Game in Society

On Monday 30, PEGI turned into law in the UK. Everybody seems happy with that. It was a tough battle between BBFC and PEGI, with the help of the VSC and UK-IE.

Symbolically this shift is interesting as the first game to be submitted for a rating was Night trap, in 1993, the BBFC was on it. At this time, SEGA was anticipating US Congress hearings, and was working on its own game labeling system. It was also a decisive time for the videogame industry. The multimedia perspectives were hot... The CD-Rom was told to be the future of videogames and interactive movies with the full motion movie game based genre. It had not been. With Mortal Kombat and its digitalized actors, photorealism became a major issue.

Back to 1992: Night trap, the future of videogames.

What a superb 183rd amendment

France is quite weird about videogames. Politics are on fire to demonstrate how videogames are bad for our little boys. The last strike was made by French deputies who thought it would be wonderful to define videogames as addictive. Even if videogames’addiction has not be proven.

The funny thing is that they want to amend the 25th article of the French hospital reform. Videogames and hospital ? I am not kidding.

To understand how crazy it goes, I translate the article 25 in order to understand the combo, Because the tricks and the logic are certainly hidden in the manual:

Article 25 - Prohibition of "candy cigarettes".

The aim of the article is to prohibit the sale and distribution of cigarettes whose taste has been modified specifically to attract a younger audience. These cigarettes contain as much or more nicotine and tar than conventional cigarettes. The sweet flavors (vanilla or chocolate) can erase the bitterness of the first cigarette and thus the dependence on nicotine.

A recent survey, conducted in Paris, has highlighted the fact that 30% of smokers aged thirteen regularly consume this type of cigarette.

Well, what connection with video games? I am not a mind reader. But it always makes me laugh and cry to see noobs table amendments to bills about videogames:

Be careful, what’s following is impressive : the 183rd amendment.

After Article 25 insert the following:

When a game presents a risk to public health because of its addictive potential, support each unit and its packaging bear, under conditions set by a decree of the Minister for Health, a message of sanitary . The implementation of this obligation is incumbent upon the publisher or, failing that, the distributor responsible for distribution in France of the video game.

Well well, Same old song, It has already had this debate on the draft law on juvenile delinquency during the campaign of our dear Mr. President. An administrative authority should be created. We are still waiting. But the fact that Ministry of Health should regulate videogames must be a joke. And that the game is attached to candy cigarettes I can’t stop crying.

The best is yet to come:

SUMMARY STATEMENT

Adolescents constitute a particularly vulnerable target to computer. Consultations for addiction to video games are primarily concerned with children and adolescents. Faced with this phenomenon, a common sign in 25 European countries was established. PEGGY system (Pan-European Game Information) provides guidance in the form of symbols printed on the boxes of video games. However, many parents do not understand the meaning of symbols. This amendment seeks to make the implementation of a prevention message clear about the risks of addiction that can cause some video games.

I though I was dreaming when I read that. PEGGY??? Peggy the pig ? Or whatelse? No, it is PEGI, the pan-european game information, quite the same self-regulatory organization as ESRB. Then I started wondering why they would do such a mistake:

• Are either illiterate or don’t they know the principle of an acronym ?
• Is there a brand new european organism? or they do not know the PEGI system ?
• Even better, they do not know what a video game is and they did not read the state of the art in this field.

Just have a glance at their previous report which mixes video games and gambling. Hey guys, gambling issues ended with the arcade coin-up system games. It was during the 80s, just 20 years ago.

At this level, this is more than ideology: it's political incompetence.

So rather than to reform the university, tears on the lower level in French and blaming everything they do not know, they had to go to school to avoid this error.

Well, here it is France. Maybe will be the first State to define videogames as addictive. Where are waiting the next review by the Senate. Our government is so open minded that they use communist tricks to solve public issues. I think that every gamer should exile from France and ask anywhere for political refugee status. Can I come ?

PS: I you want the link, they are unfortunately in French, but you can find them in the french version of this post

I read Nate Combs' terranova post wondering about MMO political economy. Are MMO pro-liberal or dirigist ? What are pvp or gvg ideologies? Is Eve on-line democratic?

I did not try here to answer these particular points, but proposed a methodology to study videogames' ideology on a larger scale. Here are some of my PhD's researches thoughts.

Ideology in MMO is quite difficult to define as it is a mix of representation (kingdom, anarchy, etc.) + game goals and rules + practices instituted by players.

Video games are polymorphic technological objects between audiovisual media, industrial game and computer program.

This technological convergence will be traduced by importation of old speeches from other areas. This profusion of discourses shared by multiple actors tries to define what videogames are in society. Archetypal example, addiction is at the crossroads of speeches on compulsive gaming (gambling), business definitions of addiction to the Internet, and refers to the imagination of drug abuse.

The social and political debates around violence, addiction, economic freedom are based on the speeches accompanying the previous media and games. These speeches are sustained by actors who play on their own and for themselves: some do not care about videogames but will use videogames to exist in the political field, as other will try to produce social demands for curing addiction as so they would offer remedies.

This struggle for definition is a political game that would lead to the social acceptation of their social function. The problematic imposition, as violence and addiction, is a political trick to win the monopole of definition and regulation. The expert who becomes the social and political normative reference would be the one who would regulate them and offer services.

Would videogames suffer from actors strategies and private interests? Who are the competitors, the socializers, the healers? As violence and addiction appear to be a social acceptation of videogames effects, without discussing the genealogy of this conceptions, this special issue n°67 of the French political science review Quaderni, will explore political competition on videogames’ social definition, mainly in USA and Europe. What are at stake are the public policy issues and legislative resolution. This issue should be a political handbook on videogames issues.