Editorial | Why are games off limits?

By Sam Coles:

There is always something within the video game industry that stirs the boiling pot that is the mainstream media and out of touch people who do not understand the medium. With the recent release of the trailer for David Cage’s upcoming interactive novel Detroit: Become Human has caused alarm to certain MPs and the head of the charity Childline. They have said this is not entertainment, when they miss the point entirely, as it is within context of a story. This brings up the question of why are video games off limits when it comes to certain subject matters.

Video games as medium have been catered for a wide selection of ages since the early 90’s, when Sega decided to market their new consoles the Mega Drive or Genesis if you’re American to an older audience. At the same time Mortal Kombat had hit the scene which caused a stir in America creating the ESRB, which age rate games in the US, this wasn’t an issue here in the UK as we had the BBFC to age rate games. When Mortal Kombat came out a lot of people were worried about their kids, but if you look at the content now you would say yes that game is clearly aimed at adults without hesitation. You have to realise that this was the early 90’s and video games were still seen as children’s toys, it wasn’t really until the mid to late 90’s where the medium started to evolve to a new story telling tool.

In 1998 games started to focus more on their stories with scenes with voice acting that had weight and emotion for the most part. The game that start this was Hideo Kojima’s smash hit Metal Gear Solid, this was a game with a story about political conspiracies and nuclear war, which was very heavy stuff for a video game at the time, yes it’s standard fair now, but you have to remember back then stories consisted of save the girl and kill the bad guy. Metal Gear Solid set the standard of how most singleplayer story focused games would be made in the future, this opened a new gateway to explore darker and more adult themes.

The early 2000’s came around and we got new consoles in the form of the PS2, Xbox and GameCube, what came are new slew of singleplayer games with new and darker stories. The game that comes to mind from this period is Max Payne; this game got a lot attention when it came out due to its dark story with Max’s wife and new born son being murdered by drug addicts. The story saw Max fall into the void of whiskey and painkillers, parents at the time were not use to seeing a story like this in a video game and were not happy despite the game being rated a 15+ here and M for mature in the US. The PS2 and Xbox were heavily marketed to the more mature audience from 16 all the way up to 30+, Max Payne solidified this with its dark tale it showed it is a new way to convey a story.

Once we got to the Xbox 360 and PS3 technology began to evolve at a rapid rate and game developers where able to utilise motion capture and facial animations to convey convincing emotions. Games that really standout from this period are Metal Gear Solid 4, The Last of Us and Red Dead Redemption, these are games that had weight and emotion touching on taboo subjects like human trafficking in war, coping with the loss of a child and redemption from a life crime to only to be betrayed. These games have weight to them with gameplay to back up the context with sharp writing and excellent acting from veterans of the industry or people who new to video game acting.

No one said a word about these games when they came out because they were clearly aimed adults, at the time of Red Dead’s release I was 17 so I wasn’t old enough to buy the game but my parents were very liberal and never censored me from art. I’m not saying that you should let kids play any game but maybe have a discussion about the themes as that is what my parents did, which they would then judge if I was mature enough to handle the themes, you should never try to hide these things from younger audiences.

Here we are in the current generation of gaming, which honestly we have pushed the boat out with certain subjects such as Mafia III which had the courage to explore the racism of the Deep South during the 60’s as they did not shy away from the language used at the time. Even the latest Wolfenstein game explored domestic violence with B.J’s past with his horrible and racist father, so why should Detroit Become Human be an exception and off limits? I think it’s a medium that the older generation still don’t understand, as it is still relatively young, it was the same thing with movies, books and comics. Should David Cage change the scene in the game? Absolutely not, it is a horrible thing that happens in real life, this game does not glorify it, it brings awareness to the situation, Childline should be praising this not condemning it, and it is well acted and is done in a tasteful manner.

This is just the latest example of the out of touch ninnies trying to say that video games are corrupting youth despite their being evidence countering this. Video games are new medium of telling stories, these can be dark tales of revenge, violence and drugs or it can be more cheerful no matter the subject it’s a medium that is starting to surpass films with storytelling to the younger generation.