• by Shankar Gupta , November 2, 2007

I realize it's a bit meta for media types to talk about the media giving too much attention to a particular game, so I'll keep this brief: "Manhunt 2," a mediocre, ultra-violent title for the Wii and PS2, is shaping up to be the most thoroughly covered release in the mainstream press, largely because it allows newscasters to frown significantly, and pronounce piously that they can't imagine why anyone would want to play such a violent game.

Earlier this year, this column discussed the controversy surrounding "Manhunt 2" and its brutal content. The game initially was slapped with an Adults Only rating by the ESRB, which would have knocked it off the shelves at major retailers and doomed the game's financial success. Rockstar, the game's publisher, made some edits that netted it a Mature rating. In the end, though, the game just ain't that great. Reviews are decidedly mixed, with one outlet, 1UP, panning the game as "forgettable."

But nevertheless, this mediocre, forgettable game -- not "Halo 3," which tanked Hollywood box office numbers during the month it was released; not "Guitar Hero III" and "Rockstar," which let players live out the rock star fantasies that everyone has (in a totally violence-free gameplay experience, natch); and not "Bioshock," which has a better plot than most of the movies released this summer -- gets a flurry of mainstream media attention. If you do a Google search within the sites of CBS or ABC News for "video games," you find news stories about violence and sex in video games, video games causing murders, and video game addiction. Imagine if the mainstream media covered movies the same way; the only stories we'd ever see on the news would be about "Hostel II" and "Saw IV."

It's a little absurd, really. U.S. video game sales are rapidly approaching U.S. movie box office takings. The mainstream media needs to wise up about how it covers video games, or they're going to seem even more out of touch than they already are -- if such a thing is even possible.