Or: Everything I ever needed to know about marketing, I learned from Rockstar.

Remember the original Manhunt? Yeah, neither do I, really. I remember that, after it quietly slipped onto the shelves, there were little bits of this and that about how violent it was. Then some kid was killed near the box, and, well, you just can’t pass up a game like that, can’ you? It influences people to kill, even when they don’t own it.

Or something. I wasn’t really paying much attention back then.

Then there was Bully, the game that arguably got the biggest hype of last year — assuming that even was last year. Bully was a game that nobody would’ve paid any attention to at all if it weren’t for Jack Thompson.

Now, Manhunt 2 is coming out in what seems to have been a perfectly designed attempt to make peoples’ heads spontaneously explode. Or implode. Or both — AT ONCE!

I mean, come on, the Wii? How was this not intentional? I knew back when I first saw the words in the same sentence as part of a rumour that the words ‘motion capture devices’ and ‘true murder simulator/trainer’ would be typed — though, I thought they would be coming much sooner than they did.

And now? Manhunt 2 is banned in the UK, and some group is demanding that we let the ESRB know it must be rated AO in America.

What good is this going to do? Seriously?

The group is the CCFC , and I think their website should be rated AO, or possibly PO[1C0-5], maybe with a para/gravida qualification somewhere.

[I should probably explain that — Parents Only, with a first-child age range of zero[newborn] to five, and para/gravida is the number of times a person has been pregnant and given birth to a living thing. Because that fucking site isn’t safe for anyone who doesn’t have something that creates squiggles on a piece of paper and says, “Ifs ooo mom!”]

These people are also offended by radios playing on busses, for some reason. I guess because kids might hear an ad for something other than Sugar-frosted Sugar Cubes [with special sugar sauce, just add maple syrup]

This would be the thing they want you to sign so they can send it to the ESRB:

I am writing to urge you to give Manhunt 2 — the most violent game so far for the Nintendo Wii platform — an Adults-Only (AO) rating. Because the video game industry persists in marketing and selling Mature rated games continue to children under 17, an AO rating is the best way to limit children’s exposure to this ultra violent game.

In Manhunt 2, players can mutilate their enemies with an axe; saw their skulls in half castrate them with a pair of pliers; or kill them by bashing their head into an electrical box, where a power surges eventually blows their head apart. On the Nintendo Wii, players will actually act out the violence. One review of the game describes using a saw blade to “cut upward into a foe’s groin and buttocks, motioning forward and backward with the Wii remote as you go.” Manhunt 2 is clearly not a game for children.

Please give this unprecedented combination of video game violence and the interactive Wii platform your strongest and most unambiguous rating. Anything rating less than AO will signal ESRB’s endorsement for marketing Manhunt 2 to children, and pave the way for future brutally violent games designed for Wii to be targeted to children as well.

AO, like M, will not keep this game out of the hands of anyone except certain brick-and-mortar retailers. It won’t solve the problem. Because the adults are the ones buying the games for the kids, or giving them permission to buy the game, or not paying attention in general. And, since I’ve had this argument before with people who were convinced that these ratings were a matter of law — they’re not. Some states do now have laws about selling M rated games to children, but the rating itself isn’t a matter of law. The ESRB was founded to keep that from happening. It’s a lot like the MPAA that way — you don’t have to be rated, but good luck getting anything done if you don’t pay that asshole to not break your kneecaps.

Oops. Where the hell was I? Oh, right, Manhunt 2. It’s not a problem. It’s not the problem. Is there even a problem?

Maybe. I mean, if you’re worried about children having violent fantasies that they act out with others. Because they do that an awful lot, without the help of videogames.

Last Wednesday, I spent a good chunk of the day sprawled on my back on the driveway, staring at the clouds and listening to the quaint little game the neighbourhood boy-children were playing. It seemed to involve guns, terrorists, setting guards, a great deal of pseudo-military talk, the turning of a washing machine into an implement of death and destruction, and the screaming of, “FUCK OW MY ARM I BEEN SHOT FUCK FUCK FUCK.”

It was pretty violent. And I don’t think they’re spending a lot of time playing violent videogames to help them get to this point. They might not even have such things — they didn’t have real toy guns. One of them had this cleverly modified metal crutch strapped to his back, but that was about it.

And with the way they stopped doing everything to sit quietly every time a car drove by, I think maybe they didn’t want any grownups talking to any other grownups about how they were shooting at eachother and kicking a rubbermaid trashcan to make ‘splodey noises.

I really don’t think these kids are going to be shooting up schools, or even eachother, when they hit puberty and become filled with angst and the noticing of the boobs. I don’t even think they would be if they were inside playing Manhunter, or even WiiPlay.

…and, y’know, I’d get into that whole ‘most violent game so far for the Nintendo Wii’ thing, but I don’t even have a Wii. So I’ll just make the petition letter say something a little more honest.

I am writing to urge you to give Manhunt 2 — the most violent game so far for the Nintendo Wii platform — an Adults-Only (AO) rating. Because I cannot be expected to parent just because I helped make a baby, this rating is the best way to make sure that I don’t accidentally pick it up while grazing at WalMart.

I’ve heard that in Manhunt 2, you can do all sorts of terrible things, and on the Wii, everything’s ever-so realistic. I know, because I played Boxing once, and it felt really real, and I broke my nose. While playing Boxing! On the Wii! It’s so real! So my kids run the risk of taking off their own testicles when the wiimote magically turns into a hacksaw while they’re playing this game.

As you can clearly see, I am a parent, and I simply do not have the time to properly take care of these things I helped bring into the world. Do not bother me with requests to pay more attention to the things they’re doing. Do not request that I actually use the included parental controls in all my consoles — these things simply don’t exist, anyway, and they won’t exist until a law forces them to exist. Don’t lie to me and say that they do, because I bet they won’t even work, and even if they do, I really don’t want to be annoyed by having to remember a password just so I can play my games.

And, really, I can’t even be expected to keep my games put away. What do you think I am, responsible? Rate this game AO, or you’ll be marketing it to children.

I’m warning you, do it or else.

There. That sounds better.

Those of you who want Manhunt 2 — either because you liked the first one, or you want to grab up a potential ‘piece of gaming history’ before it gets taken off the shelves [assuming it ever gets there — you might want to put in your preorders. People are talking about picking up multiple copies because of this, just in case.

Update: as of right now [18:13 MST], it’s supposedly official that Manhunt 2 is rated AO. Whether this is just the rating for the Wii version [which is what a lot of people were pushing for], or for all versions, I don’t know.

I also don’t know if this means that the game will be pulled altogether, because I’m now hearing that the development contracts they have for consoles have something in them about not allowing AO games.

It’s all very stupid, isn’t it?