Two major attacks on the game industry took place this week: BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) banned Manhunt 2 altogether in the UK, while in the US, the ESRB slapped an Adult Only rating on it, effectively banning it in North America, as most retailers will not stock it as a result (and both Sony and Nintendo won’t allow an AO game to be published on their consoles).
We strongly oppose such heavy-handed interference from governments or trade groups, especially the outright ban of any game, or any other creative product for that matter, regardless of controversies in the press such as has been generated by Take 2 (the publisher of the Manhunt games). The “need to protect the children”, frequently fueling such crackdowns, hardly justify the latest series of extreme measures.
By banning the game from sale for both adults and children, the BBFC wants to dictate a certain brand of morality to the adult British public, restricting the choices of entertainment available on the market to those selective values that meets its approval. In other words, British adults are seen as unable, or incapable, of making their own rational decisions in this area, so the government has to make them for everyone, insulting their intelligence and disrespecting them in the process. Insulting, and disrespectful.
To be clear, we have no opposition to an Adult Only restriction on the game, as has been done in the US, although we lament the fact that no retailer is willing to stock Adult Only games, and that Sony and Nintendo refuse to allow the games to be published. But to tell adults what they can’t and can watch, read or play is censorship, pure and simple. It is a throwback to the puritan campaigns of the 70s and 80s against pornography, and later against rap lyrics: one segment of the population trying to impose their views on the rest.
Like most of the public and journalists out there, we have not yet played Manhunt 2, so it remains difficult to evaluate. People who played it have remarked that is quite similar to the first title. The first Manhunt also received quite a bit of controversy, but was never banned. At worse, the game was repeatedly smeared by populist press who incorrectly attached the cause of a murder of a teenager to the game. To this day, this smear continues to be repeatedly mentioned in the news, painting Manhunt in a harsh and incorrect light.
The game is brutal. It is aggressive and visceral. It forces the player to make difficult moral choices. The design of Manhunt is meant to push the limit of what is acceptable in games, while striving to make the player uncomfortable in the violent acts they must commit in order to advance. The fact that most consumers may not want to play the game does not mean it should be banned.
Unless the ruling is reversed, Manhunt 2 will become the first game to be successfully banned in the UK, setting a dangerous and unacceptable precedent. We expect Take 2 strongly challenges the ruling, and rallies the industry and its consumers to its cause as this is likely to affect us all, for a long time to come, one way or another. Unfortunately, as it currently stands, Take 2 has shelved the game indefinitely.
For a deeper and insightful analysis of this issue, we highly recommend Rob Fahey’s latest editorial.
