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Games and the UK Press

There’s not a lot of games coverage in mainstream UK press, is there? The Times has its 150-word reviews and Metro does the same. The Daily Mail can’t resist slipping in a paragraph or two about violence and gaming in the most innocuous of video game articles. And we have the Guardian, which not only regularly features games news in its Technology section, but also has a blog dedicated entirely to video games. Yay :)

But the reason I’m posting is that articles like Aleks Krotoski’s Mating games arouse wrath of ‘moral majority’ in the Guardian (UK newspaper) really wind me up. Specifically the following paragraph:

‘ One of the key problems that dogs the industry is the perception that its products are for kids, so when jiggery pokery is discovered in an age-appropriate title, the moral majority proclaims it inappropriate. By that argument, much of the content on the radio, television and in film should also be treated as pornography. It seems extraordinarily inconsistent that a love scene in a movie only garners a 15 rating, but sexual activity in a game is bumped up to an 18.’

No, it’s bloody not. A quick look at the BBFC website will attest to that. My main beef with this article is that she uses the US position (see GamePolitics for examples) in a sweeping statement implying that this is happening worldwide. Sure, San Andreas and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion were re-rated in the US. But in the UK? No. San Andreas was rated 18 by the BBFC, way back in October 2004, months before the Hot Coffee story. Oblivion is a BBFC 15. Fahrenheit, a game with a scene where you watch and help the hero make love to his girlfriend, albeit under the bedcovers, is also rated as BBFC 15.

(And if we are talking about the US I would like to point out that the Janet Jackson Nipplegate story would indicate that yes, nipples on TV are considered akin to pornography. No inconsistency there between US TV and the Oblivion nipple re-rating)

On a wider scale (Pan-European, even), the PEGI rating for San Andreas is 18+ with Bad Language and Violence. Oblivion gets a 16+ with Violence and Fahrenheit is also 16+ with Nudity/Sexual Behaviour/Sexual References and Violence. The crucial difference is that PEGI ratings are not restrictions. They are merely indicators of content, so a 16+ or 18+ PEGI rating is vastly different from an 18 BBFC rating which should be (and is) on par with film ratings.

There are 79 unique entries returned by a BBFC search for 18-rated “Digital Media” since 1st January 2005. Of those, 23 are magazine demo compilation DVDs, so we shall ignore them. The concise Advice for Consumers for the 56 games can be broken down as follows:

[Note: some games fall into more than one category and this may include some demos]

Does that look like a category where sex is inappropriately over-represented to you? Me neither. For anyone interested, the 5 games where sex is mentioned are: The Sensual Adventure; Final Fight – Streetwise; Lula 3D; Singles 2 – Triple Trouble; 7 Sins. Nope, I’ve never heard of them either.

UK mainstream press coverage of games is scant enough as it is. Why compound that with articles that have no basis in UK games treatment or culture yet make it seem that this ridiculously puritanical treatment of sex is happening over here, too?