Wave of violent games worries censor

By CATHERINE MASTERS

A new wave of PlayStation games featuring violence and soft porn are doing a brisk trade this Christmas.

Some have been banned in Australia - where there is an R15 rating - but are freely available to anyone 18 and over in New Zealand.

Chief Censor Bill Hastings says BMX XXX is the "weirdest" of games raising concerns.

It landed this month and features freestyle BMX cycling which, when done well, rewards the player with real-life footage of lap dancing strippers.

The promo for the game reads: "Pimps, puke, bitches, hos, strippers, constipation, cosmonauts, electrocution, monkeys, aliens ... Oh, and dogs who love to hump."

Although the decision from the Classifications Office found the humour was merely juvenile, "of the type primarily relating to bodily functions or sexual matters", it also found the way women were depicted as sexual objects was degrading to women in general and could create a chauvinistic attitude among young players.

The association seemed to be that people who ride well will attract scantily clad and sexually available women, said the decision.

Marketing is taking full advantage of the ban in Australia by featuring a "banned in Australia" banner slapped over a scantily dressed woman.

Mr Hastings points out Australia has a different rating system for games, which for games like this limits the age to 15.

Aficionados of BMX XXX say the game is harmless fun.

Ben Ward, product manager for distributors Interactive, Monaco Corporation, says it is hitting the target market of 18 to 34-year-olds.



"It's very much along the lines of the American Pie kind of sick humour, but everyone can have a laugh over it. It's as innocent as that," he said

It is the first of many such games, he believes. The gaming industry is bigger than Hollywood by more than $6 billion and while in the past games have copied movies, soon there will be movies copying games.

One of America's record-breaking sellers, Grant Theft Auto Vice City, concerns the Classifications Office because its purpose is "to repetitively simulate the infliction of violence on human characters in a gory and gratuitous manner".

It was rated R18 partly because of the level of gore and because it rewards players for inflicting criminal violence against human characters.

Another game, The Getaway, features extensive depictions of serious physical harm and acts of significant cruelty with highly offensive dialogue, says the office.

But although the gangster movie-type game encourages players to perform criminal acts to a high degree, there is no express encouragement to the player to go out and commit criminal acts in real life, says the decision.

It was restricted to age 18 and over.

This one is distributed by Sony Computer Entertainment and managing director Steve Dykes said the company made no apology for it.

The average PlayStation console owner was a 22-year-old man. The United Kingdom's best-seller was clearly aimed at the adult market and was classified as such, he said.

There was violence, pole dancing, nudity and torture but it was nothing people had not already seen in movies such as Reservoir Dogs.

And the violence was not gratuitous; rewards came for not being violent.

"If you can drive your car through London and miss the pedestrians and stay away from the police and not murder anyone you're more likely to be in the game."

Psychology and public health professor Max Abbott is worried about excessive use of violent games. Although there was little research into games, research into violence on television showed there could be an effect on people and a reduction in the ability to empathise, he said.

An R18 rating would not keep games like these from falling into younger hands.

Waikato University screen and media lecturer Dr Geoff Lealand is not sure they are harmful.

"Perhaps if there was some 18-year-old sitting in some attic playing them over and over ... "

Mr Hastings, meanwhile, says you cannot ban everything and there has to be some degree of parental supervision.

Classifying games was a whole new world, he said. They were becoming more realistic and unlike movies, people can interact with them. There was also a high degree of skill required by censors just to get through games in order to see everything.

Which is why the office hires a self-confessed computer geek to play them while a censor watches over his shoulder.