Case Study: Sony

Public Backlash

In addition to competing head-on with Nintendo and Microsoft, Sony, as did all video game manufacturers, faced a public relations challenge that, although not new, was not showing signs of subsiding any time soon. The issue was violence. 

As gaming hardware became more sophisticated, so did video game characters and their surrounding environments. By the mid-1990s, game players were navigating characters through three-dimensional worlds with a true sense of depth. Game developers strove to create the most immersive, realistic experience possible. Environments were becoming more detailed, the play between light and shadow more subtle, and character animations increasingly life-like. 

Violence in early video games was often quite comical as players had to use their imaginations to figure out how a particular attack actually caused damage to an enemy. But as game environments became more real with the help of 3D technology, characters' attacks became more life-like. Eventually, gamers were taking careful aim with sniper rifles at the heads of Nazi soldiers and using piano-wire to strangle uncooperative mobsters. Bestseller Grand Auto Theft 3 involved stealing cars, killing cops, and beating up prostitutes. 

Certain groups, particularly politicians and parents of gamers, began to raise questions about violence in video games: Did playing violent video games desensitize children to real-world violence? Did children become more violent after playing violent video games? Were comparisons to violence in movies inappropriate since game players were participants in violence instead of spectators to it? 

The furor over video games peaked after it was discovered that the 1999 Columbine High School shootings, which took the lives of 12 students and 1 teacher, were carried out by two students who were frequent players of Doom and Wolfenstein 3D, first-person shooting games. Some argued that constant exposure to violent imagery in these games desensitized the shooters to violence. Families of victims filed a lawsuit against game makers stating that "absent the combination of extremely violent video games...and the boys' basic personalities, these murders, and this massacre would not have occurred". U.S. District Judge Lewis Babcock said that there was no way the makers of violent games (including Doom) could have reasonably foreseen that their products would cause the Columbine shooting or any other violent acts. The lawsuit was dismissed. 

Still, many felt that games had become too violent and laws should be passed to ban the sale of violent video games. To preempt federal regulation, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) was established in 1994 to assign ratings to inform consumers about the content in games. Similar to the Motion Picture Association of America, which rated films, the ESRB described itself as an independent, self-regulatory body whose goal was to help consumers make educated decisions about purchasing games. Funded by game makers, the ESRB had slowly but steadily gained momentum; sales associates at game retailers such as GameStop and Electronics Boutique were well versed with the ratings system and quick to educate consumers about the system. 

Yet the ESRB had its critics. Confidence in the rating system was undermined when it was discovered that a sex mini-game (nicknamed "Hot Coffee") was uncovered in Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Although special hardware was needed to access the game for the console versions, the mini-game highlighted the ease with which unrated content could be published. The "Mature 17+" title was re-assigned an "Adults Only" rating until Rockstar Games removed the content. 

 Dr. Kimberly Thompson of Harvard University's School of Public Health was a vocal critic of the ESRB's rating process. In 2004 Thompson published the results of a study she had conducted analyzing the relationship between game content and ESRB content descriptors. She discovered that ESRB raters did not actually play the games they were rating. Instead, game publishers sent video clips of the game, and ESRB raters determined rating and content description based on those brief excerpts. Thompson's assessments based on actual gameplay indicated games in the initial E, E-10+, and T categories were much more violent than the ratings suggested, with an average of one death per minute in T-rated games. The study concluded that "a significant amount of content in T-rated video games that might surprise adolescent players and their parents given the presence of this content in games without ESRB content descriptors". Thompson pushed the ESRB to require that raters play the games they rated in an effort to improve rating accuracy. The ESRB had taken some of Dr. Thompson's recommendations into account. In 2005, the ESRB introduced the "Everyone 10+" rating to fill the gap between children and teen-rated titles. 

 A number of states had attempted to introduce laws that banned the sale of violent video games. Michigan claimed that the interactive nature of video games made them less entitled to First Amendment protection. Illinois attempted to fine stores that did not add warning labels to mature-rated games (despite already having ESRB ratings on the box). However, all attempts had been deemed violations of the First Amendment. 

At the federal level, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joseph Lieberman introduced the Family Entertainment Protection Act in November 2005. The bill sought to prohibit the selling of "Mature" or "Adults Only"-rated games to anyone under 17. Retailers would be fined for violations. The bill would also allow private citizens to file complaints against the ESRB if ratings or content descriptions failed to accurately describe a game's content. The bill was in the first stages of the legislation process and would likely undergo significant changes in subsequent legislative sessions.