Slashdot Mirror
Rockstar Investigated Over GTA - Vice City
Jubii writes "Seems the State of Florida is about to investigate Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for possibly violating state hate crime laws. This comes right after Rockstar and Take-Two issued an apology and a promise to remove offensive dialog found in the game. This could cause significant changes for 'mature' games in the future." Since Rockstar has already apologized and pledged to update the game, is it just me, or is the state of Florida only looking to line its pockets with some best-selling game profits? Update: 12/12 00:19 GMT by S : Haitian community leaders aren't satisfied either, saying "the manufacturer's pledge to change future editions did not solve the problem with games on store shelves now."
I thought the whole premise of the hate crime laws was that the offender had to be doing something else illegal that was motivated by hate, and that was the only way it skirted the 1st amendment.
I guess all the people that say "slippery slope" is an invalid argument don't know much about governments or laws.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Is a strong arm militant group to bribe the government officials like the RIAA and MPAA. I can't even begin to think of all the racial, sexist, and otherwise hateful things I've heard in music or in movies and GTA gets hit on something completely stupid? I'm serious though. Video games are just as legitimate a form of expression and entertainment as movies and music. Why isn't it treated as such?
That's scary.
That GTA:VC is a generally offensive game, yet they want Rockstar to remove one relatively innocent line? It's ridiculous, because it's a game. Rockstar isn't advocating killing Haitians. They aren't encouraging people to go on killing sprees to make their own criminal empire either. It's a freaking game, a work of fiction.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Video game developers are just seen as an easy target because they don't have the massive financial backing of the MPAA or RIAA (movies and music routinely have far more offensive content).
The supposed Haitian community leaders (9 times out of 10, "community leaders" are just obnoxious individuals who decide that they speak for everyone else) are simple using this as a chance to grab some attention at Rockstar's expense.
The state of Florida is just going after the cash, because they know that video games don't have enough popular esteem yet among those with power to be well-defended.
I'm going to go out and buy GTA3, just to spite them.
Remember, if you advocate killing cops in a Rap song, that's protected free speech! But if you advocate killing a particular group of people in a videogame, that has to be against the law! (Of course, I'm sure these same people would probably like to make offensive songs and movies illegal too, but unfortunately the record and motion picture industries have more powerful lobbying groups.)
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I've made comments about this situation in the last thread, so I'll try not to repeat too much.
I think that this effects much more than M-rated games now that the State of Florida is getting involved. When Rockstar and Take Two self-censored, I didn't like it, but it was their decision. However, to use political muscle to try to censor the comment that the Haitian group misinterpreted is fascism. The Florida Attorney General should be removed. No matter how you slice it, it's protected speech. Not to mention, it's pretty scary that the government is trying to blatantly censor speech.
But, can the State of Florida even do anything? Does Rockstar or Take Two even have offices there?
Good work Rockstar and Take Two, now that you tried to please the Haitian community by removing the content, but because you apoligized you indirectly admitted that you were wrong when indeed you were right. You made it that much harder to say that it was protected speech considering that you wouldn't even protect it yourselves.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
I'm sorry, what are they supposed to do with the games on the shelves now? Release magic DVD fairies that will change the dialogue to less offensive dialogue?
/shrug
What this amounts to is that the censor-happy idiots weren't able to block the game because fo the sex and violence like they wanted to, and so they had to resort to getting it on a crap charge like this.
The censors never win in the long run.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
Things like this make me doubt the future of the human race.
... because then even the basis that someone's feelings are hurt could be labelled as a frivelous (sp?) lawsuit.
the future is clear to me - in 20 years no one will be able to say anything for fear that it will offend someone.
currently you can't do/say anything that will offend someone, but what about the countless people that are not offended by an action? should we lower our society to suit the most sensitive and most irrational people, or should the majority win?
well the majority isn't winning anymore when it comes to things like this. the feelings of one person now override the feelings of millions of others, and even that is based on someone's word - they SAY they're feelings were hurt. its a good thing people don't lie for money
I agree that hateful and slanderous remarks should be removed from our collective conscience, but is attacking video games the way to do it? if the collective conscience of america wasn't already thinking of such things then they would have never made it into the game - the game is the symptom of racial slurs, not the cause, you fucking prats.
outside of the USA everyone makes fun of us Americans. do I care? no. should i? no. if someone makes an anti-america game do i give a flying patootie? hell no - its just a damn game.
so i say bring it on. hey foreigners, make lots of games that poke fun at americans: "hey, you gonna eat that untouched entire large super-supreme pizza," "now just wait a minizzle," "i'm 28 and i can't do long division anymore," "i've never voted, voting doesn't matter!!" and various other stupid (yet all too common) american sayings should be included. will we care? fuck no. we'll think its funny. I will anyway.
Haiti: take it as the joke its meant to be, not as the money grubbing, attention-seeking opportunity you seem to think it is. If you get offended you are weak. why don't you get offended that Haitian language support was left entirely out of perl 5.8? oh wait, i know: no money to be won.
I am not a lawyer, I am a programmer. That said IMHO, If I was the game manufacturer I would simply hide behind freedom of speech and freedom of press.
..don't tread on me..
It seems that our local governments have forgotten that freedom is the key. The judge should remind them of this and toss it out of court.
If I want to make a product, and there is a market for the product, I should be able to sell it on the market. It should be up to the retailers to decide if they want to put it on the shelf.
The leftist or rightist or whatevers will always be yelling about right and wrong, but thats their opinion and they are allowed to say it.
The product is already listed as an adult game. For end users that are responsible enough to understand the game is fiction.
"kill the Haitians" is simply a line in the plot of a fictional game. If they started a kill the Haitians advertising campaign available to the public eye, thats different.
pretzel_logic
.. I am making fun of this ethnic group at every opportunity.
They weren't targeted specifically in the game. The game leveraged and/or poked fun at a plethora of stereotypes. They need to get the fuck over it.
In my opinion, I think the point at which Rockstar lost was the instant they decided to issue a statement apologizing to the Haitian community, they basically said "we are wrong, everyone feel free to sue us now, because we admit defeat".
Rockstar should have done the right thing for all games everywhere and fought this out in court as a free speech issue, which it clearly is.
Wont be long till we see other developers and publishers get sued, or worst of all banned or censored industry wide. If you though games were getting too many sequels and relying too much on franchise IP because publishers were not will to take risks, I can only imagine how much harder it will be to make original games with realistic content.
I take it you haven't seen Three Kings.
Nothing to see here; Move along.
From a Miami Herald story about the issue:
"American society is racist, even though there are antiracist laws," Lesly Voltaire, minister for Haitians living abroad, told The Herald. "It's based on a formerly slave-owning society, which has left its mark, and there are people who think they can make money on that racism."
And it's not offensive and prejudicial when a government official from another country makes a judgement on an entire society based on a practice abolished over 100 years ago?
The world makes me so mad, and this issue is just idiotic.
--- "Yeah, I'm a bit stressed out. I have a research paper due tomorrow and it has to be +5, Insightful."
Free Speech.
I know this will result in a discussion of "is it ok to make potentially racist material available to children?" but IMHO, that's where parenting comes in.
Cogito Eggo Sum, I think therefore I'm a waffle
"To me it sounds like this has got to be against the law," Levinson said. "To tell people to kill a particular group of people? That has to violate some law."
Well, if a game were to attempt to motivate people to commit genocide, then yes, I'd agree, it probably violates some law. The problem is, even out of context, "kill the Haitians" doesn't imply killing a group of people from a particular community. It implies killing specific people, i.e. a gang. Since the Haitians that the line referred to was in reference to that gang, it's even harder to bend the facts in order to support the idea that Vice City is anti-Haitian.
Frankly, this whole fiasco is doing more to make people dislike the Haitian Community than anything Vice City did. Nobody likes misunderstanding to be used for frivilous lawsuits and the like.
"Derp de derp."
And that goes for any games. I mean, Christ. Suppose you're playing Yoshi's Cookie. I mean, God forbid the instructions say that "Yoshi should eat cookies", because some idiot might, at least in a totally distorted reality, manage to interpret this as a mandate to eat cookies without stop in real life. Furthermore, this is clearly targetting the defenseless bulimia sufferers of the world.
Sigh.
You know, I really don't have feelings about most minority groups one way or the other. Except when crap like this comes out. The game didn't make me dislike Haitians as a general group nearly as much as said Haitians are doing.
May we never see th
...is yet another *AA telling us what criminals we are.