This document will discuss, Censorship in video games, how it is regulated and how it affects today's culture, and whether or not the current rating system is still effective or does it need to be completely reworked.
This will be done by talking about a small number of the rating systems for games across the world some of which are the UK’s and the USA’s rating systems and how they are used.
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This essay will also include why we censor our video games, and who is in control of this censorship.
This will then lead to some news stories of where censorship was used and caused an uproar within the gaming community as well as some instances of where games have either failed to censor a game for one reason or another.
Finally, this will be rounded off with where censorship is headed and what should be changed according to what's happened in the past and where it is headed now.
What is censorship?
Censorship as defined by the English dictionary states “The suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.”
Censorship on a social level could be discussed as being different as censorship in general can be taken a few ways one of which is banning games from the public an extreme example of this is China.
They are incredibly well known for censoring most of if not all media that is made this would include Google, Facebook, and Youtube as some big web-based products they also ban video games such as ‘Player Unknown Battlegrounds (PUBG,2017) and many more show by this list of recent games banned in China “China’s newly set-up integrity committee targets esports games in the country, banning PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite, with rumors about League of Legends and Overwatch swirling. While the news has been picked by several respected sources, the media is treading carefully still. Here’s what we know.”(Mike Johnson,2018) This is very common in China as they are all under tight watch from the government.
The Governing bodies that decide on what and how to censor a game are different from place to place, In one country a game could be rated and a lower age bracket in another place making it more accessible in the local community and could be deemed more socially acceptable whereas it could be the opposite in another place.
In the UK they have the PEGI (Pan European Game Information) system, which started back in 2003. This is the system that is used within the United Kingdom the rating starts from PEGI3 to PEGI18(adult) This basically covers the age rating from 3-18. (PEGI,2003)
In the UK the PEGI rating system is now legally enforceable and could be prosecuted under the full extent of the law making it harder for younger gamers to play the games they want and giving the parents control over whether or not their child would be allowed to play an over aged game(BBC,2012).
The PEGI rating system has symbols that describe what is included in the game so you don't have a block of text to know what is in the game this could include such symbols as e.g. gambling, sexual content, bad language, and towards the end of 2018 they added a symbol for in-game purchases also known as microtransactions (PEGI,2003)
Above are some examples of these symbols that you may find in a game this is by no means all of them.
In the USA they have the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) system.
This system is used within the united states and the rating goes from everyone to ‘Adults Only’ this means it goes for a slightly higher rating than the UK. (ESRB,1994)
Unlike with the Pegi rating the ESRB has no federal law over whether a game could be sold to a minor this means it's much looser and not just down to parents but down to the ethics of the retailer because if there is no law being enforced to stop them selling it though it would mostly give the shop a bad reputation which is the main reason to stop them from selling Adult only games to a 10-year-old. (ESRB,1994)
In the same way that the PEGI rating system has very similar symbols to give an illustration of what is in the game the ESRB doesn't have pictures but do have written descriptions giving a more throw description of the contents of the game some of there are
- Alcohol Reference - Reference to and/or images of alcoholic beverages.
- Mature Humor - Depictions or dialogue involving 'adult' humor, including sexual references
- Simulated Gambling - Player can gamble without betting or wagering real cash or currency (ESRB,1994)
Another point to note is that there are far more descriptors of themes in games than in the PEGI system making this system more true to telling the audience what is in the game but is held back by no federal law.
In Australia, they have the ACB (Australian Classification Board)
This system is used within Australia and the rating goes from general to restricted (x) this is more in line with the USA’s regulatory system. (ACB,1970)
Like the PEGI there is a law behind it and the retailers would get into legal trouble if there were caught selling over-aged games to minors.
Unlike both the other two rating systems talked about there are no content descriptions at all this means that there is no descriptive information on the game's box giving people less information on what's in the game. Saying this they are more strict and tight on their rating systems, as they are the only one out of these three to ban a game recently.
Why do we have censorship and what is its aim
There are quite a few reasons that we have censorship in games, This is such a broad topic as there are different reasons for censorship depending on where you go china, for instance, censors all social media as they want to know what information is coming in, and out of there country to places like the UK and USA who just censored for political and social reasons as it could have a bed effect on society if a game glorifies murder or displays sexual content to someone who is not at an age to see it.
Below are some examples of some real stories and how they are dealt with to really show the aim of why we censor our media.
Hidden in the game ‘GTA San Andreas’(rock*,2004) code there was an unused mission where the player would have sex with an NPC (non-playable character) in quite a graphic way causing an uproar in the community and being one of the reasons that games need to be regulated and rated” Jack Thompson and other anti-gaming advocates denounced the Hot Coffee mod in the media as if it were an existing feature of the game that children could easily stumble across. This led to the game being pulled from stores across the USA and re-rated as AO (Adults Only) by the ESRB (already an 18 in the UK). Rockstar was forced to permanently remove this feature and they soon released a non-modifiable 2nd edition of GTA San Andreas, which regained the M rating.”(gtawiki, current).
Because of all these reasons these regulatory systems are to restrict specifically thematic content from particular demographics of society making it so specific games are regulated and games like ‘Hatred’ (hatred,2015)don't make it into the public as a game where the whole premise is just murder, though it is not classified as banned but it did get an Adult Only rating and banned from consoles (Xbox and PlayStation)” An ‘AO’ rating from the ESRB is usually commercial death for a video game. It means major US retailers won’t stock it and consoles like PlayStation and Xbox won’t allow it”.(Keith Stuart,2015)
Another way we censor our games on a community level is when a school or church banns a game from being played by the community saying they're talking about it too much or they feel it's causing ill effects this happened when some bring in religious beliefs saying it will take your immortal soul away “Be warned naive and innocent gamers – Satan wants your soul so very badly, that he is using videogames and the publishers who release them to tighten his grip on your life force.
That’s according to the author of an article in the Philadelphia family paper The Bulletin, which claims video games are aimed at destroying Christian values.” This shows that some communities are so hell-bent on not liking video games or believe there bad they try and get them banned from their community because some communities are so tight nit that if a person's figurehead statue says they feel it should be banned the community normally follows.
Criticism is the rating system
As with all the positives with the rating systems it has also received lots of backlash and has also been seen in a light where it could be seen as not a very good system as shown by the many stories and issues talked about below.
The first one is downloading games online, This is fairly new in the age of the internet but what it is, is that players can download games from a platform called Steam and play their games. The issue with it is that they are practically no regulations all they ask for is your birthdate each time you want to look at an adult game and they do not check if you are telling the truth or not making it so any kid who knows what a birth date older than 18 can do this and perches the game(steam,2019)
As you can see this is the only blockade that is stopping minors get hold of these games digitally.
This is down to technology advancing faster than the regulatory system can keep up because now as stated above it is so incredibly easy to lie and have full access to the game and with children becoming smarter and smarter parental locks with become obsolete as the child will be able to unlock them at will unannounced to their parents.
One public uproar that was put to light was when the ‘Mortal Kombat’ game was banned and refused classification the video game will be impossible to sell as a media-based product need a rating system on it for it to be shelved and sold this happened back in 2011 with the current ‘Mortal Kombat (2011)’(WB Games,2011 ) for the time that the game was too violent for Australia’s audiences to view as stated by an ign article that the games classification will not be given in Australia “The highly anticipated video game Mortal Kombat, published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE) in Australia, has been refused classification by the Australian Classification Board and will not release in Australia”(IGN,2011).
This stopped an entire nation from playing this game as it was 100% unavailable causing mass censorship from the entire of Australia.
One penultimate point to state on the decline of the rating systems is that parents are buying overrated games for these children this defeats the purpose of having ratings if the parents are buying it for them at a young age.” “Most parents think their child is mature enough so that these games will not influence them,' Modulum researcher Jurgen Freund told a games conference”(BBC,2018) This shows that the reason is that parents are making a judgment call to decide whether it is appropriate for their children.
Finally, ad revenue on games is not rated what this means is that a game that is rated for children might have advertisements that would contain themes of an adult nature one example being ‘Sims Freeplay’ (EA,2011) there is an ad for a game called episodes witch the ad asked the watcher whether they should sleep with this person giving a very adult choice to a 12+ game defeats the point of having an age rating if there is going to be third party content showing a much higher rating content, this is something witnessed by myself and others.
All of this shows the rating systems in a new light showing that it is not perfect and not everyone follows it, this could be a cultural thing of thinking your child is old enough at a younger age.
It also shows that in the new internet culture people are talking to one another and finding ways to play games that they probably should not.
Conclusion
After all the research done it is very obvious to say that censorship to one extent is a good thing, stopping a young society of children playing games that are unsuitable for them.
Though it is don't incredibly different across the globe with places like the UK and AU each having laws to back them to stop the wrong kinds of people from obtaining this kind of media(video games) the USA who have no laws attached to their system and just told to follow it or be at risk of getting into industry and social trouble.
Why games are censored, The hidden features of a game that was way too inappropriate caused the game's rating to change shrinking the pool of people allowed to play their game.
To have games so horrific that they are banned on many platforms and make anyone who owns that platform unable to play and is censored from it as well as communities choosing to ban the games themself.
To the lows of the rating system with today's teach age it has become almost impossible to regulate because they ask you for your age with no proof making it very easy to combat.
Going onto banned games causes an uprising stopping an entire continent from playing a game showing how wide and harsh the rating system can go as well as how poor the advertisements are on mobile games.
Finally how parents are just buying the game for their children as there feel they should decide what is appropriate for them.
All this discusses where we are with censorship in the games industry and how it is driven mostly by the politics of the community and government and how it will be hard to keep up with the rating systems still being new but with technology changing so fast they will need to keep up for risk affecting the community greatly.
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