Night Trap Week: Night 7 - An Epilogue
This past week has been a bittersweet rollercoaster laced with bloody entrails and child stars. I promised a week of Night Trap and tonight is the epilogue of our digital journey through the recesses of the Martin estate and beyond.
To catch up, here is the whole week. Night 1, Night 2, Night 3, Night 4, Night 5, Night 6.
I began Night Trap Week as an exercise in picking apart a game that was banned shortly after it’s release. Through each post I wanted to expose and refute the ridiculous claim that this game was a “rape simulator” and show that it is all good fun and completely harmless.
When it came out, I remember hearing about all of the controversy, so I was immediately interested. Not since Mortal Kombat hit the arcade have I heard such a collective gasp across the industry. When I got around to playing it, back in ’92, I was shocked and amazed that it was considered controversial. Even at the tender age of 14, I knew that something was wrong with their evaluation of the game. Now I probably shouldn’t have been playing it back then, considering that it was a mature game, but my parents were somewhat lenient about that sort of thing, and I turned out just fine. I am not a date rapist or a trained killer, as much of the press would have claimed I would undeniably turn out to be after playing such incendiary titles like Doom, Wolfenstein, Mortal Kombat and our beloved Night Trap.
It is true that Night Trap and Mortal Kombat were key players in the forming of the ESRB rating system, which is a good thing. It proved that gaming had reached the notoriety of the populace. Most popular entertainment should be evaluated and given a just rating, detailing all of the questionable content therein. We see it in the film industry with the MPAA and the game industry with the ESRB.
The problem lies with the evaluation of the game in comparison to the rest of the entertainment at the time. Night Trap was not nearly as offensive as some material found on broadcast television or the film industry when it came out. The game came under crossfire when individuals who didn’t understand gaming stepped in and began to question the title, without understanding gaming at large or even playing it. Night Trap is another example of a work of art, however crappy and cheap it may be, being censored by questionable means.
When William S. Burroughs released Naked Lunch stateside in 1962, there was a similar public outcry. The book was labeled obscene, it was banned in several states, and came under scrutiny for obscenity charges. Naked Lunch was officially banned by Boston courts in 1962 due to the incendiary content of the novel. In 1966 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court reversed the decision and the book was republished. The resulting court trials were pivotal in establishing freedom of speech over censorship. It became a landmark court case, which was one of the last times a book faced obscenity charges in the US. Now Naked Lunch is considered a literary classic, closely bound to the best of the beat writers of the time.
For more on the current state of censorship in the gaming world, make the jump.
The ESRB recently began another witch-hunt over Rockstar’s upcoming title Manhunt 2. They labeled the game Adults Only, which all three major gaming companies Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have all declared that no AO titles will ever appear on their systems from a third party. The difference between and Adults Only rating, and a Mature rating is one year. Anyone younger than 17 cannot purchase a Mature title, as apposed to Adults Only where the cutoff age is 18. What is the difference between a year? Is that the pivotal year in development where individuals may end up a high priced lawyer, or a simply a worthless degenerate? I don’t think so.
There is undoubtedly a stigma attached to Rockstar’s name, which informed the ESRB’s decision to label the game AO. The rating really says that the game is too obscene for public consumption, therefore censoring the game from ever reaching shelves in it’s current state.
Say Manhunt 2 was a film, with the same content, and the MPAA gave the movie an NC-17 rating. The film could then be released unrated to theaters and sold on DVD to major outlets. An unrated movie would not make as much money as a rated one because of the restrictions some theaters and stores place on unrated material, but at least the original vision would stay intact.
That is the particular dilemma at hand, if the ESRB does not change their rating of the game, the original vision of the title will be worthless. Take-Two and Rockstar will have to go back to the drafting tables and rethink their approach to the title, thus limiting their creative output. And the game cannot be released without a rating. No company would carry the game even in an unrated state.
There are a few options to keep the game intact and still hold to the rating system. Take-Two could appeal to reduce the rating to Mature. Which is a valid option, but I do not think the ESRB will budge on their rating. The other option would be to rework the game to get a Mature rating, which may take months. They would have to put the game up for review each time until the game is tame enough for an M rating. The compromise would be, they should then be allowed to release the unrated version to consoles as a “Director’s Cut”.
The original title must be preserved in some way. If they are allowed to take this route, I can guarantee that the “Director’s Cut” would outsell the original, no contest. Allow gamers to make the decision themselves. Don’t limit the voice of the creator and their audience. The gaming industry has matured enough to allow audiences to either support the title by sales, or leave it alone. The game is definitely not suited for everyone, but those interested in the game should not be forced to play a watered down version of the title.
Toots
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 25 June 2007
· Comments (5)
Other stuff like this: dana plato, digital pictures, full-motion video, Night Trap Week, sega cd
Thanks, Toots for doing this. I only ever heard rumblings of this game in retrospect and figured that it must have in fact been terribly violent and obscene to have been banned. I'm really glad to have learned the truth: that it is in fact incredibly tame and was used only for political grandstanding.
It really is true that video games are the new Rock and Roll music. I can't wait to see what's next.
Wasn't BMXXX, as bad as it was, have one console release with the AO stamp?
This was a great feature, Toots! I enjoyed every day of it.
Thanks a bunch. This was very much a labor of love, and I didn't even fit everything I wanted into the articles. There's a Dana Plato retrospective that might pop up one day, but I'm giving it a rest for now.
Most popular entertainment should be evaluated and given a just rating, detailing all of the questionable content therein. We see it in the film industry with the MPAA and the game industry with the ESRB.
I would have disagree with that statement.
While I understand the desire of the overzealous to rate everything and 'protect the children', the fact that it is a mandatory and binding in our movies and about to become so in video games is detrimental and damaging to both of those genres as an art form.
You don't see a rating system on 'works of art' in a museum, but because they (movies and video games) are 'entertainment' somehow the ability to censor them is deemed okay.
The MPAA has been one of the worst things for the American film industry and a lot of movies are dumbed down to receive an R rating so they can be published in general theaters and scores of films change their content so they can get the PG/PG13 rating to help increase sales. It cheapens the art form dramatically.
I dread the day the ESRB becomes mandatory. The fact that it is a suggestion and leaves it up to the parents to partake in the process (LIKE THEY SHOULD BE IF THEY ARE CONCERNED AT ALL) is how it should be.
There is too much willingness to surrender and allow censorship of our art forms in this country. If the ESRB (or a similar system) becomes a mandatory hard check before purchase on video games, we aren't far from being carded at a museum or buying a book at Borders...