Ins@nity Complex

So the news broke yesterday that Manhunt 2 was being refused a classification in the United Kingdom by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC). For those not in the know, the BBFC are the same people that rate our movies, DVD's and just about everything else. They are not a gaming industry regulator like the ESRB.

This effectively bans the game from sell, as it is illegal for software to be sold without a rating. The question I pose is this however. Unlike the ESRB, we don't have rating like "Teen", "Mature" and "Adults Only". We have plain, bloody obvious age stamps such as "12", "15" and "18".

We already have an 18-age rating. It is illegal to sell a product to a person under age and will go as far as not letting the person selling the product be under 18. So whats the problem?

Manhunt has lots of blood, gore, torture and wiimote strangling? Big smegging deal. What eighteen year old isn't going to understand that this isn't simply fiction? The BBFC allowed movies such as SAW and the Texas chainsaw massacre through quite happily. How is this form of entertainment any different?

How is a banning from the BBFC not stopping freedom of speech? While I understand the need for a well regulated rating system, is it for them to judge what should or should not be in a video game? Sure, only allow those of a sensible age view the material, but ban it altogether? This sort of censorship is not what I want to see in this industry.