wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] MRTI takes on violent video games

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ECUNET.ORG>]

Note #8580 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

04532
December 3, 2004

 MRTI takes on violent video games

Christmas shopping campaign to deter shoppers

by Alexa Smith

NEW YORK CITY - In what it has affectionately dubbed its "grandmother
campaign," the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s committee on socially responsible
investing will be using its stock as leverage to develop a better ratings
system for graphic video games that will prevent their sale to young
children.

	The Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI) Committee opted
at its recent meeting here to take a four-pronged approach in its campaign to
end the sale of violent video games to kids by working both with
manufacturers and retailers:

	* Engage Take Two about corporate responsibility in product
development and distribution;
	* Push for better rating standards;
	* Launch a Don't Buy Video Games campaign for the holiday season,
linking it with work in the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s Child Advocacy
Office; and
	* Join other religious shareholders in engaging retailers about
selling practices.

	The initial push is to curb holiday buying, hence the effort to reach
grandmothers, said MRTI Chair Carol Hylkema of Dearborn, MI. Hylkema is also
the former vice moderator for Justice and Peace Issues of the Presbyterian
Women's (PW) Church-wide Coordinating Team. "Don't sell short the women's
view.

	"Getting this information out can influence how grandmothers' shop,"
she said, speaking of the 300,00-member PW.

	MRTI is acting jointly with the Interfaith Center for Corporate
Responsibility (ICCR), a New York-based coalition of Christians and Jews that
monitors corporate behavior and coordinates shareholder actions to force
changes in business practices.

	The video grame industry is currently self-regulated, with no
penalties for retailers who sell violent, sexually explicit or racially
stereotyping video games to kids who are younger than the product label
designates.

	"It's been proven that the impact of exposure to these games - the
violence, the sexual content - impacts young children. It's been documented
in thousands of studies," said the Rev. Bill Somplatsky-Jarman, who is MRTI's
staffer. "Despite that, the industry continues to hide behind self-regulation
that is inadequate.

	"And it pretends that these games are not ending up in the hands of
children."

	The PCUSA strategy targets Take Two, an international corporation
that produces several lines of games. Its products include a series built
around conflicts like the Vietnam War (whose advertising reads: "Splinter
vehicles apart, shoot out lights, collapse buildings, whatever it takes to
survive!") and "Grand Theft Auto," which is a highly sexualized line of games
that critics say capitalizes on racial stereotypes and gross violence.

	The Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) holds 200
shares of Take Two stock valued at $6,000 that it has kept in a segregated
account for MRTI's use - and in this case, the ICCR's use, too. MRTI is, in
Somplatsky-Jarman's words, "taking the lead" on behalf of ICCR with Take Two.

	That small stock holding buys MRTI and ICCR access to the
corporation, which had more than a million dollars in net sales in 2003, up
from $303,715 in 1999.

	MRTI's goal, Somplatsky-Jarman said, is always corporate reform.

	Pat Chapman, who directs the Child Advocacy Office, said an effort to
curb the sale of explicit games to young kids is long overdue. It is also
necessary, she said, to educate parents about the rating system and about the
content of the games their kids are playing.

	The Entertainment Software Rating Board has a simple system to keep
the most violent games out of the hands of children: E is for everyone, T is
for teens (with no sexual content), M is for mature and AO is for adults
only.

	Take Grand Theft Auto, as an example, which is labeled as
inappropriate for anyone under the age of 17.

	One clip from the video shows a car bouncing up and down as a couple
copulates in the back seat, muttering phrases like, "Let's get down tonight."
After the sex act, the man and a scantily clad woman get out of the car and
he beats her with a golf club.	In another segment, a white man repeatedly
kicks a black man in the testicles until he is lying in a pool of blood.

	What gripes Chapman, however, is that many of the M and AO games are
on the shelves next to games for younger kids. And if parents do not
understand the rating system or if vendors fail to enforce it, children have
easy access to unsuitable material.  "I've been amazed," Chapman said, "at
the explicit sexual content, the racism. Some of these games are just hateful
and violent."

	A spokesman for Rockstar Games, the parent company of Take Two, told
the Presbyterian News Service that Take Two supports efforts to keep games
intended for the adult market from children - but they think the ratings
system does the job.

	In a written statement the company said: "The game rating system is a
highly effective tool to inform and empower parents, and the Advertising
Review Council provides important industry oversight and enforcement. We are
fully committed to the rating system and to marking our games in compliance
with the principles and guidelines of the rating board."

	The statement acknowledges that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - one
of the newest games on the market - carries an M rating because of its mature
content. "The game is intended for adults who can appreciate its mature
themes and sophisticated storytelling."

	But MRTI and the ICCR argue that the ratings system doesn't work
because access is too easy.

	A game called "Postal 2," manufactured by Running With Scissors,
shows black people being burned, shot and killed while a voiceover makes
statements like "Holy shit. I'm not racist. These people really do all look
alike" or "Now, that's what I call welfare reform." One scene shows an
assailant urinating on a woman. Another shows a burning black body as a voice
says, "Smells like chicken."

	It is not yet clear whether any ICCR member bodies hold stock in
Running With Scissors, which opposes censorship of its products, which it
says are designed around "the imagined needs of 6-year-olds or clinically
psychotic persons." It lauds its "tasteless and insensitive" games on its Web
site, which says: "We believe that violence belongs in entertainment products
- not in the streets. But what do we know, we're just ignorant video game
developers.

	"'To kill or not to kill.... What a stupid question!' " - Postal
Dude.

	The site says that some politicians and religious organizations would
like to spray a "fear enema" up "the collective ass of the entire planet." It
argues that the vast majority of people are not programmed by entertainment
products to be killers.

	Gary Briscoe, who heads up ICCR's video game effort, talks about the
content of the games - and the easy access that kids have to them - with
incredulity. "It's all industry-run," he said. "The people making the games
are the ones marketing them. And the ratings aren't legally enforced. The
ratings are only a suggestion."

	Briscoe led a press conference held recently in New York on the
subject of violent video games. (See link to streaming video of the press
conference listing the ten most violent video games.) He said the killing in
video games has become increasingly graphic as the manufacturers continue to
perfect simulated violence. Briscoe said video game companies are now under
contract to produce similar products for U.S. military personnel for training
and recruitment.

	Far from early Pac Man, these increasingly high-tech games show gore,
flying body parts, writhing victims and screams of pain.

	ICCR is working with marketers to publish standards for video games
that encourage or reward players for acts of brutality and violence and those
that depict women and minorities in a demeaning way.

	Briscoe wants to see M-rated games separated from milder versions in
stores, and signs posted explaining the rating system for parents.

	Somplatsky-Jarman says the holiday campaign at least "plants a flag"
on the issue of violent video games, an effort that will escalate throughout
2005 as the ICCR and MRTI engage companies and retailers.

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