A Natural Right

I was in the middle of writing something else for the blog when I read the news about Manhunt 2. This would have been easy for me to overlook because, to be honest, Manhunt is not a franchise that is on my radar. It's too distastefully violent for me. That's a perfectly fine reason for me not to buy it; but is it a good enough reason for it to be illegal to buy it anywhere in a whole country? Illegal for an adult to purchase for play in their own home?

Apparently.

In the United States, the ESRB is giving Manhunt 2 a rating of AO (Adults Only), which will effectively quash retail sales (since major "big box" retailers such as WalMart and Target won't carry any game with an AO rating). However, the AO rating in the USA isn't the same as banning. For one thing, the video game industry (both on the development side and the retail side) is self-regulatory. There's no legal authority overseeing the ESRB; there's no law stating that games have to be rated (although many retailers will not stock unrated games); most importantly, there's no federal law regulating the games that can or cannot be sold to minors. Just as moviemakers can decide to publish an unrated movie, so can game companies publish unrated games. Target won't stock an AO game, but they could. Gamestop won't sell an AO game to minors, but they could. Like movie ratings, game ratings are voluntarily enforced. In most U.S. locales, it's not a crime to sell a movie ticket to an R-rated movie to a person under the age of seventeen. Neither is it a crime to sell an M-rated game to a person under the age of seventeen. In most parts of the United States (maybe not in New York), it is the right of parents to discern what materials are appropriate for their children to be exposed to. And American adults are free to make those decisions for themselves.

While it's unfortunate for Take Two and Rockstar that Manhunt 2 is going to receive an AO rating, I can understand where the ESRB is coming from and agree with their rating. While I'm not familiar with the franchise, the AO rating is appropriate for games that feature "prolonged scenes of intense violence," which are what Manhunt 2 is ostensibly all about. However, the United Kingdom's BFCC, in refusing to rate Manhunt 2, has caused the game to be banned from sale anywhere in Great Britain. According to a press release on BBFC's website, Manhunt 2's "availability, even if statutorily confined to adults, would be unacceptable to the public." I'm not sure I can get my mind around how Great Britain can get away with so blatantly infantalizing its adult citizens. This is the kind of paternalistically driven censorship that Americans are trying to exterminate in the third world. It is unconscionable in the first.

If Take Two is not successful in appealing the BFCC's ruling, then Manhunt 2 will become the first game to be banned from sale in the United Kingdom (Carmageddon was banned in 1997, but that ban was later overturned). I hope that T2 will appeal this ruling in the United Kingdom and that they will be successful. In the mean time, let us go and tend our garden.