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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.
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Yea, we should really kick Florida out of the union.
The dead vote there, they can't hold a proper election, they don't seem to comprehend what free speech is... I mean the list goes on and on.
We're watching you Florida, one more screw up, and your phallic landmass is out!
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
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.
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