Just as Take Two announces that Manhunt 2 has been "revised" and ESRB rated at M, news comes that Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee's new film Lust, Caution has been rated NC-17 by the MPAA, for graphic sexuality.

The difference is, film studio Focus Features is going to release the film uncut, with the rating, while Take Two will release a crippled version of the game to meet financial pressures.

There are a number of reasons why Take Two is in a different position than Focus. For one, first-party licensing in videogames creates another layer of censorship that makes it impossible to release Manhunt 2 on consoles, since the manufacturers refuse to license (and therefore manufacture) games at the AO rating. Lust, Caution may suffer from reduced distribution thanks to the NC-17, but the film will still physically play on projectors at any theater. Same with DVD, which they can release for direct and retail sale.

Why won't Rockstar and Take Two do the same? A number of commenters on the Wired Blog post about the new rating are calling for just that: an AO version for PC sold outside the traditional videogame retail channels. Such a stand would be interesting, but very different from the one Ang Lee and Focus are taking with his film, namely refusing to remove a single frame of celluloid on the grounds of its artistic merit. An equivalent move for Manhunt 2 would be for Take Two to release it ONLY in its AO incarnation.

I suspect such a move is financially unimaginable in contemporary videogames. Sure, it's true that games are different from films. I'm sure more people have an Xbox than have a high-end PC with a current graphics card, whereas everyone has a DVD player. But game devs and publishers are going to have to start making moves like this if they also want to continue making calls for the protection of games as speech. Who will take this argument seriously if game creators are so willing to compromise their intentions?

I want to issue two challenges in relation to this topic.

First, I've been a huge supporter of Rockstar's work, in my recent books (Unit Operations and Persuasive Games), in my journalistic writing, and in the public media, including my recent appearance on The Colbert Report. I challenge them to make as many public statements about the artistic merit of their own work as creators, as people like me do as critics.

Second, I admire Hal Halpin, Dennis McCauley, and the other folks at the Entertainment Consumers Association and GamePolitics.com. But I think the ECA is sorely mistaken in seeing Washington as the main cause of their problems. The first front in the battle for unfettered speech in games is the one between developers and the first-party console manufacturers about what qualifies as a game, whether it be about a rating or its theme/topic/content. That's where the issue becomes one for "consumers." So I challenge them to take on Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo for their offenses. Update: Dennis McCauley has posted a response over at GamePolitics.

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