Violent Games, Bias and the One Show

The following is the personal opinion of the writer, and should only be taken as such: it does not represent the views of BritishGaming.co.uk as a whole, and when this disclaimer comes up, you know there’s a bit of a rant coming.

Regular readers of this site will know that it is almost a hobby of mine to whine about things, and quite often it’s about games and the media; so today I’m taking the chance to rant about a piece shown in the BBC’s “The One Show” this week, about violent video games. I’m also going to forward a copy of this article to the program, so this is partially an ‘open letter’ of sorts.

For those who don’t know about it (and I wouldn’t blame you for that), The One Show is a magazine format show aired at 7pm on BBC One each weekday. It features mainly what could be described as ‘fluff pieces’, which items over the past week varying from an investigation as to whether Smoothies are healthy to Konnie Huq wearing a corset. I know, riveting stuff.
The feature in question here is one about violent video games and how easily they are sold to someone under 18 who doesn’t look under 18, and was aired on Wednesday 19th. It’s not available on the show’s website or the BBC’s YouTube channel, but if you’re interested, you can download the show on the BBC iPlayer until the upcoming Wednesday.

The segment opens with blurred footage of Liberty City Stories and Manhunt, to depict games “with all sorts of killing… and terrible stuff actually”, that can’t be shown due to the watershed. The other presenter Adrian describes how these games are correctly for people aged 18 and over, as “they have certificates, just like films”. Right there is my first complaint with the show, and in fact, a complaint which carries across the entire thing. It’s not what was said there, it’s factually correct, but what was not said. It’s basic knowledge that these are the exact same ratings as films, so the focus on games here is slightly questionable.

It’s questionable in that, as I see it, this entire feature was done to be a scaremongering, sensationalist piece following the trend of “video games are bad, yes?”, where a much more suitable piece would be “can people underage easily buy things like games and films which are age restricted?”. I think this not just because of the focus on games, but as around half of it is dedicated to “look how bad violent games are, you wouldn’t want your kid playing this”. I’ll return to this train of thought later, but I think I should actually get to the VT itself, we’re still on the introduction…

Launa, a 14 year old is introduced, as she goes in to HMV and buys a copy of GTA, no questions asked. Fair enough, there’s a problem there correctly brought up, but following her with a secret camera in a van outside is the reporter, giving such fantastic narration as “just took the money. No questions asked.” and explains the problem as if he’s coming across a great big unknown and underground conspiracy, and if there actually a use in this “investigation”.

It all goes downhill from here, and in fact, it does go to the lowest point something like this can. When I first read about this on the Digital Spy forums, I wondered if they would cite the so called Manhunt murder in it, and if they would give false information about it. Guess what they cut to next.
“Stefan Pakeerah was murdered three years ago. He was fourteen. Stefan’s mother, Giselle, always blamed a violent video game called Manhunt for her son’s killing.”
No, NO. Judging by the three years ago comment, that was obviously written for the show, but do they not have fact checkers? Alright fine, there’s nothing there I can actually say is wrong, Giselle did claim that, but again, it’s leaving out facts in order to make it sound like the game was responsible, where that is totally UNTRUE.
The following comes from BBC News, 5th August 2004:
Detectives investigating the murder of a 14-year-old boy in a Leicester park have rejected any link with a violent computer game. Stefan Pakeerah was beaten and stabbed to death by Warren Leblanc, 17, but the motive, say police, was robbery. Leicestershire police have confirmed a copy of the game was found, but in Stefan’s’ bedroom and not with Leblanc.
As the quote said, it’s been three years now. Whilst back then it was all over the media and a common thought, and fine, because it had not been explicitly ruled out. But this one sided reporting of leaving out vital information is disgraceful, especially with what the police found out. Whilst Giselle said that Leblanc gave Stefan the game, the police did not consider it a role in the murder, rather, drug induced robbery. If anyone at The One Show had even bothered to look this up, they would have realised that there is actually no good link for it to be mentioned in the piece. Maybe they did look it up, and just failed to use rational thought in order to continue this “violent games = bad” thing they were putting forward.

The show doesn’t get any worse from this point on, because that would be impossible, so let’s continue.
There’s more content which really shouldn’t be there as archive footage of ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair says that “the sale of this game to anybody under 18 should be illegal”, even though it is illegal, and was at the time. But minor things like the truth shouldn’t get in the way of what is shown, should it?

Then, it gets back to what they claim the segment is about, the sale of games to underage people. Launa purchases another game from another store, no questions asked.
But then the focus goes back to the hidden meaning of the piece, scaring people about violent games as the reporter briefly shows a game she would be allowed to play, FIFA 04, before reading the blurb on the back of the Manhunt box, and explaining how many other games have also been rated 18 due to violent content.

Alright, do we get to see the continuation of this “investigation” now? Oh, of course not, let’s cut to “Children’s media researcher” Teresa Orange to talk about how damaging these games are to children. Obviously, children shouldn’t be playing them, but this is about children buying them when they shouldn’t be allowed to. She talks about how games are becoming more realistic, and how that means in a child’s mind the difference between fiction and reality is being blurred. That does seem a fair enough assessment, but it is also important to note that what she said is all to do with psychology, and that is a science made up more of actual theories than facts, even moreso than other aspects such as chemistry or physics. It’s because of this ‘theory’ aspect that it is hard to definitively say if games do have a negative effect, as various studies contradict each other.
Another interpretation of the effect of games came from the BBFC in one of their reports where they brought up the possibility that they have a lesser impact than movies, as when you stop pressing buttons on the controller, your character stops, reminding you that it is just a game, whereas in a film, which looks more real, the only way to stop the ribs being torn out of the persons torso in Saw III is to stop watching, and even then, you know it still would happen.
That is just another theory, no more fact than the idea put forward by Teresa Orange, but you can guess how much coverage they offered to the second scenario I described: none. It’s also slightly interesting that if you look up this woman, she’s written books such as “The Media Diet for Kids: A Parents’ Survival Guide to TV and Computer Games” and more recently “How to Stop Your Kids Watching Too Much TV(, Spending Hours on the Computer, Wasting Days on the Game Boy, and Endlessly Texting Friends, etc…)”. A wonderfully unbiased choice for professional opinion there.

We now finally go what the item started with, buying 18 rated games. Launa successfully buys a copy at GAME, and so it’s a 3/3 record for shops that sold to her. It’s now that the investigation got some actual focus as the footage was showed to lead officer at Trading Standards, Brandon Cook who says it is “shocking” due to the lack of checks.
Cut back to Teresa, who says it will be bad if kids play a relentless diet of 18 rated games. I say, no duh.
Now there’s a slight twist as 14-year old Sam goes online to see if he can buy a copy there, and getting 108 results for Manhunt on an eBay search is another amazing hidden secret they’ve revealed. Hard hitting stuff, this. The complaint here is that he could easily purchase it on Amazon and eBay, and again, that’s a reasonable enough concern. It’s then explained through voiceover that the game can’t be bought in many stores due to the violent content, and that Manhunt 2 had been banned. Not entirely sure that information is relevant to what they are looking in to, but there we go. Mr Trading Standards also believes that online stores aren’t doing much, talking about how debit cards can be got by 11 year olds, and how online companies should be doing a lot more. He then goes on to explain how there are ways of checking peoples ages, describing how online gambling companies do credit reference checks. I’m sure people would love to have one of those done every time they want to buy a single DVD on Amazon.

Back on the high street, the undercover investigator Launa is refused sale at Tesco for not having proof of age, and it was the only one of the 10 shops she visited that did not sell it to her.

At this point, the pre-recorded package ends, and it cuts back to the studio where reporter Justin and show special guest Vanessa Feltz discuss it a bit with the show presenters. A small bit of talk about the penalties, and then we get nice little generic statements from Amazon and eBay about how in both their terms and conditions it states the site is for over 18s only, unless with parental supervision, and how parents should also play a part in monitoring what their children buy, etc.

Now, here’s where there is a turn in view in the show, and I never thought I would ever say this, but Vanessa Feltz becomes the voice of reason.

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Yes, I’m still here, I’m just still recovering from the shock of writing that. She talks about how it the parents responsibility to find out what is in these games, and actually police in some circumstances. Vanessa then continues to say how the person in the shop shouldn’t be blamed, and that it is the duty of the parent to actually look in to what these games contain, because they are a PARENT. Key thing there. It was surprising enough to actually see the other point of view being raised, even more so with who actually raised it. It’s very disappointing that the only “other side of the story” factor was not part of the main report, which I honestly believe was actually made in order to make people think violent games are really bad, with the aspect of the sale of them only being a means of which to talk about that.

I mentioned earlier about the lack of comparison to films. Whilst this might seem to be nitpicking, due to the same use of the BBFC, the possible same impact on children and in fact in some cases worse content in movies, there is no reason to focus on games.
Why didn’t they try to buy an 18 rated film on DVD? You could do an almost identical investigation for other types of media. If the One Show was to repeat it for films, I expect they would get similar results. They won’t do that though, partially because it’s silly to repeat a segment (but with such interesting things such as cloud watching being featured, I wouldn’t put it past them), but mainly because there isn’t such the negative stigma with movies.

I’ve kept referencing an underlying negative tone in this piece, and I truly think this was an unfair, biased and terrible feature. It’s a light entertainment show, sure, but to have such misrepresentation of the truth in what appears to be to put forward an agenda? It shouldn’t happen, especially at a time when mainstream media is under scrutiny for being untrustworthy. We shouldn’t be seeing reporting like this, particularly from the BBC, and for a show with an audience of four million, it’s going to have done some harm to the views of games for those people.

Postscript: I did get a response from the BBC. It rather crafty, basically saying that they didn’t lie – which they didn’t, my objections are primarily of the distortion of the truth – misrepresentations, if you will. Ah well, at least they know about my thoughts…