Medical Foundation urges retailers to boycott violent video games promoting torture
A computer game version of the film Reservoir Dogs that encourages players to relish in the torture of their opponents demonstrates a dangerous decline in social attitudes towards inflicting suffering, says the Medical Foundation.
The human rights group is urging retailers to impose a boycott when the game is released next month.
Licensing bodies in Australia and New Zealand have already banned the game, based on the controversial 1992 Quentin Tarantino film, on the grounds that it actively promotes the infliction of extreme violence and cruelty. In Britain, MP Keith Vaz, who has tabled a parliamentary motion to have violent games withdrawn, is also calling for a ban.
However, the British Board of Film Classification has approved the game for release with an 18 certificate, saying that the violence is merely implied and based on fiction, therefore making it unlikely to have any impact in the real world.
According to Future plc, the UK's leading publisher of games industry magazines including the official Nintendo, Playstation 2 and Xbox editions, the increasing number of violent video games is a sign of the times, with the notoriety once associated with films such as Reservoir Dogs and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre no longer prevailing.
However, the Medical Foundation, while acknowledging that games of violence, known as "shooters", are a prolific part of the industry, says the emergence of games featuring torture is encouraging the game-playing public to delight in inflicting pain and suffering.
Dr Nimisha Patel, Consultant Clinical Psychologist & Head of Clinical Psychology at the charity, says: "The depiction of torture in video games not only trivialises torture but it serves to normalise acts of violence prohibited by international human rights and humanitarian law."
The Medical Foundation says 50 years of research into the relationship between violence in entertainment and acts of violence has been inconclusive, but there is substantial evidence that people who like and play violent video games tend to be more aggressive than those who like and play them less. There is also some evidence that immediately after playing these games, there is an increase in aggressive behaviour.
Dr Patel adds: "Video games are very interactive and engrossing, requiring players to identify with the aggressor. That is not to say that video games depicting torture lead people to torture, rather that there is a danger that the acts of torture are somehow normalised, and people playing such games become desensitised to torture.
"This has serious implications at a time when the UK government is being challenged on its complicity in torture in the war on terror in places such as in Guantánamo and Iraq and in the rendition of terror suspects to countries where they risk being tortured."
Last month, the Australian Government Office of Film and Literature Classification which can impose an upper age restriction of 15+ on games, refused to classify Reservoir Dogs because of its potential impact on players who assume the persona of criminals ranked as "psychos" or "professionals" depending on the degree of harm they inflict.
Players, who participate as gangsters, are rewarded for maiming and killing police and hostages. They can execute hostages with a gunshot to the head, pistol whip the sides of people's heads, burn the eyes of hostages with a cigar until they scream and die and cut off victims' fingers amid bursts of blood. The violence can be further enhanced if the player opts for a more violent scenario where a slow motion shootout occurs.
In 2004, many British retailers stopped stocking the game Manhunt after 14-year-old Stefan Pakeerah from Leicester was savagely beaten with a hammer and stabbed repeatedly by his 17-year-old friend Warren Leblanc. The BBFC, which rated the film an 18, rejected any connections between the game and Stefan's murder. But Stefan's parents said Leblanc had been obsessed by the game, which they described as a manual on how to murder someone. At the time, they said that providing an 18 classification was no barrier to younger children who wished to play it.
A two-year campaign to ban violent games was subsequently launched by Leicester MP Keith Vaz. Now backing efforts to ban Reservoir Dogs, Mr Vaz points to research from the University of California which suggests that violent video games may play a role in the development of negative attitudes and behaviours relating to psychological health. He has already introduced a ten-minute rule motion bill before Parliament asking for stricter provisions in the Video Recordings Act 1984 for the labelling and classification of video games and is due to table another amendment calling for the ban of extreme violence video games.
"Strong measures must be taken to ensure that children are protected from the potential damage these games may cause," says Mr Vaz. "I am appalled by the forthcoming release of the Reservoir Dogs video game and the impact it will have on people playing the game."
BBFC spokeswoman Sue Clark said: "It may well be that there are torture issues in the game but if we had serious concerns we would not have classified it." She added: "What is important to us is the level of detail - how realistic it - and in this game we are satisfied that it is on a par with other games of that sort of category and the level of detail is on a par."
David Clark, European Marketing Director for the game's publisher, Eidos Plc, said: "We are just replicating the movie in a different media format. We're not offering anything more or less to society than the movie already has.
"Reservoir Dogs is well documented as a violent movie. Obviously, when you do a conversion to a game or a book and you stay truthful and faithful to that movie it is by definition a very violent conversion. We are remaining truthful and faithful so in the same way the movie was 18 rated with some very adult content, then likewise with the game. What you see in the movie is what you will see in the game."
The Medical Foundation maintains that torture, in whatever form, is morally and legally unacceptable and any media entertainment that glorifies it adds to a culture of indifference, disbelief and acceptance of torture.
Simon Carruth, chief executive of the Medical Foundation, said: "We are writing to major retailers asking them not to stock this game. We uphold freedom of speech and freedom of expression but encouraging torture, even in a computer game, is a trend we abhor. We would hope shops that were planning to stock this film will act responsibly and keep it off the shelves."
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