The Dope Game (Sync Magazine)
Saturday, October 1st, 2005HARD-CORE DRUGS AND THE FAMILY PC ARE COMING TOGETHER, AND THE GOVERNMENT IS SCRAMBLING TO UNPLUG THE CONNECTION. BY DAMON BROWN.
I grow the weed. I harvest the opium. I sell the heroin. I push the drugs. I’m supposed to be the man behind a million-dollar empire that gets people high while making me rich. Problem is, my balls and my word are all I have left, and both are getting broken. I’ve been trying my hand at this life for some time now. But the cops are sniffing around my farm. The ammunition I’ll need to ventilate their Kevlar, if it comes to that, isn’t cheap. And at the moment I need a fix for myself. I promised my girl I’d be raking in $10,000 a day. But I’m hardly earning enough to keep the hash operation up and running. I’m considering trading for some morphine, but it seems my life as a drug lord is completely hopeless. Standing in my way is my teenage daughter, who wants to e-mail her friends, and my wife, who has some online banking to do. And myself – I have to pull a double shift at work in 20 minutes. My choices at the moment are severely limited: I can either grow this drug business into the latest operation that’s ever existed. Or I can simply quit out of the video game, turn off the computer and never log into The Dope Game again.
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In the Dope Game, would-be drug lords plant organic drugs such as marijuana and opium and synthesize others such as crack and Ecstasy. Cash from sales is eaten up by drug production and other factors, but the savvy dealer pulls in enough scratch to maintain a lavish lifestyle.
But this summer, as the Hot Coffee mod for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas spilled over into a Congressional debate about video game ratings led by Senator Hillary Clinton, the government of New Zealand’s censorship office red-flagged The Dope Game for possible banning, resulting in the game’s nervous creator pulling it from the shelves. The company behind The Dope Game, 89 Games, went out of business. While explicit content gets games in trouble in the U.S. – in the case of GTA: SA, hidden scenes of dudes boffing hookers earned the best-selling title an Adults Only rating (AO) that necessitated a belated recall – 89 Games ran afoul without including any graphic violence or sex; rather, The Dope Game promoted drugs. It’s likely only a matter of time before U.S. politicians follow New Zealand’s lead, making games that glorify drugs, or even those that simply feature illegal substances, their next target.
According to Steve O’Brien, manager of censorship compliance for the Office of Film and Literature Classification in New Zealand, even virtual drug-dealing is illegal. “The Dope Game includes the killing of police and drug paraphernalia,” O’Brien said. “IF the OFLC classifies a publication as objectionable, then it is banned, making distribution and possession of it illegal.” 89 Games representatives did not respond to calls or e-mails; the website has been taken down. Only three other titles have ever been classified as “objectionable” in New Zealand: Manhunt (in 2003) and two versions of Postal 2 (in 2004). In the U.S., these games received Mature ratings from the Entertainment Software Rating Board, a nonprofit organization that rates content but is not a government agency.
EDrug Trader, an only economy game with a drug-based front, came to the Feds’ attention when it was launched in 1999. Michael Kristopeit, EDrug Trader creator, claims that someone from the Drug Enforcement Administration contacted him two months after the site went live. “They told me they had spent an hour trying to figure out whether or not the site was a front for anything illegal. Kristopeit said. “They caught on that it was just for fun. The agent even told me that a few of them were playing it.”
Though no titles have been banned from sale in the U.S. yet, the DEA, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and Congress are obviously monitoring drug-related video games closely.
And yet for would-be drug dealers, there’s very little in The Dope Game to teach you about a life of crime and drugs, much less hustling. According to Clifton, a former New Orleans-based dealer of marijuana, Valium and other narcotics, “The Dope Game won’t prepare you to be a dealer. You’re dealing with people in real life. In a game, you can’t judge or react to emotions.” He takes particular issue with some of the game play. “Trading drug for drug does happen, but it’s circumstantial. You might have a good friend who catches a good deal on 50 pills, and they may need weed and don’t have any money left to buy it. They know they can trade me for some weed. But this is rare.”
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The Dope Game’s violence isn’t graphic. Every fourth virtual day or so, stiff-looking cops show up to raid the drug compound. Rifles, land mines and gun turrets – bought with drug money – do the work of eliminating authorities… off-screen. The graphics, muddy and unclear, don’t show much detail. What you see isn’t any more violent than what’s depicted in a typical episode of CSI: Miami. When we described the game’s premise to Tom Riley, spokesperson for the ONDCP, he replied: “If teens perceive that drugs are harmless or fun from video games, they will be more likely to try them. It’s just like TV shows in which kids drink alcohol.” Not even an AO rating would suffice, according to Riley. “It’s not realistic to believe a teen is not going to have access to a potentially detrimental game like this just because some rating is slapped on it. These controversial games are attractive to kids.”
The Dope Game’s premise and subsequent demise garnered it more attention than it would have earned on game play alone. In fact, The Dope Game – with a bit of peer-to-peer ingenuity and a new host site – might still enjoy some notoriety in the U.S. as an underground hit. So go ahead and get addicted, but know this: You’re being watched.
