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It's just a modded Phantom console from Infinium Labs.

and you know, everything was a hell of a lot more fun back then. ;)

I often wonder exactly what was that fun? Where has it gone? How do we get it back?

I could just be nostalgic, but somehow it seems like BBSes were more "fun" -- but then internet came along, and while it offered a lot more depth of information, the fun seems to have faded in some ways. Admittedly, there are a lot of neat new things to do now, but it all seems so much less encompassing and less personal.

On further thought, I have a feeling John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory might explain most of it.

I guess we're seeing here that the size of the audience doesn't really matter, if at all.

-paul

In fairness, Tycho has a point. We let a lot of crap slide. By all rights, GTA as shipped should have had an AO. Halo should have had an AO. The difference between the M rating and the AO rating is *one year* and a bunch of sales - it's stupid. It's exactly the same with movies, too. But as a culture we're hypocrites and every so often we need to sacrifice someone up the "think of the children" gods, and Rockstar certainly has put themselves out there to be the goat.

If you, as parent, approved of GTA for your child last week, and now don't because a patch downloaded from the internet can show you non-explicit sex, then you're a shitty excuse for a parent and a worse one for a human, and regardless what Rockstar did or didn't do, and regardless of they hypocritical bullshit pandering that the ESRB and our politicians do, you shouldn't have any say in what *any* child does. To anyone with half a brain, this is a non-issue.

I agree with the posts upset over the fact that companies are getting slammed over parents' inability to parent, but at the same time, I think there should be at least some modicum of responsibility on the developer's part, especially when it is found that the developer knew that objectionable material existed and was not forthcoming about the existence of that material (to the point of gutless blameshifting that only makes them look more culpable once it was found that the underlying code existed on all platform versions). If Rockstar had no intention of allowing that content to be released THEN WHY DID THEY LEAVE IT IN THERE? I can understand if it was a single programmer (or maybe team) that threw in an objectionable minigame, though that seems unlikely to me, but that's not Rockstar's story so far.

Personally, I like a nice, cathartic, violent kill-fest first person shooter, and even had a lot of fun playing GTA3 and GTA:VC. I haven't played San Andreas, but this type of behaviour on Rockstar's part doesn't make me want to shell out cash to buy it now. This smells like someone wanted to include something and attempted to beat an ESRB rating by putting it in as an easter egg. Maybe possibly someone trying to challenge the ESRB's system itself; too bad for them, they've now got egg on their face.

And as someone already said, Penny Arcade's article and comic sum up the situation pretty nicely.

The ESRB is suggesting that they may change the rating of the game to Adults Only, a category that by their own definition should see a great deal more use in a retail environment. This is great. Look at the descriptions for these.

MATURETitles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content, and/or strong language.

Or, as the rest of our culture calls it, "Rated R." Check out AO.

ADULTS ONLY Titles rated AO (Adults Only) have content that should only be played by persons 18 years and older. Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.

This can't seriously be their distinction. The scenes are longer? I played Resident Evil 4 nearly 26 hours, all told. I'm going to say that maybe nineteen hours of it was spent looking down the iron sights at humanoids. The reality is that once a person is 18, a violent videogame is fairly minor in the spectrum of "adult" content available to that person. Looking over my collection, if the duration of the violence is the distinguishing factor, I'm trying to figure out what purpose Mature serves other than to remove the stigma from otherwise "adult" content and grease the wheels at retail.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php

I believe that Penny Arcade's news and comic today sum up this whole situation best.

But does the cat have an MSCE?

Just start killing Bothans, I'll tell you when to stop

I had always assumed it was in some kind of formula based on kick-backs and relation of the producers to the members of the board.

No, no. That's how GameSpy and IGN rate games.

For the ESRB, it depends how bitchy they're feeling just then.

32 comments, and not one reference to the Doom and Metroid movies at PA?

The way they tout it as a 'public beta' makes me certain that they'll try to sell this shite later. Who would want to pay for this?

Blue Security: "Hey, give us some money, we'll DDOS evil spammers for you!"

Me: "How do I know that's what you'll do with my money?"

BS (heh): "That's why you give us some fake emails."

M: "Well, that's nice, but in no way constitutes any kind of proof that your 'service' is actually doing anything. Much less anything effective/useful."

BS: "Did we mention that you get THREE fake email addresses? Three!"

Reminds me of this Penny Arcade strip:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2001-03- 31&res=l

Step 1: Offer to DDOS spammers for free
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!

What's the stock symbol?

Howdy, Stu; nice low UID. As you can probably figure out, I've been here for a good while, too--not as long as you, but a good while.

I think what happened to Slashdot is it got popular, and nobody--least of all Taco--knows how to deal with popularity. When Slashdot was the land of five-digit UIDs, as it was when I came, there was no karma system, there was no friend or foe system. It wasn't needed; the place was small enough that people knew other people. You'd have a long and fruitful argument with someone else, and you'd look for that person in the comments. It's all good. It works.

The turning point was, I think, the Columbine shootings. The number of responses to Jon Katz's "Hellmouth" stories was astronomical, and deservedly so. After the Hellmouth stories, we began to see threads with 500 responses... then 700... and now Slashdot routinely breaks 2000 responses for stories of particular interest. With that kind of anonymity, it makes it very tempting for people to act as if there's nobody watching and no social consequences for action.

When people believe there are no social consequences for their actions, a lot of them will turn into barbarians (c.f. Penny Arcade). Belligerency rises. Topics which before would receive polite silence are now greeted with "WTF who cares about washed-up movie actors?!?". Tolerance has vanished, as has the willingness to learn; the power of the anonymity of crowds leads many people into the willingness to be jerks.

For a year now I've been seriously tempted to leave Slashdot. I'm tired of what you noticed as the disturbing trend. I'm tired of it, and I don't know why I keep on contributing my time and my thinking to a site which increasingly appears to value conformity over individuality, certainty over knowledge, the mob over the man.

Conformity over individuality? If I were to say, in a programming thread, that I think SML/NJ is one of the finest programming languages out there--and I do, and I have great reasons for believing so--I'll get a sea of anonymous cowards shouting down that SML/NJ is a crap tool and a lousy language and that's why nobody uses it. How many of these people will have ever written code in SML/NJ? How many of these people will have ever written more than a thousand lines in SML/NJ? How many of these people are qualified to have an opinion? How many of these people are condemning my choice not because my choice is bad, but because my choice isn't C (or whatever other languages are the choice-of-conformity on Slashdot)? The barbarians in the crowd condemn not "bad languages", but individuality.

Certainty over knowledge? Take a look at how many people are just dead certain of things that just aren't so. If someone condemns C++ because it's not typesafe, if they phrase it loudly and with great certainty, they'll get modded up to +5, despite the fact it's barkingly wrong. (Any realistic C++ program will make extensive use of type safety.) But if someone makes a careful and articulate post explaining the things they know for a fact, the things they suspect might be true, and the things they just don't know on... these people aren't heeded. Because on Slashdot, it's all about the certainty, not the knowledge, and especially not the knowledge that your knowledge has limits.

The mob over the man? This one can be shown just by looking at any thread. There's a definite mob mentality here, and I don't like it.

Taco, if you're reading this--what do you think about all this? Can you give me, and/or other long-time Slashdotters who feel likewise, hope for the future? What's going on here?

Why am I still here?

I'm not being sarcastic, I'm not being insolent. I'd like to stay here. I'm just not certain there's a reason to anymore.

"Maybe it's just because we've done comics on the topic for nearly seven years, but it's getting harder and harder to understand why violence in electronic games warrants such brazen showmanship. Presumably it's all about the kids, but they always trot out a line of dirty-faced kids when they want to get their own shit through. It's like bringing your son to a restaurant, and then saying it was his birthday so you could get the free Mile High Mud Pie. Maybe he gets a bite or something, but mostly you'd really like to eat five pounds of frozen cake and chocolate ice cream, and there's not really any nobility associated with that."

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2004-10- 01&res=l/

Cut yourself.

Don't forget the infinite number of web servers filled with hundreds of variations of the same pages with circular links, porn, and no real content.

Back in "the day" I wasted quite a bit of time on those until I gave up and have been happily paying retail price ever since. *shifty eyes*

Seriously, the amount of b.s. in this game really spoiled the series for me. By the end of the game i was just like "for the love of pete, STFU with your proseletyzing already"

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2001-11- 30&res=l

At least one person.

I didn't see the article the first time it went around, so it was news to me.

Bowler misses the point of Doom 3 though. Doom was a game, not an engine. Doom 2 was as well.

Doom 3 is an engine. One that's available now (unlike UE3, which is what I believe he meant when referring to Unreal Tournament III). Is it as tech as UE3? No. However, it will be two years OLDER than UE3 when UE3 is available as in in-your-hands game.

The penny-arcade guys really said it best, over three years ago.

I think that the guys over at penny arcade got it exactly right with this cartoon.

Mature in what way? Blood and guts? T&A? Some would say that smacks more of "immature" products designed for high school and college students.

Oh my! That was harsh. I liked it. Time for an obligatory PA quote... From the strip.

"I think I've had enough of all the "Kids games," "Adult games" thing. It completely misses the point. Are they afraid playing a game with colors will make them a dork? Well, that boat already sailed. You play videogames? Welcome to Dorksville. You wanna know how cool your videogames are? Ask your f**king girlfriend how cool. And if you don't have a girlfriend? That's part of the test."

There is only one thing that came to mind after reading that summary. Sometimes Things Cost Money.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2000-12- 22&res=l

"So, Mr. School Admin, why is it that you're going with this service that won't work on 90% of the students' music players, and can't even be burnt to CD?"

"Well, Dell is a, uh, leading provider of technology to education, but mostly we've just always enjoyed big sacks full of money."

(should probably credit: http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2000-10- 23 )

i bet gabe would do it

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2002-03- 13&res=l

It could be like 'jive' for Google Maps.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php?date=2000-10- 23&res=l

It was horrible...

They clearly didn't read the series before writing their own book, or if they did, they didn't read carefully enough or all the way through all of the books...

Penny Arcade nailed the review.

If you really, really, really want to read Butlerian Jihad, then get it from a library or a garage sale or a second-hand book store. Don't give them any real money. It'll only encourage them. Do you want to see prequels to I, Robot?

By the way, the ellipsis marks that I've put in here are to remind you that the freaking book had them all over the place...

No, but they can get you

This is all well and good, but I think it misses a crucial point - this.

Right...?

Obligatory:

From my parent's home in Wyoming, I stab at thee!

It is like if Coca Cola decided to do an ad campaign in which they paid the advertisers to drink gallons of Coke and then walk down the streets with fly undone peeing the processed Coke on passersby.

...and you'll love every second of it!

I'm not a native English speaker. However, I often find I can communicate much more clearly than many of my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances who are native speakers of the English language.

Spelling, grammar, and vocabulary matter a great deal. Just because I am able to understand what you are saying does not mean you have successfully communicated your ideas.

If you ever intend to wield the full power of any language you should be striving for correctness. It's one of the few things you can do to ensure as many people as possible will, at the very least, have a chance in hell of coming close to grasping the specific mental model you are attempting to verbalize.

If you don't believe me, talk to these guys.

I'm not a native English speaker. However, I often find I can communicate much more clearly than many of my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances who are native speakers of the English language.

Spelling, grammar, and vocabulary matter a great deal. Just because I am able to understand what you are saying does not mean you have successfully communicated your ideas.

If you ever intend to wield the full power of any language you should be striving for correctness. It's one of the few things you can do to ensure as many people as possible will, at the very least, have a chance in hell of coming close to grasping the specific mental model you are attempting to verbalize.

If you don't believe me, talk to these guys.

Someone else already put it best:

A Being Of Indescribable Power

This

If you read Penny-Arcade, you probably already know that the hiliarious duo just purchased the set, and they plan on giving it away for free at their next convention.

--Zachary Lewis

Survival horor is... thats great. Made me laugh.

This just confirms what we already suspected: dial-up users are the new lepers in our wired heirarchical society, and they're dissatisfied about it. Moiche

This just confirms what we already suspected: dial-up users are the new lepers in our wired heirarchical society, and they're dissatisfied about it. Moiche

Saw the movie *minor spoilers*

Obligitory Penny Arcade strip

I don't know about Half Life, but the PA guys didn't exactly extoll the virtues of Halo...

I didn't pay much attention to it until I heard that there was a movie coming out and both comics comics put up strips about the trailers..

Joss Whedon is the creator of Firefly.

Comic on the previews..

Just watched the series a few weeks ago. Downloaded the series and now have the DVD set. Actually, I bought the DVD soon after being disappointed by Star wars...

What I like is:
Fun characters + The way the show wrenches with your expectations all the time + The weirdness of the western in space concept.

I suggest you watch the first 2 or 3 episodes. If you don't like it, then you probably won't end up liking it later.

I didn't pay much attention to it until I heard that there was a movie coming out and both comics comics put up strips about the trailers..

Joss Whedon is the creator of Firefly.

Comic on the previews..

Just watched the series a few weeks ago. Downloaded the series and now have the DVD set. Actually, I bought the DVD soon after being disappointed by Star wars...

What I like is:
Fun characters + The way the show wrenches with your expectations all the time + The weirdness of the western in space concept.

I suggest you watch the first 2 or 3 episodes. If you don't like it, then you probably won't end up liking it later.

...of posting this extremely relevant link.

Zing!

So now you not only can buy items for a MMORPG, you can rent characters? For little as $300 deposit and $150 / month? Sheeze. Get a new hobby.

I think he's referring to this
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=1999-11 -22&res=l

I mean . . . it's not that hard. Intarweb is new tech, in that society had really integrated phones until about half a century after their invention, and we are still within three decades of the DARPA network. The market hasn't really figured out what works paid and unpaid on the internet -- hence the juicy webcomic discussion/controversy over whether or not micropayments work. But we can count on the fact that there will always be some stuff that is paid content (because the cost of development and provision far exceeds the potential income derived from advertising or marketing while providing the content free) and some stuff that is free. Things like the CNN streaming of live video is just the market settling -- and I guarantee that the streaming video will incorporate advertisements, so by some definitions, it's not exactly free. Seeing anything in the CNN decision regarding the larger issue of charging for content on the internet seems to me like sophomoric thinking -- unless I'm missing something?

Regards,

Moiche