mafia of Liberty City, he wants only to start over a new life for himself and put down his guns forever.
Grand Theft Auto is the title that was constantly being used by Jack Thompson, an anti-gaming attorney who sought to ban their sale to minors all together (before he was disbarred from practicing law in Florida), as an example of how violent video games corrupt our youth. Now I do admit, the Grand Theft Auto series is filled with swear words, blood, and (in some instances) nudity and it does give the player the ability to shoot and kill anyone they want as well as the ability to visit prostitutes on the street. Because of this the game is rated M for Mature by the ESRB and is marketed only to those over the age of 18. The game's violent content is made very clear in any ad made for it with this M rating and any TV commercial made for it is aired later in the afternoon, a time where it is assumed that anyone not old enough to buy the game is either in bed or away from the TV. And finally, as I have mentioned earlier, legal parental consent is needed to purchase such a game if you are under the age of 18. In fact the actual M rating actually is shown on game boxes as being only suitable for players over 17 years of age, but many retailers such as Target or Gamestop restrict the age to 18 instead, as it is the legal adult age.
Okay, admittedly I have gone off on kind of a rant but I do have a point to all this. Tonight on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart brought up the California Supreme Court decision that was recently debated that had it passed would have banned the sale of violent video games to minors. The decision was monumental in that it proved that violence in video games was a matter of free speech, citing some of the violence in literature that is readily taught in schools across the nation. Jon spoke of this story and then showed clips of the recent HD reboot of Mortal Kombat.
I have absolutely no idea why a new Mortal Kombat game was even made. Perhaps it was because many of the kids who played the original are grown now and are now capable of purchasing the game and playing it, perhaps with all their now grown friends over online play (which was obviously not available years ago). As a party game or one that is played between good friends, I can see the merit of Mortal Kombat as it is admittedly a true GAME. It has some version of a mis-matched "international fighting championship" storyline that is used to readily in some really crappy pseudo-paranormal ninja/karate movies but really it isn't compelling, engrossing, or even really very interesting as it only serves to give each fighter some semblance of a back story to explain why a ninja somehow has power over the elements of water and ice. The FATALITIES of course are what the Mortal Kombat games are famous for. Whenever one of the fighters is about to die, the iconic announcement of FINISH HIM is played and an animated FATALITY is played out that gruesomely dismembers or slaughters the losing player's avatar, which serves as a final insult to the losing player and allowing the winner to celebrate their win against their friend. It's obviously all in good fun between two mature friends who realize that all of this is just digital violence that they use to have friendly competition between another.
Why a new Mortal Kombat game was released in these times when games are being debated in the way that they are is completely beyond me. Frankly I stop and have a moment where I ask "REALLY!? NOW!? You do know that they are all WATCHING us right now and WAITING for us to SCREW UP!?" I mean really, didn't the "Hot Coffee" scandal hurt us enough? A new Mortal Kombat game is the last thing we need, especially after FOX News pundits (even though we all know that they're about the worst of the worst of the puritanical crazies) accuse the game Bulletstorm (which used its own hyper-violence to essentially parody and poke fun at itself) of causing gamers to become RAPISTS.
One thing I do have to mention though is that the marketing for Mortal Kombat was minimal at best. I had only heard that there was a new Mortal Kombat game mere weeks before it came out and even then I only saw a handful of TV commercials promoting it, and this is coming from someone who is very much in tune with television & gamer culture. This is an example of marketing done right. The TV commercials portrayed exactly what I would imagine a Mortal Kombat game being used for, two 20-something friends playing on a couch, one succumbing to a FATALITY and having to listen to his friend gloat over the win. It was a perfectly innocent ad for a famously violent game and I found that it was very tasteful. The game was not marketed to children and several times it was reminded to the viewer that the game was rated M for Mature.
An example of marketing done WRONG for example would be the marketing for the games Dante's Inferno and Dead Space 2. Both of these games were made by EA (Electronic Arts), the former attempting to update and modernize the epic poem on which it is loosely based and the latter being a sequel to an earlier science-fiction horror game about an abandoned space ship and the aliens that caused it to become abandoned. Neither game was a really massive success, but both are infamous among the gaming community for being horribly mishandled by the marketing department.
You see, the idea of Dante's Inferno being shown to a new audience was intriguing to me as a fan of Dante's Divine Comedy. Even if the game wasn't a success at least it might garner interest to a new audience who had never heard of the poem. Unfortunately, EA's idea for marketing was to hire fake protesters to picket the game at game conventions such as E3, describing it as "hellish & disturbing" (which is kind of the point because Dante's Inferno is set within the Nine Circles of Hell). The strategy was almost immediately seen through and failed miserably, being remembered as an increasingly annoying piece of marketing gone wrong. The marketing of Dead Space 2 was somehow more appalling than this of course, with the ad campaign of Your Mother Wouldn't Like This Game, where footage of some of the games more violent and disgusting scenes (it's a game about parasitic aliens, so there are some disgusting scenes) were shown to 30-50 year old women and their recorded reactions were used in commercials where they obviously reacted negatively to the game. People were outraged because in a nutshell, EA marketed this Mature rated game to a Teen audience. And I agree with this outrage, and from this we have learned.
Violent video games do not destroy our youth and encourage violent behavior. They just don't. Every game I play is plastered with warning labels telling me how much violence and/or sexuality is portrayed within them and I feel like I am very informed as to what I am purchasing and playing. Do I believe that there are some games that should be held back from a young audience? Of course I do. I certainly am not going to expose my future children to Scarface or Grand Theft Auto when they're 5 years old. That does NOT mean that I agree with a government court restricting the flow of information and entertainment to anyone. It does not rest in the hands of a few men in a court to decide what I can and cannot view in my own personal time, that is what the First Amendment gives me, my own free choice. Video games are still evolving. Some games are marketed to the family, like those made by Nintendo on the Wii. Some of them are simulators like Forza or Need for Speec and any of the multitude of Flight Simulators on the market. Many in fact are educational puzzle games that I encourage young children to be exposed to. The ones I am fighting to defend are games that, while featuring violence, still deliver an enjoyable, interesting, and in many cases very cathartic experiences. A stress study at Texas A&M even proved that video games are fantastic stress relievers by allowing the players to virtually take out any anger they have on digital avatars because it allows their violent primal urges to manifest in a safe virtual environment.
Video games should be regulated, never banned. It is your right as an American citizen to be allowed to view any piece of information or entertainment you wish to be exposed to. And if you are concerned with what your child may or may not be playing, get to know them, learn about the games they play and if they show interest in a game you deem too violent for their sensibilities then it is your responsibility to choose whether or not to allow them to play it. Educate yourself fully and thoroughly, because one out-of-context clip from Mortal Kombat doesn't do this industry justice. Try critically acclaimed games that many people regard as "interactive art", games such as Shadow of the Colossus and Limbo. I promise you, this medium I love is not infectious and evil just because you don't know much about it. I will admit that we are not perfect, far from it. But then again nothing is perfect. Some of the greatest films and books of all time have also been some of the most violent or controversial. Shakespeare was no stranger to madness and violence and he's renowned as one of the greatest poets who ever lived. There was once a time when people believed that it wasn't healthy to indulge in fiction novels because it distracted you from reality. I look forward to one day when I don't have to constantly defend myself because I'm a gamer.
I have been a gamer for over a decade now. I remember my first game like it was yesterday, Crash Bandicoot 2: The Wrath of Cortex. And since then my taste has matured and evolved with me, to today where I am eagerly awaiting the sequels to games like Gears of War and Mass Effect. I am able to distinguish between reality and virtual reality because I am of rational and sound mind and body. I have not been driven to psychosis and I do not have any plans to commit violent acts to anyone or anything. I have been exposed to violence, sexuality, swearing, and all many of things in my 18 years through music, movies, television, video games, and reality alike and despite this I have graduated high school with Honors and some of the highest grades in my graduating class and I look forward to attending Rider University's Media and Communications program in the Fall of this year with multiple scholarships and honors. I accomplished all of this all while also proudly calling myself a part of the Video Gaming Community.
Now tell me. What do you think?
