Manhunt 2 has been refused classification by the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) in the UK, (meaning retailers cannot sell it) and a child advocacy group is demanding that the ESRB give it a rating of Adults Only, which would effectively cripple retail sales in the United States.
I was considering what to say on the matter, and ended up discovering that almost everything I had to say had already been said, and possibly better. Also, it’s by a British blogger that - obviously - knows more about England than I could ever hope to.
Sounds a lot like, oooh I don’t know, Eli Roth’s Hostel or the Saw series or Passion of the Christ or a dozen other 18 certificate movies of torture and transgression.
I’m glad I found this blog, because I wouldn’t have been certain those movies were released successfully in England. Anyhow - 18 certificate is apparently the British version of an R and M rating. And yet Manhunt 2 is effectively banned because of violence? Granted, I neither live there nor am I interested in Manhunt 2, but I recognize a slippery slope when I see one.
Is it the interactivity that makes Manhunt 2 more potentially harmful than those cinematic examples? Not according to a major report released in April, which suggested that watching violence on TV could be more upsetting than playing violent video games. And which body published this report? The BBFC.
And yet they release ultra-violent movies without a sound, but ban Manhunt 2 - can you say hypocrisy? It’s unfortunate to see censorship in the name of ‘protecting society’. In the end, it boils down to this: however distasteful you may find some of the media produced by the entertainment industry, do you really have the right to tell other people they can’t read/watch/play it? Or in this case, to tell retailers they can’t sell it, which very nearly amounts to the same thing.
No doubt those who banned Fanny Hill or Lady Chatterley’s Lover, or felt society would fall apart thanks to Romans in Britain or Cannibal Ferox felt that they were making timeless decisions. They were not.
Perhaps the BBFC should start thinking about how history will judge them.
Update: The ESRB has apparently given Manhunt 2 an “Adults Only” rating. Unless Take Two overturns that rating on appeal, it means no major retailers will be carrying the game.
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Which means it will be a collectors item. Nothing helps sales like controversy.
Typically though that’s after release. I mean, Wal-Mart alone accounts for like 25% of the sales, and they don’t carry AO games.
We’ll have to see if Take Two appeals.
Nintendo shot it down for the Wii too. Which I’m actually kind of glad about. The concept just seemed a little disturbing for the Wii.
Only if it retains the AO rating. Sony won’t release it as an AO game, either. Actually, Nintendo was pretty aggressive in getting Take Two to develop a Wii version of the game.