Asher Moses is reporting on the outrage caused by leaked footage of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which allows players to play the part of a terrorist as part of a cut-scene.
Once again, this story really shows how expressive video games can be. They’re constructed, like films, to elicit emotional responses in players, and some of them deal with fairly gritty subject matter. Films often show the villain’s perspective, and by doing that, they get across the character story and the heinous nature of people who carry out atrocities. Games, too, are becoming more expressive, and are telling more involved stories. From the reports I’ve seen of the CoD:MW2 footage, it seems to be trying to tell the story of a truly evil character, setting the scene for the player’s main role of stopping the terrorists.
We do not ban films that tell such expressive stories, and we need to realise that computer games, like gamers, have grown up. Most interestingly, Infinity Ward appear to acknowledge that the game is aimed at an Adult audience – it’s MA 15+ rating in Australia is lower than elsewhere. If we’re concerned about allowing people to make informed decisions about what games they want to play, and empowering parents to make those decisions for their children, it really seems like it’s time that we should introduce an R 18+ rating.