PART VII

~VIOLENCE, SCHMIOLENCE! WE WANT SEX!

This is just a tidbit I thought I’d throw in…

A Foxnews.com story dated
October 18, 2004 and entitled Game Players in Lewd Mood snagged
my eye awhile back (I mean, it said “lewd,” so
how could I not check it out?). According to the article, “A
slew of new video-game releases are putting the X in Xbox by forsaking
violence for nudity.” It goes on to mention three games in particular:
Leisure
Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude,
Playboy: The Mansion, and Singles: Flirt Up Your Life.

Before anyone starts drooling
or foaming at the mouth, let me say that the nudity in these games
isn’t total. Both XBOX and PS2 censors
prohibit nudity of the full frontal variety, so nothing below the
waist is shown. (Hey, wait a second! Wouldn’t that be a violation
of someone’s First Amendment rights?) According to Paul O’Neil of
Vivendi Universal Games (Leisure Suit Larry), hiding various anatomical
parts is accomplished through the use of “ferns and other things.”

Gee, I wonder if any of
the women in these games suffer from an affliction first noted
by our very own Randy Sluganski in his review
of BloodRayne?
He calls the condition juggsashakin.

~THE MYTH DEBUNKER

In 2004, Seattle PBS affiliate KCTS produced a documentary called
The Video Game Revolution. The show’s website includes an essay by
MIT professor Henry Jenkins entitled Reality Bytes: Eight Myths
About Video Games Debunked.

In his opening remarks,
Jenkins says: “A large gap exists between
the public’s perception of video games and what the research actually
shows. The following is an attempt to separate fact from fiction.” He
goes on to challenge the positions that violent video games cause
real violence, that children represent the primary video game market,
that violent games train kids to kill, and other such contentions.

Jenkins, who is the director
of MIT’s comparative media studies program, makes some good points.
For instance, he writes: “According
to federal crime statistics, the rate of juvenile crime in the United
States is at a 30-year low. It’s true that young offenders who have
committed school shootings in America have also been game players…The
overwhelming majority of kids who play do NOT commit antisocial acts.
The moral panic over violent video games…misdirects energy away
from eliminating the actual causes of youth violence and allows problems
to continue to fester.”

He goes on to say: “…a
growing body of research does suggest that games can enhance learning.
In his recent book, What Video Games
Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, James Gee describes
game players as active problem solvers who do not see mistakes as
errors, but as opportunities for improvement. Players search for
newer, better solutions to problems and challenges, he says. And
they are encouraged to constantly form and test hypotheses.”

I came across another
interesting article by Jenkins, written in 2002, concerning an
appearance he’d made on the Donahue show. According
to Jenkins, he’d been assured by the show’s producers that they “wanted
to have an intelligent discussion [about video games], to avoid sensationalism,
to give me a chance to make my arguments.”

But once the show began,
he discovered he’d been set up: “I
was ambushed, and forgot how to fight back.” He ended up not
saying many of the things he had wanted to say. Here is one of them:

“Parents are demanding
that the government do something even if it’s wrong, and once we
reach that point, we tend to do all the
wrong things…every moment our government focuses on the wrong problems,
they take away time and resources that could be used to combat actual
causes of youth violence. Banning games doesn’t put a stop to domestic
violence, doesn’t ensure that mentally unstable kids get the help
they need, doesn’t stop bullying in the hallways, and doesn’t deal
with the economic inequalities and racial tensions that are the real
source of violence in American culture.”

~THE MYTH DEBUNKER IN OPPOSITION

In October 2003, Dr. Craig
A. Anderson (mentioned earlier in this article) published a piece
that appears
in the American Psychological
Association website entitled Violent Video Games: Myths, Facts,
and Unanswered Questions. In it, Dr. Anderson states:

“Although the violent
video game literature is still relatively new and small, we have
learned a lot about their effects and have
successfully answered several key questions. So, what is myth and
what do we know?”

He goes on to list 11 myths, then provides facts that he claims
demonstrate their falsity.

~SO, WHICH IS IT?

In the interest of comparison and contrast, let’s have a look at
a myth that’s been addressed by both Henry Jenkins and Craig Anderson.

First, from Professor Jenkins:

“[Myth:] Scientific
evidence links violent game play with youth aggression.

“[Facts:] Claims like this are based on the work of researchers
who represent one relatively narrow school of research, “media
effects.” This research includes some 300 studies of media violence.
But most of those studies are inconclusive and many have been criticized
on methodological grounds. In these studies, media images are removed
from any narrative context. Subjects are asked to engage with content
that they would not normally consume and may not understand. Finally,
the laboratory context is radically different from the environments
where games would normally be played. Most studies found a correlation,
not a causal relationship, which means the research could simply
show that aggressive people like aggressive entertainment. That’s
why the vague term “links” is used here. If there is a
consensus emerging around this research, it is that violent video
games may be one risk factor – when coupled with other more immediate,
real-world influences – which can contribute to anti-social behavior.
But no research has found that video games are a primary factor or
that violent video game play could turn an otherwise normal person
into a killer.”

Now, let’s hear from Dr. Anderson:

“Myth…There are
no studies linking violent video game play to serious aggression.

“Facts: High levels
of violent video game exposure have been linked to delinquency,
fighting at school and during free play periods,
and violent criminal behavior (e.g., self-reported assault, robbery).”

~PROOF? EVIDENCE? CONCLUSIONS? WHERE?

In an article entitled The
Psychological Effects of Violent Media on Children published by AllPsych
Journal on December 14, 2003, author
Aimee Tomkins says the following regarding media violence:

“The only part of
the issue that researchers do agree about is that violent media
types are not the only cause of children committing
violent acts. The involvement of parents in what their children watch,
how the family interacts with each other, what the children are exposed
to in their environment are also indicators of how they will behave
and what value system they will follow…not one research conducted
could prove either positive or negative long term outcomes of violent
media. The fact of the matter is that parents should monitor and
be more attentive to their children…Parents need to pay more attention
to their children’s lives and not sit them in front of the television,
whether it is for movies, video games, or general television shows.
In my opinion in this day and age most parents get too wrapped up
in their own lives to be overly concerned about what their children
are doing.”

Let’s fast-forward to March 24, 2005 and an article entitled Campaign
against video games is political grandstanding by Franklin Harris,
published in the online edition of The Decatur Daily. This is how
the article starts:

“Whenever anyone says we must do something for ‘our children’s
sake,’ watch out. This is when government inevitably is up to no
good.” Whoa.

It goes on to mention
several states that are currently considering legislation to restrict
the sale of violent video games to children.
The bill of one of these states, Alabama, says that “it has
now been established by overwhelming scientific, law enforcement
and medical evidence that violent and sexually themed video and computer
games can and do harm not only the consumers of the games but also
lead to harmful behaviors toward innocent third parties…”

Mr. Harris counters this
with: “As it happens, there is no
‘overwhelming’ evidence of the kind. The studies so far are deeply
flawed, and none deals with the plain facts of the matter, including,
obviously, the fact that millions of people play violent video games
without becoming criminals. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker says
the link between media violence and real-world violence is simply
‘an article of faith’ that isn’t backed by scientific evidence. He
goes on to say that ‘psychologists who have recently reviewed the
literature have concluded that exposure to media violence has little
or no effect on violent behavior in the world.’

“If all of this seems familiar, it’s because the same arguments
now leveled against video games were leveled against comic books
in the 1950s.” Referring to Dr. Frederic Wertham, Harris says, “But
now, of course, almost everyone recognizes that Wertham was, at best,
misguided or, at worst, a crank.” Bingo.

Harris also states: “Laws
like those under consideration here and elsewhere are insidious.
They seek to transfer the responsibility
for parenting from parents to the government, which has a difficult
enough time delivering the mail, never mind acting as parent to millions
of children.”

PART VIII

~I SAW THIS ONE COMING, FOLKS…

When I first heard about the tragic shootings that took place on
the Indian reservation in Red Lake, Minnesota on March 21, 2005 ,
I was almost certain that somehow, violent video games and/or other
violent media would be mentioned in conjunction with the 16-year-old
shooter, Jeff Weise. Never mind that his family life had been horrible,
that he’d been abused and told by his mother that he’d been a mistake,
that his father had committed suicide, and that his mother had ended
up brain-damaged and institutionalized after an auto accident. Never
mind that Jeff had tried to commit suicide, was being treated for
depression, was taking Prozac, had spent time in a psychiatric hospital,
admired Adolf Hitler, was into neo-Nazism, maintained a blog filled
with despair, and participated in a forum at http://www.nazi.org where he posted disturbing messages.

If you’d care to see something truly chilling, have a look at a
page that, according to The Smoking Gun website, reflects Jeff Weise’s
MSN Profile: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0324051weise1.html.

Subsequent research into the shootings confirmed what I’d suspected.
From MSNBC, for example: School shooter followed video game-like
script [subtitle: Faded Columbine reality kept warning signs
from being taken seriously]. This is an interview with Dr. Katherine Newman,
professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton, who wrote
a book entitled Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings.

Frankly, folks, I find some of this interview to be more than a
little off-putting. For example, Dr. Newman states, regarding a crudely-drawn,
violent animation Weise had posted on the Internet:

“If you pick up the average video game, you’re going to see
sequences that look just like the animation this boy produced. It’s
not something that we look at and say, “Oh, I’ve never seen
that before.’ You will see it a million times if you pick up any
of the common video games available to teenagers today.”

Okay, I have some questions:
(1) What’s an “average video game?”
(2) What’s a “common video game?”
(3) In which video games, specifically, can one see violence “a
million times?”
(4) Has the good doctor played them all and kept a running count?

The kinds of generalities
used by this woman drive me right up the wall. They also provide
yet another example of “all video games
are violent” rhetoric.

Brief aside: I’ve seen
a Flash animation attributed to Jeff Weise, allegedly entitled “Target Practice.” I
find it pretty disturbing, and it saddens me that, for whatever
reasons, Weise felt
a need to create it. I don’t, however, think that it proves a direct
link between violent video games and what happened at Red Lake. To
view the animation, see School Killer’s Animated Terror on The Smoking
Gun website at http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0323051weise1.html.

Getting back to the interview,
Dr. Newman says that Weise’s community couldn’t have been expected
to see warning signs of the violence
to come; that Weise was trying to commit “suicide by cop” but
he “got to himself first;” she claims that it’s “quite
common…for school shooters to have suicidal impulses;” and
that Weise’s social situation, painful though it was, was “no
worse than millions of other kids experience: teasing, feeling inadequate,
being excluded, these are very common feelings for teenagers.”

I think these are absolutely outrageous statements. I also have
a few more questions for the doctor:
(1) How could the community not notice that there was something terribly
wrong with this kid?
(2) Wouldn’t it be a little more accurate to say that suicidal impulses
can push a kid into becoming a shooter, instead of the other way
around?
(3) Jeff Weise had already attempted suicide the previous year.
(a) You mean to tell me that no one in the community was aware of this?
(b) If people were aware of it, did anyone try to discover underlying causes?
(c) Who could possibly think that what Jeff Weise went through was no worse
than what “millions of other kids experience?”

Even the title of this piece has me grinding my teeth. The first
part — School shooter followed video game-like script — lays wholesale
blame on video games; the second part — Faded Columbine reality
kept warning signs from being taken seriously — blames the amount
of time that’s elapsed since Columbine for the fact that no one who
was in a position to do so noticed that Weise was in serious trouble,
despite the fact that there were warning signs all over the place.
Gimme a freakin’ break!

Let’s move on to an Associated
Press piece published in The Seattle Times: Nation & World
on March 26, 2005:

“The teenager who
shot five fellow students to death at his high school had watched
a movie about a school shooting with friends
earlier this month, skipping ahead to some of the most violent scenes…Sky
Grant, 16, a friend of Weise’s since sixth grade…said Weise took
the 2003 movie Elephant [said to have been based on Columbine] to
Grant’s house on March 4, then skipped ahead to parts of the movie
that show two students planning and carrying out a fictitious school
shooting in Portland.”

Okay. Speaking of Columbine (15 killed, including the two shooters),
the Red Lake shootings (10 killed, including shooter) are being called
the worst since that tragic event. Now, let me ask you something.
In the six years since Columbine, we’ve done study after study, held
hearing after hearing, listened to expert after expert, made law
after law, and spent taxpayer dollar after taxpayer dollar. Has any
of this been effective? Is it possible, as has been suggested, that
we’ve been looking in the wrong direction? I invite you to draw your
own conclusions.

Curious about what Jack
Thompson might have said about Jeff Weise and the Red Lake shootings?
Well, according to an article by Lorna
Benson for Minnesota Public Radio dated March 24, 2005, “Thompson
sees parallels between the videogame, ‘Grand Theft Auto: Vice City,’
and Jeff Weise’s animated production ‘Target Practice’…It’s a nearly
precise replication of that game, even down to the exploding police
car.”

The article goes on to
say (emphasis is mine): “Calls to the
company that makes ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ Take2 Interactive, were not
returned. And it’s still not clear if Jeff Weise played video
games.”

Elsewhere, in an undated
Associated Press story captioned Movie viewed by Weise has
elements of Red Lake Shooting (the movie being
the aforementioned Elephant), posted in March 2005 on the Red Lake
Net News website, Jack Thompson is quoted as follows: “No one
in their right mind says that a movie turned Jeff Weise from an angel
into a demon.” Yet isn’t this just what Thompson says violent
video games do to kids?

As a point of interest,
Elephant is rated R (“under 17 requires
accompanying parent or adult guardian”) for “disturbing
violent content, language, brief sexuality and drug use all involving
teens.”

On March 23, 2005, The Oklahoma Daily carried an opinion piece captioned
Our View: Don’t blame games, TV. Referring to the Red Lake shootings,
it says:

“Legislators may
soon be telling America, as they did after Columbine and other
youth-violence situations, that violent video
games, movies and television are responsible. This is almost negligent
disregard for reality…No study has found more than a correlative
relationship between violent media and aggressive behavior; they’ve
all had an alternate cart-leading-the-horse explanation. Correlation
certainly isn’t proof…Unfortunately, enough Americans are shirking
parental responsibility and expecting the government to pick up where
they left off…The government should never be called upon to sanitize
media…Once the government gets license to censor, it will be nearly
impossible to revoke.”

~RED LAKE: FOLLOWING UP

According to a March 29,
2005 CBS News article, Red Lake High School student Louis Jourdain,
son of the tribal chairman of the Red Lake
Band of Chippewa, was arrested in connection with the shootings.
It goes on to say: “According to sources, federal investigators
have seized computer records that allegedly show Louis Jourdain had
what authorities believe is advance knowledge of the plot.”

Jumping ahead to April
1, 2005, a Washington Post article said that authorities “believe as many as 20 students were involved” in
planning the shootings carried out by Jeff Weise.

A Portland State University Vanguard opinion piece by Dylan Tanner,
dated April 5, 2005 and captioned The hidden danger behind school
shootings, reflects the following:

“High school can
be a brutal and humiliating experience, and it’s certainly one
I would never ever want to relive. But never during
those miserable years did I consider irrevocable violence. It was
just high school. It was miserable, but I knew it would end.

“Like Dylan Klebold
and Eric Harris, Jeff Weise couldn’t realize this. He was estranged
and mocked to the point that he saw no escape
from his situation other than violence. His plight ended with tragic
results. For the media, finding reasoning behind his actions is simple
– internet violence, heavy metal or the oeuvre of Gus Van Sant [writer/director
of the film Elephant] – there is no shortage of scapegoats. It’s
easy for them to concentrate on Weise as an innocent young man, led
astray by the evil and brutal entertainment media. His influences
are part of a pattern, the same symptoms found in other school shootings.
Jeff Weise fits in a mold, however disastrous. And like any good
stereotype we can accept it without too much scrutiny.

“But what of his
classmates? I find myself shocked that nearly 20 students are being
investigated in the wake of the shootings…Police
have seized three computers and arrested one student already. They
believe that more than a dozen students were aware of Weise’s plans…authorities
should be looking for the patterns that are responsible for lack
of action among his peers.

“How is it that this
16-year-old could actively and publicly express…the desire to
kill others and himself for so long without
intervention? How are the moral leaders of our country going to pin
mass apathy on the makers of Grand Theft Auto?

“They can’t. It’s not the fault of Marilyn Manson or “Bride
of Chucky” that a dozen or more high school students chose not
to act…Is it that these kids lead a life so miserable it doesn’t
surprise them that their classmate would want to kill them?

“There is something
inherently wrong with a system that produces this kind of situation.
Granted, high schools throughout the country
are underfunded, understaffed and barely keeping up, but there is
no justifiable reason for putting students in a position where they
can laugh off or ignore threats of violence.”

On April 29, 2005, Minnesota Daily published a news story captioned
Mood changes, anger contributed to student’s shooting spree… It
discusses Jeff Weise’s emotional problems and the medication he was
on, which family members believe is what pushed him over the edge.
And as stated earlier, Weise had also attempted suicide.

According to the story, “One
of Weise’s counselors allegedly had told the family that the youth,
who was diagnosed with depression,
dressed all in black and often found refuge in sadistic entertainment,
was ‘just going through a phase.’

“Family members and
psychiatrists have said Weise’s life was one risk factor piled
atop another, and that he should have had intensive
therapy.”

After the suicide attempt
and diagnosis of depression, Weise was put on the antidepressant
Prozac. Two weeks before the shootings, “Weise’s
daily dosage was doubled to 60 milligrams a day – considered a heavy
dose for an adolescent.” Psychiatrists interviewed about this
level of medication stated that it should have been accompanied by
weekly therapy and close monitoring for side-effects. (I’ll be saying
more about antidepressants in the next section.)

Apparently, Weise was not monitored very closely and his therapy
sessions weren’t regular or frequent. It seems, in fact, that every
one of his support systems broke down.

I think this is an absolutely tragic story all the way around, and
I think violent video games had very little — if anything — to
do with it. What a shame that this kid was failed on so many levels,
and that so many people had to die because of it. That such a thing
can happen in this day and age is incredibly sad. My heart goes out
to the families and friends of all of the victims.

Update! On November 4,
2005, StarTribune.com reported that Louis Jourdain would be tried
in federal court “sometime in mid-December” (postponed
from November 14) in conjunction with the Red Lake shootings. The
article goes on to say: “Prosecutors have not said what Jourdain
is accused of doing. Sources with knowledge of the investigation
have said he is charged with conspiracy to commit murder.” Hmmm.
I wonder if anyone has checked to see if Jourdain played violent
video games?

~A SIDE-TRIP TO THE CHILDREN’S PHARMACY

Say, I have an idea. Let’s stroll on over to the Federal Drug Administration
and take a gander at a Public Health Advisory dated March 22, 2004
(almost a year to the day prior to the Red Lake shootings) entitled
Worsening Depression and Suicidality in Patients Being Treated
with Antidepressant Medications. This advisory pertains to the drugs Prozac,
Zoloft, Paxil, Luvox, Celexa, Lexapro, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Serzone
and Remeron. The advisory says that in addition to worsening depression
and suicidal thinking, possible side-effects in both adult and pediatric
patients include anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability,
hostility, impulsivity, akathisia (severe restlessness), hypomania,
and mania.

Okay, stop everything — I need to ask something. What good is an
antidepressant that can result in increased depression and suicidal
thoughts? I mean, I’m no doctor (nor would I want to be), and I don’t
even play one on TV — but does this make any sense at all? Or is
it that sense has no place here?

Let’s consult Merriam-Webster
Online for the definition of antidepressant (emphasis is mine): “Used or tending to relieve
or prevent psychic depression.” Yet antidepressant drugs can increase depression
and even drive people to suicide? Maybe I’m dense or something, but
I just don’t get it.

A disturbing article entitled How
Lilly Gilded Prozac’s Profile,
dated May 10, 2005, begins thusly:

“This spring, Jeff
Weise shot himself dead after taking the popular antidepressant
Prozac.

“He scored national
headlines because he took nine innocent people down with him in
the worst school shooting rampage since Columbine.
Some now wonder whether Weise’s antidepressant — rather than depression
itself — may have finally pushed the troubled teenager over the
edge. After all, unstable Prozac users have been pulling the trigger
for years.

“Joseph Wesbecker
killed himself and eight others while taking Prozac back in the
late 1980s, when the still-new drug was viewed
as a miracle cure for depression. Relatives of the survivors blamed
Prozac and sued its maker, Eli Lilly…for damages. That case, which
ended in a settlement, began to expose serious problems with drug
research that have grown even more obvious over time.”

The article goes on to
offer a chilling portrait of “drug-company
influence over researchers, consumer groups and even the government
agency charged with regulating them.” Claiming that pharmaceutical
companies spend less on product development than on product promotion,
it also refers to a 2004 government study indicating that “children
who visited the doctor for depression symptoms were nearly three
times as likely to wind up on prescription drugs…than they were
a decade ago.”

The hazards of suicidal
ideation and behavior led the FDA, in January 2005 (two months
before Red Lake), to direct drug manufacturers “to
add a ‘black box’ warning to the health professional labeling of
all antidepressant medications to describe the risks of treatment
in these patients and to emphasize the need to monitor them closely
when they begin using antidepressants and when doses are increased
or decreased. The warning also lists the approved uses of the drug
in children or, alternatively, indicates that there are no approved
pediatric indications.” (Note: The “black box” is
the FDA’s most stringent warning.)

For those who may be interested,
the specific “black box” warning
for Prozac was published by drug manufacturer Eli Lilly in February
2005. It can be found, along with 32 pages of additional warnings,
precautions, contraindications, etc. concerning the drug, at http://www.fda.gov/medwatch/SAFETY/2005/Feb_PI/Prozac_PI.pdf.

But wait — there’s more. Here we have an FDA Public Health Advisory
dated October 27, 2003 entitled Reports of Suicidality in Pediatric
Patients Being Treated with Antidepressant Medications for Major
Depressive Disorder (MDD). This advisory says that of the seven different
antidepressants evaluated by the FDA for treatment of pediatric MDD,
only one — fluoxetine (Prozac) — was demonstrated to be effective
for that disorder.

Reference is made, at the end of the advisory, to an FDA
Talk Paper,
also dated October 27, 2003 concerning the same topic. This paper
reflects:

“FDA is aware of
press and medical journal reports of suicide attempts and completed
suicides in pediatric patients receiving antidepressants,
and many such reports have also been submitted to FDA as spontaneous
reports. Such reports are very difficult to interpret, however, in
the absence of a control group, as these events also occur in untreated
patients with depression.

“FDA emphasized the
need for additional data, analyses and a public discussion of available
data. As we recognize that this
is a serious illness, we need a better understanding of how to use
the products we have.

“In order to promote
a public discussion of data and pertinent regulatory actions, FDA
has scheduled a meeting on February 2, 2004,
before the Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee with the
Pediatric Subcommittee of the Anti-Infective Drugs Advisory Committee.”

Hey! Wanna go to that meeting? Well, a 401-page transcript is located
at http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/04/transcripts/4006T1.pdf.
I’ve only skimmed it. I’ve included the link here in case anyone
is really, really interested in reading it.

I’m only going to raise one more issue in conjunction with the FDA.
Another Talk Paper, this one entitled FDA Statement
Regarding the Anti-Depresant Paxil for Pediatric Population and dated June 19,
2003, starts out thusly (in a yellow box and all caps):

“ADVISORY: DESPITE
THE NEW POSSIBLE SAFETY CONCERNS ABOUT USE OF PAXIL IN CHILDREN,
IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT PATIENTS TAKING PAXIL
(paroxetine hydrochloride) DO NOT SUDDENLY DISCONTINUE USE OF THE
DRUG. ANY CHANGES MUST TAKE PLACE UNDER MEDICAL SUPERVISION.”

It goes on to say that
due to a possible risk of increased suicidal thinking and attempted
suicide in those under age 18 who are taking
Paxil for MDD, FDA does not recommend that it be used by children
and adolescents. It states: “There is currently no evidence
that Paxil is effective in children or adolescents with MDD, and
Paxil is not currently approved for use in children and adolescents.”

So, here we have children
and adolescents taking a drug that the FDA now says is not safe
and not approved for that use, the sudden
discontinuation of which can be dangerous. In fact, the sudden discontinuation
of Prozac — the one antidepressant approved by the FDA for children
— can result in “dysphoric mood, irritability, agitation, dizziness,
sensory disturbances (e.g., paresthesias such as electric shock sensations),
anxiety, confusion, headache, lethargy, emotional lability, insomnia,
and hypomania.”

All I can say is those poor kids. As far as I’m concerned, they’re
being used by pharmaceutical manufacturers, the medical profession,
and the FDA as guinea pigs.

Now, I’m sure that there are all kinds of people, adults and children
alike, who are helped by antidepressants — and more power to ’em.
But I’ll tell you what: researching these kinds of drugs in relation
to kids was downright scary. I truly believe that we have a problem
in this country with overmedicating children and treating symptoms
rather than causes. It’s just too convenient to give a kid some pills
instead of trying to discover underlying problems.

I’ve taken this side-road for one major reason: beginning with Columbine,
every incident of school violence that I’ve researched has been perpetrated
by children who were allegedly taking antidepressants. I realize
that the emphasis in the above warnings has been on suicidal thoughts
and actions, but as far as I’m concerned, those kinds of things can
lead, by extension, to killing others — and so can some of the other
possible side-effects such as anxiety, agitation, panic attacks,
severe restlessness, irritability and hostility.

I mean, if you’re going to off yourself and you’re as socially maladjusted
as some of these kids appear to have been, why not take those you
blame for it with you? Personally, I think we have a much bigger
problem with pharmaceuticals leading kids to kill and commit other
violent acts than we do with violent video games doing so.

As a matter of interest, I tried to find some statistics regarding
the number of children in this country who are on antidepressants.
Well, I found statistics, all right. I looked at numbers from drug
manufacturers, from organizations that claim there are way too many
kids taking this kind of medication, and from various other sources.
The stats were all over the map, depending on who was providing them.
I was unable to locate anything that I felt was reliable enough to
include here.

~A DIFFERENT KIND OF GAME

On March 29, 2005, GameIndustry.biz
published an article captioned Now Clinton jumps on the violent
videogames bandwagon. It says that
Democrat senator Hillary Clinton has singled out “Rockstar’s
Grand Theft Auto titles as a ‘major threat’ to morality.”

The article goes on to say that Clinton has joined with Republican
senators Sam Brownback and Rick Santorum in pressuring Congress to
once again research the issue. It also reflects the following:

“American political
analysts have noted that Clinton has taken on some increasingly
right wing stances on domestic issues in recent
months, in an effort to win support from traditionally Republican
voters in the next presidential race, with videogames being merely
the latest political kicktoy to be adopted by the ambitious senator.”

Don’t you love it when issues are manipulated for political gain?
When children are used to facilitate attempted political arena power-grabs?

~IT’S ONLY ME, MOUTHING OFF AGAIN

As I write this in the wee hours of the morning, I’m suddenly reminded
of a cartoon I saw when I was a kid. In it, these two characters
had broken into a house and were trying to steal things as the occupants
slept. (Note: Seeing this at a very young age never induced me to
actually engage in this kind of criminal activity.) The burglars
were clumsy, however, and kept hurting themselves. So after a character
had just, say, dropped the end of a sofa on his foot, he had to rush
outside to scream so he wouldn’t wake anyone up.

Excuse me while I rush outside. (ARRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!)

There…that’s better. Now let’s see…how many video game violence
investigations have been done so far? A few thousand? Why in the
world do we need another one?

Aside from political gamesmanship, I can think of one other possible
reason. Could it be that engaging in countless investigations gives
the investigators a feeling that they’re accomplishing something
when they’re actually accomplishing nothing, or at least next to
nothing?

In my opinion, all of this wheel-spinning is about as effective
as creating new laws when existing laws aren’t enforced, then not
enforcing the new laws, either. Got problems? No problem! Never mind
that no one can agree on causes or solutions. We’ll just do a million
studies and pass more laws, and all of your problems will be over!
(Our taxpayer dollars at work…)

Do I sound cynical? Good. I am cynical.

Meanwhile, despite the flurry of government activity surrounding
the violent video game/violent media issue — not to mention the
issue of school shootings — since 1994, a kid carrying two handguns
and a shotgun is able to walk into a school in Minnesota, mow down
nine people, then fatally shoot himself; and a kid in Tennessee is
able to take a .22-caliber handgun to school and shoot three administrators,
killing one of them and seriously wounding the other two (see HERE
WE GO AGAIN…, later in this article). Some people are trying very
hard to blame violent video games for both incidents.

Again, I ask you: could it be that this issue is being approached
from the wrong direction? Is it possible that the myriad studies,
laws, subcommittees, reports, etc. are only addressing symptoms of
greater problems, such as the disintegration of the nuclear family
and abdication of parental responsibility? Or, maybe someone needs
to do some studies on medicated children, and how antidepressants
drastically alter their perceptions and seem to leave them quite
vulnerable to any number of dangerous mental and emotional states.

Going back to the Red Lake shootings for a moment, the Yuma Sun
published an insightful article on March 25, 2005 captioned Laws,
rules cannot fix broken kids. It discusses the ineffectiveness of
laws and policies mandated after Columbine, and goes on to say:

“More laws and policies,
sure to come now, aren’t going to…prevent such tragedies in the
future. They cannot mend broken spirits, they
do not instill a sense of human decency, and they do not teach young
people that there is no restart button in life.

“One thing that will
be discussed in the wake of this recent tragedy, though not to
a sufficient extent, is the role of parents.

“If guns are a factor,
then it is incumbent (and common sense), for parents to lock those
firearms up.

“If cultural rot
is a factor, then it is incumbent upon parents to not allow their
kids to indulge in hate music, ultra-violent games,
or go cyber surfing into morbid virtual fantasy worlds.

“So what were the
parents or guardians of these troubled teenagers doing while these
kids were imploding over the years leading up to
these tragedies?”

Amen.

Side note: I’ve been nowhere close to comprehensive in my examination
of school shootings. Not only have there been a lot more than I’ve
mentioned, some have occurred in countries other than the U.S. For
a real eye-opener, have a look at A Time Line of Recent Worldwide
School Shootings at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777958.html,
which covers the years 1996-2005. The shooters range in age from
six to 19.

PART IX

~MEANWHILE, AT THE IEMA

The Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association — mentioned
briefly at the beginning of this article — is a trade organization
representing 29 of the interactive entertainment industry’s top 30
retailers. This organization has put in place a carding program in
an effort to ensure that M-rated games aren’t sold to kids under
17, and requires the display of in-store signage spelling out ESRB
ratings for the benefit of consumers.

According to the IEMA’s
announcement of the program, “Signing
on to the IEMA carding program to be put in place by Holiday Season
2004 are: Best Buy, Blockbuster Entertainment, Circuit City, CompUSA,
Gamesource, Electronics Boutique, Hastings Entertainment, Hollywood
Video, KB Toys, Kmart, Meijer, Movie Gallery, Musicland, Shopko Stores,
Target, Toys R Us, Transworld Entertainment and Wal-Mart. Taken together,
these retailers sell approximately 85 percent of all computer and
video games sold in the United States. Membership in the IEMA will
be contingent on agreeing to implement the carding program.”

For additional information concerning the IEMA and its position
on video game violence, see an interview of IEMA president and founder
Hal Halpin conducted by CBS News on March 16, 2005, at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/15/tech/gamecore/main680440.shtml.

For a revealing look at the effectiveness of the carding program
and the actions of one IEMA member retailer during the 2004 holiday
season, see the next section, where I just about blow a gasket.

~A RATHER ALARMING REPORT ON RATINGS ENFORCEMENT IN NEW YORK CITY

In December 2004, the Council of the City of New York released the
results of an investigation into the sale of M-rated video games
to minors in New York City. Entitled Parental Advisory – Violent
Video Games Are Not Child’s Play, the investigation involved 67 stores.
Fifty-nine of these stores were caught selling M-rated games to kids
under 17. That’s 89%.

Okay, ahem, excuse me, I must interrupt this broadcast right now
or I might spontaneously combust. Where else have we heard about
M-rated games being sold to minors? Why, in the previously mentioned
FTC report Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children, released
in September 2000, and in the report generated by the FTC Workshop
on Industry Self-Regulation held October 29, 2003, both of which
found that children under 17 could easily purchase M-rated games.
Now, I ask you: what progress has been made in the five years that
have elapsed between the first report in 2000 and this investigation?
What good has all of the wailing and bickering over ratings enforcement
done? Precious little, if New York City is any indication. And the
wailing continues.

Let us now return to our regularly scheduled program, where unfortunately,
things get worse.

The NYC investigation
also revealed that 33% of the stores in which minors had been
carded sold M-rated games to them anyway. Merchants
in this categoy include GameStop and Toys “R” Us (see next
two paragraphs). Arrrggghhh!!!

The emphasis is mine in
what follows. In 1999, the ESA (then known as the IDSA) had received
a commitment from Toys “R” Us
to (1) display ESRB posters and offer brochures explaining game ratings;
(2) move all M-rated games “to the top tier of the software
display so that small children cannot mistakenly access them;” and
(3) not to sell M-rated games to kids under 17 unless an adult
is with them. Well, in view of what happened in NYC, so much for that
commitment. (Knocking head into wall).

And what about the IEMA
carding program, which was to have been in place for the 2004 holiday
season and in which Toys “R” Us
had agreed to participate? According the IEMA, membership is
contingent on agreeing to implement the carding program to ensure
that M-rated
games aren’t sold to kids under 17.

Well, on November 7, 2005,
when I checked the list of Current IEMA Member Companies, Toys “R” Us
— which was caught selling M-rated games to kids under 17 in NYC
in December 2004 — was still
there. (Ripping out handfuls of hair.)

So, what — are we going
backwards now? While it’s true that Toys “R” Us
actually had carded minors during the investigation, M-rated games
were sold to them anyway. The IEMA Carding Program in which Toys “R” Us
participates clearly includes enforcement of ratings — yet there
is apparently no penalty for not enforcing them, and Toys “R” Us
continues to be an IEMA member. (Ripping out more handfuls of hair.)

The NYC report also indicates that the investigation showed no significant
improvement over results of a similar investigation conducted in
2003. It notes:

“Despite last year’s promises by the industry to enforce its
own standards without government oversight…[a] disturbing number
of stores continue to sell M-rated video games to minors despite
an industry policy that advises retailers not to sell these games
to individuals under the age of 17.” (May I please be excused
before I hurt myself further?)

For anyone who is interested, the ESRB’s December 20, 2004 response
to the 2004 NYC investigation is located at http://www.esrb.com/downloads/pvstatement_12_20_04.pdf.
This is how it starts (emphasis is mine):

“The ESRB ratings are designed to provide information about
computer and video game content so that parents can select appropriate
games for their families. We look forward to working with retailers,
software publishers, and the New York City Council and Mayor’s
office to ensure that parents are aware of the rating system. Since
parents are involved in the purchase of computer and video games
83% of the time, according to a Federal Trade Commission report published
in September 2000, such a coordinated effort could have significant
impact in helping ensure that inappropriate games stay out of the
hands of our children.”

There’s that FTC figure from the year 2000 again. The ESRB contnues
to use it, even though more recent data are available. Why do you
suppose that is?

~NARC

In the time since I started writing this article, a new game for
PS2 and XBOX has been released by Midway Games. The M-rated (Blood
and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Use of Drugs) NARC,
based on 1988’s side-scrolling shooter of the same name, shipped
on March 21, 2005.

This game is not only violent, it allows players to use virtual
drugs. According to the GameSpot review:

“Drug use is a central theme in the game, and the idea is that
using drugs will give you an edge…but at the price of addiction.
In a rather grotesque take on substance addiction, the game treats
drugs like power-ups. Marijuana will slow down time but allows you
to aim in real time, à la Max Payne. (Incidentally, NARC also
makes Cypress Hill’s ‘Hits From the Bong’ or The Stranglers’ ‘Golden
Brown’ play in your head while you’re stoned.) LSD gives all pedestrians
gigantic bobbleheads and makes the ‘bad guys’ easily identifiable
by giving them devil heads. The most beneficial, and thus, most addictive
of the drugs is the fictional ‘Liquid Soul,’ which is basically like
the super star for Mario, making you invincible and making all your
attacks extremely potent.”

Generally, reviews of
the game haven’t been too favorable. But I must say that I find
the game’s element of drug use pretty unsettling.
A review by Gaming Age concludes, “On the whole, if you are
a fan of drugs, or a drug user yourself, save your money and get
your fix.” Good grief.

Interesting side note:
Midway’s suggested retail price for NARC is $19.95. Yet the Toys “R” Us and Target pages within
the Amazon website for the PS2 version of the game along with the
Toys “R” Us page for the XBOX version reflected, on December
2, 2005, a list price of $49.99 with a 60% discount. This made the
Toys “R” Us and Target prices $19.99, with a claimed savings
of $30.00 (60%). Compared with Midway’s suggested price, however,
customers are paying four cents more.

The XBOX version of NARC,
also sold via Amazon by J&R Music
and Computer World, was priced at $19.88. It also reflected a list
price of $49.99 and a 60%, or $30.11 discount. Compared with the
manufacturer’s suggested retail price, however, the savings was only
seven cents. The XBOX version was sold by CSA Computers via Amazon
as well, but the price is $22.19, which is $2.24 over MSRP.

As a point of interest, none of the NARC listings reflected above
included ESRB content descriptors at the time I viewed them. In the
next section, I’ll be detailing a lot of other things that are missing
from and/or reflected erroneously on the game pages of online vendors.

Update! To show you how
quickly things can change online (more about that in the next section,
as well), when I revisited the NARC product
pages on December 9, 2005, only the XBOX version was available, and
neither J&R Music and Computer World nor CSA Computers was listed
as a seller. The PS2 version was reflected as “This item is
currently not available.” Go figure…

~RATINGS ENFORCEMENT: WHAT ABOUT ONLINE RETAILERS?

This is something I’ve
been wondering for quite some time, now. So I decided to dig through
the websites of some major online retailers
that sell video games to see what, if any, policies they may have
in place. I also examined product pages for DOOM 3 (PC/Windows)
and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2).

I chose these games because
they inhabit the top two slots in the list of games to be avoided
by children and teens as reflected in
the Ninth Annual Mediawise® Video Game Report Card, which is
what prompted my interest in writing this article in the first place.
At the time of my initial research, both games were rated “M.” But
a funny thing happened after I had completed this section: a GTA:SA mod that unlocks hidden, graphic sexual content in the software was
created by a Dutch programmer and made freely available on the Internet.
(See GRAND THEFT AUTO: SAN ANDREAS HITS THE FAN, later in this article.)

The
ensuing uproar prompted a re-examination of the game by the ESRB,
and the game’s rating was changed from “M” to “AO” (Adults
Only). I’ve elected to keep GTA:SA in this section, however, because
it still serves to illustrate what I consider to be serious shortcomings
on the part of online retailers when it comes to selling inappropriate
games to children.

As I’ve already mentioned, things can change very quickly on the
sites of online vendors. Because of this, I felt it prudent to frequently
mention specific dates in conjunction with my research. The following
is what I discovered as of October 30, 2005, unless otherwise noted.

AMAZON.COM

DOOM 3 (PC)
~ESRB Rating appropriately reflected as M (Mature, content suitable
for ages 17 or older)
~The product page carried no content descriptors.
~The back of the game’s packaging carries descriptors of “Blood
and Gore, Intense Violence, Game Experience May Change During Online
Play.” These match the game’s current descriptors as displayed
on the ESRB site, with the exception of the one pertaining to online
play.

GTA:SA (PS2) – as of December 9, 2005
~The ESRB rating of the original, re-rated version was appropriately
reflected as AO (Adults Only, age 18+) on two different product
pages – one packaged in a jewel case and one packaged in a box.

On the jewel case-packaged product page:
~ The title is reflected as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Jewel Case
Mature Version (PS2) which is misleading, as the ESRB’s “M” rating
means “Mature.”
~A box shot was displayed, and it still carried an “M” rating.
~A sole ESRB Descriptor was reflected: “Mature Sexual Themes.”
~Current ESRB descriptors for the AO-rated version of GTA:SA (no
matter what the packaging) are “Blood and Gore, Intense Violence,
Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs, Nudity.” “Mature
Sexual Themes” isn’t mentioned; in fact, it doesn’t even appear
in the current list of ESRB descriptors.

On the box-packaged product page:
~The a box shot still reflected an “M” rating.
~A sole ESRB Descriptor was reflected: “Fantasy Violence.”
~Current ESRB descriptors for the AO-rated version of GTA:SA (no
matter what the packaging) are as reflected above. “Fantasy
Violence” is not included.
~”Fantasy Violence” is defined by the ESRB as “Violent
actions of a fantasy nature, involving human or non-human characters
in situations easily distinguishable from real life.” Does this
even remotely sound like the AO-rated version of GTA-SA? Not to me…

Additional note:
~As of November 23, 2005, Amazon also carried the re-released M-rated
GTA:SA for PS2 (from which Hot Coffee code has allegedly been removed
by Take-Two/Rockstar).
~This version was listed as PS2 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
– Special Edition.
~The “M” rating was reflected, but no content descriptors
were provided.
~ESRB content descriptors for the M-rated version are “Blood
and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content,
Use of Drugs” (in other words, the same as the AO-rated version,
except for “Nudity”).

BOTH GAMES
~All product pages carried a link to ESRB: Understanding Video
Game Ratings (also an Amazon page), which explains the rating system
and content descriptors. The new ESRB rating of E10+ was reflected,
but only eight of the 20 content descriptors listed matched the
ones currently displayed on the ESRB website. Of those eight, only
one descriptor definition matched the one on the ESRB site.
~Amazon’s ESRB page also contained the following statements:
” In addition to using the ratings, consumers should check out content
descriptions for more specific information about a game’s content.
You can find this information, if applicable, on the product information
pages under the Note to Customers advisory.”
~I was unable to locate a “Note to Customers” on any of
the product pages I examined.
~I saw nothing on the product pages stating that these games would
not be sold to anyone under 17 or 18 years of age, respectively.
Instead, they said “Content suitable for ages 17 or older” (DOOM
3; GTA:SA Special Edition), and “…content suitable only for
adults, These products may include graphic depictions of sex and/or
violence.
Adults Only products are not intended to be sold or rented to persons
under the age of 18” (GTA:SA AO-rated version). Well, I think
there’s a big difference between “suitable for” and “can
only be purchased by,” not to mention “not intended to
be sold” and “will not be sold.”

I then went to Amazon’s Conditions
of Use and Privacy Notice.

The
Conditions of Use document reflects the following statements (the
emphasis belongs to Amazon):
“If you visit or shop at Amazon.com, you accept these conditions. Amazon.com does sell products for children, but it sells them to
adults, who can purchase with a credit card. If you are under 18,
you may use Amazon.com only with involvement of a parent or guardian.”

The following appears in the Privacy
Notice, with emphasis by Amazon:
“By visiting Amazon.com, you are accepting the practices described
in this Privacy Notice. Amazon.com does not sell products for purchase
by children. If you are under 18, you may use Amazon.com only with
the involvement of a parent or guardian.”

So who enforces this stuff? Well, as far as I can tell, no
one does.
The Internet is such that I don’t even know if these kinds of policies
can be enforced.

By the way, Amazon accepts product reviews from children under the
age of 13, but a separate submission form is used in which names
and email addresses are not required. As a point of interest, the
form refers back to Amazon’s Conditions of Use, which state that
kids under 18 must have involvement of a parent or guardian before
they can use the Amazon site.

An example of the
form is located HERE (the
form is tied to individual game titles; this particular one happens
to pertain to GTA:SA). These reviews are reflected only as “A
Kid’s Review” on product pages. I’m mentioning these things
for a reason that will soon become apparent.

When I checked on November
23, 2005, DOOM 3 (PC) was also available from other outlets operating
as storefronts on the Amazon.com platform:
GameStop, J&R Music and Computer World, and CompUSA. I decided
to do some additional snooping.

The GameStop product page
was identical, with the exception of price, to the one appearing
within the Amazon site under its own banner.
The GameStop storefront referred back to Amazon’s Privacy Notice,
so nothing was new there. Ditto the J&R and CompUSA storefronts.

Now, considering the nature
of both games along with their “M” and “AO” ratings,
I’d like to point out a few things. Let’s start with GTA.

When I first did research for this section, 34 of the first 100
reviews appearing on the Amazon product page for GTA: San Andreas (PS2) had been written by children under the age of 13. When I revisited
the page on September 17, 2005, I thought this had changed. I only
saw four reviews, none written by children.

I then realized, however,
that the page I’d been looking at (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/975539463X/qid=1127012891/sr=2-2/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_2/002-9946496-6214440?v=glance&s=videogames)
represents the software packaged in a jewel case rather than a box.
As mentioned above, Amazon also has a page for the boxed PS2 version
of the game (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001VGFK2/ref=pd_ser_asin_6/104-9448158-8050366?v=glance&s=videogames),
and this is the one I had seen previously. But this page hadn’t been
returned as a hit in my search for GTA:SA in the Computer & Video
Games section of the Amazon site. I wonder why that is? Things can
sometimes be very confusing at Amazon.

Anyway, as of October 28, 2005, the page for the boxed version reflected
a whopping 835 reviews. Twenty-five of the most recent 100 had been
written by kids under 13. I thought you might enjoy reading a few
of them. All are copied verbatim; none of the spelling, grammar,
etc. has been corrected.

“This game
rocks, bitches!, August 3, 2005
A Kid’s Review
I don’t understand why people hate this game. Just because some demeneted
kids who imatate art, this game is banned. Thank god I have the original
version when it 1st came out. GTA is so friggin’ fun. It’s awesome.
You get to pimp out your own vechiles, jack cars, do crazy missions,
pick up hookers, have girlfriends, eat, go work out at the gym & much
more. You can even go to strip clubs. It’s that far-out.
IT KICKS ASS”‘

“the funnest
game ever by a preteen {not a kid and if you call me a kid i
hate you,
July 31, 2005
A Kid’s Review
this game was the funnest game ever,my favorite was when find out
ryder and big smoke betray you and you have to kill them for doing
that,and how many missions you have to do so you have to train cj
to eat,swim,run,and to hold his breath and how you get to have girlfriends
and how you take them out on dates and when you get to skydive off
an bicycle and drive an airplane. i think this blows all the other
grand theft auto away.” (Note: Skydive off a bicycle? I wonder
how that works?)

“THIS
IS THE BEST GAME. WORTH EVERY F@#&ING
PENNY, June 8, 2005
A Kid’s Review
man, when i first got this game, i was in heaven. it is perfect.
its very realistic interactive-wise. u can eat, rest, do graffiti,
have a gf, have sex wit ur gf (much to my moms dismay) and much more.
if you are only thinking about buying this game, HESITATE NO LONGER.
also, the game is f***ing MASSIVE. it is so big.
u have airports, the country, the desert, the suburbs(ur hometown,)
a las vegas kinda city, the beltway, a large new york size city,
everything. also, u can even work out, and do trix on a bike.
so last but not least, BUY THIS GAME. LET IT BE XBOX, PC, OR PS2,
BUT FOR GODS SAKE MAN, BUY IT!!!!”

It’s hard to say whether
these pleasant, well-written reviews were really submitted by children,
and I realize that folks who send product
reviews to Amazon need not have bought the products from Amazon.
But if the Kid’s Reviews are any indication, it appears that GTA:SA,
no matter what its rating, is being acquired and played by children
for whom it was never intended.

I also discovered something
rather interesting while perusing Amazon’s GTA:SA pages on September
5, 2005. On one of them, I stumbled over
a link captioned “Sony PlayStation 2 (NEW DESIGN) with GTA San
Andreas and 8MB Memory Card.” This took me to a GameStop page
within the Amazon site (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0006VKFOE/sr=1-1/qid=1127014612/ref=sr_1_1/104-9448158-8050366?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=A3JNJQGSI0X4J6&n=12397651&s=merchant&v=glance)
that describes the Sony PlayStation that’s being sold, but makes
no mention of GTA:SA anywhere except in the header.

So, is GTA:SA being shipped with this console? If so, it seems to
me — particularly in view of the recent GTA:SA firestorm I’ll be
addressing a little later — that details should be provided about
the game on the PlayStation product page. Wouldn’t ya think? Yet
there is nothing.

Interesting aside: The
following is reflected on the Amazon page for GTA:SA (XBOX) as
one of the game’s features: “Steal all-new
vehicles, including bicycles.” Gee, isn’t stealing motor vehicles
enough anymore? Or, maybe it’s just those skydiving bicycles that
are stolen…

DOOM 3 (PC) had
a lot fewer kids’ reviews: only three out of the most recent 100.
Here’s one of ’em, and it’s actually negative…

“The Extreme Let Down, April 2, 2005
A Kid’s Review
Here’s the main deal, one day I lost track of how much left over
money i had, so i counted, and I ended up with 120 dollars! I decided
to take it to Best Buy and buy Half-Life 2, after buying half-life
2, i still had a lot of money left, so i was thinking about buying
the remastered half-life 1, but I saw Doom 3, and remembered the
awesome commercial I saw for it. I picked it up and took it home.
I expected an amazing game such as doom 1 and 2, but instead it was
terrible! Doom 3 is nothing but a scarier first person version of
the Men In Black 2 game! You get trapped in a room with aliens, you
kill them, then you move onto the next room of aliens, up until you
find a somewhat bigger and scarier alien that is referred to as the
boss. The game will most likely be over in 4 or 5 days, and the alien’s
graphics are somewhat really bad for the time, so I dont know what
else to say but Doom 3 isn’t worth the money!“

Note: Half-Life 2 (Valve Corporation/Sierra Entertainment) is also
rated M. Men in Black 2: Alien Escape (Infogrames Melbourne House/Infogrames,
Inc.) is rated T (13+).

The recently released
DOOM 3 Collector’s Edition (XBOX) — which also includes Ultimate
DOOM and DOOM II — had only 48 reviews as
of October 28, 2005, but five of them were kids’ reviews, including:

“Scary Violent
Good Combination, April 13, 2005
A Kid’s Review
Doom 3 is a great gorey game with chainsaws shot guns etc. The
Graphics, on a scale of 1 to 10 it is 10 they are The best I have
ever seen which makes it more scary and the best details like when
you see the blood all over the zombies mouths it made my heart skip
a beat. Sound 10 out of 10 Like when you shoot a gun you can hear
the shell hit the ground and the demons and zombies you can hear
them groan and their footsteps. Story 8 out of 10 you are on Mars
working for Union Aerospace Corporation. Accidentally open a gateway
to Hell. Limited edition is better because it has the first two doom
games so if you want a scary gorey shooter buy Doom 3“

WALMART.COM

DOOM 3 (PC)
~The ESRB rating was appropriately reflected as “M” on
the product page.
~Content descriptors, as such, didn’t appear on the page, but it
did carry the following: Warning: This title may contain intense
violence, blood, and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language.
You must be 17 or older to purchase this item. This product is intended
for mature audiences only. By ordering this item you are certifying
that you are at least 17 years of age. (See a note regarding this
warning that appears after GTA:SA [PS2], below.)
~This warning differs in detail from the actual ESRB descriptors
of “Blood and Gore, Intense Violence.”
~I checked other M-rated games on the Wal-Mart site, and they all
carried the identical warning.

GTA:SA (PS2)
~When I checked on November 23, 2005, Walmart.com was selling only
the “Special Edition” of GTA:SA for PS2 (from which Hot
Coffee code has allegedly been removed by Take-Two/Rockstar).
~The ESRB rating was appropriately shown as “M.”
~Content descriptors, as such, did not appear on the page, but it
did carry the following: Warning: This title may contain intense
violence, blood, and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language.
You must be 17 or older to purchase this item. This product is intended
for mature audiences only. By ordering this item you are certifying
that you are at least 17 years of age.
~The warning differs in detail from the actual ESRB descriptors of “Blood
and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content,
Use of Drugs.”

Note: The above
warning is more strongly worded than the one reflected on both
product pages in October 2005, which read: Warning: intense
violence, strong language and/or mature sexual themes may make this
game inappropriate for anyone under the age of 17.

Product pages for both
games reflected a link captioned “About
ratings” that led to ESRB Ratings: What Do They Mean? (also
a Wal-Mart page), which explains the rating system and content
descriptors. The new ESRB rating E10+ was reflected. Content descriptors
matched those reflected on the ESRB site.

I then examined Wal-Mart’s
Terms of Use, which includes a section captioned Video
and Computer Game Ratings. It states: “Games
rated ‘M: Mature’ are intended for mature audiences only and are
noted as such on this Site. By ordering any ‘M: Mature’ rated game,
you are certifying that you are at least 17 years of age.”

The page also reflects: “By
accepting these Terms of Use through your use of the Site, you
certify that you are 18 years of age or
older. If you are under the age of 18 but at least 13 years of age
you may use this Site only under the supervision or a parent or legal
guardian who agrees to be bound by these Terms of Use…Children
under the age of 13 may not use this Site and parents or legal guardians
may not agree to these Terms of Use on their behalf.”

Again, who is going to enforce this stuff, and how?

The main Video Game page carries a link to Wal Mart’s Policy on
Mature Content. It reflects the following:

“At Wal-Mart we make every effort to be a responsible retailer
and this includes the sale of video games and computer software games.
All of these items that we carry are rated by the Entertainment Software
Ratings Board (ESRB) and we carry no adult-rated video or computer
software games. We have a process in place to help ensure that only
customers who are 17 or older can purchase games that are rated ‘Mature.’
We have programmed all of our cash registers to prompt associates
to check the age of customers. All of our stores should have the
ESRB rating information posted in the electronics area to help our
customers make informed decisions about the video and software games
they’re purchasing.”

For the most part, this statement pertains to actual Wal-Mart stores.
It appears that the sale of M-rated games online is restricted only
by the language in the Warning on individual product pages and Terms
of Use reflected above, which allows anyone of any age to certify
that he/she is over 17 (or 18, according to Terms of Use).

~A SIDE TRIP TO MY NEIGHBORHOOD WAL-MART

There’s a Wal-Mart Super Center not too far from where I live, I
go there every now and then. It’s an intimidatingly huge place, and
it’s always crowded — even at, say, 1 AM on Wednesdays (it’s open
24/7).

Now, I’m not much of a people-person, and I don’t really care for
crowds. Okay, so I’m more-or-less a hermit. When I do manage to get
myself into the enormous, crowd-filled expanse that is Wal-Mart,
I usually buy myself a present of some sort as a reward (no one else is going to, right?). One of my favorite gifts is (surprise!) a new
adventure game.

I undertook my most recent
expedition into the wilds of Wal-Mart not too long ago. As I approached
the video game department, I took
note of some ESRB signage displayed quite prominently. Had it always
been there? I can’t really say. As I’ve mentioned, I never used to
pay attention to ratings, but I can see that writing this article
has sure changed that. Anyway, the Wal-Mart display included actual
ratings, along with posters for the ESRB’s “Okay to Play?” PSA
campaign. I did notice, however, that the new ESRB category of E10+
wasn’t reflected on any of the signage. (Yeah, I know — picky, picky.
I should be a ratings cop, don’t you think?)

Unfortunately, that’s about as far as I got. There were so many
people in the game aisles that — and this is not an exaggeration
— I would have literally had to elbow my way into a boisterous mob
consisting primarily of kids in order to look at the games. I mean,
I love adventure games, but not that much. I don’t love anything
that much.

~BACK TO ONLINE RETAILERS

CIRCUITCITY.COM

DOOM 3 (PC)
~The ESRB rating was appropriately reflected as “M” on
its product page.
~Content descriptors matched those reflected on the ESRB site.
~Kidding on the square? One of the customer reviews is captioned “Do
not play if you have a heart condition.”
~The page carried a link to Check The Rating (also a Circuit City
page), which explains the rating system and content descriptors.
However, the link was tied to an ESRB rating symbol graphic on the
product page and wasn’t apparent until I passed my pointer over it.
~I discovered a second Check The Rating page linked to from the main
Video Game page. The link was captioned What do ESRB ratings
mean?
~A major difference existed between the first and second Check
the Rating pages. The second one contained a link to some important info:
Circuit City’s Mature-rated product policy (discussed below, following
the GTA:SA info).
~The Mature-rated policy link also appeared on the main Video Game
page. I could find no reason why this information is not accessible
from individual game pages. Could it be that the policy applies only
to Circuit City brick-and-mortar stores? (Again, see discussion below
GTA:SA info.)
~When I last examined the two ratings pages on November 23, 2005,
the new ESRB designation of E10+ (announced on March 2, 2005) was
not included. An old rating was included: K-A (Kids to Adults). The
ESRB subsequently replaced this with an E rating, which was also
reflected. Content descriptors matched those reflected on the ESRB
site.

GTA:SA (PS2)
~When I checked on November 23, 2005, circuitcity.com was selling
only the “Special Edition” of GTA:SA for PS2 (from which
Hot Coffee code has allegedly been removed by Take-Two/Rockstar).
~The ESRB rating was appropriately shown as “M.”
~The product page reflected no content descriptors.

Circuit City’s Mature-rated
product policy:
“Circuit City has taken an active role in educating our associates
and the public on the sale of movies, music and video games with
mature content. We provide signs in our stores and information on
our website explaining the rating system applied by the Entertainment
Software Ratings Board (ESRB). [Note: unfortunately, there is no
mention of actual sales via the website.]

“Circuit City does
not carry video games and computer software which receive the ‘Adult
Only’ rating. We do carry products which
are rated for mature audiences, but it is our policy that we will
not sell mature rated products to anyone under 17 years of age, unless
they are accompanied by a parent or guardian. This policy covers
sale of the following items:
~M-rated video games and computer software
~CDs carrying the ‘Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics’ label
~R-rated DVDs and VHS movies
~Unrated DVD and VHS movies

“To enforce this
policy, we instruct our sales associates to request photo identification
if a customer wishing to purchase one
of the products appears to be 21 years of age or younger. Our cash
registers are programmed to prompt associates to verify each customer’s
age.

“We encourage parents
to learn about the ESRB ratings system and make a careful determination
about which products are suitable
for their children.

“Click here to learn
more about the ESRB ratings system.”

I was unable to locate anything regarding age restrictions in Circuit
City Stores, Inc. Website Terms of Use.

I then visited Circuit
City’s Privacy policy, which contains a “Children’s
online policy” section. Of all policies I’ve examined here,
it’s the weakest:

“Circuit City is
committed to preserving online privacy for all of its website visitors,
including children. Circuitcity.com
is a general audience site, and we do not knowingly collect information
about children or sell products to children. Consistent with the
Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, we will not knowingly collect
any information from children under the age of 13. If you are under
the age of 13, you must ask your parent or guardian to assist you
in using circuitcity.com.”

~TO SUM IT UP…

Now, I’m sure that the kinds of documents I mentioned in the last
section cover Amazon, its outlets, Wal-Mart, and Circuit City from
a legal standpoint, and absolve them of liability. But I have to
ask: how many people actually read this stuff? My guess would be
very few.

Further, when it comes to effective video game ratings enforcement
and corresponding sales restrictions, it seems to me that online
purchasing is one gaping mother of a hole. What’s to stop kids from
lying about their ages? Short answer: nothing. In this area, the
game industry seems to be shooting itself in the foot. Or maybe in
both feet.

Let’s revisit the well-worn
September 2000 FTC report on marketing violent entertainment to
children. This time, let’s have a look at
Appendix J, which addresses the IDSA’s Advertising Code of Conduct (“Adcode”) as it applies to online promotions. It states
that a 1999 review of 40 game-selling publisher sites revealed that
some of the sites, collectively operated by 18 companies altogether
(14 of which were IDSA members), did require that purchasers be at
least 18 to place an order. However, none attempted to verify purchasers’
ages.

Appendix J goes on to state the following:

“In a followup review
conducted in May 2000, one site from each of the 18 companies was
randomly revisited to determine if compliance
had improved. Only one company had made changes to comply with the
online Adcode. No company was in complete compliance, and none of
the game developer sites had made changes to improve compliance.”

I looked hither and yon
for the IDSA’s Advertising Code of Conduct. It appears to be missing
in action — the IDSA/ESA website doesn’t
even have it. As previously mentioned, the ESRB does have an Advertising
Review Council responsible for monitoring advertising in the form
of “print ads, packaging, radio and TV spots, Internet advertising,
online stores, posters, and demos.” However, its Principles
and Guidelines Second Edition, published May 1, 2001, does not address
the sale of video games online to inappropriate age groups.

FYI, both Toysrus.com
and Walmart.com are IEMA members. Unfortunately, there is no feasible
way to enforce the IEMA carding program agreed
to by Toys “R” Us and Wal Mart when it comes to online
purchases.

PART X

~EXASPERATED YET?

Ironically, the more deeply I delve into the ESRB ratings system,
the more questions I seem to have. I hope you’ll indulge me as I
unload some of them.

One thing I’ve noticed is that the rating process, although done
in accordance with certain criteria, tends to group games having
disparate content into the same category. Here is what the ESRB site
reflects about those criteria:

“In rating a game,
ESRB considers many content areas, including but not limited to
violence, sex, language, and substance abuse.
ESRB raters also take into consideration how such content elements
are depicted and used in the context of the game to help them determine
an appropriate age recommendation and which content descriptors to
apply.”

To me, this seems rather broadly drawn. As a gamer, I’m unable to
understand why some of the games I’ve played carry the ratings they
do. And I question how accurate a rating can be when ESRB raters
don’t actually play the games.

Additionally, I’m wondering how much subjectivity goes into the
assignment of ratings. There must be some, because (as mentioned
earlier) three raters must agree on a particular game’s rating before
it becomes official. If there is no consensus by the first three
raters, the game is reviewed by additional raters until there is a consensus — sort of like the procedure when a jury is hung/deadlocked.
If the rating process were strictly objective, this wouldn’t be necessary.

I also wonder how parents and other adults are supposed to discern
the actual differences between games, particularly those that have
the same rating and lack content descriptors. Plenty of them do;
the ESRB site has pages and pages of them spanning every letter of
the alphabet and all platforms. (I’ll be getting into that issue
shortly.)

Further, although the ESRB says that its raters represent various
age groups and backgrounds, I’m wondering if any juveniles are included
in the mix. I tend to doubt it, as it wouldn’t be advisable to have
kids rating games that could end up being M or AO-rated — although
if publishers supply the kind of information that the ESRB states
is required when games are submitted for ratings, it seems to me
that such a thing could be avoided. But what do I know? On the other
hand, if no raters are juveniles, I’m wondering if adults are capable
of effectively seeing the world through the eyes of, say, today’s
six-year-olds.

~CASES IN POINT

In the event I’ve confused
you (and even if I haven’t), let’s look at a couple of adventure
games I’ve enjoyed playing: Wanted: A Wild
Western Adventure (European title: The Westerner)
from Revistronic/The Adventure Company, and Nancy
Drew: Secret of the Scarlet Hand from
Her Interactive. Both games are rated “E” (age 6+) on the
ESRB website — although on the packaging, Scarlet Hand publisher
Her Interactive reflects not only the “E” rating, but its
own “For Mystery Fans 10 and Up.”

Wanted carries the content
descriptors “Cartoon Violence, Mild
Language, Use of Tobacco and Alcohol,” which are reflected on
the back of the game’s packaging. (Editor’s Note: “Mild Language” does
not appear in the current list of content descriptors on the ESRB
site.) Scarlet Hand carries no content descriptors.

I want to make it clear that what follows does not represent criticism
of either game. If I’m criticizing anything, it’s the ratings system.
In my opinion, the differences between the two games are striking.

**Spoilers Ahead**

Wanted: A Wild Western
Adventure is a funny, rather silly game (and
I don’t mean that in a negative way) that features cartoonish characters
and takes place in the Wild West (hence, the title.) The plot is
classic good vs. bad. A nasty land baron and his henchmen are taking
over the property of innocent farmers and must be stopped. As the
game starts, hero Fenimore Filmore rides into town to save the day.

Fenimore is a rather likable doofus who has basically good intentions.
Unfortunately, he also knowingly engages in some unscrupulous and
illegal activities.

For example, Fenimore needs money with which to buy items that are
necessary to complete the game. He gets this money by stealing it
from any number of places including the desks of school children
and the dresser/desk drawers, closets, and cabinets of various other
characters, including the sheriff. This is always done successfully
and, at times, right under the victims’ noses (some of the other
characters are doofuses, too).

Fenimore also obtains money by sending people bogus telegrams. He
even hits on the President of the United States.

Further, our hero robs
a bank, blows up a bridge, facilitates a jailbreak, knowingly buys
stolen goods, and kills other characters.
As I was playing the game, I got the impression that because Fenimore
is on the side of the “good” guys, the ends justify the
means.

The game also contains
what I consider to be bathroom humor. It occurs intermittently
throughout the game whenever Fenimore talks
to the sheriff. As Fenimore takes his leave, he says, “I really
have to go now.” The sheriff replies with things like, “You
should carry a portable urinal” or “I’d get your prostate
looked at if I were you.” The ESRB does have a content descriptor
— Crude Humor — that includes bathroom humor. Yet this isn’t one
of the descriptors assigned to Wanted.

At the beginning of the game, a juvenile steals Fenimore’s two pistols
and, with another juvenile, is in control of them for about half
the game. Both children are depicted as under age 10. When Fenimore
confronts the boys about the theft, one potential exchange has Billy
— who knows where the guns actually are — refusing to tell Fenimore
anything.

When Fenimore threatens to tell Billy’s father about the situation,
Billy says he doesn’t care because his father’s a famous bank robber
who’s in jail, and has robbed more trains than Jesse James. We find
out later that this is only partially true.

Nevertheless, Billy also says that he intends to follow in his father’s
footsteps, and that the other juvenile, Tommy, will be in his gang.
First, however, they’ll have to learn how to shoot. Fenimore promises
to teach them if they’ll tell him where his guns are stashed. They
comply.

After Fenimore retrieves the guns and is on his way back to talk
to the boys again, he’s run down by a speeding buggy driven by a
drunken doctor, and the buggy crashes into a tree. In the distance,
the two juveniles are seen leaving the area. This takes Fenimore
off the hook for the shooting lessons, which are not mentioned again.

Another potential exchange about Fenimore’s guns has the juveniles
bemoaning the fact that they aren’t permitted to watch hangings,
and agreeing to return the guns only if they can watch Fenimore kill
people with them.

Also during gun negotiations, there are several opportunities for
the juveniles to send Fenimore away so they can talk in private —
and Fenimore complies every time. This makes it clear who’s in charge
here, and it sure ain’t the adult.

Further, the fellow Fenimore
breaks out of jail has a “shady
past” as a forger. Fenimore later has him forge the sheriff’s
signature on a legal document.

Most of the principal characters participate in an endgame shootout
in which they kill other characters, blow up structures and wreak
general mayhem. The good guys use not only pistols, but items resembling
machine guns and rocket launchers.

There are no negative consequences for any of the behavior I’ve
mentioned. Granted, it all takes place within a cartoon framework,
and being an adult (that’s what they tell me, anyway), I can’t really
say how a young child might react to the off-color humor, illegal
activities, and lack of respect for adults depicted in the game.
It seems to me, though, that age six might be a little young for
this kind of stuff. Speaking strictly as a gamer, I would not want
to see a kid that young sitting in front of Wanted.

**End of Spoilers**

The front of the packaging
for both Wanted and Scarlet Hand reflects only an “E” rating. “Age 6+” is not included.
As a result, neither game’s packaging agrees with its rating as reflected
on the ESRB site, where “Age 6+” is specifically mentioned.

~A SIDE-TRIP TO THE ESRB SITE

Interestingly, the “E” rating is defined as follows on
the Game Rating & Descriptor Guide:

“Titles rated E (Everyone)
have content that may be suitable for ages 6 and older. Titles
in this category may contain minimal
cartoon, fantasy or mild violence and/or infrequent use of mild language.”

Yet the “E” rating on game packaging sometimes includes “age
6+” and sometimes doesn’t. Additionally, the ESRB’s own ratings
pages sometimes reflect “E (age 6+)” and sometimes show
just plain “E.” Why the inconsistencies, which have potential
to cause confusion?

Further, “Use of Tobacco and Alcohol” is not mentioned
as a descriptor associated with the “E” rating, yet Wanted carries this descriptor and is rated “E.”

Sorting listings of ESRB ratings by descriptors rather than alphabetically
by game titles, I’ve discovered the following (letters of the alphabet
were chosen at random):

Four pages into the letter “S” reveals a list of 20 games
carrying the single descriptor “Animated Violence.” Ten
of them (50%) are rated “E (6+).” The other ten (50%) are
rated “T (13+)”. On what sort of specific content is this
difference based, I wonder? It seems to me that whatever is responsible
would be a crucial element and should be reflected on the game’s
packaging and the ESRB site.

Perusing the letter “M,” the third page of listings also
carries a list of 20 games, this time bearing the single descriptor “Animated
Violence.” Thirteen of them (65%) are rated “E (6+).” Seven
(35%) are rated “T (13+).” Again, what sort of content
prompted these differences?

~BACK TO CASES IN POINT

**More Spoilers Ahead**

Okay, let’s move along to Nancy Drew: Secret of the Scarlet
Hand,
which is the sixth entry in the Nancy Drew series of games. It
takes place primarily in a museum in Washington, D.C. that’s gearing
up for an exhibition of Maya artifacts. Nancy is serving a summer
internship as the museum’s deputy curator.

Nancy encounters a somewhat
standoffish supervisor, who is also the museum’s curator, as well
as an epigrapher who is an expert in
translation of Maya hieroglyphics, a somewhat smarmy art dealer,
and a cultural attachè from the Mexican Embaasy who resents
that a rare artifact recently discovered in Mexico is having its
première exhibition at a museum in the U.S.

The game also features a few unseen characters with whom Nancy interacts
by phone. Another unseen character is the former deputy curator,
who’s a little off-the-wall. He’s represented by items he left behind,
including his notebooks and a computer disc.

The plot revolves around an extremely valuable artifact that’s stolen
from the museum. When this happens, Nancy dons her detective cap
and sets out to find the culprit. As is common in Nancy games, all
other principal characters give her cause for suspicion.

As our detective goes about solving the mystery, players actually
learn a thing or two about Maya civilization and culture, Maya monoliths,
King Pacal of Palenque, legal provenance, and more. The game is so
entertaining, though, that it actually makes learning fun (my favorite
kind).

The character of Nancy also provides a good model of desirable behavior.
For instance, she won’t use certain items without getting permission
first, and when she opens/unlocks drawers, cabinets, etc. she always
closes/locks them again before moving on. Generally, she cleans up
after herself.

Side note: In Nancy
Drew: Secret of the Old Clock (released in July
2005) Nancy needs spending money, just as Fenimore Filmore does in
Wanted. The difference is that Nancy goes to work and earns hers.

The only thing that concerns me about six-year-olds playing Scarlet
Hand comes right at the end, when Nancy is sealed in a dark, small
space that’s also occupied by a mummy (eek!). Nancy’s light source
consists of a green glow stick that illuminates only what’s directly
in front of her. In a timed sequence, she must locate and use two
items in order to escape her confinement before her air runs out.

Although a generous amount of time is allowed, it’s still possible
for Nancy to fail. If she does, a newspaper is displayed showing
not only the original mummy, but Nancy as a mummy, too. This could
be frightening to young children, I think. But I don’t think this
would be sufficient cause to seriously question the game’s rating.

Scarlet Hand (as well
as all other Nancy games) also features a “Second
Chance” option (actually, the chances are unlimited). If Nancy
runs out of air in the above sequence, for example, players are taken
back to the beginning of the puzzle and can keep trying until they
get it right.

Now, here’s the best part of this game: once nabbed, the wrongdoer
ends up in federal prison. Now, that’s what I call a consequence.

**End of Spoilers**

As previously mentioned,
Her Interactive reflects ages “10
to Adult” on Scarlet Hand‘s packaging (see next section, below).
I must admit that I’m baffled by the absence of ESRB content descriptors.

So here we have two games
with the same ESRB rating. One of them, although cartoonish in
appearance, depicts “good” characters
engaging in undesirable and unlawful activities that carry no consequences.
In the other, the one character who engages in wrong behavior is
held accountable, and punished.

I think Scarlet Hand is
deserving of its “E” rating,
although I feel that Her Interactive’s assignment of “10 to
Adult” may be more appropriate than the “6+” designation
that appears on the ERRB website.

On the other hand, I think
Wanted, with its “Cartoon Violence,
Mild Language, Use of Tobacco and Alcohol” (not to mention bathroom
humor, theft, violence, con jobs, other illegal activities, and lack
of consequences) leans more toward a “T” rating (age 13+).

Maybe I’m not understanding something, or maybe I’m just being too
subjective or picky. But I do wonder how parents and other adults
are supposed to be able to determine whether a game is appropriate
for children using the kind of information supplied by the ESRB.

~SAILING, ANYONE?

Another adventure game
I’ve really enjoyed playing is Return
to Mysterious Island from
Kheops Studio/The Adventure Company. The game was inspired by Jules
Verne’s 1874 novel The Mysterious Island.

The ESRB site reflects
a T (13+) rating for this game, with a content descriptor of “Mild Violence,” which is defined on the
site’s descriptor page as “Mild scenes depicting characters
in unsafe and/or violent situations.”

The fact that this game
was given a “T” rating baffles
me. I happen to think it would be a great game for kids to play.

Further, the game’s packaging
reflects just plain “T,” with
no age designation or content descriptors. This makes me wonder about
the ESRB’s statement that its rating process includes the review
of game packaging “to make sure the ratings are displayed in
accordance with ESRB standards” (i.e., the game’s rating on
the front, and content descriptors on the back). Mysterious Island‘s
packaging doesn’t conform to this edict. I’m not sure how such a
thing can happen if everyone is following procedure.

**More Spoilers Ahead**

The back story of Mysterious
Island has protagonist Mina in a ’round-the-world
sailing competition during which she encounters a storm and ends
up on the beach of an apparently deserted island. This is where the
game begins.

Mina is the only “person” in
this game. Left to her own devices, she gathers food, finds items
with which to build a fire,
and fashions tools out of various other things she discovers on the
island. She’s quite resourceful.

Many items Mina comes across can be combined, often in more ways
than one, to make items she needs. Some can even be disassembled
into their constituent parts if need be. She discovers how to construct
two different kinds of batteries, fix a windmill, make bricks and
pottery, and more. She even manages to grind flour and bake a cake!

Mina actually goes out of her way to avoid violence. For instance,
she successfully deals with some hostile monkeys, a snake, and a
shark-like sea creature without harming them.

She also encounters a monkey who is injured. After she dresses his
wounds, finds fruit for him to eat and nurses him back to health,
the monkey becomes Mina’s companion and assists her in the balance
of her quest to return to civilization.

There is a ghost in Mysterious
Island — it’s the ghost of Captain
Nemo, in fact. But it’s not threatening or hostile — if anything,
it’s helpful. Captain Nemo’s remains are also in the game, in the
form of a skeleton. At the request of Nemo’s ghost, Mina gives it
a proper burial, and the ghost gives her a valuable reward for her
efforts.

Mina does have a couple
of weapons, but she uses them only on guardian robots (constructed
by Nemo years earlier, to protect the island)
that she knows will try to shoot at her. Could it be that blasting
robots qualifies as “mild violence?”

There are also several places in the game where Mina can die —
but, as with Nancy Drew in Secret of the Scarlet Hand, she gets unlimited
second chances. Another similarity to Scarlet Hand is that one actually
learns things while playing Mysterious Island, and has fun while
doing so.

**End of Spoilers** (finally!)

Not only do I not understand
why Mysterious Island is rated “T” rather
than “E,” I also take exception to the online descriptor “Mild
Violence.” Going back to the ESRB Game Rating and Descriptor
Guide, “Mild Violence” appears as a characteristic of the “E” rating.
Just plain “Violence” (“Scenes involving aggressive
conflict”) falls under the “T” rating.

Mysterious Island is certainly
less violent than the E-rated Wanted, with its “Cartoon Violence.” Further,
Mysterious Island has no off-color humor, nor does anyone drink,
smoke, break the law,
steal money, or lie. Self-sufficiency, creativity, and resourcefulness
are emphasized. And, although this is neither here nor there, the
music in Mysterious Island is fabulous. In fact, I feel that there’s
an enormous amount of talent among folks who create video games these
days. As with comic book artists before them, they’re quite serious
about their craft — and it shows.

PART XI

~MORE RATINGS INCONSISTENCY

Earlier, while still in
a Nancy Drew mindset, I went ahead and took a look at the current
packaging for all 13 Nancy Drew games. All
reflect ages “10 to Adult” (designated by Her Interactive),
as does the Her Interactive website.

The ESRB site, however,
shows 11 of the games rated “Everyone
(6+).” Three are simply rated “Everyone” with no age
parameters. I do realize that 11+3=14 rather than 13, but this is
because one of the games, Nancy Drew: The Haunted Carousel, is shown
twice, each listing reflecting a different publisher.

The first listing for
Carousel, showing Valu Soft as publisher, is rated “Everyone.” The second, reflecting publisher Her
Interactive, is rated “Everyone (6+).” Neither has content
descriptors. If we combine these with Her Interactive’s “10
to Adult” designation on the packaging, we have three different
ratings for the same game.

A total of 11 of the Nancy
Drew games lack content descriptors on the ESRB site (12, if you
count to Carousel‘s double listing). The
very first game in the series, Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill , reflects “Mild
Animated Violence” and is rated “Everyone (6+).” The
most recent game, Nancy Drew: Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon, indicates “Mild
Animated Violence” and is rated just plain “Everyone.”

I actually managed to
stumble across alternate packaging for Secrets Can Kill that shows
ages “11 to Adult” rather than “10
to Adult.” This is one of the games that the ESRB has rated “Everyone
(6+)” on its website, but the game’s packaging reflects just
plain “E.”

It may seem to some of you as though I’m slogging through minutiae
(just wait until the next two sections), but there are inconsistencies
here for which I’m unable to discern any viable reasons. These kinds
of discrepancies reveal — at least to me — that the current rating
system does not hold up under close scrutiny. How can this system
possibly provide reliable indicators concerning suitability of game
content for specific age groups?

Okay, let’s review what we’ve learned so far:
(1) It’s possible for games to have the same rating yet be drastically
different in content.
(2) It can be very difficult, if not impossible, to accurately assess
a game’s content using ESRB ratings/descriptors.
(3) Not all games are assigned content descriptors by the ESRB.
(4) The ESRB site can reflect one rating while the publisher shows
another on the packaging.
(5) There can be different versions of packaging reflecting different
age-appropriateness for the same title.

All of this is sure helpful to consumers, isn’t it?

~I THINK MY HEAD MIGHT EXPLODE

I swear, stuff like this just keeps falling into my lap. As I was
checking out something totally unrelated, I accidentally tripped
over another example of This Doesn’t Make Any Sense. The disparity
is so pronounced and so recent that I felt I had to mention it.

Let’s have a look at the newly-released (November 2005) The
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Disney/Walden Media),
which is available for XBOX, PS2, Nintendo Game Cube, PC, GameBoy
Advance, and Nintendo DS.

Okay — now get this, straight from the ESRB site:

(1) The XBOX, PS2, Game
Cube, and PC versions of the game are all rated “T” for “fantasy
violence”
(2) The GameBoy Advance version is rated “E” for “fantasy
violence”
(3) The Nintendo DS version is rated “E-10+” for (you guessed
it) “fantasy violence”

There is no indication
of why three different ratings have been assigned to the same title,
or what the differences could be between
the “fantasy violence” present in the “E,” “E-10+” and “T” rated
versions.

And if that isn’t bad enough, let’s pay another visit to Amazon,
where (as of December 2, 2005):

(1) The ESRB rating for
the PS2 version is reflected as “E-Everyone
(Content suitable for persons age 6 or older)” while the product
page’s box shot and the ESRB website clearly show a “T” rating.
(2) The PC version reflects “RP-Rating Pending (ESRB rating
has not yet been determined)” although the ESRB site reflects
the assignment of a “T” rating.
(3) The Nintendo DS version is shown as “E-Everyone (Content
suitable for persons age 6 or older)” while the product page’s
box shot and the ESRB website clearly show an “E-10+” rating.
(4) The XBOX, Game Cube and GBA versions are appropriately shown
with “T,” “T” and “E” ratings, respectively.
(Thank God for small favors, although this just parrots the nonsensical
actions of the ESRB in assigning different ratings to the same game.)
(5) No content descriptors are reflected on any of Amazon’s product
pages for this game.

How in the world is such erroneous and contradictory information
supposed to help parents and other adults decide which games are
suitable for kids? Why, in the face of increasing scrutiny and criticism
of violent video games, is such sloppiness tolerated? Or could it
be that few people even notice stuff like this?

~JUMPING INTO THE ESRB’S
DEEP END

Some of you might think that what I’m going to do now is symptomatic
of some type of obsessive-compulsive disorder on my part. For all
I know, maybe it is.

While researching parts
of this article I started to notice that a lot of the games lacking
ESRB content descriptors seem to be rated “E.” So
I decided to see if I could discern any sort of pattern with these
kinds of games. I picked a letter of the alphabet at random (it turned
out to be “D”) and started looking at ratings and descriptors
on the ESRB site.

Once I’d worked up a good head of steam, things sort of snowballed.
I kept coming across stuff that, once again, doesn’t make sense.
And as you know, that kind of thing bugs the crap out of me.

Soooo…I examined ratings
and descriptors for all 763 titles (yep, 763; someday, I should
try to get a life) appearing under the letter “D.” As
of Sept. 22, 2005, they rolled out as follows:

Early Childhood
Out of 5 titles, 4 carried no descriptors; 1 carried the descriptor
Edutainment.

Early Childhood (age 3+)
Out of 15 titles, 2 carried no descriptors; 13 carried the descriptor
Edutainment.

Everyone
Out of 23 titles, 15 carried no descriptors; 8 carried one or more
of 5 different descriptors, two of which did not appear in the
current ESRB descriptors list: Mild Cartoon Violence and Mild Fantasy
Violence.

Examples of descriptors
used in this category that are defined by the ESRB are Comic Mischief
(“Depictions or dialogue involving
slapstick or suggestive humor”) and Simulated Gambling (“Player
can gamble without betting or wagering real cash or currency”).

Everyone (6+)
Out of 378 titles, 201 carried no descriptors; 177 carried one or
more of 20 different descriptors, 8 of which did not appear in the
current descriptors list:

(1) Animated Violence
(2) Financial Information (don’t ask me…)
(3) Gambling (considering the ESRB’s definition of Simulated Gambling,
above, wouldn’t it seem to follow that just plain Gambling would
involve real money or currency?)
(4) Mild Animated Violence
(5) Mild Cartoon Violence
(6) Mild Language
(7) Mild Lyrics
(8) Personal Information (Huh??)

Examples of descriptors
used in this category that are defined by the ESRB are Use of Tobacco
and Alcohol, Suggestive Themes (“Mild
provocative references or materials,” whatever those might be),
Lyrics (“Mild references to profanity, sexuality, violence,
alcohol, or drug use in music”), and Violence (“Scenes
involving aggressive conflict”).

Everyone 10+
Out of 8 titles, all carried one or more of 5 different descriptors,
one of which did not appear in the current ESRB descriptors list:
Mild Lyrics.

Examples of descriptors used in this category that are defined by
the ESRB are Suggestive Themes and Violence.

Teen (13+)
Out of 230 titles, all carried one or more of 21 different descriptors,
7 of which did not appear in the current ESRB descriptors list:

(1) Animated Violence
(2) Gaming
(3) Mature Sexual Themes
(4) Mild Animated Violence
(5) Mild Language
(6) Mild Lyrics
(7) Realistic Violence

Examples of descriptors
used in this category that are defined by the ESRB are Crude Humor
(“Depictions or dialogue involving
vulgar antics, including *bathroom* humor” [emphasis is ESRB’s]),
Strong Language (“Explicit and/or frequent use of profanity”)
and Violence.

Mature (17+)
Out of 104 titles, all carried one or more of 14 descriptors, 4 of
which did not appear in the current ESRB descriptors list:

(1) Animated Blood & Gore
(2) Animated Violence
(3) Gambling
(4) Mature Sexual Themes

Examples of descriptors
used in this category that are defined by the ESRB are Intense
Violence (“Graphic and realistic-looking
depictions of physical conflict. May involve extreme and/or realistic
blood, gore, weapons, and depictions of human injury and death”),
Nudity (“Graphic or prolonged depictions of nudity”), and
Strong Sexual Content (“Graphic references to and/or depictions
of sexual behavior, possibly including nudity”).

There were no AO-rated
games under the letter “D.”

As you can see, descriptors
that don’t appear in the ESRB list are reflected under all rating
designations. The one having the highest
number (53%) is “Everyone (6+).” Further, note that games
under all designations except Early Childhood and Early Childhood
(age 3+) can contain “Violence.”

Now, putting aside the
fact that I don’t understand why some games are rated as they are,
I have some questions (and this is only
a partial list of them):

(1) Why does the ESRB assign content descriptors that don’t appear
in its own list of descriptors?
(2) How is the lack of certain descriptor definitions on the ESRB
site supposed to facilitate the choice of appropriate games?
(3) Is an absence of content descriptors supposed to indicate that
no objectionable content is present, and if so, why isn’t this clearly
indicated on game packaging and the ESRB site so that people won’t
have to engage in guesswork?
(4) As content descriptors, by the ESRB’s definition, “indicate
elements in a game that may have triggered a particular rating and/or
may be of interest or concern,” might it not be useful to formulate
some positive descriptors for those games having no objectionable
content, to keep consumers better informed and not give the impression
that descriptors of certain games have simply been blown off by the
ESRB for some unknown reason?
(5) Some descriptors are reflected under more than one rating —
so what’s the difference, say, between the Animated Violence contained
in games rated Everyone (6+), Teen (13+) and Mature (17+)?
(6) What in the world do Financial Information and Personal Information
mean?
(7) With so many descriptors in which the word “mild” is
used are missing from the descriptors list, wouldn’t an ESRB definition
of “mild” be in order, at least?
(8) What’s the difference between Early Childhood and Early Childhood
(3+), and between Everyone and Everyone (6+)?
(9) What’s the difference between “Sexual Themes,” which
is defined, and “Mature Sexual Themes,” which is not? (Hmmm…could “Mature
Sexual Themes” denote sexual activities involving senior citizens,
perhaps?)
(10) Are we having fun yet? (Nope.)

Okay, I’ll try to stop obsessing now. (Yeah, fat chance…)

~TESTIMONY
FROM YET ANOTHER GOVERNMENT HEARING

On September 28, 2004,
testimony was heard by the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation on the Effectiveness of
Media Rating Systems. Of particular interest is testimony presented
by Dr. Kim Thompson (no relation to Jack, thank you), Associate Professor & Director,
Kids Risk Project, Harvard School of Public Health.

Here is some of what Dr. Thompson had to say (although I disagree
that content descriptors are clearly defined by the ESRB):

“The ESRB system for video games…provides an age-based rating
(e.g., E, T, M) and also provides content descriptors that the ESRB
defines clearly on its website (www.esrb.org). Our studies suggest,
however, some inconsistency in the application of these content descriptors
and a lack of transparency in how they are assigned. Since the ESRB
does not play the games prior to assigning a rating, the ESRB ratings
by definition do not reflect full knowledge of the game content and
leave raters without the opportunity to experience the full range
of content that ultimately gets released in the final game. The ESRB
requires game manufacturers to provide examples of the most extreme
content, but do they do so? Should parents expect the content descriptors
to provide information about all of the types of content in the games,
or have the content descriptors now become more like the MPAA’s
rating reasons indicating only some of the content? With the information
to parents very unclear on this, and parents and kids easily able
to observe omissions as they experience actual game play, the ESRB
should in my opinion focus more on ensuring the quality of its information
and worry less about its advertising. Parents will use a system that
they trust and that they find reliable, and perhaps the lack of use
of ratings reflects a lack of trust.”

So it’s not just me, then. What a relief.

PART XII

~SO, HOW DO MPAA RATINGS MEASURE UP, ANYWAY?

In the interest of comparison, I tried to locate information on
the MPAA site concerning the enforcement and effectiveness of movie
ratings, but I was unsuccessful. The issues of copyright infringement
and piracy appear to have become greater concerns to that organization.

I then strolled on over to the National Association of Theater Owner’s
(NATO’s) website, where I located a Survey of Exhibition Industry
Practices dated December 9, 2002. This document states:

“The U.S. Constitution
protects the right to ‘free speech’, which includes entertainment
products such as motion pictures. There
are a few limits to the protection. For example, pornography that
is so graphic and lacks any artistic value can be deemed ‘obscene’
and thus not protected by the constitutional right of free speech.
In general, however, the right of free speech protects most movies.
As such the government cannot regulate the content of movies generally.

“We also believe
that a ratings system imposed by the government would violate the
constitution. The U.S. House of Representatives
considered a governmental movie ratings system in 1999 and rejected
the concept by majority vote…

“NATO and the Motion
Picture Association of America…do maintain a VOLUNTARY rating
system for movies. Most movies exhibited in the
United States are submitted voluntarily to the Classification and
Ratings Administration [CARA], where one of five ratings are applied
to the movie (G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17).

“…[T]here are two
restricted ratings. R indicates that no one under the age of 17
will be admitted without an accompanying
parent or guardian. NC-17 means that no one 17 years of age or younger
will be admitted at all. By voluntary agreement, the NATO members
enforce the R and NC-17 ratings by checking for age identification
at the box office and by taking other steps to ensure that children
do not see inappropriate movies.”

Well, I’m not sure what
those “other steps” might be,
and I don’t know whether IDs are indeed being checked at theaters
showing movies that are rated R or NC-17. I do know, however, that
kids under 17 are seeing these films. I also know that certain violent
movies have been used — albeit unsuccessfully, for the most part
— in defense of minors who have committed murder. One of the most
infamous is 1994’s Natural Born Killers. More recently, it’s been
the Matrix trilogy (among others).

Another thing I’ve discovered is that apparently, the MPAA is even
worse than the ESRB is when it comes to content descriptors. In a
May 2005 article entitled An Evaluation of the Motion Picture
Association of America’s Treatment of Violence in PG-, PG-13-, and
R-Rated Films,
the American Academy of Pediatrics observes the following:

“Although CARA’s descriptions of films are inconsistent
and often vague, given the choice, parents prefer these content-based
assessments to a single, overall age-based rating. Currently, however,
film distributors are not required to print the factors for rating
assignment in newspapers or on the jackets of DVD/VHS videos, leaving
parents with only a single age-based rating to determine the appropriateness
of the film. CARA skirts around this issue only by maintaining an
online database of films and content-based ratings on their publicly
accessible web site. However, many parents do not have Internet access;
therefore, one must assume that the only consistently available film-rating
information is the age-based guidelines. With 30 million households
owning a DVD player and >90% of American households using VCRs,
it is troubling to find such a void in the availability of the most
relevant and sought-after film-rating information.”

Further, not only does
the sale of DVD & VHS movies via the
Internet suffer the same enforcement problems as online game sales
do, it’s also possible for people of any age to buy tickets online
for films that are currently showing in theaters.

Interesting side note:
While perusing the MPAA site, I decided to do a ratings search
for a few films I’ve seen. One of them, 1988’s
Hellbound: Hellraiser II (a definite guilty pleasure), is reflected
as originally having an “X” rating. Imagine that, huh?
It was subsequently edited by the filmmaker and submitted for re-rating,
whereupon it was rated “R.” This really makes me wonder
what was cut out!

Incidentally, the MPAA site does not reflect content descriptors
for either the original Hellraiser (also rated R) or Hellbound:
Hellraiser II.

~OH, THE SWEET SUFFERING…UM, I MEAN IRONY

Continuing with our MPAA
ratings motif for a moment, here’s a real kick in the pants. The
movie Amadeus, when released in 1984, received
a “PG” rating despite the fact that a brief glimpse of
male full frontal nudity — not to mention a glimpse of a naked male
backside — appear in the asylum scene early in the film.

**Spoiler in next paragraph**

Well, in the Director’s
Cut DVD of Amadeus, one of the restored scenes involves Mozart’s
wife Constanze (Elizabeth Berridge) stripping
to the waist. There are two shots of her topless for a total of oh,
maybe five seconds. She isn’t doing anything lurid, either — she’s
basically just standing there. But this was enough for the MPAA to
slap an “R” rating (for brief nudity) on this particular
version of the film.

The change in rating makes no sense to me. There was already brief
nudity in the PG-rated theatrical release of the film. So I guess
ESRB ratings aren’t the only ones I don’t understand.

Interesting tidbits: Dies
Irae from Mozart’s Requiem is featured in the adventure game Still
Life (Microids/The
Adventure Company). Also, the music that accompanies the opening
credits of Amadeus (this is after the two jarring chords that introduce
the opening “Forgive Me, Mozart” sequence, which are from
Don Giovanni, Act II, Commendatore scene) is from the 1st Movement
of the Symphony No. 25 in G Minor, which Mozart wrote when he was
just 17 years old. I’m in absolute awe of such talent. Can you tell
that I’m an unabashed fan of Herr Mozart’s music?

~ANOTHER “WORST” LIST
(11 GAMES THIS TIME)

The same day the Ninth
Annual Mediawise Video Game Report Card was
released, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR)
together with four other parent, church and women’s groups issued
a report concerning violent video games. Although not identical to
the Mediawise list, the ICCR list is similar, with GTA:SA and
DOOM 3 occupying the top two slots.

According to a press release,
the list was published “in the
hopes of alerting unwary parents and grandparents to the blood-soaked
and anti-social content of the games that might otherwise be purchased
as holiday gifts for children. In a joint statement, the groups also
urged retailers to stop selling the inappropriate games directly
to children and called on the industry to come up with an improved
and more widely promoted game rating system that parents can understand.”

According to Sister Pat
Wolf, executive director, ICCR: “Adults
buying video games for children need to understand that the game
makers and retailers are not on their side when it comes to these
violent video games. This fast-buck-at-any-cost mentality is something
that is a real danger to kids.”

The following is a statement
by Dr. Martha Burk, who represents two of the other organizations
involved in compiling the list (Center
for Advancement of Public Policy and National Council of Women’s
Organizations): “Video game retailers must commit to keeping
video games with graphic violence or strong sexual themes out of
the hands of children. The best way to do this is to not sell the
games. Corporate responsibility must mean more than meeting minimal
rating standards, which presently serve the industry far more than
they serve the consumer.”

One of the groups’ recommendations
to parents is something I don’t understand at all: “They can find out what their internet service
providers are doing to prevent children from purchasing or playing
violent video games online.” Internet service providers?? To
the best of my knowledge, ISPs have no responsibility or authority
to restrict the activities of their subscribers (unless it’s to yank
a user’s account for sending spam or engaging in other terms-of-use
violations). I, for one, hope they never do.

Again, I’m not saying that I disagree with the basic premise of
keeping M-rated games out of the hands of those under 17. I just
feel that statements such as the above have the potential to add
to the confusion that continues to swirl around this issue.

PART XIII

~JACK THOMPSON, RELOADED

On February 16, 2005,
our old acquaintance Jack Thompson filed a lawsuit in Tuscaloosa,
Alabama, alleging that a teen (also named
Thompson, first name Devin, although I’ve also seen him referred
to as Devin Moore, Devin Moore Thompson and Devin Darnell Thompson)
who had shot and killed two police officers and a dispatcher in June
2003 had been “trained” to do so by playing Grand Theft
Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The suit, brought by families
of two of the victims, names Wal-Mart (which, BTW, is an IEMA member
that had signed on to the previously mentioned carding program) and
Gamestop — which had both sold the shooter the M-rated games when
he was not yet 17 — as well as Take-Two Interactive and Sony Computer
Entertainment.

An article in Gamershell.com puts the lawsuit at $600 million. It
also describes an interesting email exchange between Shaun McCormack,
who wrote the article, and lawyer Thompson:

“I emailed Thompson
several questions in an attempt to understand his position in all
of this. I asked him if he really believes Devin
Thompson would not have committed these alleged murders had he not
played Grand Theft Auto. I asked him if he had a problem with less
realistic violence in games from the 1980s. I asked him about Dungeons
and Dragons, which was demonized in the 80s and blamed for several
youth murders and suicides. I asked him about violent sports game
simulations; hockey, football, boxing and wrestling. I asked him
how much consideration he’d given to the idea that the responsibility
for shielding kids from violence should lie with the parents instead
of game developers, retailers and the courts.

“His only response,
emailed to me, was, ‘Kiss the game industry good-bye.’

“Another question
was ‘Why do you have a web site urging people to contact you if
you don’t want to talk about this stuff?’ Thompson’s
answer was: ‘Read again whom I want to have contact me. Have the
games so disabled your frontal lobes that you can’t understand the
site?'”

~UPDATE: GTA DEFENSE DOESN’T WASH IN CRIMINAL TRIAL

On August 9, 2005, the
jury in the Devin Moore (or Thompson) capital murder trial rejected
his “video game made me do it” defense
and returned a verdict of guilty. Death by lethal injection was subsequently
recommended.

On October 7, 2005, GampStop reported that the judge took the jury’s
recommendation and gave Moore the death penalty. That loud rumble
you hear is the mob of lawyers stampeding to the courthouse to file
appeals.

Brief aside: On the evening of Sept. 29, 2005, I happened to be
listening to a radio talk show in which the Devin Moore/Thompson
issue was being discussed. The host of the show, in addition to being
almost hysterical, got everything concerning video games wrong —
it sounded to me as though he’d never so much as played one. I turned
it off after about ten minutes. It was making me cringe.

~ANOTHER UPDATE: THOMPSON’S RIGHT TO PRACTICE LAW IN ALABAMA CHALLENGED;
THOMPSON QUITS CASE

Let’s go back to the aforementioned GTA civil suit filed by Jack
Thompson for a minute. According to a GamesIndustry.biz article dated
November 7, 2005, a motion was filed by law firm Blank Rome to have
Thompson removed from the case and his license to practice law in
Alabama revoked.

According to the article, “[T]he firm alleges that Thompson
has attacked and threatened their lawyers in dozens of press releases
which also accused Blank Rome of conspiracy.” A stack of statements,
letters, and press releases from Thompson were submitted as evidence.

Jim Smith of Blank Rome
has said of Thompson: “He can’t proceed
with the civility the rules require. All lawyers have to conduct
themselves with honesty, integrity and civility. This isn’t a street
fight…He’s going to turn the courtroom into a circus and we can’t
have it.”

In response, Thompson
has accused Blank Rome of engaging in a smear campaign, adding
that he “didn’t start this food fight.”

Before the judge could rule on the motion, however, Thompson withdrew
from the case. He said that doing so was his idea, based on his belief
that the defense was trying to make him the issue.

The plaintiffs are represented by three other attorneys, and it’s
expected that the case will proceed as planned.

Interesting tidbit:
According to gamesarefun.com, Dr. David Walsh, founder and president
of the National Institute on Media and the
Family, has contacted Jack Thompson with a request that he abstain
from mentioning either Dr. Walsh or the Institute in conjunction
with his war on violent video games, citing unacceptable tactics
on Thompson’s part. For more details, including Thompson’s response,
see National Institute on Media & Family Disavows Jack Thompson at http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=5661.

~A SIDE-TRIP TO OUT
OF HARM’S WAY, OR JACK THOMPSON WRITES A BOOK

A feud has recently developed
between Jack Thompson and Amazon.com, where his new book, Out
of Harm’s Way (Tyndale House Publishers,
November 14, 2005), is being sold. On November 20, 2005, Game Politics
reported that the book’s product page was “under full-scale
assault from gamers who have been outraged by the strident anti-game
violence campaign waged by the activist attorney over the years.” Based
on reader reviews, the book had a one-star rating as of November
24, 2005. If you’d care to have a look, the product page is located
at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1414304420/ref=dp_return_2/002-9946496-6214440?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=283155&s=books.

Also on November 20, 2005,
on the Amazon site, Thompson posted a lengthy response to the negative
reviews, claiming that almost everyone
who posted a review hadn’t actually read his book, and that “[t]he
overwhelming majority of the ‘reviews’ here are by young minions
who are being encouraged, directly and indirectly, by the Internet
‘enthusiast press’ that is owned and operated by the video game industry.”

Ninety minutes later, Thompson’s commentary was gone. Game Politics
saved a copy, though, so if you’d like to read it, here ’tis: http://www.livejournal.com/users/gamepolitics/2005/10/01/.

~COMING ATTRACTION: 25 TO LIFE

A new video game entitled
25 to Life (Eidos Interactive/Avalanche Software) for PC, PS2,
XBOX had originally been scheduled to descend
on us some time in 2005. The release date has been pushed back several
times, however, and on October 28, 2005, the game’s official site
reflected “In stores 2006.”

According to a Boston
Globe article dated July 2, 2005 and captioned Up in arms over
violent visuals, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) considers
the game to be so violent that it makes “other controversial
games like ‘Grand Theft Auto’ look like Romper Room.”

Senator Schumer has also
called on New York retailers and distributors not to stock or sell
this game. Moreover, he has asked both Microsoft
(XBOX) and Sony (PlayStation) to terminate their licensing agreements
with Eidos Interactive. For additional information, see the press
release posted on Senator Schumer’s website HERE.

25 to Life is rated M for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Drug
Reference, Strong Language, and Sexual Themes. The game reportedly
offers over 40 weapons, including shotguns, machine guns, stun guns,
and tear gas. It also features fully customizable characters. Along
with a single-player version, the game will offer a multiplayer option
in which players may form gangs of up to 16 people and rampage through
virtual streets online.

I’ve explored the official site at http://www.25tolife.com/ (caution:
music with explicit lyrics plays in the background), which requires
a visitor to furnish his or her date of birth in order to gain access
to the site’s content. Unfortunately, any person of any age can enter
any birth date, so this requirement does nothing to restrict site
access to those individuals who are age 17 or older.

The game can be pre-ordered from any number of sources online. And
as we’ve seen, effective enforcement of ratings by online retailers
is non-existent.

I’ve watched trailers, viewed screenshots, and read previews of
25 to Life. Frankly, the thought of young kids playing this game
makes my skin crawl.

A GameSpy preview of the
PS2 version starts this way: “Random
acts of video game violence are a lot more fun when they’re enacted
on human thugs via online deathmatch.” It goes on to say: “In
all, you have 15 maps to explore and kill on. I don’t know about
you, but I relish the opportunity to kill people in places that look
like my own neighborhood. It makes things so much more cathartic
and personal that way.” Concerning character customization,
the preview notes that “Individuality is important, even if
you’re laying face-down in a puddle of your own blood.”

Although many people appear to be excitedly anticipating the release
of 25 to Life, suffice it to say that I’m not one of them. I expect
we’ll be hearing a lot more about this game as time goes on. I wonder
if we might also hear from Jack Thompson again?

Interesting side note:
The July 2, 2005 Boston Globe article referenced above also addresses
some of the legislation attempting to ban the
sale of M-rated games to minors, and notes that the courts have afforded
First Amendment protections to video games. In commenting on this,
Doug Lowenstein notes that violent movies “have been accepted
in the culture as culturally credible” but that video games
lack that credibility. One of the reasons for this, Lowenstein says,
is “a neglect of untapped markets, such as women.”

Let’s go back to 2001
for a moment, to a hearing before the Subcommittee on Telecommunications
and the Internet (covered earlier in this article).
In his testimony before that subcommittee, Doug Lowenstein said (emphasis
is mine): “Sixty-one percent of all game players are over 18,
35 percent are over 35 years old, and 43 percent of them are
women.” Does
this sound like an untapped market to you?

PART XIV

~MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE GAMES: WHO
NEEDS THE REAL WORLD?

Having burst upon the scene in the late 1990s, Massively Multiplayer
Online Games (MMOGs) are relative newcomers to the world of gaming,
although their roots can be traced back to the MUDs (Multi-User Dimensions/Domains/Dungeons)
of the 1970s. As the term suggests, these games are played via the
Internet, where very large numbers of participants interact with
each other. For example, 1997’s fantasy MMORPG Ultima Online (Origin
Systems/Electronic Arts) eventually boasted 225,000 subscribers and
is still going strong.

MMOGs take place in real-time, persistent online worlds, where life
goes on 24/7 and things continue to happen even when you’re not actively
participating in them — just like real life. In some MMOGs, activities
in which players engage, such as finding a place to live, getting
an education, joining an organized group, and/or working at a trade
or profession, can mirror real life.

Even MMOGs with strong FPS, combat, fantasy or sci-fi elements have
social hierarchies as well as skills that must be mastered and goals
that must be met. Playing an MMOG can consume enormous amounts of
time (often referred to as timesink), and the more deeply a player
gets into the game, the greater the emotional investment. It can
become easy to forget that the world in which one is spending so
much time is virtual rather than actual — particularly if one is
having trouble coping, for whatever reason(s), with the real world.

There are several major differences between MMOGs and single-player
games. In my opinion, these differences can make playing MMOGs a
tad risky for certain types of individuals (more about that later).

In MMOGs, one interacts with other people (via in-game chat) and
the characters they control (within the game proper), so a strong
social element is present. Violence, if any, can be perpetrated not
only on NPCs (non-player characters) but on real players via their
virtual counterparts (referred to as PvP, or Player vs. Player combat
or violence).

Also, due to the competition
involved in “getting ahead,” players
can feel compelled to put as much time into the game as possible
for fear of being outdone by other players. Further, MMOGs are generally
open-ended. This is facilitated by the release of game add-ons, called
expansion packs. You can’t win these games, nor do you ever finish
playing them (unless the whole enterprise sinks, as was the case
with URU Live).

Some MMOGS are free. Those that aren’t generally offer free trials,
after which one has to pay a monthly fee to keep playing. I have
a feeling that purveyors of MMOGs are banking on people becoming
hooked by the time their free trials end.

There can be a definite downside to the social element of MMOGs.
For instance, one can be harassed or otherwise mistreated by other
players, or certain players might successfully use prohibited tactics
to advance in the game, leaving behind those who are following the
rules. In some MMOGs, game masters (or other such people who are
supposed to keep order and handle complaints) are rarely seen, or
are absent altogether.

Relationships can be formed; two characters might even get married
within the game (even though they may already be married to other
people in real life). Relationships can also go bad, bringing as
much emotional pain to some individuals as face-to-face rejection
by a real person would.

The first MMOG I took the time to learn anything about was 2003’s
Eve Online, from Iceland’s CCP Games. I’m a real sucker for sci-fi/space
sims.

I was all over the Eve website while the game was still in development, and I followed
its progress for awhile. The graphics blew me away
— I found them stunningly beautiful, and I still do. During this
time, I recall repeatedly saying out loud (with no one around to
hear me except my cat), “If I ever go in there, I’ll never come
out.” I’m being serious here, folks. I know how I am with certain
things, and this is one of ’em.

I was eventually able, with Herculean effort, to pry my eyeballs
off the website, put them back in my head where they belong, and
resist my strong urge to jump permanently into cyberspace. Whew.

There are, of course, many other MMOGs of assorted varieties, geared
toward different age groups. Some are relatively small, some are
for kids, and as previously mentioned, some are free.

However, the better-known titles tend to be MMOGs that are large
in scope, such as EverQuest Live (989 Studios/Verant Interactive
[acquired by Sony Online Entertainment in 2000]), discussed in its
own section, below; World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment); Anarchy
Online (Funcom); and Star Wars Galaxies (LucasArts/Sony Online Entertainment).
All of these games are T-rated.

There is a point to my telling you all of this. Read on…

~FIRST, ABOUT THOSE RATINGS

Has anyone ever heard
of ESRBi ratings (the “i” meaning “interactive”)?
Well, I’ve been researching this article for a considerable length
of time, and until recently, I sure hadn’t. I managed to stumble
across it in my research on MMOGs. The first one I came across indicated “TI” (Teen,
ESRB Interactive; see below). When I saw the symbol, which differs
from the usual ESRB symbol in that it’s a metallic silver oval rather
than a black and white rectangle, I did one of those “What the…?” double
takes:

ESRBi Rating Symbol

It seems that ESRBi — if it currently exists at all — is a rather
closely-held system by which the ESRB rates MMOGs. I’ve chewed my
way through the ESRB site many times in the past months, and I’d
never seen any mention of ESRBi ratings.

After I encountered this
enigmatic little symbol I revisited the ESRB site, just in case
I’d missed something. I did manage to stumble
across a button captioned “ESRBi Website Ratings.” It was
reflected in the left-hand navigation menu of a page of results that
were returned after I’d searched for info on a specific game by name.
I noticed it completely by accident.

Unfortunately, the button was linked to http://www.esrb.org/esrbiratings.asp,
which is a dead link.

Now, here’s the ESRBi
pièce de résistance. What should
I see on the “not found” page to which I was taken after
clicking on said dead link? Well, sitting in the left-hand navigation
menu, all by itself and linked to nothing, was none other than this
ESRBi rating symbol:

Doesn’t anybody
want me? <sniff>

So, do ESRBi ratings even exist? Who knows? If they do, they’re
the best kept secret I’ve run across since I found out my aunt is
really my uncle. I mean, these ratings were announced years ago.
Is anyone using them? Is anyone at ESRB monitoring their use?? Not
as far as I can tell.

While attempting to locate a functional URL for ESRBi ratings, I
discovered an Entertainment Ratings Pocket Guide released jointly
by the Federal Trade Commission, National Association of Attorneys
General, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention of
the U.S. Dept. of Justice, and YWCA of the U.S.A. that reflects all ESRBi ratings: ECI (Early Childhood Interactive, age 3+), EI (Everyone
Interactive, age 6+), TI (Teen Interactive, age 13+), MI (Mature
Interactive, age 17+), and AOI (Adults Only Interactive, no age reflected).
Unfortunately, this document is undated.

Permit me a question. Can anyone even imagine a three-year-old playing
a Massively Multiplayer Online Game? I sure can’t…

I also discovered information about ESRBi ratings in Appendix D
of the previously discussed FTC report Marketing Violent Entertainment
to Children (September 2000). This document reflects a link entitled
ESRBi — About the ESRBi Ratings System (http://www.esrb.org/esrbi/about.html).
Well, guess what? That one’s dead, too.

Neither the Entertainment
Ratings Guide at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/misc/rateguide.htm nor the “About the Ratings” page at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/ratings/ratings.htm,
both part of the FTC Website on Entertainment Ratings at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/ratings/index.html,
makes mention of ESRBi ratings (nor do they reflect the new ESRB
category “E10+”).

A Google search for ESRBi yielded some additional links. Here’s
a sampling:

(1) http://www.esrb.net/online.asp. Dead.
(2) http://www.esrb.org/code/. Led to the top page of the ESRB
site, where nothing is reflected concerning ESRBi.
(3) http://www.media-awareness.ca/….
Page contained ESRBi link leading to top page of ESRB site.
(4) http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/448017_7. Dead.

I was starting to feel as if my brain were going dead, such is the
mind-numbing effect of navigating through such a ridiculous labyrinth
in search of ratings information. I wonder why these particular ratings
are so cloaked in secrecy? I would ask the ESRB, but they still haven’t
answered my first three emails.

I did unearth something
about ESRBi ratings and online gaming sites in the Mediawise® 1998
Video and Computer Game Report Card. The following appears in that
document under Internet Gaming Safety (the
emphasis is mine):

“We reviewed this
for the first time because there is so much growth in Internet
gaming. Increasingly producers and distributors
offer game samples that can be downloaded and played by youngsters.
There has also been a tremendous amount of growth in the on-line
gaming market, where participants either download or purchase software,
enabling them to play the game with other players on the Internet.

“The Entertainment
Software Rating Board has developed a standardized rating system
for all interactive entertainment software, called
the ESRBI (Entertainment Software Rating Board Interactive) ratings.
Its information specifically identifies game sites as appropriate
for this interactive rating system.“

The report goes on to
say that “None of the on-line game sites
examined carried the ESRBI ratings. One site did display a warning
that it was an adult site.” The grade awarded by Mediawise to
online gaming sites in 1998 is “F.”

Unfortunately, subsequent Mediawise report cards make no mention
of the ESRBi rating system, and I’ve been unable to discover anything,
anywhere, more recent than 2001 concerning these ratings. Further,
I haven’t seen anything saying that ESRBi ratings were discontinued,
became extinct, suddenly vanished from the face of the planet, were
abducted by aliens, or anything else. Everything just stops in 2001.
(Gee, I wonder if that monolith had something to do with it?)

Okay — who took the ESRBi ratings? I’m going to lock all of the
doors and not let anyone leave until somebody admits to it and gives
them back. I’m waiting…(standing with arms crossed, tapping foot)…

Or, could interactive
ratings have been replaced across the board by “Game Experience My Change During Online Play” (wording
I mentioned earlier in this article), without regard to age-appropriateness?
If that’s the case, few MMOG sites reflect this wording, and some
reflect age-appropriateness in the form of “regular” ESRB
ratings.How is this hit-and-miss approach supposed to help parents
and other adults determine which MMOGs may be appropriate for children
to play?

Is it any wonder, in the midst of this chaos, that so many people
don’t understand video game ratings? If I were a parent attempting
to get reliable information about a game my kid wanted to play and
I ran into this kind of thing, I believe I’d be screaming so loud
that people at the ESRB and FTC would be able to hear me just by
opening a window.

~EVERQUEST ADDICTION, SUICIDE, AND YES, JACK THOMPSON

In 1999, 989 Studios/Verant
Interactive (acquired by Sony Online Entertainment [SOE] in 2000)
released a fantasy MMORPG called EverQuest
Live, the current incarnation being its sequel, EverQuest
II. Such
is the addictive nature of this game that it’s been nicknamed “EverCrack.” Some
of EverQuest‘s 400,000+ registered players even call it that.

As of December 6, 2005,
the ESRB site reflected a total of 25 EverQuest titles, including
expansion packs. All carried a “T” rating
for such things as “Violence, Blood & Gore, Suggestive Themes,
Use of Alcohol.” None of the ESRB listings reflected the MMOG
disclaimer “Game Experience May Change During Online Play,” although
that language did appear on the EverQuest website.

In November 2001,
Shawn Woolley, 21, interrupted a session of EverQuest to put a
bullet in his brain. His body was discovered by his mother,
Elizabeth. The game was still up on Shawn’s computer monitor.

According to Elizabeth, Shawn had quit his job, become estranged
from his family, isolated himself in his apartment (where he lived
alone) and played EverQuest at least 12 hours a day. Shawn became
so emotionally caught up in the game that online slights or betrayals
by other players could leave him agitated, depressed, and upset to
the point of tears.

Elizabeth tried to get help for her son. A psychologist diagnosed
Shawn as suffering from depression and schizoid personality disorder.

Shawn also suffered from epilepsy. As an epileptic, he shouldn’t
have been playing the game in the first place because it triggered
seizures. (The EverQuest site does carry a photosensitive seizure
warning.)

Jay Parker, co-founder
of Internet/Computer Addiction (ICA) Services, believes that Shawn’s
mental health problems made him particularly
susceptible to online game addiction. “The manufacturer of EverQuest purposely made it in such a way that it is more intriguing to the
addict. It could be created in a less addictive way, but (that) would
be the difference between powdered cocaine and crack cocaine.”

In Shawn’s case, Parker
thinks that any number of things could have triggered his suicide. “It
may be that the character was slain in combat and Woolley had trouble
recovering him. Or, he could have
lost a treasured artifact or massive wealth, or been cast out of
one of the game’s social clubs, called guilds…The social component
is big because it gives players a false sense of relationships and
identity.”

Although Elizabeth Woolley has never denied that Shawn had serious
problems, she believes that EverQuest pushed him over the edge. In
2002, she hired lawyer Jack Thompson to file a lawsuit against Sony
Online Entertainment on her behalf. At the time, Thompson said that
he would seek a monetary amount so large that it would force SOE
to put warning labels on the game, which Thompson says Sony knows
is addictive.

Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to locate further information about
such a lawsuit, so I don’t know if one was ever filed. During the
considerable time I spent on the EverQuest site gathering information,
however, I saw no warnings concerning the addictive nature of the
game, nor was I able to find such warnings on the game’s box, jewel
case, or software.

Elizabeth Woolley went on to form On-Line Gamers Anonymous (OLGA/OLG-Anon),
a support group modeled after the 12-step program Alcoholics Anonymous.
The group is open not only to online game addicts, but to their families
and friends. As of December 6, 2005, had 1854 registered members.
If you’d like a real eye-opener, have a look at the group’s message
board, which is accessible from the site’s top page at http://www.olganon.org/index.htm.

Support groups have also popped up that deal specifically with EverQuest addiction, including a Yahoo group called EverQuest Widows. As of
December 6, 2005, the group — which was founded June 16, 2000 —
had 6408 members.

Interesting side note:
While perusing the EverQuest II Help Section, I discovered a link
to The Children’s Onine Privacy Protection Act
(COPPA) FAQ. It explains that effective April 21, 2000, COPPA dictated “that
web sites must not collect, use or disclose the personal information
of children under the age of 13 without parental permission.”

Now, keep in mind that
EverQuest II is rated “T,” age
13+. The above page goes on to say that EverQuest premium players
under the age of 13 would need to have their parents contact customer
service in order to switch the accounts from their children’s names
to their own adult names, and if this was not done, the accounts
would be deactivated.

Here is where it gets really interesting (the emphasis is mine)…

Question: “What do
I do if I registered with an incorrect birth date?”

Answer: “If you are
13 years old or older and have entered your birth date incorrectly,
go to My Account Info and click on View
or change the information you entered to register and then click
on Change your registration information. From there, you can update
your account with the proper information before April 20th.

“This will ensure
that your account will not be deactivated.”

It seems to me that this
could be interpreted as an invitation (wink, wink) for the under-13
crowd to do an “Oops, I got really mixed
up about the year I was born while I was registering” and suddenly
become older than 13. Now, I realize the COPPA issue goes back a
few years and maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it seems odd
to me that this information would still be posted on the site over
five years after the window for the requested actions had closed.
It could sure give people under 13 who want to register for the first
time ideas about providing a date of birth that makes them older
than 13 (not that they can’t figure this out for themselves, but
you never know). This would also keep things between SOE and the
subscriber, with parents shut out of the loop.

I did find some current
info about age limitations in the Everquest site’s COPPA
and Privacy Notice, which says that memberships are
no longer extended to children under 13. But the stated reason is
COPPA itself, not the fact that EverQuest II is T-rated.
While SOE does participate in the ESRB Online Privacy Policy, I saw
no mention
of ratings enforcement.

Altogether, I waded through 10 pages of fine (and I do mean fine)
print associated with EverQuest Online. By the time I was finished,
my eyes were about to liquefy and start running down my face. It
makes me wonder how many parents actually take time read all of this
stuff.

Let’s revisit Eve
Online for a minute. Its Website Terms of Use
Agreement states that the minimum age required to use the site is
13, and by continuing to use the site you represent that you are
13 or older. It also says the following:

“The age requirements differ from country to country. If you
are under 20 years of age, you may need to obtain the permission
of your parent(s) or legal guardian to use the Web Site. We strongly
suggest that you check your local, state, province, country or regional
legal restrictions that may be applicable to your use of the Web
Site.” (Of course, one needn’t check any of this in the U.S.,
because we all know that any attempt to legally restrict access to
video games will automatically run headlong into the First Amendment
and break its little skull.)

I found no mention of ratings enforcement by CCP. But to its credit,
the Eve Online website does carry an addiction warning. As previously
mentioned, there is no such warning on the EverQuest site.

Regarding MMOGs and young children, I have to ask the same question
that I asked in the section about online vendors. What’s to keep
kids from lying about their ages when they sign up for this type
of game? And I’ll repeat the same short answer: nothing.

~ONLINE GAME ADDICTION IS APPARENTLY A REAL THING

It may seem that I’m getting a little off-topic here, but please
bear with me. Although I haven’t discovered any data that links MMOGs
to violence against others in the real world, they have been considered
a factor in loss of life (not only by suicide, either) and other
serious damage. The worst offender in this area appears to be (you
guessed it) EverQuest.

Take Mary Christina Cordell, for instance. On August 8, 2003, as
she was playing EverQuest, her 3-year-old daughter suffocated in
Cordell’s car. Cordell was charged with felony manslaughter.

ICA Services’ Jay Parker says he once had a client who played EverQuest for 36 straight hours and started hallucinating that the characters
had come out of his computer and were chasing him down the street.
He actually ran through his neighborhood trying to get away from
them.

Some EverQuest players have lost their jobs and families. Some stop
bathing, wear the same clothes for weeks at a time, and leave dirty
dishes piled in the sink. Others eat little and sleep even less.

For an up-close-and-personal account of the dark side of EverQuest,
see EverQuest: What You Really Get From an Online Game, at http://slashdot.org/articles/02/12/27/1748252.shtml?tid=127c.
Additionally, a rather scholarly treatment of EverQuest addiction
can be found in Ever on EverQuest, at http://www.geocities.com/michaeljosephhines/everquest.pdf.

I’ve also read about folks
who have played MMOGs for so many consecutive hours that they’ve
dropped dead. On August 9, 2005, for example,
a 28-year-old man in Seoul, South Korea suffered terminal heart failure
after having played unspecified online battle sims at an Internet
café for 50 hours straight. The cause of death was presumed
by authorities to have been exhaustion.

In another incident in
South Korea — this one occurring at a Kwangji Internet café in
October 2002 — a 24-year-old man collapsed and died after having
played Half-Life: Counter-Strike (Valve Corporation/Sierra
On-Line) for 86 hours straight. Ten days later, after 32 hours of
gaming, a 27-year-old South Korean died en route to the hospital.

Brief aside: There are
over 25,000 cyber cafés (also known
as “PC bangs”) and 4 million online gamers in the Republic
of Korea. This nation also has more available broadband than any
other country.

On November 1, 2005, it
was reported by the Chinese website Xinhuanet.com that a female
gamer had died in October 2005 after having played
World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment) for “several continuous
days.” The following week saw the death of yet another “game
enthusiast” following a marathon session. The article goes on
to say that “7 major domestic game makers have agreed to install
an anti-obsession system on eleven online game products. The system
entered a trial period on October 20.”

On July 03, 2005, Wired
News reported that “China’s first officially
government licensed clinic of Internet addiction” had opened
in Beijing. Dr. Tao Ran, the director of the clinic, “estimates
that up to 2.5 million Chinese suffer from Internet addiction, although
others are skeptical.” Treatment includes electroshock therapy.

A BBC News article dated
October 10, 2005 further quotes Dr. Ran: “Every
day in China, more than 20 million youngsters go online to play games
and hit the chat rooms, and that means that internet addiction among
young people is becoming a major issue here.”

You know, all of this
makes me wonder why the ESRB (or somebody) hasn’t addressed addiction
to MMOGs and come up with some kind of
standard warning label about it. It also makes me wonder why, considering
the addiction potential of MMOGs and the possible consequences of
such an addiction, most are given a “T” rather than “M” or “AO” ratings.
Unfortunately, this probably wouldn’t help folks such as the ones
I’ve mentioned who were in their 20s when they went to such gaming
extremes that it killed them, but I do wish I could ask the ESRB
about stuff like this and get some answers.

~DECEPTICIDE

Wanna hear something sick? On November 14, 2000, a message was posted
on an EverQuest fan site saying that player Sheyla Morrison, 19,
had committed suicide after having been let go as a volunteer EverQuest game guide. She was said to have been depressed, unemployed, and
obsessed with the game.

The news of Sheyla’s suicide spread quickly, showing up on message
boards across the Internet. People — especially those who had known
her online — were shocked.

Well, guess what? The whole thing turned out to be a hoax. Not only
had there not been a suicide, there had never been a person named
Sheyla Morrison.

This deception had been perpetrated by a married couple, with the
husband playing the part of Sheyla, and the wife taking on the role
of Jolena, Sheyla’s sister and fellow EverQuest player.

Why did these people use fake personas to play the game? Search
me. But the reason for the bogus suicide is allegedly this: the couple
had split up, and the husband staged Sheyla’s suicide as a ploy to
get custody of their daughter. He had intended to claim that his
wife was the one who had perpetrated the hoax, thus revealing that
she was unstable and unfit for motherhood. Good freakin’ grief.

~I’M STARTING TO THINK THAT EVEN WRITING ABOUT EVERQUEST IS ADDICTIVE

Just when I thought it
was safe to move on, I stumbled across something else that I feel
I must mention. It concerns a website called KidzWorld
which, according to the KidzWorld Media corporate page, “[i]s
the ultimate online entertainment for kids nine to 14 (a.k.a. Tweens)…KidzWorld
is a safe and secure portal to the best the web has to offer. Parents
can be confident that KidzWorld is an online global community providing
only positive experiences.”

The site offers a section
on games, including game reviews. Of the five games featured on
the review page when I visited, three were
rated “T” (13+), making them inappropriate for 67% of the
site’s target audience.

One of the games reviewed by KidzWorld is EverQuest. The review
starts thusly:

“It’s better than
good, it’s a digital addiction. People have ditched school, missed
practice, even skipped dessert to play this
game. It’s started fights, split up friends and sucked up more spare
time than TV.”

This kind of thing is considered safe, secure and positive? Not
from where I sit. KidzWorld rates Everquest four joysticks, which
I presume must be favorable.

I then came across something
called an “Everquest Rant” entitled
Suspended From Everquest. The kid who wrote it had let a friend use
his password in violation of SOE’s Terms of Service, and was upset
because his account had been suspended. The kid was 12 years old.

With that, I hope not to write another thing about EverQuest…well…ever.

PART XV

~NEW LEGISLATION IN ILLINOIS

On May 28, 2005, legislation to restrict the sale of violent (and
sexually explicit) video games to minors, already approved by the
Illinois Senate, received final approval via the state House of Representatives.
The bill is entitled the Safe Games Illinois Act. Governor Rod R.
Blagojevich confirmed that he would sign it into law. It was to have
gone into effect on January 1, 2006 (see next section for update).

I feel the need to address a couple of potentially confusing points
about this legislation. By this time, what else would you expect
of me?

The law carries a $1000
fine for retailers that either rent or sell violent or sexually
explicit games to children under 18. Please note,
however, that games rated “M” by the ESRB are deemed inappropriate
for those under 17. Why the age difference, I wonder? Could this
not represent an unnecessary complication?

This might a good time
to point out something that’s been bugging me throughout my research
on video games: a lot of the material I’ve
read has used the word “minor” without defining it. I’ve
even done it in this article when referring to such material.

According to Merriam-Webster
Online, a minor is “a person who
has not attained majority.” The age of majority is determined
by state governments and is either 18, 19 or 21.

Once a person reaches
the age of majority, that person has attained legal adulthood.
This carries with it the ability to vote, enter
into legal contracts, make a valid will, buy alcohol, and enlist
in the armed forces. I don’t know of a place in the U.S. that considers
legal majority to be reached at age 17.

The ESRB does have an
Adults Only (AO) category for games “that
should only be played by persons 18 years and older.” Between
1996 and 2004, only 18 AO-rated games were released. The only title
I’ve heard of is Vivendi Universal’s Leisure Suit Larry: Magna
Cum Laude Uncut and Uncensored (PC), released 08/13/2004. (An M-Rated
version was also released for PC, PS2 and XBOX).

I’ve examined the front
and back covers of the game boxes of both versions of LSL:
Magna Cum Laude. Aside from the ratings, the only
differences between them are that the AO-rated
version has the words “Uncut and Uncensored” in place of
the revealing halter tops worn on the M-rated version by two generously
endowed blondes who bookend Larry’s face, and images on the back
of the AO-rated version are ever-so-slightly more suggestive. I saw
nothing to indicate full nudity or sex scenes in the AO version’s
packaging. In fact, ESRB content descriptors are identical for both
the M and AO-rated versions of the game. How does this help people
know the difference between the two versions? Well, it doesn’t.

Be that as it may, no
one is talking about AO-rated games. Everyone is concentrating
on M-rated games, saying they shouldn’t be sold
to “minors.” So, does that mean people under age 17, 18,
19, or 21?

Update! On July 20, 2005,
the ESRB revoked GTA: San Andreas‘ “M” rating,
replacing it with “AO.” See GRAND THEFT AUTO: SAN ANDREAS
HITS THE FAN a little further along in this article.

Here’s something else
I’ve been wondering. According to the ESRB, M-rated titles “may contain intense violence, blood and gore,
sexual content, and/or strong language,” and AO-rated titles “may
include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual
content and nudity.” Well, considering there’s only a one-year
difference between the “M” and “AO” ratings,
is something profound supposed to happen during that year that enables
18-year-olds to handle prolonged intense violence, graphic sexual
content, and nudity where 17-year-olds cannot? If so, I don’t remember
it happening to me. But, come to think of it, I could always handle
prolonged intense violence and graphic sexual content and nudity.
Never mind.

Further, why are blood, gore and strong language omitted from the
AO description? I mean, couldn’t a game contain those things and prolonged intense violence/graphic sexual stuff? I dunno…maybe
I’m just splitting hairs. But as we know, these kinds of details
can drive me nuts.

Anyway, the Safe Games
Illinois Act also mandates something that you’ll know, if you’ve
read this whole article so far, is one of
my favorite things: a task force “to gather information on the
impact of violent and sexually explicit video games, develop strategies
for parents, and give recommendations to the Governor.”

Oh, joy. Another study. Maybe the task force should hook up with
Hillary Clinton.

The law also calls for retailers to appropriately label the games
they sell, and states specific penalties for not doing so, as follows:

“A retailer’s
failure to properly label games or place proper signs [explaining
the ratings system] is punishable by a $500
fine for the first three violations and a $1,000 fine for every subsequent
violation.”

Well, it’s my understanding that the ESRB assigns ratings to games
submitted by publishers, who then reflect the ratings on the games’
packaging. The Illinois legislation isn’t clear about whether retailers
are to assign a second rating, or what. If retailers are to assign
their own ratings, this raises the question of which particular person
should be doing the rating, and would appear to mean that at least
one person at every retailer would have to play every game (or at
least every M-rated one) sold by that retailer.

Whatever the case, the
legislation does reflect specific definitions of “violent” games and “sexually explicit” games.
But I feel that this further obscures already murky waters, because
these definitions are not aligned with with ESRB ratings/content
descriptors.

In the Illinois law, “violent” games are defined as “those
that include depictions of human-on-human violence in which the player
kills, or otherwise causes serious physical harm to another human,
including depictions of death, dismemberment, amputation, decapitation,
maiming, disfigurement, mutilation of body parts, or rape.”

Using this definition, and presuming that the legislation is calling
for a second rating from retailers, what if such a rating turned
out to be substantially different from the ESRB rating? Would this
not just exacerbate the existing confusion about ratings?

I did discover a website devoted to the Act (http://www.safegamesIllinois.org),
that includes a Governor’s Initiative page. This page states that
the labeling requirement pertains to retailers and manufacturers.
I have no idea why this isn’t stated in the actual legislation, unless,
perhaps, it’s not a valid statement. Who knows?

The page goes on to say: “Parenting is hard work, and the state
has a compelling interest in helping parents raise their children
to be upstanding men and women.” Well, I’m sorry, but that statement
gives me the creeps. I sure wouldn’t want the government involved
in raising any kids of mine. (Yeah, I know that public schools, where
kids spend lots of time [or are supposed to, anyway], are government-run
— but don’t get me started.)

The page also states: “While
helpful, ESRB ratings are inadequate to put parents on notice of
each game’s contents. Nonetheless, parents
ought to be aware of ESRB ratings and how they work. Making retailers
post signs and make rating information available to parents on-site
will assist parents in making informed decisions about the games
their children play.”

So let’s see…the ratings are inadequate but parents should use
them to make informed decisions? How does that work?

I also wonder how Illinois plans to apply this law to online retailers
and MMOGs. This doesn’t seem to be mentioned anywhere — in fact,
as previously mentioned, it might not even be possible — and leaves
a yet another gaping hole through which kids can buy/play anything
they want unless their parents are paying attention (although, as
we’ve seen, some parents don’t care what kinds of video games their
kids play).

As I’ve already mentioned, this legislation has an effective date
of January 1, 2006. It remains to be seen whether it will succeed
where others have failed and survive the appeal that’s sure to be
filed.

Update: On July 25, 2005, the ESA published a press release saying
it would be filing a lawsuit later that day alleging that the Safe
Games Illinois Act is unconstitutional. The ESA will be joined in
the complaint by the Video Software Dealers Association and the Illinois
Retail Merchants Association. This came shortly after the bill was
signed into law by Governor Rod R. Blagojevich.

Allow me to interject
something regarding the First Amendment in conjunction with laws
such as the above. In seeking to restrict sales
of violent video games, no one is suggesting that game developers,
publishers, etc. be prohibited, across the board, from creating and
selling such games. These kinds of laws seek to keep inappropriate
games out of the hands of minors, much as access to “R” and “NC-17” rated
motion pictures is restricted.

I’ve done a lot of research
for this article, and I have yet to see anything suggesting that
violent video games should be banned
altogether. However, I get the impression that many who are opposed
to laws restricting access to violent games are making it sound as
though a total ban is what’s being sought. I find this similar to
the “all video games are violent” rhetoric I keep encountering.

~MORE ABOUT THAT ILLINOIS LEGISLATION…

On May 23, 2005 (prior
to the passage of the Illinois law), an editorial appeared in the
Herald & Review (Decatur, IL). Captioned Bill
does nothing, except for politicians, it exposes the bill as a political
statement that will do very little to keep violent video games out
of the hands of children. State senators who actually think the bill
is unconstitutional voted for it anyway, out of fear they would be
branded as “pro-video game violence” if they didn’t. One
senator who opposed the bill changed his mind after fifth- and sixth-graders
told him that their parents would just buy the prohibited games for
them.

The editorial goes on
to say: “[T]he responsibility for keeping
inappropriate games out of the hands of children belongs to the parents
and adults who care for these children…There is no legislation
that will cause parents to become better parents. This video game
legislation will have little actual effect, but it will give the
politicians a chance to say they did something. Unfortunately, that
was the intent of this legislation from the beginning.”

Another update (and no
surprise): On December 2, 2005, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly
shot down the Illinois law by issuing a permanent
injunction against it, saying it would violate the First Amendment
and “have a ‘chilling effect’ on the creation and distribution
of video games,” according to a Reuters story carried by CNET’s
News.com. The story goes on to say, “Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich
has vowed to appeal the decision, saying, ‘This battle is not over.'”

I wonder if anyone is taking bets on how long it will take the Michigan
and California laws, discussed in the next section, to suffer similar
fates?

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