The Byron Report - A Big Step In The Wrong Direction

The recent release of the Byron Report (pdf) has got me thinking about the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) and its double standards in rating video games and movies and how things are seemingly going to change now that the expert Dr Byron has weighed in. Concerning Dr Byron, whenever I have heard her speak or read her opinions she does seem intelligent however the fact that any article concerning her comes with a picture of her posing for the camera in a studio somewhere always seems to evaporate any credibility surrounding her, coupled with the fact that she’s one of those TV psychologists I don’t have much trust in any of her methods or the fact that our now Prime Minister Gordon Brown chose her to decide the fate of part of this country’s future. This is a shame because as I said she seems intelligent but goes and ruins it by being a slight attention whore and joins the rest of those TV psychologists at the bottom of a metaphorical dirty pit with other scum such as compensation Lawyers and Celebrities.

The gist of Dr Byron’s report concerning video games is that parents find the traditional PEGI (Pan-European Game Information) rating confusing and are more familiar with the BBFC rating so from now on all games should have the BBFC rating at the front and the PEGI rating on the back. The BBFC rating symbol is an age such as 12, 15 and 18 in a red circle with a white outline; these are symbols every British person knows since they have been on everything film and video since the onset of VHS. Video Games have traditionally had the PEGI rating on and there symbol is an age such as 12, 16 and 18 followed by a “+” all encased in a white rectangle. These are the main part of a rating that anyone looks at and Dr Byron means to tell me that the addition of a “+” and a change to a white rectangle has had the entire British parenting public baffled this whole time. I didn’t think old people were quite that inept.

Having both ratings on the cases of games, one either side, would seemingly be the best of both worlds if not a bit of overkill, that is if not for the fact that last year the BBFC refused rating to Manhunt 2, citing “casual sadism” as the cause, effectively banning it from sale in Britain. This has since been fixed but the BBFC didn’t take it lying down and because Manhunt 2 is quite a bit tamer than any other number of movies that get an 18 rating with no cuts at all such as Saw and Hostel (to name the popular ones), one can only assume the BBFC resorted to censorship to make an example out of the developer Rockstar (and make no mistake it was because it was a Rockstar game) to appease any number of the governmental voices they can hear from up on there archaic pedestal. Looking at the most recent ratings on the BBFC website now the most recent 18 rated titles are the likes of “FETISH DESIRE 2 - BURGLARS, BUGGERY & STRAP A DICK TO ME - PART TWO” which “contains strong sex and nudity” and a movie called “TEETH” which “contains strong sexualised gore”. A video game could never get away with things like that. In comparison the rating for “MANHUNT 2” is 18 now for “very strong bloody and sadistic violence”. No doubt Manhunt 2 deserves its 18 rating but Fetish Desire 2 – Burglars, Buggery & Strap a Dick to Me was never even threatened with a ban as far as I know yet alone going through months to repeal the decision. This BBFC or any other organisation that is willing to censor in this day and age is not an organisation I want to have any more decision making power in the future.

Now I have heard the official line given as only gaming titles with “explicit sex or violence” are submitted to the BBFC for rating and looking at my game collection this is certainly true of the previous generation. Of the games I have on Xbox and PS2 released before June 2005 these are the ones rated by the BBFC:

Xbox

Doom 3 -18

Grand Theft Auto Double Pack -18

Jade Empire -15

Max Payne-15

Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance -15

PS2

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas -18

Resident Evil 4 -18 (Gamecube version was rated by BBFC before June 05)

With an exception or two, no doubt pushed onto the BBFC by growing concerns over the GTA series, these are all fairly violent games, so the BBFC was sticking to its policy but by no means do I think anything in these titles is “explicit”. But after June 2005 everything changed. The BBFC found itself rating games such as Destroy all Humans (12), Sid Meier’s Pirates (PG) and Burnout Revenge (U). My point is much more noticeable in the now current generation of consoles where almost every title has a BBFC logo along the spine, on the front cover and back cover. 25 of the 42 Xbox 360 games I own are rated by the BBFC. This includes all your favourite titles from the last couple of years: Assassins Creed, Bioshock, The Call of Duty series, Crackdown, Dead Rising, Oblivion, Gears of War, the Guitar Hero series, Halo 3, Mass Effect, the Orange Box and Viva Piñata just to name a few. In fact any title your average to avid gamer would have played in the last couple of years is now rated by the BBFC.

Why? Well if you’re still asking yourself the significance of June 2005 let me tell you that that is when the true actions of the video game developer Rockstar North came to light. It’s when people realised that Rockstar had maliciously sneaked sex into our children’s hands. Sure, they were sneaky about it, at first we had no idea it was there but if your child was a skilled hacker with a copy of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas they could have stumbled across this sex scene that had been removed from the game themselves. If they wanted to find the scene its even easier if they just have the right tools and are given the right information. As you can guess reading this, this reaction is all a little absurdist. But now the BBFC rates any game which is likely to be popular at all. Did they honestly expect to find “explicit sex or violence” in the U rated Viva Piñata? The BBFC seems to be rating everything with any popularity to prevent those evil game developers from sneaking any more of its sex under our noses.

The real question is why this whole thing matters to the BBFC? Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas never saw any kind of re-rating here in Britain and I’m sure the BBFC realises the scene is removed from the game and has to be dug up with barely legal methods. Even if the scene was still in the game it wouldn’t affect the 18 rating. A full on naked sex scene is encompassed within the 15 rating which the scene in GTA: SA is not. GTA: SA would still be an 18 for its violence despite it being cartoony compared to any violence in a movie but none-the-less illegal to sell to anyone under the age of 18.

The real truth is that the BBFC is somewhat of a shield for video games in Britain; though there methods may be questionable at times they are taking the brunt of the force from the scared old men in parliament and the parents with a small enough brain and a loud enough mouth to be heard after buying an 18 rated game for their 10 year old son. And so the villain of our story is somewhat of a silent martyr making the compromises it has to in order to protect a sort of greater good and our real enemy is the stagnation and fear present in most governments and parents around the world concerning the changing future. I may be contradicting myself a bit saying I want that shield removed but I feel censorship of a title is never an option because it is such a slippery slope from there. The real changes to be made are not to game ratings but to the old ways of thinking and to the general fear of change and everyone needs to learn to point the finger at the parents who make these complaints and say the warnings were there, your love and attention towards your child was not. You are the one to blame.

I could say more on this subject and get a lot more technical but I think that’s for another time. Perhaps next I’ll write about how this is all video games fault aswell.