Video Game Executives Aren't Kidding Around With Ratings System : Entertainment: A coalition of 100 industry leaders tells Senate of plan to self-regulate sex and violence in products.

By AMY HARMON and JUBE SHIVER JR.

Dec. 10, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

The video game industry is growing up.

On Thursday, in what amounted to a rite of passage, industry leaders gathered on Capitol Hill to announce plans to develop a voluntary system to rate their own products so parents can get an idea of how violent or sexually explicit a game is before buying it.

The coalition of more than 100 companies acted to head off legislation that would impose a mandatory federal rating system, but Congress wasn’t altogether placated. At a Senate hearing later in the day, lawmakers and consumer advocates castigated the video game makers for marketing violent and sexually explicit products that could harm children.

Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Herbert Kohl (D-Wis.) made it clear they will continue pushing legislation to create a national, independent ratings board to set standards for video games.

The industry’s intensely competitive nature will make it harder for it to police itself, but video game executives and industry observers said the recent scrutiny of the business is a reflection of its coming of age as an entertainment medium--one that in the past decade has become pervasive in the homes of American families with children.

Once seen as a fad, game machines now sit atop television sets in 42% of U.S. households. The industry’s annual revenues approach $6 billion, and recent advances in digital technology have flooded the industry with a host of new competitors anxious to grab a part of the market, which is beginning to expand beyond the 8-to-13-year-old boys who have long made up its core clientele.

“I don’t think anybody realized how powerful a force the video game revolution this time around would be,” said Martin Alper, chairman of Irvine-based Virgin Games, whose revenue has doubled each year for the last three years. “We don’t buy into the massive concern over violence in the current games, because most of it is not much different from Road Runner. But we are approaching a level of realism that would require us to voluntarily rate our product the way the movie industry does.”

The film industry adopted its voluntary rating system to escape government regulation after a Supreme Court ruling in 1968 gave states and cities the right to prevent exposing children to certain books and films. Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, remembers quarreling with studio executives over the content of films that increasingly reflected the turbulent culture, such as “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and “Blow-Up.”

Recording firms started sticking black-and-white parental advisory labels on products containing explicit lyrics in 1991. And earlier this year, the television networks began broadcasting a warning before some shows that might be considered especially violent or sexually explicit.

At their news conference Thursday, video game officials said the rating system they hope to develop could operate like the movie rating scheme, but they offered scant specifics on methods or the makeup of any possible board. They pledged to work out details within a year.

Industry analysts said a ratings system will ultimately help the business at a time when it is poised to expand into new markets and new levels of technical sophistication.

Of the movie business, Valenti said: “The voluntary ratings system did away with censorship and preserved the integrity of the industry.”

Games such as Mortal Kombat, Night Trap and Splatterhouse 3 are forcing the ratings issue in the video game industry. Night Trap, a scene from which was shown at Thursday’s Senate hearing, is a realistic-looking vampire game released by Sega in which young women have the blood drained from their bodies.

Indeed, discussion of the game became a focal point for the tension between archrivals Nintendo and Sega during the testimony. While the two firms have said they will work together on a ratings system, they appear to agree on little else.

“Our game guidelines are not perfect . . . but let me say this: Night Trap will never appear on a Nintendo system,” said Howard C. Lincoln, senior vice president of Nintendo. “A game like that has no place in our society.”

Arguing that game ratings alone aren’t “going to get us anywhere,” Lincoln endorsed more extensive self-regulation that would restrain video game advertisers and retailers, as well as companies that develop and market the products.

Lincoln’s comments contrasted with those of Bill White, a senior vice president at Sega. White argued that violent video games such as Night Trap are intended for, and marketed primarily to, adults.

The senators encouraged the video game industry to develop tough self-policing regulations. Although some senators said plans to set up a national video game ratings board are a step in the right direction, they warned the industry against embracing a plan that would not deal squarely with the problem of violent games.

“The rating system must not be a fig leaf for the industry to hide behind. They must also accept the responsibility to control themselves and stop producing the worst of this junk,” said Lieberman. Added Kohl: “If you don’t do something about the problem, we will.”

Amy Harmon reported from Los Angeles and Jube Shiver Jr. from Washington.