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Game Industry Derided For Mature Content
Steve Rock writes "To the surprise of no one, game manufacturers and resellers were again
taken
to task over the production and sales of games containing violent or
sexual themes. According to the National Institute on Media and
the Family's Ninth
Annual Mediawise Video Game Report Card even games with beneficial
or neutral content can be harmful to children because of the connection
between gameplay and our obesity epidemic. Interestingly, out of
fifty
surveys mailed out by the Institute to retailers and producers only
two were completed and returned. The industry was given a passing
grade for the ESRB rating system but the actual enforcement of the
system by the retailers was not -- it is worth noting, however, that
the Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association has stated that self-regulation
procedures were scheduled to be implemented by December 2004 and therefore
tests of retailer compliance to ESRB ratings was premature."
In other news the movie industry and book industry just keep putting out their usual mature content crap.
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
The comic industry, to placate the witch hunters offered self policing. Sound familiar? Wertham considered it a sham. Sound familiar, too?
To add to the point, remember how long it took to bounce back from the damage Wertham did. Having that happen to video games now could have catastrophic damage.
Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.
What about all of us old people (21+) that want content more adult.
I enjoyed GTA vice city, Postal 2, Quake and would not call them G rated.
I want them labeled for content, with good install/de-install programs.
And if you really insist a password/age checker.
This is my opinion based on what little I know and understand of the rumors and lies Thanks, Randal
As preposterous as the comic book debacle seems it is true. I saw the story on the history channel and one the targets was Mad Comic books aka Mad *Magazine*. See to get around the issue, the owners ceased calling it a comic book and named it called it a magazine as defined by that days statutes.
Don't call it crazy because look at the year 1954 and subtract just a few years - you'll find a time where the US legislate Prohibition into law. Crazy things happen when bounds aren't kept within check.
Or maybe they're just games, and they're completely unrelated to "culture". I, for example, have little to no contact with pop culture. I have no TV, I live in a progressive town that doesn't allow big box stores (which seems to be the heart of US culture these days), I rarely listen to the radio. But, I love the Grand Theft Auto series. They're fun games. Good relaxation after a 16 hour day of work. Culture has nothing to do with it. I'm glad games like these exist, else I'd be playing mindless, juvenile "Mario" games, which, I'm sorry, just aren't the same thing.
I don't respond to AC's.
My local bar had a sign proclaiming the upcomign Halo 2 tournament. You know, a bar, in the US, where you'd need to be 21 to walk in the door (at most bars).
High School teachers I work with mention having played Grand Theft Auto.
Whatever statistic you believe, gaming is an extraorinarily succesful mass media, and it's not getting there on the backs of eight year-olds alone. An enormous amount of the success is driven by the kids that grew up with the Ataris, Colecos, and Nintendos, and they are perfectly comfortable playing these "mature" games.
Kids connect these M-rated games with maturity, rather than the fact that it takes maturity to logically understand these games. It's unfortunate, but the only people that can counter it are the parents and interested third parties. The store I work at throws a warning on the register when an "M" game is being checked out, and prompts us to ask for ID. Failure to follow through can result in termination. More and more stores are following this process, and we're going to be at a point very soon where we can't continue to simply foist the blame off on others. "M" games exist because there's an enormous market for them. 13 year-old kids shouldn't be playing them unless that child's parent is sure that the kid is capable of handling that game. In the meantime, let those of us who can legally drink, smoke, gamble, and be drafted buy Half-Life 2 if wish.
before augmented reality is mainstream. From the article:
even games with beneficial or neutral content can be harmful to children because of the connection between gameplay and our obesity epidemic
I think good games and physical conditioning are going to merge and really catch on--even with those who are not really in shape. Current barriers are miniaturization of equipment, battery improvements, and HUD improvements, but I think we are close.
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
the "first" videogame generation is about 40 right now (people who had atari's in their teens). In another 20 years *THEY* will be the people in charge and this nonsense will go away.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Exactly. But unfortunatly these groups that do all these statitcs dont tend to realize this. For a country that puts little focust on the importance in math they put a lot of attention on what the numbers give, whithout looking at the non matmatical portion to it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Videodrome was a crazy Cronenberg movie (1983) about a guy (played by James Woods) who ran a cable company. The show opens with him sitting in a chair defending his network's hilariously sleazy content. "It gives our viewers a harmless outlet for their frustrations and fantasies." His character is so shady, even if you're desperate to believe him, you can't.
But then the movie turns dark. Woods uncovers a conspiracy to control people's minds using television. The videodrome is a metaphor for the combat of ideas in the media. The idea is, we only half-admit to ourselves that the media controls us. We hop up and down to censor it from violent or sexual content. This shows we kind of realize what appears on hundreds of millions of screens has consequences. But we haven't confronted the philosophical, or political dimensions of the fact.
We have a collective hissy fit when Janet Jackson shows a nipple. Meanwhile Fox News is on the air for years and we can't muster a coherent notion for fining them a dollar.
Great quote: "You know, in some countries, like Argentina, making subversive video is considered a criminal act. They execute people for it. In Pittsburgh... who knows?"
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I'd also like to lay a thick layer of blame on all the moral and religious groups which feel that repressing feelings instead of openly discussing them is the proper way to handle them. I'd like to make a call to remove all children from churches until priests can stop molesting them. Please, think of the children. Further, the lessons in the bible are too graphic, depicting things like brothers slaying each other. What is this world coming to? How about reading Sesame Street books on Sunday instead, those are wholesome. I'd like to further blame religious figures who lambast the teaching of sexual education, though most parents will never bring up the topic until it's too late and their childrens' curiosity provides the lessons. How many children's lives must be ruined because adults are too embarassed to speak about sexuality? Can't we for once actually think of the children?
Finally, I'd like to thank the video game industry, for providing children with an outlet for excess energy that doesn't involve killing people. Sports games, platformers, puzzle games, there are all sorts of interactive outlets for children apart from just watching after school cartoons. I'd like to yell at parents that give overly young, impressionable children mature games. What's wrong with you? I'd like to thank all parents that have decided their 16 year olds are or are not mature enough to play GTA, and took the trouble to, you know, actually think about their child instead of blaming others for their poor parenting.
If not now, when?
I'm a fairly conservative Christian and even I have problems with chick.com. Among the more obvious problems, even the supposedly "accurate" portrayals of various events are inaccurate (for example, child molestation in Sodom & Gomorrah). I emailed their site several times to protest this, but they basically told me to shut up and never email them again.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Neilson (of TV ratings fame) do stats on video games too. The enormous bulk of the market is in the 20-30 range, mostly male, although they noted that female players between 20-30 was the biggest "growth" area.
Video games aren't just for kids anymore.
I don't know why Blockbuster, EB, Best Buy, etc, cant segregate the games into kids section and regular. I mean, the movies are segregated by type/genre. Lord knows there's enough of them to group them like Action/Adventure, Roleplaying, Horror, Adult, Children.
I think a lot of the noise would go away if "Monsters, Inc" wasn't on the shelf right next to "Manhunt", but there will always be kooks.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Funny, I don't ever recall reading any studies connecting the compulsive watching of television sports while drinking beer and eating junk food as a contributor to obesity.
Or paintball as a gateway to violent behavior.
Maybe I'm not reading the right stuff.
A guy I know had a bumper sticker on his car:
"Kids who hunt, trap, and fish, don't mug little old ladies".
No, they just torture and kill defenseless little animals. Kids who play video games (or D&D) don't usually do that either.
OK... any under 17 /.ers ever been carded / refused when trying to purchase an "M" rated (17+) game? An "AO" (18+) game? If so, where?
We apologize for the preceding message. All those responsible have been sacked.
...more adult content.
I'm in my early 30's. Card me all you want at the counter. Grand Theft Auto should not be in the hands of minors anyway. But at the same time present me, a "grown-up", with the choice of titles with pure adult content.
Then we will all be happy. Well, until they decide to take their crusade further, which is the fear I suppose.
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Thats true, as ghallagher said, "This generation went from 'Do your own thing' to 'Just say no.'"
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
I'm reminded of a quote from one of my favorites, High Fidelity - "What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"
There's nothing wrong with violence, sexuality, etc etc - it's all about placement. Teach your kids that stress relief by acting out frustrations on your opponents is different than whacking around another kid in a playground. Hunting in the wilds is different than blowing people away with a shotgun, etc etc.
Personally I'm still more afraid of the influence upon children of today that post 9-11 is giving (hey, let's go blow up some countries because they might harbour terrorists, and it's ok to lock up a few innocents and torture information out of them because we need to catch the real bad guys).
The government of the Sixties feared the hippie generation. Hippies had ideas that were radically different than their own, and they thought that drugs might have had something to do with that. In their panic to maintain the status quo, they completely forgot about the disaster that was the Eighteenth Amendment.
Obviously, I think that the enforcing the Controlled Substances Act in its current form is a massive and pointless drain on federal funds. I bet that we could cut the deficit significantly if we modified it to set tax rates on drugs instead. It'd be safer, too, since then the FDA would set standards on purity and dose.
OH NOES!!! IT APPEARS YUO DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO PAY FOR DIS HERE PIZZA! WAHT EVER ARE YOU GOING TO DO!?!?