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It seems that the age-old battle to censor video games has been
renewed once more. About two weeks ago, my best friend got
himself a copy of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for the PC and
we took to it until the wee hours of the morning for days on
end. A week later, he showed me a mod he found online called the
Hot Coffee Mod. For those of you who haven't already heard about
it in the news, the good people at Rockstar programmed in a
sex-themed minigame that you engage in once you make enough
progress with your girlfriend to be invited in for a cup of
coffee... if you know what I mean. And you do, of course, because
frankly, I know my readership to be the cream of the
intellectual crop. Anyway, the minigame itself is very much like
sex itself, in that you must hit a button when a white bar is
filled, only in real life, the "button" is the G-spot and the
white bar is... I don't know, a vagina maybe.
Metaphors aside, the programmers decided not to use that
titillating bit of gameplay, and so no controversy raged over it
until just recently, when it was revealed how the content could
be unlocked. And let me tell you, nothing offends people quite
like soft-core pornography featuring a poorly-rendered naked
woman and a fully-clothed man. Controversy raged, angry parents
gnashed their teeth (Teeths? Tooths?), and politicians descended
upon the morass like crows descending upon a very controversial
bit of roadkill.
Oh well, I thought to myself. I wonder how long it will take
before society loses its taste for red herring? Longer than I
would have guessed, apparently. You see, my local newspaper is a
wellspring of information. For the most part, it's just local
news with important world events described near the end of the
first section. I, however, read it not for its expert coverage
of the latest yard sales and nearby hootenannies, but rather for
the two funniest sections to be found in any newspaper: the
comics and the letters to the editor. I was looking forward to
the latest round in the ongoing argument between the creationism
and evolution people, but another story caught my eye on the way
there.
The story in question concerned the Entertainment Software
Rating Board (ESRB), the nonprofit group that provides ratings for all
the different video games out there. They're currently under
fire from parent groups, politicians, and other people with too
much time on their hands for not catching the sexy minigame
before they gave the game an "M" rating. Now, one could make the
argument that NO ONE found the material until the highly
modifiable PC version was released, or that the "M for Mature"
rating states that the game is for people who won't be offended
by graphic violence or adult situations, but those are arguments
for people who aren't outraged, and how could you not be
outraged at such a sight? Well, you could be one of the millions
of people who don't play video games, or you could be a child
who hasn't played the game because your parents read the warning
on the back of the box and decided not to buy it for you.
However, if you were the kind of god-fearing person who heard
about this story secondhand and have never played a video game
in your life, or if you were the kind of person who plays video
games/watches movies/reads books just so you can find something
that offends you, you'd be foaming at the mouth.
Getting back to the news story, it mentioned that critics of the
ESRB complained about the vagueness of the ratings that they
apply to games. Now that I could understand. After all, it says
"strong language" on the GTA: SA box, but who knows what that
means? Does it mean that the characters will be talking about
bodybuilding? And right below that, it says "strong sexual
content." Now what in the hell is that supposed to mean? Maybe
the people at the ESRB were using the standards of the 1920s,
when "strong sexual content" meant that a man mouthed the word
"breast" while in the presence of a lady. Then again, maybe the
phrase, "strong sexual content" in a video games means the same
thing it does on Cinemax: that you're going to witness a
contrived setup followed by some R-rated humping.
On that same note, the story also said that another criticism of
the rating system was that it was hard to understand. Now this
was what I was really looking for. For years, I've struggled to
understand what it is that people don't understand about what
I've considered to be a fairly self-explanatory ratings system,
and typically, a line like that in a news story is a transition
that's followed up with some details. Unfortunately, this was
not the case, and what followed were merely some historical
facts of the ESRB. Oh well, the search continues.
I used to think that my state was immune to this hullabaloo, but
oh boy was I wrong. Our state's representative decided to vote
"yes" on a bill that would stick retailers with a hefty fine
should they accidentally sell an M-rated game to a minor. One
would think that they could simply appeal and say that rating
was too confusing for them to know better, but I doubt that
would fly with the angry parents. So now, whenever I go to pick
one up, I get "carded," as though my copy of Doom 3 came with a
free shot of Jaegermeister. This turn of events was especially
confusing for me because I was led to believe that republicans
were against anything that could cut into a business's profits,
but apparently, our rep felt that there was more to gain through
capitalizing on knee-jerk reactionaries.
Also on the anti-video game bus is former first lady and "New
Yorker," Hillary Clinton. Still angry over the profound (and
televised!) collapse of her marriage, the New York senator has
now turned her frustrations on video games where people are
having sex. Oddly enough, I got a letter from her (well, a form
letter from her) asking for money just the other day to help
fund her run for the presidency in 2008. I, of course, didn't
have any money for her, but I still wanted to help, so I thought
of sending her a box of my cat's sand-encrusted waste. Sadly, I
was out of cardboard boxes, so if you're reading this, Hillary,
I'm sorry you didn't receive my campaign contribution.
I suppose I should wrap this up before I really start going off
on a tangent. The bottom line is this: an M-rated video game is
just like an R-rated movie. If you're a parent, just LOOK at the
rating label on the box before you buy little Johnny that game
he's been wanting for ages. I mean, if it says "17 and older,"
and you buy it for your ten-year-old, what kind of a parent are
you? If it says on the back of the box, "drug use" and "strong
sexual content," maybe you shouldn't get the game for your
daughter's 13th birthday.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that you should give the video
games your kids are playing the same kind of attention that you
give to the food your kids are eating. If you do, you won't need
to have the government step in, and you'll be stealing the
thunder from those opportunistic politicos.
As for GTA: SA, the game has been pulled off the shelves at
virtually every retail outlet. I went to Best Buy the other day
to see if I could snag a copy of the PC version, but was
informed by one of the salespeople that I was two days too late.
Now, Rockstar has decided to voluntarily raise the game's rating
to AO (Adult's Only), a category populated mainly by the dating
sims straight outta Japan. Despite this change in
the rating, and despite the fact that there is pretty much
nowhere to buy the game except online, the TV ad campaign is
still running. In effect, the situation has become just like the
episode of South Park wherein Cartman buys an amusement park,
forbids anyone else entry to the park, and then advertises it on
TV, taunting the public with stories of the park's greatness.
Will the end result be the same for Rockstar, a deluge of sales
once the game is again made available to the public, or will
they wind up just like Cartman, broke and forced to look on as
their archrival recovers from a hemorrhoid? Only time will
tell...
editor's note: Dr. Boogie is really
just bitter because he's 5 years old and his parents won't buy
him Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
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