The Need for an 18
Posted on Monday, November 16 @ 14:00:00 Eastern

In the past week footage from the upcoming Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2 (or MW2 for short) was leaked. It depicted a terrorist act and the tragic deaths that resulted. This footage has prompted the Australian authorities to reconsider the game’s MA15+ rating. MW2 is the first Call of Duty game to receive Britain’s ‘illustrious’ 18 rating but that’s in Britain. Australia is an odd country: it is reasonably developed (before anyone complains, I’m hesitant to call any country ‘developed’), its citizens are pleasant and, despite being flipped, its seasons are equally so. However, they are rather backwards in their policy towards video games. You see, despite Australia’s National Classification Code stating that “adults should be able to read, hear and see what they want” (quote obtained from wiki though don’t hold that against me), Australia lacks an 18 rating. Australian adults can vote, fight, drink and do anything any other adult in any other country can do. Except for play a violent video game.

 

This regressive stance has been called into question once more now that the biggest game of the year may be denied sale in a supposedly modern nation. I actually feel quite strongly about the ratings system governing video games and have said as much in at least two of my blogs (here and here) but I also feel that no system is perfect (also covered in the aforementioned blogs). The British PEGI system is very good with its 3, 7, 12, 16 and 18 ratings but of course no one can say if a particular 15 year old is actually too young to play a 16 rated game just as a 19 year old may still be too immature to be exposed to an 18 rated game. Similarly, who can say if a game rated 16 actually deserves that rating? What is the average 16 year old capable of experiencing without degenerating into mental instability? If there even is an average 16 year old. Of course, individually rating peoples’ maturity levels is unfeasible and a nationally accepted system is a necessity. A nice touch of the PEGI/BBFC system is that idea of explaining why a game has been given the rating it displays. Fallout 3 was given an 18 certificate because of its ‘very strong bloody violence and gore’ for instance. Of course this sometimes results in hilariously redundant descriptions such as ‘mild lyrics’ for Forza 3’s 3 rating but swings and roundabouts.

 

The potential problems of current rating systems aside, they are needed. As difficult as it would be to gauge the average maturity of any given age, a line needs to be drawn at some point and ratings systems have been given the pen. Australia’s last line is drawn at the age of 15 for gamers and this means that the line has fallen well short of what a society should bestow upon its population: the right for adults to expose themselves to material they wish to see. Adults can make hundreds of decisions each day ranging from the mundane: whether to buy bread or go without a sandwich, to the extreme: whether to join the army and go to war. To deny them the ability to decide whether to play a violent game is undeniably backwards. Of course having no ratings system would be damaging to the industry; not because kids would create new Columbines but because the pundits would leap on any tragedy as proof that games shouldn’t be violent at all. Censorship is a scary thing which does not belong in any society; adults deserve the right to choose what they view and that includes what not to view as well, a fact that tends to escape the more dedicated of Fox News viewers. Hogtying developers and forcing the ‘kiddifying’ of games is not the answer and only restricts the freedom of developers and the public.

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Bargain! Or is it?
Posted on Thursday, November 12 @ 04:58:33 Eastern

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has officially hit the shops. Of course it unofficially hit people’s doormats early due to the postal strike and a few dodgy shops surreptitiously made a couple of sales under the table because they don’t understand the concept of release dates but no matter, this blog isn’t about keeping dates.

 

I am British so I have no idea how things have happened elsewhere but everything in this blog is accurate (or conjecture if I say it is) for England. There are two main dedicated game shops in the UK: Gamestation (the good) and Game (the bad and the ugly). These two stores, which are owned by the same company, deal in games, consoles and game related peripherals. Aside from HMV, to a smaller extent places like WHSmith and ill-fated stores like Zavvi, these places are the ones you go to in order to purchase games on the high street. In the run up to MW2’s release people were frequently enquiring as to its price. Activision eventually set its RRP at a wallet busting £54.99 (games are regularly priced at £39.99 if you need some perspective) and, in order to stay competitive, actual store prices remained vague until much nearer the date of release. Supermarkets broke the unwritten rules and widely publicised that they would be selling the game for far less than Activision’s (admittedly unreasonable) asking price, we’re talking around £26 here.

 

The prices supermarkets have sold MW2 at are actually lower than their cost per unit meaning they lose money for each copy sold. The method behind this madness is to get customers through the door in the hope that they will buy things other than the game. Obviously dedicated games stores cannot hope to match such prices and so they have set their price at £44.99.

 

What the supermarkets are doing is devaluing the brand, and not just the brand but also gaming as a whole. By selling games so cheaply they are anchoring undeservedly low prices in consumer’s heads not to mention forcing dedicated retailers to create more and more extravagant deals to counter bargain basement prices. Of course competition is a good thing and prevents monopolies from being formed (incidentally, during Game’s takeover of Gamestation they were prevented from changing the Gamestation brand for that reason) but supermarkets are not interested in stimulating the games market. Their sole aim is to get foot traffic through their doors and by offering games at prices lower than what they bought each unit for they are guaranteed a stampede on launch day.

 

You may wonder what the downside to this situation is: customers have more places to buy games from, the ones who turn up in time to grab a bargain from supermarkets walk away with more change in their pocket and retailers offer better deals to compete but the truth is they can’t compete (try opening a lemonade stand selling lemonade at a 5p loss per glass and see how far you go) and setting expectations for game prices to £26 only mean that the work and money which goes into creating the AAA titles of today is harder to repay. Low prices are important but if prices are undercut like this for every title it simply means developers and publishers will be more reluctant to heavily fund the big titles of tomorrow.

 

Supermarkets cutting game prices so much just to get people to buy their groceries is a dirty tactic and treats the gaming market as bait. The low price devalues the brand but the act itself devalues the industry as a whole and just because the supermarkets can afford to do this from a monetary perspective it doesn’t mean they should.

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Games Are Not Art: A Rebuttal
Posted on Thursday, October 22 @ 06:45:51 Eastern

Melaisis made the meandering claim that games are art but not in the traditional sense. This is an idea that I can get on board with but his reasoning to lead to such a conclusion cries out to be debated.

 

“Games are art” is an enormously all-encompassing blanket statement and one that should, perhaps, not be uttered. After all, it’s difficult to see how Big Momma’s House, The Pussycat Dolls and It’s Not What You Think (written by ginger nut Chris Evans) could possibly be described as art and in the same sense we shouldn’t try to claim that Gears of War is a work of art either. Although Melaisis brought things down to accessibility it is plain to see that the above film, band and book are all easily accessible. It is difficult to describe just what makes something a work of art since art, by nature, is subjective, but watching Martin Lawrence parade himself around in a fat suit for two hours isn’t it, in fact it may be slightly perverse.

 

Instant accessibility is nice, it’s nice enough to have made the internet what it is today (so perhaps it only masquerades as ‘nice’ and is actually as twisted as a pig’s tail). However, pieces, whether they’re music, film, book, game or painting, described as ‘works of art’ are often not easily accessible. Many people see A Clockwork Orange as a violent depiction of the youth rather than the harsh judgement of humanity it actually is. This lack of understanding carries over for many great works of art; viewing a piece of art is easy but understanding it remains elusive to certain individuals. So perhaps true art is actually inaccessible for those who wish not to spend time prying open their outward facade?

 

Using that assumption it would not be a huge leap to say games are art because of their inherent inaccessibility. Working through Metal Gear Solid with its innovative use of controller ports and cigarettes might render Sniper Wolf’s scene even more gratifying. Perhaps Braid’s puzzles only enhance its reputation as an arty game. Maybe art is the reward gamers struggle towards?

Melaisis says as much in his blog but he also indicates that this should not be the case by proposing the removal of the ‘game’ part of a video game. Games like Fahrenheit, and soon Heavy Rain attempt to create interactive experiences where the plot unfolds as a direct result of the user’s actions. There are no repercussions for failure; the plot simply ends in a different way. While this is an excellent idea and makes the game more accessible to the less able or willing it is also an idea that is not translatable to all games. Can you imagine a Metal Gear Solid 4 where Snake just gives up? An Uncharted 2 where Drake gives in to temptation? A Super Mario Brothers where Mario just ignores Princess Peach? Removing the challenge of these games dilutes the message and removes the entire reason for the game.

 

If people don’t want to sit through a game for the experience of playing it then that’s fine but such a reaction is a reflection of their own shortcomings rather than the game’s. Impatience has led them to miss out on Mass Effect’s glorious story, Abe’s Exodus’ obscene and unconventional humour and LittleBigPlanet’s endearing charms. The art of these games is ripe for the taking but requires the takers to possess certain attributes. Similarly paintings require viewers to possess sufficient cognitive faculties to understand the underlying message, films need their viewers to understand the concept of the metaphor and books want readers to understand complex sentences and creative word structure. Art is not about accessibility so much as it is about conveying a message in an unorthodox way.

 

Video games can be art. Braid, the Metal Gear Solid series, Final Fantasy 7, LittleBigPlanet, Mass Effect, even Bioshock, prove as much. But for every beautiful game there is another that just cannot be classed as art thanks to its penchant for unnecessary violence, generic game play or lack of decent message. These games are not necessarily bad but they are also not art. So yes, video games can be art, but they don’t have to be.

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PSPass Go, spend £200+
Posted on Monday, October 5 @ 11:37:53 Eastern

So, the PSP Go is out now and has been for a couple of days. I had a hands on go with Sony’s new iteration of the PSP a few weeks ago when Mr Sony popped into a shop I was ...   read more...

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TV shows described in 200 words or less
Posted on Sunday, May 3 @ 14:26:26 Eastern

Desperate Housewives

Desperate Housewives follows the lives of two babes, two wives and one conniving b**** after the suicide of their friend. The first season follows their stories as they come to terms with said friend's death and try to...   read more...

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Scapegoating - are we doing ourselves any favours?
Posted on Thursday, March 12 @ 09:49:28 Eastern

Any gamer should be aware of their favourite media being used as a scapegoat for... everything. We have been at the sharp end for every school shooting ever featured on the nightly news, for the perceived increase in knife crime,...   read more...

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YouTube Translated
Posted on Thursday, February 5 @ 05:31:24 Eastern

YouTube is a bastion of violent retardation. While I’m sure there are well educated people who choose to visit the internet’s video central walking through the YouTube portal is kind of like experiencing a temporary l...   read more...

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What not to do during a zombie apocalypse
Posted on Tuesday, December 30 @ 08:31:09 Eastern

We’ve all planned what we would do during a zombie apocalypse. If you’re anything like my mates when drunk you’ve decided on several contingencies to ensure you will know what to do at the vari...   read more...

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The future of game media
Posted on Monday, August 18 @ 17:33:04 Eastern

Gaming's come a long way in every way imaginable, but I'm here to talk about one in particular: capacity. Back in the days of the C64 (that's Commodore 64 bits) for you whipper snappers) entire games were held on cassette tapes. NES cartridges varied...   read more...

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69 reasons why it's good to be a lesbian
Posted on Thursday, August 7 @ 07:14:24 Eastern

I'm bored, I have a little green and blue button in my browser window with SU written across it. For those of you in the know you'll understand I'm talking about the magical internet site called StumbleUpon. This website gathers information on you (t...   read more...

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