You may have read a lot of “Manhunt 2” headlines over the last couple of weeks and months.
You, like the guys at Penny Arcade, may be quite over the whole spectacle.
But stay with me. This piece is for you.
Because unless you carefully read one particular story that I wrote 10 days ago, then you, like everyone else following the drama, missed what I believe is the most significant cut Rockstar made in the formerly Adults-Only game.
Why that cut was overlooked says a lot about how people both in and out of gaming talk about violent games. It says something about how the “But you can shoot hookers!” complaint about “Grand Theft Auto” consistently misses a key point. Without a firmer handle on all this, we might as well just be talking about a controversial movie, and that may be the foolhardy approach.
The cut I’m referring to isn’t the removal of a scene of genital mutilation to get the game its M-rating. Nor is it the oft-cited blurring of the game’s execution scenes.
It’s the scoring system.
It’s the system that notified me, when I finished the AO version of the game’s “Awakening” level last June, that I had killed 12 hunters over the last 24 minutes and 27 seconds, executed five of them, scored no environmental executions and earned one of five style points.
It’s the system that tallied a better number for me if I had behaved more brutally, displaying the figures on a screen that appeared between each level of the game.
It’s a system that was in the first M-rated “Manhunt” but is absent from the M-rated version of the sequel.
Let’s be clear: it’s the system that incentivized increased virtual brutality and was cut from the version that was too hot for retail.
How can this cut have been overlooked? Why is almost no one talking about it? I have some ideas…
First, you should know that Rockstar Games does not attribute the removal of the scoring system to the demands of the ratings boards. I don’t know what the ESRB wanted Rockstar to cut. And I don’t know that the British Board of Film Classification list of cuts necessary for the game to get a rating in the U.K. included it (the board’s comments to me about that list don’t specifically address it).
A couple of weeks ago, when I asked Rockstar Games vice president Jeronimo Barrera why the scoring system was removed — a cut that, again, doesn’t seem to have been reported elsewhere despite the armies of reporters covering this game — he said:
“The scoring was a hold-over from the first game, and when we had the opportunity to make edits because of the rating, we decided to remove it. We felt it flowed better without a score screen between levels.”
Almost no one has bothered to mention the scoring cut. Rockstar reps skipped it when talking about how the M-rated version of the game differed from the AO. Few reporters played the AO game and therefore failed to report the omission. Could anyone have played the first “Manhunt” and the released sequel and noticed that the first game’s scoring had been dropped? Sure, but somehow that feature change never became part of the argument.
How could the removal of a scoring system not matter, even if Rockstar doesn’t claim it was dropped to get the M?
It certainly caused a dramatic difference in how I played the game. It made things much tamer. And it tampered with the implicit values system in the game.
When I played the AO “Manhunt 2″ I consistently tried to perform the most vicious, most highly-scored kills. Why? Was it because I enjoyed watching the vicious scenes rendered in the game? That can’t be it. I sat through them too many times for that argument to hold. Any gamer and any game designer can tell you that players like taking shortcuts. That’s a tenet of playing a game: how do I do this next task in the quickest way? You go for the head-shot in a first-person-shooter maybe because you’re twisted enough that you enjoy watching someone’s head get blown off, but maybe because the head-shot costs you one bullet but earns you safety and a stocked ammo clip — whereas shooting at the torso or limbs wastes bullets and time. So I had plenty of reason to not waste my time performing the most elaborate, bloody kills, considering how often they can be repeated.
Remember, there are three levels of execution viciousness in “Manhunt” games. To do the hardest one requires stalking the enemy for the longest period of time, watching (or, on the Wii, controlling) the longest execution sequences and basically taking the most risk. No matter how cool someone — not me — thinks watching a brutal axe kill is, any experienced gamer will try to find a shortcut around seeing it the fifth or sixth time. That is, unless there’s an incentive. When the game had a scoring system, there was. Without it, what’s the point?
Look at how the content changes altered me as a “Manhunt 2″ player:
When I played the AO-rated “Manhunt 2″ I was the bloodthirsty murderer of dozens, killing my enemies in the most garish ways. I did that to get points; pursuing those points so I could assumedly get unlockable content. Say what you will about such carrot-and-stick game design, but that’s what a lot of gamers get caught up doing.
When I played the M-rated “Manhunt 2″ I was a gentler murder, killing my enemies with the quickest, lowest-level executions. Sure, I tried a few of the more elaborate ones, but there wasn’t much incentive. I was more interested in getting through a level. I didn’t have the patience to be brutal.
How could the scoring change go undiscussed? Why the fixation on what scenes are or aren’t in the game?
You may have realized this already, but apparently it’s not clear to everyone that games are not movies. Movies ask nothing of their viewer but to sit still and understand them. Games ask their audience to do something, and they recommend that certain types of actions get done. They make these suggestion by attaching rewards to them:
- “Super Mario Brothers” suggests you do what it takes to collect gold coins. It recommends that you don’t jump in pits.
- “Resident Evil 4” proposes that you should keep the president’s daughter alive, not because you should value a young woman’s life, but because you can’t finish the level if she croaks.
- “Grand Theft Auto” offers one path of great reward with its infamous prostitute-killing mechanic, which may be a disturbing indulgence of the male id, but might also be one of the most efficient ways to restore your health bar without it costing you any game-money (because you kill the prostitute to get the money back, right?). Incidentally, I’ve seldom used that mechanic, not necessarily because of an ethical qualm, but because it takes too much time, and that’s a currency I value in a game even more than virtual “GTA” dollars. There are quicker ways to restore a health bar.
It’s a tricky subject, but let’s be honest about the values systems in video games. How I am scored affects what I do as a gamer more than what I would or wouldn’t do in real life. So what does it mean that a game might give you more points for one action than another? Does it mean as much as the critics say it does? Does it mean as little as under-fire game designers claim?
It’s been a strange experience watching the debate in the media about whether The New York Times report that “Manhunt 2″ “seems to retain at least 99 percent of the original content.” I both agree with that statement but feel that a radical change has been made. It’s not a content change. It’s a mechanic.
I wonder if Rockstar’s developers broke their own game when they removed scoring. Or did they inadvertently take a radical step away from tired cliches of game design? Since I interviewed game designer Jonathan Blow in August, I’ve become increasingly skeptical about why designers feel the need to reward us with points or virtual baubles for specific gameplay actions. He had described scheduled rewards — the kind often associated with level-grinding in massively multiplayer games — as “a sure sign that the core gameplay itself is not actually rewarding enough to keep them playing, and thus you are deceiving your players into wasting their lives playing your game.”
I wouldn’t call the old “Manhunt 2″ scoring set-up a scheduled reward system, but its removal has caused me to re-think the game’s three-tiered execution gameplay. What did it mean that the removal of a points-scoring incentive removed my interest in taking advantage of all three levels of the kills? What kinds of actions can I be compelled to do in a game that didn’t give me points or health bonuses or any other advantage to doing them?
So who cares about this angle? It’s the content that gets the headlines. When “Manhunt 2″ makes the evening news the attention is on what “Manhunt 2″ lets you see and hear and what you also do — that being the content that you help orchestrate. That’s what people know how to discuss, because it’s kind of like talking about movies — a little bit like talking about watching one, a little bit like talking about acting in one.
But why you do things, how a game rewards you and what those reward systems really say about the player’ priorities in the virtual world and in the real world… those, for the most part, go undiscussed.
What’s the point of all this “Manhunt 2″ coverage? I ask: what about the points?
November 7th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Anecdotally as far as I can tell there is a tendency for players to choose good action though when presented a choice of action between extremes.
Like I think Western RPGs have the longest history of these types of choices in the game, and if you really get down to it It’s very rare you meet a serious RPG fan that role-plays evil characters in WRPGs despite the fact that they’ve often put rewards to it. Most of the people i knew played Bioshock saving little sisters, played kotor the first time light side, and in D&D based stuff will tend towards good alignments even if they could gain significant rewards playing the evil paths. I actually like to play D&D as a chaotic neutral character but I’ve hardly ever met anyone else who likes that alignment despite the fact that it actually allows you access to just about every reward (that’s not why I play CN I like to role play someone completely unpredicatable)
In Manhunt the difference is you’re not even being presented with a postivie choice. I think a decent number of people would be willing the jump through hoops if there were choices for how to behave in that game that weren’t between bad and worse, horrible and unthikable.
November 7th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Excellent article. MTV Multiplayer has quickly become one of my favorite videogaming sites.
November 7th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
Vermouth,
I usually play the good guy as well. But I think that’s because games have conditioned me to. Typically, when an NPC in an RPG asks me to help them out, I can assume that saying yes will give me access to a side-quest.
Saying no typically gives me nothing. While KOTOR and Fable tried to change that around, I’m too conditioned to being helpful to do anything else.
Games have taught us that charity actually gets you something tangible or quantifiable. That’s why I’m a nice guy when I’m playing a game.
Or am I just being too cynical?
-Stephen
November 8th, 2007 at 9:33 am
get a life
November 8th, 2007 at 9:59 am
I’m reminded of a piece I wrote a few years ago about choosing new video game censorship targets and how even the most innocent games condition players towards irresponsible behavior. For instance…
* Sonic the Hedgehog titles advocate stealing shiny gems and golden rings.
* Super Mario Bros. titles encourage stomping on turtles, a very serious charge of animal abuse.
* Resident Evil 4 allows players to engage in religious persecution.
* The games of the Kirby series inspire children to overeat, leading to our nation’s epidemic of obese youth.
* Metroid games involve the forced eradication of an entire species. Finish the game quickly to see heroine Samus Aran clad only in her lingerie.
* The Fuzzies of Yoshi’s Island cause whomever touches them to go on an LSD-like trip, thus making illegal drugs seem enticing.
… and so on.
November 8th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Oh, the irony…
A blog on MTV talks about the controversy about Manhunt 2 and its influence on gamers… the same place that force feeds viewers rappers talking about hos and shooting people.
I dunno. Ive never eaten a wild mushroom after playing Super Mario, but I have sped down the highway blasting “Move, get out the way”… video games arent nearly as influential as the music we listen to.
November 8th, 2007 at 10:24 am
Ironic indeed, Deathrun. But what does that have to do with what I wrote?
November 8th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Look at the history of entertainment and it is plainly obvious that playing the good guy hero has been ingrained into our culture throughout the last century. Worldwide, hero tales date even further back of course. If I remember correctly, in the first Manhunt you are attempting to save members of your own family, thus playing the hero, even tho you are tasked with executing malicious kills, it is for an apparently good cause overall.
As far as the point system goes, I would agree that it changes the way some people will play it, but it won’t change everyone. Players who rush through and take shortcuts don’t seem to be interested in immersing themselves in another world, or role, and need something like points or unlocks to force them to slow down and take advantage of what the game has to offer.
I see games like Manhunt or KoTOR as a chance to play a role out of my norm and I don’t need points to give me incentive to do that, merely the premise that my experience will be different is incentive enough. To me, points take away from the experience and make it more like a test. So, I see the removal of the point system as an attempt by the devs to make the game more of a decision making experience, rather than just a technical exercise in maximum brutality for the sake of getting the high score.
Really, removing the point system is a cool compromise because it quells any claims that the game rewards especially brutal play ahead of such criticisms. Instead it places the decision to be brutal or not squarely on the shoulders of the player, which may ultimately be a more rewarding experience.
November 8th, 2007 at 11:36 am
Stephen,
You may be right that we have been conditioned by games to associate the ‘charity roles’ with incentives, but that was clearly not the case with Bioshock. Saving the little sisters only gives about half the eve as harvesting, yet most people I’ve talked to save them. Maybe Bioshock is the first game to actually put that much weight on the moral choice.
November 8th, 2007 at 11:38 am
A very interesting debate - and one I wonder if we’re overanalyzing because of the audiences these games are marketed towards. If a 50-year old Walmart greeter plays games and is encouraged to rack up as many spectacular kills as possible, it’s gaming. But if a 13-year old is encouraged to hack and slash their way to video game glory, it’s creating another Columbine.
Personally, I’d much rather take out aggressions on a virtual zombie/mutant/alien than on my physical boss. I wonder if those people demonizing violent games have ever actually spent *real* time with teenagers. Have they been to screenings of “300″ and heard the cheers and laughs as the on-screen Spartans hack and slash their way to glory? Have they sat around a dinner table and laughed at someone farting? Have they ever rubbernecked at a horrible accident on the freeway?
In our world of touchy-feely, give-yourself-a-hug sensibility, the natural progression of schoolyard bully, scraping your knee climbing a tree, breaking a leg, and teen angst are all wrapped up in being able to release those natural developmental feelings virtually. No longer do teens actually interact unless it’s virtually. We’re leaving the physical bully to the legal system and killing his avatar online at every opportunity.
So why is this bad? What’s the problem with rewarding gamers with good in-game behavior? If the game were collecting as many pretty flowers as possible - with scissors: 5 pts; with your hands: 10pts; with magic gloves: 20pts - would we have as much of a problem with that reward system as we do with this one? Isn’t the real issue the content of the game and the double standard that we place on performance? Kids are pretty smart and they’re going to do the magnificent kills just to see what it does. Taking away the reward system just means the developers are doing a legal CYA in case their “game” gets called into court by the parents of dead teenagers after the next school shooting.
November 8th, 2007 at 11:45 am
“arf says:
November 8th, 2007 at 9:33 am
get a life”
That is his life dude…think before being stupid.
November 8th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
I’ve tried, as Casey mentions, to “role play” in video games. It never seems to work, though. When I played KoTOR, I tried to do it, but the thing is games are fixed systems. When I play a game I’m trying to figure out the systems behind the scenes and how to make them work optimally for me. I can’t “role play,” even in RPGs, or especially in RPGs. The available actions are too fixed for me to feel like I can really be this character. Maybe I’ll make the choice I think a certain kind of person would make in the situation, but the rest of the time their personality is unrelated to what’s going on. KoTOR really only has occaisional choices; the rest of the time the gameplay is the same. That’s very destructive to the feeling of choice or control.
I’ve always felt that in order to really get into the character I’d have to be able to take proactive steps that were in character — not just react to the game world as it is, but determine my own course of action. Otherwise you’re just doing the things the game tells you to, and good and evil choices are really just equivalent ways of getting from A to B.
That’s the thing about these kinds of games. I don’t know about others, but I don’t get into the characters. I just do the actions the game provides me with, using the tools it gives me. If the only acceptable action that allows me to proceed is to kill that guy and the tool I have is an axe, I’ll use the axe on the guy. But like Stephen said, I’ll probably do it in an efficient way, not the most brutal way possible. I’ll probably do each kill once to see what they’re like, but primarily I’ll do the quick one.
I think the idea that people tend towards the least evil options available is right. Even in the Hitman games I felt the most satisfaction when I didn’t kill anyone but the target. That game was explicitly about killing people, but I still got the most enjoyment from the least kills possible. I think Manhunt is similar to Hitman, in that respect — most people will tend towards the least evil actions, even when evil actions are all you have.
This is partly why I don’t think in-game actions have much effect on me. I’m doing the game’s actions with the game’s tools in the game’s context. In another game I could just as well be trying to subdue the main character from Manhunt by non-lethal means in order to prevent him from killing again. I wouldn’t feel that the latter game was morally superior to Manhunt because they’re both games with different objectives. That said, there is something to the idea that players will do actions that the game encourages more frequently. I just don’t think it made Stephen more brutal in real life just because he did the more vicious kills when it was encouraged. It just means he was trying to succeed at the game’s objectives as much as possible, which is what we all do when we play games.
November 8th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Then scoring system makes things more realistic. Efficiency and stealth would seem to be the prized aspects of being a contract killer in real life so I can support this change.
November 8th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Mkunze,
About that BioShock moral choice, I saved the Little Sisters. I don’t think it’s because I’m a nice person. Here’s what I wrote about it in September:
http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2007/09/17/vs-mode-bioshock-and-metroid-prime-3-corruption-totilo-v-croal-round-1/
I can’t say my choice was a purely ethical one. When you are first asked to decide whether to kill or save the first Little Sister, you are presented the choice not simply as a moral quandary (freedom vs. an end to misery) but as a wager on personal benefit. Take the greater immediate prize of 160 points of Adam energy for killing a Little Sister, or the smaller prize of 80 Adam with the promise of occasional gifts for sparing one? Let’s make a deal! This, ultimately, is what almost every moral choice in video games I’ve ever encountered boils down to: how will each path benefit me? We can write a doctoral thesis on whether all moral choices in real life can also be quantified in the same way, but at least in life, we can probably assume that empathy plays some role — that care for others is somewhat relevant to what we do. In games, it’s easy to think of a virtual character as a group of illuminated TV pixels. No little girl, thankfully, is going to live or die because of “BioShock.” But if I kill a virtual one I might be able to upgrade my ability to shoot fireballs from my left hand.
When we play games we are consciously and subconsciously constantly running the numbers, constantly grokking the system. We’re noticing patterns that let us deduce that we don’t really need to play a realistic game of football; we can just run the same few “Madden” plays that always guarantee a touchdown. We don’t need to really sneak through “Splinter Cell.” We can get through just as well by taking advantage of this blindspot in the enemy’s artificial intelligence and that unrealistic logic of the levels’ alarms. In games developers often want us to see actions and images and words and movements. So often we see through it all: we see the math. Until now I’ve seen the math in game’s moral choices. Piling on the ethical dilemmas in other games has just made the math more obvious and my view of them more cynical. So instead of cluttering the game with a carnival of conundrums, Levine pared the key decisions down to one — one that you are asked again and again. Far enough into the game, the choice to save or kill is no longer a true choice but a reminder of the path you had chosen. It is no longer, “Are you sure you want to save the next one too?” It was “You’re going to save this one like you did the last nine and deal with the consequences, right?”
The value of the Big Daddy - Little Sister Dilemma isn’t in making the player make a choice, but in making the player ultimately accept — or challenge — their own commitment to that choice by asking the same question again and again. This is not at all the way developers have presented ethical choice in games before, and it’s not even how the big moral-dilemma game of 2007, the “Jack Bauer in space” sci-fi epic “Mass Effect,” is being presented. For “BioShock,” I think Levine made a wonderful choice.
November 8th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Stephen,
Great piece. I agree that the end-of-level point tally is sorely missed in Manhunt 2. Why bother with an environmental execution? Why bother going for a “red” execution and not a more expedient “white” one?
Although, I will add that if the developers had not obscured the visuals on the executions, I might (for a while at least) enjoy going for a “red” execution just for the pure spectacle. So it’s not just the missing point-tally; the (missing) visuals also would be gameplay motivators.
However, I don’t think the absent point tally “breaks” the game in any way. It simply makes certain actions vestigal. To refer to a recent discussion between yourself and N’Gai, Manhunt 2 has been made more linear. The sole remaining motivation in the game is getting from point A to point B in the most expedient way possible. That’s pure linearity. It sounds like what you’re missing (and what I miss as well) are the elements that take us briefly out of the incessent grind of moving forward and into a more circular realm.
Here’s an example of what I mean: in games with end-of-level point tallies, I often will play through the game once along the linear path, finding the most expedient path. On a second play-through (if the game is compelling enough), I will then go for points, unlockables, secrets, etc. The first time through is linear; the second time is full of tangents, backtracking, replayed levels, and so on. This is how I play the Metroid games or the Ratchet and Clank games.
A simple linear game can be made more robust, replayable, and “circular” by adding in these extra motivations. Even if Manhunt 2 had retained the point tallies, I’m not sure I would have cared on a first play-through. Am I unusual in this? I don’t think so. I think games like this depend upon one overriding motivator: getting to the end. Everything else is peripheral.
Would the game be better with point tallies? Absolutely. Would I replay it? Definitely. You can bet I would have played through again trying to get every environmental execution and kill every one else with a “red” execution. I’m a gaming perfectionist. Even if there are quite a few of us, and even if games seem geared to appeal to us, I don’t think we’re the most common breed of gamer. Most people just want to get through a game, and some don’t even care about that.
Point is, the game with or without tallies or visible executions would still be overwhelmingly driven by a gameplay-desire simply to reach the end. Any “circular” elements now are not built into the game, though players could still choose to do those things for their own (minimal) satisfaction.
Again, excellent and thoughtful work.
-Jesse
November 8th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
wow, you hit the nail on the head, I was playing MH2 on my psp last night and going through level after level executing the 3rd teir viscious kills, then after a few levels I realized, there’s no point. why was I restarted levels and getting caught try to get the highest score when the game gives absolutly no reward for it :/ lame.
Manhunt will always and forever > Manhunt2.
FYI: this does greatly effect the way the game is playing - manhunt was scarey in a palible sense - MH2 is just another k/d/k/d type of played game (Key/Door)
November 8th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Very good and thought provoking article. Thanks for giving us something to think about.
As I played through Manhunt 2 it crossed my mind once or twice (briefly) wondering what happened to the scoring system. I agree with the R* guy’s reasoning about its removal though, as Manhunt 2 takes a completely different path with its story than Manhunt did. In Manhunt it made sense to get rated, as you were essentially just making a new snuff film in different locations each level. Since Manhunt 2 doesn’t following that formula and tries to have more of a traditional story, I agree it would be somewhat distracting for a ratings screen to pop up after every level’s cutscene. It’d start with the thought ‘well… just who the hell is rating me?’ and falls apart from there, since several levels take place in the past, etc. I guess they could’ve said it Leon rating you each time, but that isn’t as strong as the premise in the first Manhunt.
On an aside, is it just me, or was the first Manhunt WAY more brutal and graphic than the second one (even with the blurring turned off)? Since you’ve played the AO version it’d be interesting to hear your thoughts on this. It seems back when the first Manhunt came out we were a lot more wisted and tbloodthristy in our entertainment (ex, torture porn movies were huge and mainstream, shows like 24 pushed the boundaries of broadcast television violence, etc) than we are now.
November 8th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
@Mkunze
Bioshock actually rewards you more for saving the little sisters. You get half the Adam per sister, but for every three sisters saved, you receive a teddy bear gift next time you get to a station. In that there is usually 300 Adam as well as free powers. Therefore, you get the adam you lost out on (I think it was usually 80/160 saved/killed from the sisters). So you actually end up with more Adam as well as powers you didn’t have to waste Adam to purchase. Also, if you were playing it on 360, there is an achievement for saving 100% of them, but there was nothing for draining them. Therefore, it was actually negative for the player to kill them. I personally prefer to play the evil side of a game, but 90% of the time I play through as the good side as that is what the dev has basically made the game for. To get the true story out of most RPG’s, the choices that are presented before you usually only have one correct choice to get the best situation out of it. If you pick the ‘evil’ choice, very often it boots you out of the conversation and when you talk to them again, they start over until you choose the one to help them. To me, this is not a choice, but merely like a magic trick of forcing the hand. The participant (the player) really has absolutely no choice as the story has one path in most instances. Therefore, when actually presented with a true choice (like fable) I normally choose the darker one as it is the rarer instance in any game and it’s refreshing to actually have that. I started to do this in bioshock and when I checked my progress to that of my friend who was playing at roughly the same pace, he was leaps ahead (he was saving all, I was draining all). Games have for the last 2 decades usually given the illusion of choice while the hard wired parts behind the scenes really only have one path.
KOTR was a mix of the two… One could go good or bad, but in the end the story usually played out entirely the same with only minor parts playing out differently per mission. The industry has sorely lacked games with true player choice, and usually the ones that are touted as having complete freedom, generically only do so on the surface or are purely cosmetic (changes in character appearance with exact same story). This can often be noted by another play through of the game where as the exact same things happen with only minor missions that aren’t important being different.
November 8th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
The story here is really two-fold, despite your interest in the scoring system:
The ESRB conspired to leave certain adult material in the game, which can be unblurred.
Secondly, this is a “Strong Sexual Content” game which is being sold to minors, openly. This may be a criminal act.
November 8th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Jack,
Thanks for commenting. The issues you mentioned are already on the table. But what do you think of this scoring aspect of things?
I’d love to know what you think of that , since my post is an attempt to bring that into the conversation about “Manhunt 2.”
Do you see a palpable difference between a game that gives player more points for behaving more brutally and a game that doesn’t offer any greater incentive for more extreme behavior?
Does Rockstar cutting the scoring system from the AO version of “Manhunt 2″ bring the game closer to something you would find acceptable?
-Stephen
November 8th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
(I have to admit though… this has to be one of the most intelligent stretch of comments I’ve seen based on games in a while hahaha)
I also forgot to mention that while I have enjoyed playing Manhunt in the past, one of the things I actually did not enjoy about it was the fact that to actually get good scores I had to sit there and try to get red kills constantly. I enjoyed everything else about the game, the environment, atmosphere and content though. It was just the slow motion pace of the game in order to play it to it’s fullest that turned me off of it…. Honestly, hearing that the scoring is not in it this time around, I am halfway debating it. Though I am a strong opposer of censorship in games as I want to play what the dev’s had in mind for it, not what a small group panel decides I should be allowed to play. I am an adult, and if I choose to purchase said games and wish to play such content, I should have that choice. I do not understand or agree with the idea that the second a game gets rated AO, it cannot be released. It is the same way with movies right now. If something gets branded NC-17, it won’t se distribution. Why have ratings at all if it instantly means it’s not allowed. I am above the age of 17, I am also an adult. Therefore I should be able to purchase or go see said movies. I would much rather see an M version of the game sold in stores and an AO version sold online if that needs to be the case then watch games that could be great get butchered last minute to appease some mom in idaho who can’t police her own kids….
(my apologies for 2 long comments, I just get fired up over this stuff…)
November 8th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
nice article. it’s rare to hear people talk about these kinda issues in games, even though the interactivity and value systems are what make games special as a medium.
in fact, maybe child psychologists should stop studying sensory desensitization (visual and physical, when it comes to the wii’s controller) and start worrying more about logical desensitization. how do games affect people’s views about how the world works? after playing oregon trail, how do kids view oxen and forging rivers? and as you mentioned, how should the ESRB think about these things?
November 8th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
In BioShock, of course you had to be rewarded in some way for saving the Little Sisters–otherwise it wouldn’t have been in your rational self interest to do so. Well, that and the press would have had a field day with a game where killing little girls is the best choice. I guess that was in 2K’s rational self interest. As it is, it turned into a question of the time value of Adam.
Manhunt 2 definitely suffered from being called Manhunt 2. If it had been called Asylum or something, there would have been no reason to give it a multi-tier kill system, and since it was the top-tier kills that prompted the initial AO rating, it would have been out months sooner and been a more focused game. Unless there’s some twist that links it to the original Manhunt apart from the fact that some of the people hunting you are in the same situation as the original Manhunt protagonist. I didn’t play it because post-normalization its ratings were terrible.
November 8th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Hey Stephen, this is my first time visiting your blog and color me impressed. I look forward to seeing future installments in my RSS feed.
While musing on this, I realized my favorite morality system was in a game that didn’t come right out and admit that it had a moral system in place: Dead Rising. Frank works perfectly as our avatar in the game: He has no real motivation to save the town or the people in the mall, his stated interest there is purely monetary. It’s up to the player to either continue with this path and totally ignore helping the civilians trapped in the mall or risk not being able to complete the story correctly due to lost time tracking down survivors or dying outright due to the insane difficulty of carrying a woman through a horde of zombies. Numerous times throughout the game, I felt a real sense of weight to my decision to ditch survivors in order to make it to the next checkpoint on time only to feel real guilty when I had to watch them mauled and converted. (Humorously, my favorite memory was when once of the survivors I ditched and let be converted exacted her revenge when I got cornered). I also felt catharsis when I was able to save people and reunity them. But similar to Manhunt 2, the reason I was willing to go that extra mile was for the reward of more experience points so I could level up my skills. I wonder what decisions I would have made had I not been rewarded at all for rescuing people other than with a bit of gratitude.
November 8th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Sin,
Your comparison between AO-rated games and NC-17 movies doesn’t quite work. Films have the added benefit of multiple distribution and exhibition outlets (multiplex theaters, arthouse theaters, second-run theaters, video release, special order, etc.). Games, for the most part, depend on a single distribution channel. If it doesn’t appear in stores, it won’t appear in rental outlets or in online stores.
The gaming industry is in the (slow) process of restructing its distribution/exhibition channels, but until games stop being “infantalized,” adult games will continue having a hard time finding distribution. The audience is there, but the culture and the industry are not.
And, Steve, the problem with rating a game’s “logic” is that it can’t be easily quantified. I agree with your sentiment, though. I was always troubled by George Lucas’s “bowdlerization” of his own movies. Why is it better to kill a bunch of robots (in Episode 1) than for Han to kill Greedo (in Episode IV)? Logically, it’s the same thing. Quantifiably, though, it’s different; killing a robot is measurably different from killing a living thing. Lucas even goes so far as to make the killing and mangling of robots “funny.” That seems far more harmful psychologically than Han’s pre-emptive attack, but how does one quantify the quality of violence?
As much as I might disagree with Mr. Thompson’s position and his logic, he is not approaching violence and sex quantitatively. He’s responding to his “sense” that the game is too violent or sexually explicit rather than any quantifiable measure of that content. That’s the danger of moving away from the ESRB’s current methods.
Apologies, Stephen. That’s two long comments to the same article. I deal with this stuff in my professional life, so I get caught up in these issues very easily.
November 8th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Jesse-
I do see that difference, the similarity I see is in the changes made to said products before they hit the market. Things like South Park and other movies that have to be chopped before their initial release due to ratings. They start off as what the creator envisions and get the extreme rating and then have to be butchered to be something else that fits what the rating system wants them to be. True, movies do have alot more means of distribution, but to be truly accepted, they have to be fed through a mold first and you end up with trite results and alot less creativity. At this point in society, people have to stick to certain means in order to create, and it kills alot of creativity that otherwise could flourish in its own areas. Not everything is going to be widely accepted, so why can there not be methods to get the product you wish to be a part of that the creator wishes to make?
I will gladly flash my ID in order to get the pure product that was created instead of being limited because parents cannot or choose to not police their own kids. I do not agree with the mentality that creators have to cater to every single possible outcome in order to do that which they choose to. I feel that if one end of the spectrum is going to be free to do what they choose and create E games for everyone, then AO games should be free to do what they wish and not be limited distribution because the system they are coming out on wishes to cater to select audiences.
November 8th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
Sin-
Totally agree. I wish there were such a thing as a “pure product” that weren’t pre-emptively self-censored prior to release. Unfortunately, games are commodities as much as they are art. Game developers know this and the ESRB knows this. Ratings are much more about tailoring a game to fit a correct niche in the marketplace than they are some “dictatorial” form of censorship. For the most part, the ESRB helps developers find the appropriate demographic. It’s good for business.
The problem isn’t “censorship,” it’s the marketplace. Would an AO rated game sell well enough to justify the cost of development? Probably not, especially if it’s a relatively big budget game like Manhunt 2.
It has been often said about Manhunt 2 that the ESRB (and other ratings organizations around the world) uphold an unfair standard–that games are rated much more harshly than movies, for example. What this argument misses, though, is that games and movies are not the same. Violence in one is not violence in the other. This isn’t simply because games are perceived as being “for children,” but more importantly because games are perceived as being more interactive than movies.
The fact that Manhunt 2’s developers removed the end-of-level scoring system strikes me as a pre-emptive attempt to avoid being attacked for scoring players on how brutally they kill someone. This is an issue of interactivity, not of visibility.
I have no idea what sort of negotiation went on between the ESRB and Rockstar, but I’m sure Rockstar (the suits at least) sees the outcome as being in their best possible interest. Yes, they’d like to release the best possible game they can, but they also understand the realities of the marketplace.
The bigger stakes are for us 18+ gamers. It’s a bit of a catch-22. AO games won’t sell until there’s a viable market for them, but there won’t be a viable market until publishers, retailers, and console manufacturers take that risk.
November 8th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
[…] psychology involved in how rewards affect the way we do things. Stephen Totilo has a great post over on the MTV Multiplayer Blog about how the big story about Manhunt 2 was completely missed by […]
November 8th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
“The bigger stakes are for us 18+ gamers. It’s a bit of a catch-22. AO games won’t sell until there’s a viable market for them, but there won’t be a viable market until publishers, retailers, and console manufacturers take that risk.”
Bingo… I think the market is there, but it’s impossible until the rules that are in place can be changed. The problem is, and as has been touched on here, there is no way for them to get the product out the door without making it safe for anyone. Politicians and the media tear anything apart without even knowing what it is. They jump on the band wagon of “oh you can kill a hooker?” and run with it without having any idea. To be honest, I did that once in GTA, mainly because I was curious as to what the big deal was. As he said though, it wasn’t a viable way of getting health back, so I never used it again. Yet when asked, anyone in power will state that GTA 3 was only about killing cops and having sex with hookers… I could have cared less about the hot coffee aspect of the other GTA, and I think I did about 2 of the dating missions before I got really bored of them. Yet anyone that can do anything about games devotes all of their effort into squashing the most minor aspects of games without ever caring about delving into the deeper aspects of it.
I don’t believe I’ve stated it before, but I would like to say that I have throughly enjoyed your writing Stephen, and it is much more on a level that is in touch with gamers as opposed to alot of the media out there currently. Personally, I can’t stand MTV, but I do plan on reading your future articles, so good job on that and keep it up.
November 8th, 2007 at 10:59 pm
Maybe if you offer Jack Thompson a wad of cash he might answer…
I think you have a point - why has no one else picked this omission in basic gameplay mechanics up?
I think that most reviewers/websites don’t really care - they just wanted to review “the world’s most controversial game” first and not actually think about it at all.
Most of the reviews give the editing of the action as one of the negatives which I find preposterous. Are these people saying Manhunt 2 would be a better game if the blood and bursting testicles would make the game *better*?
And to Sin: You’ve mentioned numerous times that censorship stifles creativity.
Please explain how censorship stifles creativity?
Take your example - the creators of South Park. Mat and Tey have never *not* done something because they fear it will be censored. They’ve gone ahead and done it, often knowing it will be censored, but doing it anyway. How is their creativity stifled?
Rockstar knew their game would get censored, but made it bloody and violent anyway. They had to go back and amend it, but again, that’s not stifling their creativity, because I’m sure GTA IV, Manhunt 3, and whatever other game Rockstar have planned will be creative and interesting all the same.
November 9th, 2007 at 9:36 am
@Funky J
The fact that creators have to sit there and change their product in CYA tactics, means that they have to change what their initial idea was in order to make it acceptable to censorship. How many times did the south park movie have to go back for editing in order to finally be released? In the movie boys don’t cry, the female orgasm scene, which was just a close up of a womans face showing her pleasure, was cut due to graphicness…. there was no nudity in it. How many games come out that have to get changed in order to get a rating that is acceptable for distribution. When a game gets slapped with an AO rating and has to go back for cuts and changes to receive an M rating, we see a different product then what was intended. That is stifling creativity.
Games are constantly at a crossroad between “what they can do” and “what they want to do”. Due to this we see constant changes to the creative process. I personally am an artist. If I sit down and want to create something, I don’t sit there and create an outline of what I can and can’t do, and then create within those limits. I make what I feel like making, sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. At this point, the games industry is quickly becoming another form of the movie industry. We are constantly seeing sequel after sequel of “tried and true” products because large game companies do not wish to put their investments into untried markets. All of these things combined are creating an environment that does not strive on growth, but merely what is next on the list.
The industry will continue to drive itself into a corner if the creators cannot be free to create. The definition of censoring as “the force that represses ideas, impulses, and feelings, and prevents them from entering consciousness in their original, undisguised forms.” is exactly what I mean. If I wanted to play Manhunt 2, and run around each level brutally slaying people, I should be free to just as much as I am to run around in VP and create pinata’s. If I cannot play the version of MH2 that R* intended to be played, then their creativity has been forced to fit a mold.
Matt and Trey are two pioneers in this area. They are an exception to the rules that I am proud of. In the terms of Team America, they tried a new method to get around the ratings system. They actually put in the most depraved and vile things they could come up with that they knew would get the censors attention. Therefore, when it got slapped with an NC17 rating, they got it back, took out the extra parts and sent in the movie they intended. The raters saw the new version, sans the extra parts, and gave it an R and made it ready for release. In terms of the TV show south park, they had to play around with the rules based on the time the show is played in order to change the rules of censorship and is another area entirely. True, this is another form of creativity breed from the environment that stifles it but has taken decades in the movie industry to reach such an end. Movies have been around for the better part of the century, do we really need to wait another 70-80 years in order to see games start to have such minor freedoms and loopholes as well?
Games are a media that is on a player level. Movies and TV are on the level of one version that everyone sees the same. If I wish to see a movie, I see the same movie that an 80 year old can go see, or a kid can see in some way. Though with games, I go pick up said game, bring it back to my own residence and play it. I do not see why if a game is intended for adults, M or AO (which essentially mean the same thing, only one has more, but intended for the same audience) why they cannot put whatever they want into the game. It is intended for adults, not for children. I went to school for game design and animation, and the rules layed out do not allow one to create what you want, therefore there are limits to creativity.
November 9th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
[…] все же вырезали кое-что - окончательно и бесповоротно. Судя игровому блогу MTV Multiplayer, под нож пошла рейтинговая система, которая должна […]
November 13th, 2007 at 11:08 am
[…] people when you @%*%$ up more efficient ways of moving through the game. Moreover, the developers cut the scoring system for executions that was previously in the AO version and in the original Manhunt. In summary, the […]
November 16th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
I was a sucker for the hype and bought this game (wii version). The thing is, with all the gory stuff blurred out, there is no incentive to risk holding on for “stylistic” kills.
February 4th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
[…] Effect saved game is worth $122.10. His point: We should back up our saved games more often. And at MTV’s Multiplayer Blog, Stephen Totilo posted a fascinating essay on how Rockstar’s removal of the scoring system in […]
April 26th, 2008 at 10:06 am
[…] included in Manhunt 2 initially, but later removed after the controversy over the game’s AO rating.http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2007/11/07/what-the-manhunt-2-furor-missed-the-most-important-cut/August LEx 7.25.07.inddFile Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTMLthe workshop, to explain the cut […]