The controversial and immensely successful release of the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 video game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is particularly timely given that we are in the midst of the festive season. Modern Warfare 2, which was released in November of this year, smashed entertainment industry records to become the biggest entertainment release of all time. Within 5 days of it’s release Modern Warfare 2 generated $550 million, over $150 million more than the biggest ever 5 day gross at the box office (Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince, $394 million in opening 5 days).

Banned in Russia, because of a controversial scene in which the player can choose to mow down civilians in a terrorist attack on an airport, the storyline of the game focuses on the large-scale outbreak of war in the modern world, further pushing its timely quality with the recent ramping up of the war in Afghanistan. The controversial subject matter and particularly realistic setting has set the game up one of the most talked about Christmas presents for mother’s to give their children this year. On her blog, one Mother sarcastically asked and answered: “How do we really feel about war, anyhow? After 40,000 years the evidence is in. We like it. Here’s the top toy we will give this year to our children to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.”

Upon hearing the discussions about whether Mums would buy Modern Warfare 2 for their young children, I thought about my Mum’s impact upon my early life as a gamer. Unable to conceive of getting into video games without her financial backing as a child, and baring in mind that the world of gaming had changed significantly since I was a child in the early 1990s, I decided to ask her a few questions about her interactions with games via my obsession with them as a child.

“I think I started buying you games around 8 or 9 years old. You didn’t get them immediately. You had to ask for a long time, even though your friends had them for a while, but I guess it was a point of reference for you. To have something in common with others was I think the main reason we bought you a console.

“Particularly being an only child I didn’t want you to feel left out, I suppose all mothers have that urge though. I thought it might have a positive impact on your hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills, so when I first started buying them I would more or less choose the games that you got, apart from the ones your uncle bought for you! I remember I bought you Ecco the Dolphin and Art Alive because I thought the covers looked nice and I thought there might be some education value to them!”

I don’t really have any memories of my Mum getting me those game I didn’t really want, although there are lots of stories floating around the internet about Mum’s getting the wrong game for their child, especially with Modern Warfare 2 having a similar release for the Wii that is more an updated version of an older game.

I had totally forgotten about these placid and notoriously difficult games, but it was probably more its difficulty, especially of Ecco the Dolphin, rather than the fact that my Mum had chosen it. It was interesting that she choose the game purely based on the cover though, rather than play-testing it herself, as the internet didn’t exist in our world circa 1992.

I asked her what her concerns were with me playing video games as a child in general.

“Yeah I had concerns generally. I had heard stories of addiction on the radio, alongside those more extreme stories of children getting violent through not being able to differentiate between fantasy and reality and re-enacting the games that you had, but ultimately I didn’t censor you beyond the extremely violent and gore-filled games as I had faith both in my parenting ability by correlation your own ability to distinguish fantasy and reality.

“I was vehemently against buying GTA for you, all I had heard about was the violence in it, even though I knew your friends had it and you had the money to buy it yourself when you were 12 I didn’t let you buy it.”

I remember that my friends had Grand Theft Auto, one of the most controversial games that has since become a best selling series, allowing the player total freedom in a city but encouraging them through storyline to become a career criminal. I suppose the early censorship my Mum had instilled had worked as I don’t really remember having a large desire to get GTA, and it was only when the 3D version came out when I was older at around 15, that I had a desire to buy it, and my education in games in conjunction with my Mum’s early censoring had firmly distinguished gaming from reality.

This ability to distinguish even formed part of my argument when asking my Mum to buy me a game she wasn’t prepared to.

“Well your Uncle Herman would pass you down lots of games he would have, but I asked him to censor them, which he did most of the time! I’d buy you gaming magazines quite regularly; I still think to do that sometimes! And you’d usually get the same games as your friends. When it came to me actually buying games for you, you’d try and charm me!

I remember one time when we had been at the theatre seeing Richard II and you said to me ‘Can we have a look in the games shop?’ phrasing it in such an innocent way that you just wanted to have a look at what was there, but we both knew full well that you knew exactly what game you wanted!”

I too remember never once thinking ‘ah I’ll just have a look’ and always attempting to get my Mum into the games shop so that I’d have a shot at getting the specific game I had in mind.

“Once we got inside you’d keep the charm going but on this particular occasion after the theatre, with a large bout of pestering too! On the whole though you knew which games I would get you and which I wouldn’t, and once I had told you that it wasn’t suitable for you, you’d try with another game you had in mind.”

I do remember my journeys to the game shop as mostly being successful with my Mum, but I don’t think she ever bought me a game that was way out there and unsuitable.

“I would largely look at the cover then decide whether it was suitable for you, because you’d be with me most of the time I didn’t really have the opportunity to test it at home for myself, but we did end up playing one of the more controversial ones together and I got really into it.”

This brought me to one of my clearest memories as a young gamer. My Mum sat down and actively took part in scrolling beat-em up games with me. None of my other friends Mum’s did that! So it was really fun that she actively took part in them and we able to complete or get to the final round of, the two games we played the most together; Streets of Rage 2 and Golden Axe 2.

“I think your Uncle Herman gave you Golden Axe, which I really really enjoyed but although we got to the final round we never completed it! And Streets of Rage, I was iffy about the violence on the cover but I let you convince me slightly and I wanted to experience it myself to see whether it was bad or not, and in the end I ended up really enjoying it! The girl character became a fantasy me! I really loved that we got to go on a quest together, especially with the fantasy setting of Golden Axe, I trusted your ability to differentiate between the game and reality. I liked the stories too and felt a thrill at accomplishing them!

I think I ended up playing it through wanting to experience how violent it was for myself and also you asking me to play with you when you didn’t have friends round. Unless you experience it for yourself, you don’t really know what it’s about and it also gave me validity if I needed to censor it while we were playing. I guess the lack of blood and gore, despite the violence was a key factor in letting those two particular games slide, they really weren’t as bad as some of the others, and especially Golden Axe which was set in a more fantastical realm”

At this point I begin to contrast my Mum’s attitude with 16-bit graphical violence with the graphics of the modern day behemoth of gaming, and in particular the controversial level in which the player takes the role of a soldier who goes undercover as a terrorist and is encouraged to gun-down innocent civilians in an airport. The fact that this level can be skipped is in many ways an emotional plot device to get the player to dislike the bad guys of the game. Even if the player does decide to take on the level they do not have to largely partake in the shooting of civilians.

After the brief story monologue, and the in-action graphics of the game appeared, my Mum looked at me shocked at how realistically the graphics had progressed since we were playing together more than 10 years ago.

“I’m shocked at the realness of it! I’m not sure I would’ve bought you the beat-em up games if they’d been this real!”

When the shooting of civilians started happening she looked visibly disgusted.

“I don’t like how the gun was coming from my perspective, that makes it too real. It didn’t used to be like that point of view. There’s a crossover with reality here also.”

She stopped the video ¾ of the way in though, as she was unsure if she could continue. “

I’ll finish it but it’s caused me a degree of anxiety definitely, but then again I suppose I am able to suspend my disbelief as the characters walk through the bodies in a cartoony way rather than stepping over them in a more realistic way, but the wanton destruction of this game disgusts me. It made me shudder and dragged my emotions into it despite it being a game. If you were younger, I wouldn’t be buying that for you if you!”

I ask about the upcoming proposal for the Digital Economy Bill, which will make it illegal for the first time to sell 12+ rated games to children under the age of 12 and she answers with full confidence in the passing of that law.

“Yep very sensible, the media has a part to play in this because you only hear about the games that cause controversy, or I do anyway because you were my link to that world, but I suppose if you were younger now I’d use the internet more to check up on what games you wanted and maybe look for more realistic takes on reviews or multiple ones anyway.

“Games have definitely got more realistically violent since I was buying them for you, but I suppose the world has seemingly got more violent too in the reporting of violence. There’s more a saturation of violence it seems, but having said that I’m intrigued by the Wii, which my friend has a Pilates game for so I’d consider checking that our, and I get the impression that it spans generations rather than hardcore teenage gamers. It seems to have something more appealing. I think the key factor in parental control is actually experiencing the game for myself though.”

While my Mum has been musing about whether to buy herself a Wii since interviewing her, there is definitely a thread that the violence of games past went unnoticed by parents and there are plenty of examples of kids appealing to internet gaming community members to help them persuade their Mum’s to buy them Modern Warfare 2 (examples here, here, here and here). Yet in a lot of cases (well, at least in mine), Mum’s decision was often final and perhaps it needs that firmness to give children a clear sense about how to choose what games they can deal with. There is no doubt that it’s essential to censor young children to games in some form, but my discussion with my own Mum also suggests that it is possible to find a middle road, where both parents and children can enjoy games together, where censoring can become more of a behind-the-scenes issues rather than a confrontational one.

As a related link it seems there are also others comparing the violence in the games of yesteryear, including the aforementioned Streets of Rage 2:

http://www.gamesradar.com/f/games-you-played-as-a-kid-that-would-be-mature-rated-today/a-2009121414954520080

Nathan Miller is an Assistant Community Manager @ Face