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June 19, 2007
Contact: Josh Golin (617.278.4172;
jgolin@jbcc.harvard.edu)
For Immediate Release
CCFC Demands Adults Only Rating for
Manhunt 2
Most Violent Game to Date on Interactive Wii Platform
Must Not Be Targeted to Children
BOSTON - Citing concerns that harmful
effects of ultra-violent video games on children will be
magnified by playing them on the interactive Nintendo Wii
system, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC)
is demanding that Manhunt 2 – the most violent game
available on Wii to date – be given an Adults Only rating by
the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). The game will
be released by Take Two Entertainment/Rock Star Games on July
10, 2007.
The British Board of Film Classification
banned the game in the United Kingdom today.
In Manhunt 2, players can saw
their enemies’ skulls in half; mutilate them with an axe;
castrate them with a pair of pliers; and kill them by bashing
their heads into an electrical box, where it is blown apart by
a power surge. On Wii, players will not merely punch buttons
or wield a joy stick, but will actually act out this
violence. A reviewer for the gaming website IGN describes
using a saw blade to “cut upward into a foe's groin and
buttocks, motioning forward and backward with the Wii remote
as you go.” The same reviewer calls Manhunt 2 the
goriest and most violent game he’s ever seen.
“If ever there was a time for the ESRB’s
strongest and most unambiguous rating, it is now,” said CCFC’s
co-founder, Dr. Susan Linn. “An Adults Only rating is the
only way to limit children’s exposure to this unique
combination of horrific violence and interactivity.” Today,
CCFC sent a letter to ESRB
president Patricia Vance urging her to give Manhunt 2
an AO rating and launched
a letter-writing campaign so that parents and advocates
for children could share their concerns.
The ESRB typically assigns the most
violent video games a Mature (M) rating, which is supposed to
mean “content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and
older.” Yet despite industry claims to the contrary, M-rated
games continue to be marketed to children. A recent report by
the Federal Trade Commission found that 42% of unaccompanied
13- to 16-year-olds were able to purchase M-rated games. The
FTC also found that the video game industry continues to
advertise M-rated games on television programs and in
magazines popular with younger teens. On the Internet, the
FTC found that the industry repeatedly violated its own “very
limited standard.”
At the 2006 Summit on Video Games, Youth
and Public Policy, academic, medical and health experts signed
a statement saying: “Behavioral science research demonstrates
that playing violent video games can increase the likelihood
of aggressive behavior in children and youth.”
“The most recent studies employing
state-of-the-art neuro-imaging techniques support the
behavioral research,” said psychiatrist Alvin F. Poussaint, of
the Judge Baker Children’s Center and Harvard Medical School.
“There is evidence that violent video games can engender
more aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; and
decrease empathetic, helpful behaviors with peers.”
“Video games are among the most powerful
educational tools yet developed.” said Dr. Michael Rich,
Director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children’s
Hospital Boston. “By creating a virtual reality and allowing
players to act out, rather than simply witness, fictional
narratives in virtual worlds, players experience and learn the
game’s skills, whether they be based in strategy, logic, or
violence. The content of Manhunt 2 and the unique
physical interaction with the Wii control combine to take this
simulation a level closer to reality - we can expect that the
effects of this experience will be even greater.”
The ESRB’s AO rating is given to games
that “have content that should only be played by persons 18
years and older.” Among the criteria that can earn a game
this rating are “prolonged scenes of intense violence.” Of
the more than 13,000 games rated by the ESRB, only 23 have
been given an AO rating – and only once was an AO rating given
for violent content.
“An “M” rating is more like a wink and a
nod than an effective safeguard,” said Dr. Linn. “The industry
appears to be going through its paces, but as the FTC’s most
recent data show, these games are still being marketed to
children.”
To read CCFC’s letter to the ESRB, please
visit
http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/pressreleases/lettertoesrb.pdf.
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