I wrote the following article for the Denver Post Online site. I'm reposting it here because I think the context it offers is important to share with the game community at large

The word you are looking for is “context”

‘Tis the season to be jolly, plan family get togethers, buy gifts and fret about videogame violence.

You don’t need me to repeat the claims of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. They’ve made them available to the public and pushed them in the press.

But in case you are in a hurry and don’t want to download the streaming audio or read the complete set of comments, let me summarize:

• Videogame violence is bad for children
• Retailers sell violent games to children
• The ESRB system of game ratings is flawed:
  • Game publishers pressure the ESRB to go easy on the ratings and might even just lie about the content
  • Retailers sell games rated M for mature to kids under the age of 17
  • Parents don’t know what the ratings mean anyway

1. Doom 3
2. Grand Theft Auto: “San Andreas
3. Gunslinger Girls 2
4. Half Life 2
5. Halo 2
6. Hitman: Blood Money
7. Manhunt
8. Mortal Combat
9. Postal 2
10. Shadow Heart

Today, I joined a 60-minute press call sponsored by the ICCR. And I even asked some questions. Let me provide some of the important missing context.

The Q&A started with a reporter from the LA Times asking how the list was determined. Cathy Rowan of the ICCR said something about focusing on first-person shooters, but did not offer a clear criteria. Dr. Martha Burk, president, Center for Advancement of Public Policy and chair, National Council of Women's Organizations, was a little more specific. She said the group picked games that were demeaning to women or depicted violence against women. She also added that she thought the games were not appropriate “for anyone.”

These explanations were peculiar and incomplete. Looking at the list, at least one game is not out yet (“Hitman”) and one is available only as an import “(Gunslinger Girls 2”). So, it is difficult to see how any sort of criteria could be applied.

In the context of these comments, it appears that the list is a political assemblage of games meant to illustrate a point and breed public ire.

I followed up with a simple question, “Who on this panel has played which of the games?”

Burke answered first, “I haven’t played any of them.” She backed up her willful ignorance of the games by suggesting that she didn’t need to read Soldier of Fortune to know that she was opposed to its glorification of killing. “I think it’s an irrelevant question,” she concluded.

Another panelist, Pat Wolf, executive director of the ICCR, took the opportunity to suggest that the ESRB raters didn’t play the games either. They simply watched submitted footage.

Finally, Pamela Eakes, president and founder, Mothers Against Violence in America, offered that she had reviewed play of GTA: San Andreas and Halo 2 for about 6 hours. Her answer was not clear in terms of how she reviewed the games or with whom.

With this context, it’s clear that the list is a red herring. While the ICCR’s has honorable motives for wanting to better educate parents and encourage them to take an active role in the gaming lives of their children, beneath the good intentions is a effort to stir moral outrage and stimulate a chilling effect on videogame sales, if not outright censorship.

By not playing these games, this group falls into the debilitating trap of censorship. Hiding behind overbroad and inaccurate claims of conclusive evidence linking real world and videogame violence, this well-intentioned group misses what gamers young and old know—-context matters. Look at “Doom 3”, their number 1 offender. You don’t have to play that game for 20 minutes to grasp the spine of the narrative: Corporate greed and avarice has unlocked the gates of hell. You stand in path of pure evil and humanity’s last hope.

Where is the violence against women? Where is the racial hate? Why is this game an immoral swamp? They didn’t play the game, so how could they answer?

Certainly, it takes a well-honed taste for irony to understand why the “Grand Theft Auto” series is a cutting social commentary as much as it is prurient entertainment. But again, without the context, that game is “having sex with hookers and killing them” in the same way that “Romeo and Juliet” is just a call for teen suicide. And make no mistake, even though Burke insists that “This is not about censorship, it is about disclosure,” the conversation, the context, reveals a deep distrust of interactivity and of videogames and a desire to sow anger and distrust on the part of parents.

When asked what game ratings needed to improve, Wolf explained:

“One that is not voluntary. One that is transparent in terms of the content. One that actually describes what acts are actually being performed, what the child is expected to do. And I think it we had that kind of transparency, we could more appropriate rate the games and separate the games.”

Panelist Eakes argued that a more liberal use of the AO (adult only) rating would properly place distasteful games in the adult video shop, “Where they belong.”

In other words, the panel wants a compulsory editorial description on every game and preferably one that sends a classification of games into the brown wrapper aisles of the local porno shop. The line between this kind of labeling and marginalization and censorship is hard to detect.

By tossing the context out of the discussion, the ICCR has succeeded in creating fear and distrust rather than helping to build bridges. Instead of working with the ESRB to help educate parents around the rating system, and proactively working with retailers to enforce the current rating system, he group has resorted to a sort of strong-arm blackmail—do a better job or we will stage a negative PR campaign designed to hurt you socially and politically.

I find this incredibly distressing. I do believe that the game industry and every other industry have a responsibility to the public. And I firmly support the efforts of public groups to create accountability. But in this case, the agenda is hidden under the guise of protecting children and upon closer scrutiny, the thrust is revealed—these people want to censor videogames. More so, they want to do this without considering the full range of research or the context.

The net effect is to mask real efforts to improve the videogame rating and retail system, and to push to the side a fair dialog about the social impacts of games. The word I’m looking for, the context again, is propaganda. The ICCR has stooped to punditry to press their point of view. And as a result, the good in their mission is tainted with the stink of polemic politics.

Perhaps the most telling moment of the entire call came when a reporter asked in essence, “Why is it that crime rates are falling just as videogame content is getting more violent?”

Without irony, New York City councilman Eric Gioia replied, “I’ll take a stab at that”

You see Councilman Gioia, context is everything.