There’s been a strong reaction from certain sections of the media with regards to two of the trailers shown by Sony during Paris Games Week. The Last Of Us 2 trailer featured graphic violence against women, and Detroit showed domestic and child abuse, and infanticide. Some media outlets have questioned if such violent imagery should be used to sell games.
Jim Ryan, president of Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe and president of Global Sales and Marketing for Sony Interactive Entertainment, was questioned by The Telegraph in regards to the criticism.
“We showed a lovely range of games [at the Media Showcase] last night,” said Jim, “The Last of Us obviously is a game made by adults to be played by adults. I should never prejudge this but it will probably be rated 18, I think it’s fair to say. And there’s that market for those people who like that sort of game. Adults who like that sort of game. And I think we cater for that, and at the other end of the spectrum there was Concrete Genie, which my eight-year-old decided was the game she would like to play very much. ”
Much of the criticism stems from the fact that there was little context to the violence, especially in The Last of Us 2 trailer.
“I think what we’re trying to do is to portray qualities of the various games we had on show,” responded Jim, “And I think it is difficult when you have a clip of four or five minutes to synthesise a gameplay experience that can be measured in the tens of hours. And, again, the studio was seeking to portray a game that will be rated as suitable for adults to play and that’s what we did.”
Source: The Telegraph
Tony Cawley
Bit of an ignorant response. Yes the games are 18 and meant to be played by adults, but these were trailers.
Kids browse gaming sites. Kids will see them. They can protect against that with big ? signs on their games, but that’s not the case with a widely viewed trailer.
Look at violent films, how many of them show violence in the trailers? None that I can think of.
bunimomike
So what you’re saying is that any material for adults (like porn, horror films, etc.) need to have watered-down trailers for a demographic that shouldn’t even be playing/watching them?
Tony Cawley
If they’re going to be freely available to view, then yes, I believe they should be. If they contain content inappropriate for under 18s, then they should only be displayed in a place over 18s only will see them. Seems fairly common sense.
Tony Cawley
What you usually will have for these things is 2 separate trailers. 1 which will be displayed where kids might see them, which is fairly clean. The other will be more graphic, but only displayed when kids will not be seeing them, eg on TV after a certain time at night or in a movie theatre as a trailer before a film with the same age rating.
bunimomike
So the parents should be paying a lot more attention to what their children are viewing online, right? Each separate trailer has the appropriate rating.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sure I needed to see the arm being beaten with a hammer. However, it’s a brutal game and I’m idly hoping that parents have to take ultimate responsibility here as long as game devs/channels are doing their part as well.
Tony Cawley
Absolutely Mike, but you can’t watch over your kids shoulder 24/7. You set restrictions on their access to things to make them and appropriate, but that’s my point, it doesn’t filter this kind of content that’s just a trailer on a gaming site.
kjkg
I go to the cinema on a weekly basis, most trailers are rated already and there is a tonne of violence in some.
I am really struggling to understand the outcry with that trailer, I have to be honest.
Tony Cawley
Yes, when you’re in a movie theatre watching an 18 rated film, you’ll see trailers that are appropriate for 18 year olds.
If you go and watch a kids film, you’ll not see those trailers.
MrYd
The whole thing from Paris had a rating at the start. The individual trailers have ratings or warnings.
Perhaps parents should try doing their job and stop the kids watching inappropriate things? Or any website embedding the trailers should give suitable warnings, or not do it if they’re aimed at children?
Or we can just have watered-down trailers suitable for people who aren’t going to be playing the games. And then start on cutting anything remotely violent out of the actual games as well until we end up with the gaming equivalent of 12A rated horror films.
Tuffcub
The simple fact is many, in fact I would go so far as to say the majority of parents, let their kids play 18 rated games.
They’re going to see this anyway, and probably a lot worse, when they play the game.
stigdu
To be honest, I watched the trailer with my 6-year-old daughter and she loved it. Particularly when the woman got a claw hammer to the face. She clapped and laughed at that bit.
At least, I think she did. I was hiding behind the sofa with my 2-year-old who was a bit scared.
bunimomike
Probably best not to buy your daughter a toolset this Christmas. :-P
double-o-dave
Haa! :)
JR.
When you realise your daughter is Hit-Girl from Kick-Ass.
stonyk
The other day I watched a YouTube video with my 7 year old. It was ‘street dance lessons for kids’ which upon clicking displayed a trailer for some horror film with some person torn apart on the snow with blood everywhere! Luckily she only got 5 seconds of it before I skipped advert.
I sympathise with parents trying to keep their kids away from this sort of stuff – it’s almost impossible. How many parents will have even heard of Paris games week let alone to pre emtively tell their 15 yo not to watch it in case there is any unsuitable content.
Sadly I see both sides here.
Severn2j
YouTube does have a ‘Restricted’ mode that should filter out the non-kid friendly stuff.. I have it set on the laptop browser my son uses to watch Minecraft videos and (so far) nothing dubious has popped up.
stonyk
Interesting. Will investigate thanks.
JR.
The only thing offensive about that trailer was how much they ripped off Tomb Raider. But I don’t think that’s reflective of the entire game. It was just a poor trailer.
Not sure why they even bothered to respond to the ‘criticism’ to be honest.
skibadee
stick to your guns on this Sony/Playstation. people think games & Kids still a lot bugs me us Adults love gaming too :)