As more people begin to play and pay attention to digital games, the industry occasionally experiences some growing pains. This summer, games made headlines as the Hot Coffee cheat for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was noticed by parents and politicians alike. In the wake of this, legislators around the country have been introducing laws intended to regulate the sale of games.

At the September 15, 2005 meeting of the Albany IGDA chapter, Brenda Brathwaite gave an excellent presentation exploring censorship and legislation of the game industry and what it means for developers. Her talk, entitled “Murder, Sex, Censorship (and why you should care,)” drew upon her experiences in developing the
Playboy: The Mansion title at Cyberlore as well as her work in coordinating the IGDA’s Sex SIG. A crowd of Albany-area game developers and students attended the meeting to hear Brenda’s thoughts on the subject and contribute their own.

In the spirit of self-regulation, Brenda opened her talk with a humorous series of disclaimers. This led into her discussion of her work on the Playboy project. She talked about the implications that a license can bring to your project, pointing out how even a Playboy-branded spreadsheet program wouldn’t be sold in Wal-Mart.

Making Playboy: The Mansion brought Brenda into conflict with one of the oldest fallacies of gaming, the assumption that games are just for kids. She used this as a springboard for discussing the history of sex and violence in video games, filling in the events leading from the Night Trap and Mortal Kombat debates of the 90s up to the Hot Coffee fiasco this summer. Going further back, she paralleled these events in gaming with regulation imposed on the comic and film industries. This led to one of her major points: almost every new form of media is perceived as dangerous at some point, even though the sex and violence in them is the same.

Having made this point, Brenda strove to get her audience to re-frame the debate over mature content in games. People in the industry may see the situation as an us vs. them battle with game developers fighting off ignorant politicians. But that’s really not the case. Everyone involved – politicians, parents, retailers, publishers, and developers – want the same thing: to protect kids from having access to mature content without parental consent. All of these groups need to work together, educating themselves and each other, to bring this about without unnecessary and problematic regulations.

Brenda summed up her talk with some suggestions for moving forward with these issues. She offered suggestions for strengthening the ESRB system and educating parents and politicians. And, in the interest of preventing another Hot Coffee incident, developers and publishers need to be careful about all game assets present in retail products.

Following Brenda’s talk, the evening concluded with a lively question and answer session.

The Albany IGDA chapter would like to thank Brenda Brathwaite for visiting us and giving a wonderful presentation. We’d also like to thank DeJohn’s Restaurant and Pub for hosting the meeting.

For more information on Brenda’s work with the IGDA Sex SIG, please visit her blog at: http://www.igda.org/sex

Brenda suggested the following links for learning more about the organizations involved in the issues she discussed:
Developers: http://www.igda.org
Publishers: http://www.theesa.com/
Retail: http://www.iema.org/

Brenda will presenting in October at Future Play at Michigan State University and in March at GDC 2006.