December 3, 2004
by Alexa Smith

NEW YORK CITY - In what it has affectionately dubbed its "grandmother campaign," the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s committee on socially responsible investing will be using its stock as leverage to develop a better ratings system for graphic video games that will prevent their sale to young children.

The Mission Responsibility Through Investment (MRTI) Committee opted at its recent meeting here to take a four-pronged approach in its campaign to end the sale of violent video games to kids by working both with manufacturers and retailers:

. Engage Take Two about corporate responsibility in product development and distribution;

. Push for better rating standards;

. Launch a Don't Buy Video Games campaign for the holiday season, linking it with work in the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s Child Advocacy Office; and

. Join other religious shareholders in engaging retailers about selling practices.

The initial push is to curb holiday buying, hence the effort to reach grandmothers, said MRTI Chair Carol Hylkema of Dearborn, MI. Hylkema is also the former vice moderator for Justice and Peace Issues of the Presbyterian Women's (PW) Church-wide Coordinating Team. "Don't sell short the women's view.

"Getting this information out can influence how grandmothers' shop," she said, speaking of the 300,00-member PW.

MRTI is acting jointly with the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), a New York-based coalition of Christians and Jews that monitors corporate behavior and coordinates shareholder actions to force changes in business practices.

The video grame industry is currently self-regulated, with no penalties for retailers who sell violent, sexually explicit or racially stereotyping video games to kids who are younger than the product label designates.

"It's been proven that the impact of exposure to these games - the violence, the sexual content - impacts young children. It's been documented in thousands of studies," said the Rev. Bill Somplatsky-Jarman, who is MRTI's staffer. "Despite that, the industry continues to hide behind self-regulation that is inadequate.

"And it pretends that these games are not ending up in the hands of children."

The PCUSA strategy targets Take Two, an international corporation that produces several lines of games. Its products include a series built around conflicts like the Vietnam War (whose advertising reads: "Splinter vehicles apart, shoot out lights, collapse buildings, whatever it takes to survive!") and "Grand Theft Auto," which is a highly sexualized line of games that critics say capitalizes on racial stereotypes and gross violence.

The Board of Pensions of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) holds 200 shares of Take Two stock valued at $6,000 that it has kept in a segregated account for MRTI's use - and in this case, the ICCR's use, too. MRTI is, in Somplatsky-Jarman's words, "taking the lead" on behalf of ICCR with Take Two.

That small stock holding buys MRTI and ICCR access to the corporation, which had more than a million dollars in net sales in 2003, up from $303,715 in 1999.

MRTI's goal, Somplatsky-Jarman said, is always corporate reform.

Pat Chapman, who directs the Child Advocacy Office, said an effort to curb the sale of explicit games to young kids is long overdue. It is also necessary, she said, to educate parents about the rating system and about the content of the games their kids are playing.

The Entertainment Software Rating Board has a simple system to keep the most violent games out of the hands of children: E is for everyone, T is for teens (with no sexual content), M is for mature and AO is for adults only.

Take Grand Theft Auto, as an example, which is labeled as inappropriate for anyone under the age of 17.

One clip from the video shows a car bouncing up and down as a couple copulates in the back seat, muttering phrases like, "Let's get down tonight." After the sex act, the man and a scantily clad woman get out of the car and he beats her with a golf club. In another segment, a white man repeatedly kicks a black man in the testicles until he is lying in a pool of blood.

What gripes Chapman, however, is that many of the M and AO games are on the shelves next to games for younger kids. And if parents do not understand the rating system or if vendors fail to enforce it, children have easy access to unsuitable material. "I've been amazed," Chapman said, "at the explicit sexual content, the racism. Some of these games are just hateful and violent."

A spokesman for Rockstar Games, the parent company of Take Two, told the Presbyterian News Service that Take Two supports efforts to keep games intended for the adult market from children - but they think the ratings system does the job.

In a written statement the company said: "The game rating system is a highly effective tool to inform and empower parents, and the Advertising Review Council provides important industry oversight and enforcement. We are fully committed to the rating system and to marking our games in compliance with the principles and guidelines of the rating board."

The statement acknowledges that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - one of the newest games on the market - carries an M rating because of its mature content. "The game is intended for adults who can appreciate its mature themes and sophisticated storytelling."

But MRTI and the ICCR argue that the ratings system doesn't work because access is too easy.

A game called "Postal 2," manufactured by Running With Scissors, shows black people being burned, shot and killed while a voiceover makes statements like "Holy shit. I'm not racist. These people really do all look alike" or "Now, that's what I call welfare reform." One scene shows an assailant urinating on a woman. Another shows a burning black body as a voice says, "Smells like chicken."

It is not yet clear whether any ICCR member bodies hold stock in Running With Scissors, which opposes censorship of its products, which it says are designed around "the imagined needs of 6-year-olds or clinically psychotic persons." It lauds its "tasteless and insensitive" games on its Web site, which says: "We believe that violence belongs in entertainment products - not in the streets. But what do we know, we're just ignorant video game developers.

"'To kill or not to kill.... What a stupid question!' " - Postal Dude.

The site says that some politicians and religious organizations would like to spray a "fear enema" up "the collective ass of the entire planet." It argues that the vast majority of people are not programmed by entertainment products to be killers.

Gary Briscoe, who heads up ICCR's video game effort, talks about the content of the games - and the easy access that kids have to them - with incredulity. "It's all industry-run," he said. "The people making the games are the ones marketing them. And the ratings aren't legally enforced. The ratings are only a suggestion."

Briscoe led a press conference held recently in New York on the subject of violent video games. He said the killing in video games has become increasingly graphic as the manufacturers continue to perfect simulated violence. Briscoe said video game companies are now under contract to produce similar products for U.S. military personnel for training and recruitment.

Far from early Pac Man, these increasingly high-tech games show gore, flying body parts, writhing victims and screams of pain.

ICCR is working with marketers to publish standards for video games that encourage or reward players for acts of brutality and violence and those that depict women and minorities in a demeaning way.

Briscoe wants to see M-rated games separated from milder versions in stores, and signs posted explaining the rating system for parents.

Somplatsky-Jarman says the holiday campaign at least "plants a flag" on the issue of violent video games, an effort that will escalate throughout 2005 as the ICCR and MRTI engage companies and retailers.

Presbyterian News Service