When I hear that Manhunt 2's getting an AO rating, I get excited. After all-- what's so wrong with a game that's only for adults? It's the 21st century. Is it still implied that video games must all be played solely by children, and that the consumer market is still so illiterate that they're liable to buy content without basic awareness of whether or not it offends their value system?Apparently. If you haven't yet heard, Manhunt 2's AO rating means the BBFC over in the UK's brought the banhammer down on it hard-- meaning it won't be available there at all, due to what the BBFC calls its "unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone in an overall game context which constantly encourages visceral killing with exceptionally little alleviation or distancing."
In other words, rated for violence, not sexual content, the usual culprit of AO ratings. Perhaps it's evidence of some sort of psychiatric instability on my part, but I'll say it anyway: that sounds kinda awesome.
Commercially, as GamePolitics says, the AO rating is traditionally the "kiss of death," setting Take Two up for millions of dollars in losses. But (with the exception of the exclusion of an entire geographic consumer market) could a case be made for a hardcore AO rating attracting the interest of more consumers than it will repel, compensating for the fact that it can't be sold in a place like Wal Mart? How many gamers buy their games at Wal Mart, anyway? When I say that I'd check out this game just to see what kind of violence is so epic it has to be banned from Ireland and England, I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Rockstar responded yesterday with the following statement:
“We respect those who have different opinions about the horror genre and video games as a whole, but we hope they will also consider the opinions of the adult gamers for whom this product is intended. We believe all products should be rated to allow the public to make informed choices about the media and art they wish to consume. The stories in modern video games are as diverse as the stories in books, film and television. The adult consumers who would play this game fully understand that it is fictional interactive entertainment and nothing more.”
Amen. If good PR within its native market helps sell games, perhaps they'll yet recoup their losses (if GTA doesn't do it for them, another main reason they're able to take a risk like this). In any event, why can't they release two versions of a game, one cut and one full? Like they do with singles and albums-- a real version, and then a radio edit?
