Leaked “Modern Warfare 2″ Footage Causes Demand for Rating Re-Evaluation

The leaked footage from Activision’s upcoming title Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has prompted an Australian watchdog organization to call for a review of the game’s current MA15+ rating, according to GamePolitics.

The Australian Council on Children and the Media, which refers to itself as a “national community organization” dedicated to the well-being of the country’s children, made the demand in response to the graphic nature of the footage recorded.  The videos, which GamePolitics have stated are being scoured from the web by the game’s publisher Activision, depict the player character and his four companions gunning down defenseless civilians in a crowded airport in an act of terrorism.

The only easily found site that still carries the footage is this page from Online Gaming Europe, and even then only the top video still works.  The gameplay shown has the player character open fire on a line of people with an assault rifle alongside four other men, all of whom are wearing body armor over civilian clothes.  The group then moves through the rest of the airport, with highlights including one of the AI companions coolly shooting through a window to his side and the player gunning down one man dragging another incapacitated man to safety.

What makes this particular story outstanding among Australia’s other anti-gaming reactions is the fact that the gaming community can see where they’re coming from this time.  A significant contributing factor to the footage’s disturbing aspect is the fact that it is made up of actual gameplay as opposed to a cutscene–all of the violence perpetrated by the viewpoint character was done by the player’s input.  Making the massacre part of the player’s interaction with the game undoubtedly provokes a greater (and much more deeply disturbing) emotional response to what’s playing out on screen, which has been tried before in other games.  At the finale the Cold War-set Metal Gear Solid 3, for instance–a series famous for having an extremely unbalanced gameplay-to-cutscene ratio–the player character defeats his mentor, who has defected from the USA to Russia for apparently ideological reasons and is ordered by her to kill her with her own gun.  Rather than have the protagonist shoot her during the course of the cutscene, the view pans out and the letterboxing recedes, at which point the player recognizes–to his extreme discomfort–that the game is going to make you pull the trigger yourself.

Of course, not all of Australia views the ACCM’s outcry in entirely black-or-white terms.  As noted in the first article, Electronic Frontiers Australia lobbyist Nicholas Suzor sees the controversy surrounding the game as even more evidence that the country needs to modify their ratings system, saying that, “We may make an argument that these sorts of topics are not suitable for children, but I don’t at all accept that it is unsuitable for adults.”

Quantic Dream Gearing Up to Engage in Self-Censorship

Coming hot on the heels of my last post on Quantic Dream’s upcoming adventure title Heavy Rain is this interview with executive producer Guillaume de Fondaumiere, wherein he plays through a few previously unseen scenes from the game for the audience and also possibly contradicts what I said on Saturday.

The comments in question occur at about the 5 minute and 7:40 mark, where Guillaume breaks from talking about the game features and instead addresses its content, saying that the title revolves around serious and disturbing events and yet the company “didn’t want to create a game that would shock audiences, but we wanted to tell a story for adults.”

What this entails comes to light near the end of the video, where Guillaume reveals that the title will be “slightly adapted” for releases around the world (with specific mention of the Japanese version due to the audience being addressed in the interview).

“I don’t think the changes make a big difference, those are really marginal things.  We felt the need to adapt the content to the culture,” Guillaume says, before going on to back up Saturday’s post and say that Heavy Rain could continue to battle against the public perception of video games as merely toys instead of a serious medium of expression.

Exactly what these changes will be are not addressed or even hinted at, but this bit of self-censorship could be motivated both by events like the Australian Left 4 Dead 2 debacle as well as a way to appease Sony’s attempts to appeal to a wider audience.  The issue Sony had with the title several months ago concerned a sex scene that occurs over the course of the story, which game writer David Cage stubbornly refused to compromise.

Disturbing PS3 Ads Disowned

The offending print advertisement, courtesy of Joystiq.com

The baffling pair of print advertisements that caused such a fuss last week have since been disowned by both Sony and the advertising company that created them, according to Kotaku.com.

BBDO Chile, the advertising company that made the ads (whose name is apparently an acronym of its founder’s last names) released a statement saying, “This creative design did not involve and was never approved of by Sony Computer Entertainment or Sony.  This “mock campaign” was developed by BBDO Chile staff and was submitted to various creative competition/festivals without prior notification or approval from SCE/Sony, and it is not representative of the views or advertising policies of SCE/Sony.  BBDO Chile apologizes for using this creative concept without authorization or prior approval, and for its misrepresentation of the PlayStation brand and its values.”  The statement was signed by Cristián Lehuedé, Executive President of BBDO Chile.

The detail that the ads were “not representative of the views… of SCE/Sony” are likely the most important clause of the release, given that the most offensive of the pair, pictured above, shows a young man–Sony’s target demographic–giving blood to Nazi field marshal Erwin Rommel.  What is implied by the advertisement, if anything, has not been stated by either BBDO or Sony, but a lot of unsavory conclusions can be drawn by if you’re willing to use your imagination (gamers are Nazi sympathizers?  Sony calling Godwin’s Law on itself?  An attempt at vindicating a relatively humane member of an otherwise monstrous military force?).  The second ad, depicting another individual participating in a heart transplant with Joan D’Arc, has been relatively ignored.

Courtesy of Joystiq.com

What is also unclear are the names and dates of the creative competitions and festivals mentioned in Mr. Lehuedé’s quote, from which the advertisements were supposedly leaked onto the internet from.

As pointed out in this article, Sony has something of a history when it comes to bizarre advertisements and campaigns.  Apparently, the company draws the line at Nazi imagery.