August 24, 2007

Contact: Josh Golin (617.278.4172; jgolin@jbcc.harvard.edu)    

For Immediate Release

CCFC Statement on ESRB Decision to Downgrade

 Manhunt 2’s Rating from Adults Only to Mature 

In June, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board gave Manhunt 2 an Adults Only rating.  The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood had urged the ESRB to give the game an AO rating because of concerns that harmful effects of ultra-violent video games on children would be magnified by playing them on the interactive Nintendo Wii system.

CCFC’s concerns about Manhunt 2 were based, in part, on reviews of the game which described players sawing their enemies’ skulls in half; mutilating them with an axe;  castrating them with a pair of pliers; or killing  them by bashing their head “into an electrical box, where raw power surges through it and eventually blows his head apart.” CCFC noted that 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 described 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.”   

Today, Rockstar Games announced that Manhunt 2 had received a revised rating of Mature after they  submitted a modified version of the game.  On a phone call with CCFC’s Dr. Susan Linn, ESRB President Patricia Vance refused to comment on what changes Rockstar made or whether any of the content described above was still in the game. 

Below is the statement of CCFC Director Dr. Susan Linn on the ESRB’s decision to reverse their earlier ruling:

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is extremely concerned that the ESRB has downgraded its rating for Manhunt 2 from Adults Only (AO) to Mature (M).  Despite industry claims to the contrary, M-rated games continue to be marketed and sold to children under seventeen.  The ESRB’s reversal of its earlier decision dramatically increases the likelihood that Manhunt 2 – the most violent game to date produced for the interactive Nintendo Wii platform – will be marketed and sold to children.

Just three months ago, the ESRB felt that Manhunt 2 was so violent that it took the extraordinary step of giving a game an AO rating for violent content for only the second time in its history.  We urge the ESRB to make public their rationale for changing Manhunt 2’s rating, including detailing any content that was removed from the game.

We call upon Rockstar Games to allow the content of Manhunt 2 to be reviewed by an independent review board with no ties to the video game industry.

We ask the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the process by which Manhunt 2’s rating was downgraded from AO to M.

CCFC’s initial press release and letter to the ESRB are available at http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org/pressreleases/manhunt2.htm.

 

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is a national coalition of health care professionals, educators, advocacy groups and concerned parents who counter the harmful effects of marketing to children through action, advocacy, education, research, and collaboration among organizations and individuals who care about children.  CCFC supports the rights of children to grow up – and the rights of parents to raise them – without being undermined by rampant commercialism.  For more information, please visit: http://www.commercialfreechildhood.org.