06.26.07
dead trees and censorship
A quick post about a couple of things I’ve been meaning to blog about for ages. Either I’ve been tremendously lazy, or the last couple of weeks have been very busy; I leave it to the imagination of the reader to determine the truth.
Firstly, dead trees. I should definitely have mentioned this earlier, since I’m not sure what the shelf life of magazines is these days, but I wrote a couple of things for the most recent SFX Special. It hit the news-stands earlier this month, and I’m responsible for stuff including the main cover feature about the new Ghost In The Shell movie. I’m not entirely happy with how that feature turned out - there’s a lengthy and twisted saga behind the whole thing, and the feature I actually wrote is quite some distance from the feature I wanted to write. Nonetheless, most other people seem to like it, so I shouldn’t moan. Hopefully SFX liked it enough to ask me to do more for them in future, too. The Special as a whole is a really good read, too, and definitely worth picking up if you’re remotely into anime stuff.
It only struck me when I picked up and leafed through the magazine, but this is actually the first time in five years that I’ve been in print in the UK. Ironically, during that time, my exclusive focus on web publications has been offset by regularly appearing in print overseas; while I was editor of GamesIndustry.biz, I fielded requests to republish my stuff in various magazines around the world at least once a fortnight. However, I’ve not actually had an original article printed on paper in the UK since CTW, the trade newspaper I used to work on, shut down in early 2002. I went to work for Eurogamer at that point and never really looked back.
(Actually, this isn’t strictly true. A few years ago, Eurogamer did a deal whereby it was providing content to Nintendo Official Magazine, and I wrote some features for the magazine about getting into the games industry. I never saw how they turned out on paper, and they had to be so dumbed down for the target audience that it’s fair to say they weren’t exactly my proudest moments in journalism. Let’s all just pretend it never happened, eh?)
Seeing my words in print for the first time in years gives me a sudden insight into the motivation of the many, many journalists who fiercely resist the gradual decline of print mags in the face of online competition. Don’t get me wrong; I still consider the rise of online media to be as inevitable and inexorable as the replacement of copied manuscripts with printed documents was. However, as a writer, there’s still a wonderful thrill to seeing your words laid out in print. It simply feels more substantial and important and weighty than the web does - from a writer’s point of view. To me, having worked in online journalism for seven years (exclusively so for five), that’s simply a point of mild curiosity; I can, however, sympathise with writers who have worked in print for a decade or more. To them, the web must feel ephemeral and transient almost to the extent of pointlessness.
Of course, such feelings don’t actually matter, in an ultimate sense, any more than the feelings of monks who created illuminated manuscripts mattered as Gutenberg’s printing presses marched across Europe. This revolution is about the consumer, not the creator, and exactly the same was true of the printing press; online will become the dominant form of media for some of the same reasons that printed books replaced manuscripts. Still, when I consider that flame of pride that even a hardened net-hack like myself feels at seeing an article in print, it’s hard not to sympathise, and to hope that the ‘net can one day soon become a medium that ignites a similar sense in its contributors.
Secondly; censorship. This is a topic that’s been batted back and forth quite a bit in the last couple of weeks, thanks to Manhunt 2’s recent “ban” in the UK and North America. I’m not a fan of the idea that anyone should tell adults what they can see, hear or read; in fact, that’s one of the things I’m most basically opposed to. However, I think there’s a line to be drawn between censorship imposed from outside (e.g. the BBFC judgement), and censorship imposed internally by a company or an industry (which is what happened in North America). One of those things is a government agency gagging expression; the other is simply the industrial equivalent of you choosing not to say the word “fuck” in front of your grandmother. Freedom of speech means that it’s your right to choose not to say things, as much as it’s your right to say things.
I guess that’s why, by and large, I see the decision to prevent Manhunt 2 from reaching the shelves as a positive thing. It’s a shame that in the UK, it had to happen in the offices of the BBFC; while in recent years the BBFC has been laudably open, liberal and sensible in its adjudications, it’s still ultimately a government-controlled board capable of making censorship, rather than classification, decisions. I don’t think such a board has a place in a modern, democratic society, and that makes me uncomfortable with its role in this series of events. However, in North America the industry itself moved to prevent the game from being released, and I like to believe that this would have happened in Europe as well; the BBFC just got there first.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I dedicated my column last week on GamesIndustry.biz to this issue. Here’s the obligatory extract;
However, the clear opinion of the BBFC - and presumably of the ESRB - is that Manhunt 2 doesn’t represent the sort of insightful commentary represented by those works. This is killing, maiming and torturing for the sake of it; this may, in fact, be the game which lives up to the shrill claims of the conservative wing that games are “murder simulators”.”
Go have a read, if that’s your sort of thing.
(Corey also wrote an interesting assessment of the whole situation for Wii Chat, which approached it from a slightly different angle to mine.)
Technorati Tags: anime, Eurogamer, magazines, Manhunt, Manhunt 2, censorship, SFX, videogames
