Arrested Development

Freedom of Expression is a term that’s bandied around a lot in these days of “gore-porn”, 3-hour blockbusters, hip-hop, thrash metal, reality TV on all 400-plus channels and every other celebrity “accidentally” leaking a home-made sex-tape, and certainly it’s a term that’s really hard to quantify in terms of taste and decency. Very little seems to be off-limits in this world of mixed media entertainment – until, of course, videogames are brought to the fore.
While the PC Brigade go bat-shit crazy to ban “mind-warping” games featuring partial nudity or intentionally over-the-top violence, it’s perfectly ok to sit and watch air-headed glamour models toss racist sleights around a certain house in Elstree, or else download videos of happy-slapping chavs for free on the largely age-restriction-less YouTube.

Of course, real artistic freedom allows for all of the above and far, far worse. It means that if there’s a possible way to channel a certain thought – no matter how crude, crass or disturbing – into some kind of entertainment medium, then you should be free to do so. And this is where the balance has gone horribly off-kilter, where the difference between movies, books, music and games is most shockingly apparent. The question is whether or not there’s a real need to go so PC-mad over videogames – are they, when compared to any other form of entertainment media, really that bad at all?

Take the Grand Theft Auto series (to use a shamelessly obvious example). How can it be that a franchise like this can garner such ridiculous levels of controversy and evoke such disgusted outcry from parents, do-gooders and people with generally no concept of the application of fun, whilst violence- or drug-themed novels like, say, Chuck Palanuik’s Fight Club or Irving Welsh’s Trainspotting aren’t even classified – anyone can walk into a bookstore and pick them up. Fair enough they received their fair share of critical venom, but came nowhere near the kind of protestations faced by GTA or, to cite another Rockstar favourite, Manhunt. At least these games were made for adults and marketed for adults – the PEGI rating and film-style certifications are there for all to see.

It also begs the question of which is more immersive, and logically therefore more damaging to an impressionable mind. A film is watched from the outside with an automatic distance between the subject and the audience, and released with all the extras bolted onto the DVD as standard, usually containing a making-of or bloopers reel to remind us that it is, after all, just a film. On the other hand, a novel is beamed straight from the author’s mind to the page. Sure, they’re mostly rinsed through an editor or two but, when you get right down to it, a lot of novels – particularly the most expressively free ones – are pretty damn raw. These are the inner workings of a person’s mind, no matter how sick or twisted they may seem to the average consumer, and as such surely carry more power to influence than any other medium. But a videogame? It’s played, for goodness’ sake. The clue is really in the “game” part. For one thing, no matter how slick or realistic the graphics may potentially be on current-generation tech, they’re still just pictures comprised of lights and numbers.

The biggest complaint against videogames amongst the misinformed concerns the audience to whom they (allegedly-) predominantly appeal: teenagers. Despite the fact that recent studies have shown that the average age of gamers is somewhere between 28 – 35, the goodie-two-shoes’ of the world are still concerned about the young and impressionable. I’m not, simply because anyone of any age or background who embarks upon a crime spree because Niko Bellic did is a fucking idiot – it’s as black and white as that. Does the GTA series promote crime culture? Only in the same way that Hostel “promotes” being drugged and hacked to pieces.

Rockstar were clever and honest enough to show just as many cons to living a life of crime as pros. GTA 4 is an incredible story told through one of today’s most creative mediums. Back when the first Grand Theft Auto was released in 1997, it was an incredibly unrealistic, top-down arcade driving game that dealt primarily with stealing cars and getaway driving, and even though it allowed you to mow down civilians and beat random people to death, the graphics were so basic and cartoony that it was hard to understand why it courted such controversy, especially as it was one of the first games to be granted an adults-only 18 certificate. It seems even more ridiculous when you consider that Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction were released in the same half-decade, and Brit-crime favourite Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels hit cinemas the very next year. Although these days the high production values in games means that what you’re playing is much more realistic and involving, I still didn’t complete the fourth instalment of the franchise and start walking round with a Romanian accent beating hookers to death; I put it back on the shelf and moved onto something else – as I’m sure you did, too.

Pressure put upon developers to curtail their own expressiveness is ridiculous and, frankly, unfair. Konami’s decision last year to withdraw from the publication of Atomic Games’ Six Days in Fallujah is a case in point. Can it be called insensitive to make a videogame based on a tragic period in a war that’s still very much raging? Of course it can, if it’s just some cack-handed attempt to cash in on the current crisis, which Atomic surely wouldn’t allow themselves to become guilty of – but as soon as someone decides to make a film based on the same tragedy, it’ll be a different story entirely. It’ll more than likely be lauded, labelled “thought-provoking”, “harrowing” and “moving”. There’s little reason why a game can’t be crafted in such a way that it mixes a challenging, exciting experience with the same sentiments, a game that makes you think while you work through it, that forces you to spare a thought for the people who went through it for real.

Perhaps it would be seen as insensitive and thoroughly tasteless, but just because the purpose of a game is to play it, that doesn’t mean it can’t also tell a tragic, involving story in the same way that a film or book can. I would hope that the censors at least let Atomic finish the game and find a new publisher before assuming it will cause immediate offence – particularly given that there were genuine veterans and survivors of the eponymous Battle of Fallujah interviewed as advisors and consultants to ensure that it was handled with kit gloves. Fair enough, the inclusion of an online multiplayer might push the boundaries of taste a little – after all it’s hard to regard anything with reverence when you’ve got some 13-year-old yank yelling “Hoorah! I owned you, you limey bastard!” over Live every five minutes – but a different approach to multiplayer might work quite well, perhaps forcing you to band together to face a common enemy and feel just a fraction of the adrenalin and camaraderie of working as a team against insurmountable odds.

Judging by various press releases, it certainly doesn’t appear to be Atomic Games’ intention to capitalise on the horror at Fallujah – it would appear that they genuinely want to tell the story through a different medium. These days, videogames are more popular than films or books and, if used correctly and responsibly, might even succeed in raising awareness of important global issues amongst young adults where those other mediums may fail.

The point is, what right does anyone truly have to impede the development of something altogether without the benefit of the doubt? Are developers never to be trusted with complete freedom of expression? Are they to be over-the-shoulder-watched by oppressive critics and campaigners throughout every step of the creative process? Even if the ultimate result is that the game is banned in a few countries, at least allow them to finish the job and learn from the ramifications, be they positive or negative. Perhaps it’s as much about the levels of realism in today’s games as the content itself. No one can be taken seriously who complains about Jerry hitting Tom with a frying pan over and over again, but the same can’t be said for those who take umbrage when a player is required to forcibly extract the DNA from a little girl with pigtails. As developers strive for more and more realism and immersion, whilst at the same time treading the tightrope between original and downright shocking, they are perhaps carving the rod for their own backs.

The imbalance is caused by the right-wingers out there who immediately assume that gamers are all young, stupid and impressionable – which couldn’t be further from the truth. Where you can affront movie-goers with disturbing, controversial or horrific movies, incense listeners with songs glorifying drug-use, rape, theft or murder, or upset readers with novels that are written in far too graphic a narrative voice, the one group you will never offend with an “offensive” game is the actual gamers ourselves. If we turn something on and don’t like it, we turn it off. It’s the people looking over our shoulders that gasp with shock and cry “Bleurgh!” with utter disgust when we dress up as a woman and deliberately throw ourselves in front of Stilwater’s traffic, or turn off “Safety Mode” so we can slaughter little bunny rabbits should the need take us.

I’m not suggesting that we remove all the restrictions when it comes to writing in-game content, but if movies containing sex, violence and swearing can be released with high certifications, and music can convey the same messages from behind no thicker or more tangible a boundary than a Parental Guidance sticker, why can’t games do the same without attracting immediate, knee-jerk, often completely unfounded controversy?

Whichever way you look at it, having moved on so far since the days of the coin-op arcades and Space Invader machines of gaming’s infancy, the development of videogames as an entertainment medium has become – despite what the naysayers believe – an art form in every sense: something painstakingly crafted by a skilled and talented team of individuals, designed to not only exhilarate and challenge but often to tell a story at the same time – no different from films, music albums and books. You’ll always get your Leisure Suit Larrys and your BMX XXXs that literally cry out for the kind of media attention that’s only generated by controversy and that, as a result, end up abandoning everything that makes a game a game –but you’ll also always have your Modern Warfares, using military conflict as a backdrop to an intelligent, exciting and non-exploitive game, or your Grand Theft Autos, telling a deep, surprisingly moving and unarguably involving tale about chasing the American Dream in any way possible that just happens to feature crime and criminals.

All I’m suggesting is that game developers be given the same level of freedom as other artistes, and that the critics who are already preparing scathing put-downs the moment a new Saints Row or Mass Effect is announced actually play the game before demanding its exile from our shelves. Certificates are there to give gamers (and parents) a heads-up and the blurb is there to give us a hint as to the content; those gamers who are underage and unsupervised to a degree where they can be influenced or impressed upon by adult content are being let down by their own parents – not the industry – because, let’s face it, the majority of us are sound-minded adults who can make our own informed, educated choices based on the material at hand.