Should subjects like child abuse be off limits for video games?
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The PlayStation 4 game Detroit: Become Human took flack last week because its trailer included footage of a father’s abusive behaviour towards his young daughter .
On first appearances it seems like an inappropriate subject for a video game.
However, this question — of what games can and can’t include — is revealing of the place games currently hold in wider culture.
Unlike reading books or watching films, we happily divide the world into those who game and those who don’t. In spite of the size of the industry, games are considered by many to be just entertainment for a niche audience.
For those that play them, however, they are more than just a lifestyle choice. Video games offer new and compelling way to tell stories, experience different perspectives and even make sense of the world.
Game makers too, treat games as cultural objects. They create spaces where the sorts of subjects we find in novels, TV dramas and movies can be addressed in powerful ways. It’s this, more than technological advancement, or adrenaline thrills, that makes them such an exciting medium.
(Image: Sony)
But this disconnect — between what games are and what they are generally thought to be — makes it difficult to find a balanced way to talk about controversial games in the mainstream media.
As Iain Simons, Director of the National Videogame Arcade, put it recently. “Video games speak culture with ever increasing fluency. The problem is that cultural policy doesn’t speak video game – yet”. The recent outrage to the Detroit: Become Human trailer is testimony to this.
Let’s be clear, though. The trailer is a shocking piece of video game footage.
A beautiful android housekeeper tries to protect a young daughter from her belt-wielding aggressive father. Initially she fails to do this and the girl appears to be killed. As the footage continues, though, we are shown that multiple outcomes are possible: flee with the daughter, lock him out, confront his behaviour, hide the daughter or grab a gun.
Those literate with these types of video games, understand these scenes through a grid. They know that the game isn’t about being a child abuser, or glorifying that scenario. Like the difficult subjects we appreciate being included in soap operas, books and films, there’s an expectation that it is appropriately handled, but ultimately it’s a positive experience for adults.
To those unfamiliar with what games are becoming, this seems distasteful. Everyone would agree that for a medium that’s sole purpose was entertainment it would be inappropriate to use this topic as an ill-advised novelty. But that’s not all games are.
Dame Esther Rantzen told The Mail on Sunday : “Violence against children is not entertainment. It’s not a game… The makers of this game should be thoroughly ashamed. I think it’s perverse. Who thinks beating a child is entertainment?”
(Image: NSPCC/Childline)
She is right, no one thinks this is entertainment. But she has wrongly assumed that entertainment is all games can be.
I spoke to Andy Phippen, Professor of Children and Technology at Plymouth University, who identified the confusion well: “Once again we have a moral outrage because a video game is depicting something that happens in real life. There is no indication that the abuse of the child in the game is portrayed in a sensational or light hearted manner. Games such as Detroit Become Human have more in common with morally complex and challenging films such as Oldman’s Nil By Mouth than Space Invaders and Pac-Man.”
Andy Burrows, of the NSPCC, added to concerns in the article that “any video game that trivialises or normalises child abuse, neglect or domestic violence for entertainment is unacceptable.” Tory MP Damian Collins, Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, agreed. “It is completely wrong for domestic violence to be part of a video game regardless of what the motivation is.”
Again these are good points, if the medium of video games was restricted to only fun and entertainment. But this simply isn’t the case any more.
Including these difficult subjects in the games we play can, actually, have positive outcomes. Phippen highlighted some of these benefits. “As we have seen from key story lines in soaps like East Enders, bringing these issues into the public consciousness, using dramatic vehicles, there is increased likelihood that those who have suffered from abuse will speak up. They often feel no one will believe them, and abusers are very good at isolating victims, so to see dramatised stories and events they can relate to, they are reminded they need not suffer in silence.”
Another challenge to the game’s inclusion of the abuse scenario was that children may play the game. Games sold in the UK have a rating that is legally enforced at the point of sale. It’s illegal for anyone under the stipulated age to buy a game that is rated PEGI 12, 16 or 18. It’s not illegal for a parent to buy the game for their under age child though, which caused some to suggest games like this should be banned.
I spoke to Gianni Zamo, Communications Officer for the Video Standards Council who administer video game ratings in the UK. He said that “Detroit: Become Human has not yet been submitted to us for a rating and we cannot, therefore, comment on whether it will attain a release certificate or otherwise. We are rightly obliged to be objective and non-partisan in the matter of rating video games and we will invariably come to a considered judgment ultimately.”
(Image: Sony)
Specifically on whether some subjects should be considered off limits for video games, Zamo continued, “the representation of domestic violence/child abuse themes in a video game is not something we would consider to be ‘forbidden’ unless it is presented in such a way that we conclude it is likely to generate significant harm to the consumer and contravenes the legislation under which we operate. It is also worth mentioning that many cinema films and videos dealing with these themes have been released over many years without subsequent ill-effect upon the consumer.”
Phippen takes this one step further, highlighting how banning games masks the real issue. “Calls to ban unpalatable games is not going to tackle any of the real problems we, as a society, face. Banning a game like Detroit: Becoming Human will not prevent domestic violence against children, it has been happening for far longer than videos games have existed.”
As you can tell, I’m suggesting that these knee-jerk reactions are not only inappropriate but also unhelpful. That’s not to say video games are perfect, or unproblematic. They often have a too-cosy relationship with violence and tendency to make shooting people in the head entertaining.
However, rather than outrage and banning, this should cause us to press the games we play to deal with these difficult subjects in a genuinely mature way.
Anne Longfield, Children’s Commissioner for England, makes a salient point here in the Mail on Sunday article: “Whatever the makers’ motivations it seems to end up in a clumsy, inappropriate and graphic game play that is no more than an unpleasant exploitative way of making money off the back of real suffering”.
This is a much better challenge for game makers like Quantic Dream’s David Gage. Can games like Detroit: Become Human find the maturity and nuance to do justice to including such difficult and delicate subjects.
(Image: Sony)
We need to ask better questions of games like Detroit: Become Human. What is it about? How does it deal with this theme coherently? What does it teach us about its subject matter that books and film could not. Does it take its interactive nature seriously? What can we learn about ourselves and our society from playing the game?
As with films, books and theatre, there are plenty of examples of video games including shocking scenes for no better reason than to generate headlines. But also, there are plenty of games that shine new light on tough subjects.
The Last of Us is a strong example. Although hugely violent, for adult players it offers a unique study of the relationship between parents and their children and does so in a way completely distinct to how a book or film can address the subject.
The question for Detroit: Become Human is not whether it should be allowed to exist but how well it can live up to the scenes in this trailer. This way of introducing itself has certainly set the bar high, but it’s within its grasp to meet this topic with maturity and nuance.
We need to grant the developer space to complete their work as a whole before jumping to conclusions from one troubling scene.