4th November 2007, 6:33 PM
My point is that if you compare the amount of violence allowed to the amount of sexuality, the amount of allowed violence is far, far higher. This is a fact. You're right, people do complain about violent content sometimes, with certain games used as scapegoats, but the games are made... games simply do not include the sexual content most of the time. Yes, this makes sense given that games are generally about violent actions of some kind, but even so it's true. And games have this harder than other media forms -- stuff allowed in movies can't always be in similarly-rated games... I mean, R-rated-level sex scenes, in a game? They simply do not exist in the US (outside of a very few online-distribution AO games and a very few also online-distributed translated Japanese hentai games). Maybe they could get away with a PG-13-ish "brief flash of partial nudity and anything beyond that is implied" moment somewhere (like God of War), but going beyond that? You'd be seriously limiting your chances of actually being able to sell the game.
Anyway, yes, violence and sexuality are both contraversial topics. However, in the US people are much, much more concerned about the sexuality side of that than in most other first-world countries, and much less concerned about violence. This reflects American culture -- America is a much more violent and dangerous place than any other first world nation. Just look at crime rates to prove that. America also has that Puritan legacy pushing it more conservative sexually than most other first-world nations, though in fields of stuff like birth control and abortion it is ahead of many Catholic nations...
As for Manhunt 2, it's essentially the videogame equivalent of a Saw or Hostel film... except with less sexual content than a film like that would have, because as I said videogame ratings are harsher on sexuality than movie ratings are... and, of course, that censorship blurring on the violence. R-rated movies could show most of that stuff without any blurring.
Anyway, yes, violence and sexuality are both contraversial topics. However, in the US people are much, much more concerned about the sexuality side of that than in most other first-world countries, and much less concerned about violence. This reflects American culture -- America is a much more violent and dangerous place than any other first world nation. Just look at crime rates to prove that. America also has that Puritan legacy pushing it more conservative sexually than most other first-world nations, though in fields of stuff like birth control and abortion it is ahead of many Catholic nations...
As for Manhunt 2, it's essentially the videogame equivalent of a Saw or Hostel film... except with less sexual content than a film like that would have, because as I said videogame ratings are harsher on sexuality than movie ratings are... and, of course, that censorship blurring on the violence. R-rated movies could show most of that stuff without any blurring.