Sex, Lies, and Video Games

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Sex, Lies, and Video Games

• A brief overview of the controversy generated by
  violence and adult content in digital games

By Ben Evans
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Violent Video Games

• Typical violent genres
• FPS/TPS (First/Third Person Shooters)
• RTS (Real-time Strategy)
• Horror/Survival

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First Person Shooters

• Notoriously violent, gory in your face
• Advances in computer graphics fuel the realism of
  the violence and gore

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Third Person Shooters

• Allows the user to see their
• Avatar
• Can be just as violent

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Real Time Strategy

• Not as In your face Violent or gory
• User often decides the fate of characters in-game

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Survival/Horror

• Rely on building suspense
• Alone in the dark feeling

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Manhunt

• Ultra-Violent stealth TPS game where the object
  is to kill gang members as violently as possible
• If the player uses the PS2 USB Microphone
  feature, the player can use the sound of his or
  her own voice to distract in-game enemies. This
  in turn added a new twist to the stealth
  elements, as the actual player would have to
  refrain from unwanted noises such as talking,
  coughing, etc. or risk creating inadvertent
  "in-game noise".
• Banned in New Zealand, Australia, Germany

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Manhunt Further Controvercy

• From BBC.com
• Warren Leblanc, 17, repeatedly stabbed
  14-year-old Stefan Pakeerah after luring him to a
  Leicester park to steal from him on 27 February.
  
• Stefan's mother, Giselle, a research nurse, had
  to leave court when the evidence in the case
  became too harrowing. Following the hearing she
  said her son's killer had mimicked a game called
  Manhunt, developed by Edinburgh-based Rockstar
  North, in which the players score points for
  violent killings.
• However
• A Leicestershire constabulary spokesperson said
  "Police investigations did not uncover any
  connections to the computer game.
• The motive for the incident was robbery.

Stefan Pakeerah
Warren Leblanc
http//news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/leicest
ershire/3538066.stm
http//news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/leicest
ershire/3934277.stm
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Violence and Video Games

• Mark Griffiths
• Nottingham Trent University
• The one consistent finding is that the majority
  of the studies on very young childrenas opposed
  to those in their teens upwardstend to show that
  children do become more aggressive after either
  playing or watching a violent video game.
  However, all of these come from the use of one
  particular research methodology (i.e.,
  observation of childrens free play).

http//cust.educ.ubc.ca/Wstudents/TSED2/TechEmotio
n/VideoGames/violence/ViolentVido99.pdf
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Is Violence Necessary?

• Not really, but adds to lusory aditude.
• More intense/exciting sometimes more fun
• Theres no such thing as bad publicity
• Still, should be marketed to more mature
  audiences.

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Games with Adult Content

• Life Simulation
• Sims, Sims 2, Singles, Singles 2, Playboy the
  Mansion

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Leisure Suit Larry

• Adventure game
• Involves sex, nudity, drugs, alcohol

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The Nude Patch

• From Wikipedia This is a software patch
  designed to modify software, usually a game to
  allow the user or gamer to see the character in
  the nude. The first such patch was designed for
  Duke Nukem 3D. Lara Croft, the voluptuous heroine
  of the Tomb Raider series, was the one to
  popularize, or promote, the nude patch

http//www.twitchguru.com/2005/08/06/getting_naked
/
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Hot Coffee

• All the contents of this mod was already
  available on the original disks.
• But all this material is completely inaccesible
  in an unmodded version of the game this
  material is only accessible after willfully
  applying the hot coffee mod (or something
  similar) to the game. http//patrickw.gtagames.nl
  /index.html

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For More Controversial Titles

• See this wikipedia article
• List of Controversial Games

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Enter the ESRB

• The Entertainment Software Rating Board
• Mission
• To provide consumers, especially parents, with
  reliable and valuable information about the age
  suitability and content of computer and video
  games so they can make informed purchase
  decisions.
• From http//www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp

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How are games rated?

• The ESRB Rates games based on a video
  representative of the gameplay
• After Hot Coffee, they instituted a 1 million
  fine for any developer or publisher that
  withholds footage from the ESRB in an attempt to
  garner a more favorable rating
• From http//arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060616
  -7076.html

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Is Adult Content Necessary?

• No
• However, the current stance in the U.S. seems
  somewhat backwards.
• We seem to covet violent media, and shun sexual
  content
• Which is really worse?
• Both can be presented in better or worse ways
• In the end, the decision should rest with the
  parents