GTA Sex Game Debate Intensifies

The ESRB kerfluffle with Rockstar shows no signs of ebbing. Gamespot is reporting that a watchdog group has gotten into the act. From the article: "The Minneapolis-based watchdog group, founded by Dr. David Walsh, previously decried the game for its glorification of cop-killing with an online petition. Now the group is issuing a National Parental Warning for the game, giving concerned mothers and fathers a heads-up that their children could be playing with their joysticks in an inappropriate way. The National Institute on Media and the Family joins an already active debate on the game, its content, and the appropriateness of its current M rating." Additionally, the Dutch hacker who claims to have uncovered the game content has been identified. From the article: "...the mod was authored by 36-year-old Patrick Wildenborg, a Dutch gamer and a member of the modder community...Wildenborg insists that the X-rated code is already in the game and that all his patch does is bypass the game's 'censor flags.'" Among many others, Game Girl Advance has commentary on the story.

Comments

Joysticks?

[Anonymous Coward]

"that their children could be playing with their joysticks in an inappropriate way."

This came out way wayyy wrong.

Re:Joysticks?

[Unordained]

I'm surprised this is the only comment pointing that out -- I ... I couldn't finish reading the summary after that one. Joysticks, cockpits ... our world is full of fun references nobody pays attention to anymore.

An interesting read.

[Gen. Rasputin X]

Game Girl Advance provides two solid viewpoints on the issue.

One is the whole "It was locked out, had to be hacked to access" issue.

And the other, "It was still on the final master disc when it shipped."

It's a tough question, should the ESRB have access to all materials on the master disc? or just the materials that are available to anyone who doesn't attempt to hack the game?

However, GTA : SA is a Mature game, at least in terms of rating, and as far as I've seen, the sex, though more explict than that found in most video games isn't a big deal.

But then again, I'm one of those whackos who doesn't have a problem with sex.

And one of those who finds a certain catharsis through violence.

BFD

[Bimo_Dude]

Waaaahhhhhh!!! The game can be modded to show [very unrealistic] sex!!!!

I could see it if the ESRB was only complaining about the violence (although even that would be debateable, since it is already rated mature), but Sex? If I had children, i would much prefer that they were exposed to sex, and educated about safe sex, rather than having the constant exposure to violence that kids nowadays seem to have.

Unfortunately, in my lifetime, it seems to have always been this way in the US. The media appears to promote violence and repress sex (unless it's violent sex, like rape - which is arguably not even about sex anyway).

This has become a country of minority (wealthy) rule over the majority (normal people).

Re:BFD

[Anonymous Coward]

This has become a country of minority (wealthy) rule over the majority (normal people).

What the hell did that have to do with your point?

Here are some exercises for you, reader:

At what point in history has there ever been a situation where a country was not organized as the wealthy ruling over everyone else? Country, mind you, not a tribal group of 1500 people. Extra points if you can describe such a time in US history.

And since when are wealthy people not normal people? What weird transformation do they undergo when they gain money?

I don't expect coherent answers to these questions, so feel free to spew vitriolic bile until the end of time if you wish.

Re:BFD

[Bimo_Dude]

What the hell did that have to do with your point?

Simply that the ESRB is one example of this.

At what point in history has there ever been a situation where a country was not organized as the wealthy ruling over everyone else? Country, mind you, not a tribal group of 1500 people. Extra points if you can describe such a time in US history.

I cannot dispute this. In fact it's a very good point.

And since when are wealthy people not normal people? What weird transformation do they undergo when they gain money?

Perhaps I should have been more clear and not used the word "normal." "Average" would have been better. As for transformation, it could be argued that as people have more money, they want more money, and sacrifice ethics in order to meet that end. Obviously, this is not always the case (in case you are tempted to flame for generalizing).

I don't expect coherent answers to these questions, so feel free to spew vitriolic bile until the end of time if you wish.

That statement is purely subjective, and is also of no relevence to this discussion.

Now I feel better... having satisfied the urge to respond to this pedantic troll (IMHO). Irresistible, somtimes :)

Re:BFD

[Jonny_eh]

Hasn't anyone seen Team America? Especially the Unrated DVD version? Don't they sell it at Wal-mart?

If movies can be released on DVD without such inspection, why can't a computer game?

I'll answer my own question. It's because 'games' are for 'kids', supposedly. Also, people fear and hate what they do not understand.

Re:BFD

[TapeCutter]

I agree, however it's not just the US. Controling masses of people has always been made easier by using the secrecy of sex to divide them and the justification of violence to unite and direct them.

I have two grown kids, a boy and a girl, I am happy they have both found that special someone who will bonk thier brains out rather than blow thier brains out.

Re:BFD

[golgotha007]

I think the real obscenity comes from raising out youth to believe that sex is bad and ugly and dirty. And yet, it is heroic to go spill guts and blood in the most ghastly manner in the name of humanity.

With all the taboos attached to sex, it's no wonder we have the problems we have. It's no wonder were angry and violent and genocidal. But, ask yourself the question, what is more obscene: sex or war?

Larry Flynt

Re:BFD

[Anonymous Coward]

This has become a country of minority (wealthy) rule over the majority (normal people).

This has always been a country that protected the minority. The opulent has always been a minority which needed to be protected the by the mob (middle and lower class).

This is pure STUPID

[fluor2]

America, wake up! You should do something about the VIOLENCE, not the SEX! America has FAR MANY PEOPLE KILLED EACH DAY, still organizations seem to care about nudity issues.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[redwiregmail]

FBI Crime Statistics for year ending 2004: Nationaly Reported Violent Crimes: 258,000,968 Department of Justice Statistics: National Reported Criminal "Lewd Acts" 148,011 I think you might be onto something there :p

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Palverone]

Okay so let me get this right...

You are taking issue with our (USA) freak out fest regarding the hidden minigame simly because America has a far larger number of killings than sex crimes? Does that mean you are giving the people who do not like this game a green light because it's obvious glorification of violence, especially against police and women is a bad thing? Let me stand in THAT line because I think the industry as a whole is greatly unbalanced in the amount of emphasis the put on violence against what we should expect are the 'good guys' which I know is not P.C. now days to say authorities are the good guys and they, for he majority, are doing their best to do the right thing. Oops.

It's like the makers of this game said "Let's see how far we can take it... Let them eat cake!"

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd be surprised how many people think sex leads to violence.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[vansloot]

Yeah, Europe is the epitome of "balance, well-rounded individuals." Those "religious outcasts" *left* because of state-sponsored religion in Europe.

Your post shows that you've never actually spent any time in the U.S. If you had, you would know that what is presented in the media is very unrepresentative of the average person in the U.S.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[spot35]

No, he's making a comparison between Autralia and America and I'd say that Australia seems a far more well rounded country than America. I'm British, btw. Mod Away!

Re:This is pure STUPID

[drsmithy]

Those "religious outcasts" *left* because of state-sponsored religion in Europe.

Yeah, they left because those "state-sponsored religions" were too "liberal".

Your post shows that you've never actually spent any time in the U.S. If you had, you would know that what is presented in the media is very unrepresentative of the average person in the U.S.

I've met quite a lot of US exchange students, and I work for an American company (in their Australian office) - they were all really nice people, as long as you didn't say or do anything that might trigger off their (as a relative measure) right-wing, religious-conservative beliefs (at which point it could get a bit awkward). Even Americans I've met that called themselves left-wing, would be considered right-wing here in Australia.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[MindStalker]

I've worked with Europeans, and Middle Easteners, and they both have things you can't say to them because you might "trigger them off". Thats just how people are, they have their beliefs, wrong as they may be. That they hold onto and don't want messed with. Its a Human thing.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Tikiman]

America, wake up! You should do something about the VIOLENCE, not the SEX! America has FAR MANY PEOPLE KILLED EACH DAY, still organizations seem to care about nudity issues

The link between this culture's openly permissive sexual attitude is clear. Currently, the national illegitimacy rate is over 30%, and black illegitimacy rate over 65% up from 22% in the early sixties. In the meantime was the "sexual revolution" and Roe vs Wade, which increased conceptions by 30% and dropped birth rate by 6%. Just ask anyone who has taught in an inner city school why these kids have so many problems - it is because they don't have fathers. And why don't they have fathers? Because when teenagers have sex, they are in no position to raise their children properly. And why are they having sex? Because in the absence of good parenting, they learn sex about from MTV and Grand Theft Auto. Is complaining about nudity going to fix everything? No its not - but its more of a step in the right direction than just locking up every criminal without addressing the more fundamental problems, which begins by treating sex responsibly - not as an unlockable mini-game.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[kyojin the clown]

actually, 51% of americans stand up perfectly to the media's representation.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[daVinci1980]

No offense, but unless you've met a statistically significant sampling of Americans, your "evidence" is anecdotal at best.

For example, we haven't met. I'm an atheist. I'm socially liberal (I believe that those of us that are more fortunate should help take care of those that are less fortunate), but I am economically and politically conservative (Small government is good. [Generally] staying out of businesses way is good.) I also have a strong dislike for lieing, cheating or doing anything that wouldn't pass "the light of day" test.

Despite my firm stance that there is no god, I won't get upset with anything you do or say regarding religion. I won't even get upset if you try to convert me to whatever religion you are, as long as we can eventually move past this to be friends.

There are definitely people everywhere that get really steamed when religion is talked about--in fact there were some people I met in Sydney who couldn't let it go that I didn't believe in their god. We don't have a monopoly on them here in the States.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[LittleBigLui]

Because when teenagers have sex, they are in no position to raise their children properly.

When teenagers have sex they should use contraception. Actually, that's pretty much independent of age. Want babies -> sex w/o contraception. Want no babies -> sex w/ contraception.

Yeah, contraception is not perfect, but I suspect the problem with american teenagers is lack of contraception, not too much sex. (Am european myself and highly doubt americans get more action than we.)

Re:This is pure STUPID

[snorklewacker]

Treating sex responsibly apparently means going completely out of control apeshit over a single exposed breast or a mini-game in an already extremely graphic game, one that involves people having sex with their clothes on at that.

This entire country is filled to the brim with morons.

And how can we win against stupidity? We've got argument, he's got a gun (in the form of police), and isn't capable of listening to argument.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Tikiman]

When teenagers have sex they should use contraception. Actually, that's pretty much independent of age. Want babies -> sex w/o contraception. Want no babies -> sex w/ contraception.

Yeah, contraception is not perfect, but I suspect the problem with american teenagers is lack of contraception, not too much sex. (Am european myself and highly doubt americans get more action than we.)

You are assuming a priori that there is nothing wrong with teenagers having sex. This is of course a faulty assumption, since there is no reason for a teenager to be having sex. The reasons to not have sex are many - risk of pregnancy, risk of sexually transmitted diseases, and emotional immaturity. Teenagers are simply not emotionally ready for sex, demonstrated by the plain fact that despite state mandated, rigorous sex ed with lots of information and explicit directions, teenagers continue to get themselves pregnant. The problem with American society is that it is disfunctional. We claim that people are not mature enough to vote until 18, or drink a beer until 21, yet we educate them on how to have sex without (hopefully) having a baby when in high school (13-14).

Re:This is pure STUPID

[DavidTC]

Um, no. In fact, the link is the other way around. Permissive sexual attitudes reduce teen pregnancy. (And measuring 'illegitimacy' is idiotic. 'illegitimacy' just means 'children born to unmarried parents. It doesn't day anything about anything. For all you know, they all got married the next day, or just lived together for the next 20 years. And the 'legitimate' parents got divorced.)

Teen pregnancy rates, however, have never risen, not since we've been measuring them in 1976.

And let's check some other countries, ones more liberal about displaying sex on TV: Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

For every 100 women under 19, they had no more than one give birth, and many were lower than that.

The US? It had five out of a hundred.

Which states have the highest teen pregnancy rates? Well, it almost exactly follows the divorce rate. The highest one?

Mississippi, that cesspool of moral filth, at 6.5 per 100. Then Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Arkansaw, all at or above 6 per 100.

You can take your 'moral values' and shove them.

OTOH, California is at 4.1, which is extremely high for a liberal state. (Vs New York at three and New Hampishire winning the race at two.) We could blame Ahnold, but it is possible it's Hollywood. Or, more likely in my book, it's the large number of poor Hispanic aliens. (Please note I have nothing against them, expecially not hot Hispanic 18 year-old girls having sex with people.)

Re:This is pure STUPID

[toad3k]

You act as if kids are learning about sex in class. I can assure you, as a kid I was learning about sex from every other kid. 13-14? Hell we thought we knew it all by 10.

The bus alone is the perfect place to transfer such information. That way you have the older teenage kids alongside the younger gradeschoolers instructing them on how the world works for 45 minutes a day, every school day. I assure you, the only responsible sexual advice your kid will ever hear, if it isn't coming from you, is from a sex ed teacher.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[GeckoX]

If it wasn't TABOO they wouldn't even blink at crap like this.

It is purely because sex is TABOO in north america that teenagers migrate so much towards sex.

Teenagers are programmed to do one thing well, break rules. Push the boundaries. What's the biggest boundary presented to teenagers in north america? Yeah, you've got it.

Ignorance is bliss, until your teenager comes home knocked up.

Nudity is our natural state, get over it.
Fucking is why we are here, get over it.
Trying to change or hide these pure truths does absoltely NOTHING but cause problems.

Think about this for a second: Why is it OK to put videos of someones horny chihuahua attempting to mate with a saint bernard on a family oriented home video show, and yet god forbid the children are exposed to a freaking _breast_ for fucks sakes.

(Think about that point in particular, it's mind boggling what we do to children. You're born, you're stuck on a breast immediately, and from then on society attempts to beat 'breasts are bad' into said child for the rest of their lives. Talk about a psychological cluster fuck or what!)

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Tikiman]

Fucking is why we are here, get over it. Trying to change or hide these pure truths does absoltely NOTHING but cause problems.

This is exactly what modern sex education does - it tries to hide the fundamental fact that sex and procreation and inevitably linked. Somehow, people who say "abstinence is the best way to prevent unintended pregnancy" are derided as being unrealistic - in reality, abstinence is the *only* way to 100% prevent unintended pregnancy, but people can't seem to "get over it" - they'd rather just have sex.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[jilles]

Agree. It would be quite ironic that one of the most violent games of this moment would be banned from the shelves because of some sex feature that is not even enabled by default. The mere suggestion of sex (it's not more than that) is enough to provoke this kind of reaction, the simulation of city wide riots, gang wars and drug violence is not.

It's also ironic that the same people who freak out over accidental nipples on tv look the other way when it comes to guns. It's ok and considered normal to handle a gun at fifteen but you can't legally have sex until three years later. A beer takes another five years. Someone not to be trusted with alcohol can safely handle a gun according the US law. That's just fucked up. And speaking of swearing, it's ok to put a bullet through someones head on prime time on tv. But if the guy on tv says "fuck, that hurts" you hear a little beep. IMHO the visual depiction of someone being shot through the head is probably a bit more shocking to a minor than someone using the F word.

The people who rate movies, games, etc. and the people who inspired the whole notion of rating have got their priorities the wrong way around.

BTW. GTA is great fun :-). However, I can imagine parents being a bit concerned about the violent nature and the reference to whores, drugs, criminality, etc. You probably don't want your toddler playing this game. However I have no respect for the people who think that this is ok and yet somehow the sex thingy is not.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[stanmann]

You are comparing apples and oranges, you are comparing teen birth rates to attitude NOT teen pregnancy rates.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[cowscows]

Please. There's just a whole lot of loud morons, and unfortunately, the media likes to talk about whoever's the loudest, and the politicians like to talk about whatever the media talks about. And the public eats it all up, because it's generally fun to watch people get all huffy and loud.

All that being said, I don't personally know too many people who would care enough to make that big of a deal out of this. But in this case, like almost every case, the negative voices are the loudest, the people with common sense(the majority) have better things to worry about, and life goes on.

While the US culture is definitely more prude than Europe or whatever, most of us don't care all that much. We just don't bother writing our senators every time we see something that doesn't offend us.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Tikiman]

Um, no. In fact, the link is the other way around. Permissive sexual attitudes reduce teen pregnancy. (And measuring 'illegitimacy' is idiotic. 'illegitimacy' just means 'children born to unmarried parents. It doesn't day anything about anything. For all you know, they all got married the next day, or just lived together for the next 20 years. And the 'legitimate' parents got divorced.)

Teen pregnancy rates, however, have never risen, not since we've been measuring them in 1976.

I'm not sure where you are getting your statistics. See what the CDC says. In 1976, the number of live births per 1000 woman aged 15-19 was 30.1. It peaked in 1994 with 32.4, but then dropped to 24.0 in 2000. However, look at the abortion rate for 15-19 year olds in 2001 - a whopping 17 per 1000. Including non-first pregnancies, there were 366 abortions per 1000 live births (among 15-19 again), meaning there were 43.7 actual pregnancies per 1000 women. This is edging closer to your "5 out of 100" number.

As for your European statistics, correlation does not imply causation. Furthermore, American TV shows plenty of sex on television - MTV, soap operas, the Super Bowl, etc. Do you have anything to support that TV in Switerland is racier than TV here? Or TV in Japan? Here, you can get hardcore pornography delivered to your TV in three clicks. I'm not sure I accept your premise that this country is less "sexually permissive" than Europe.

Which states have the highest teen pregnancy rates? Well, it almost exactly follows the divorce rate. The highest one?

Mississippi, that cesspool of moral filth, at 6.5 per 100. Then Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Arkansaw, all at or above 6 per 100.

I am not sure where your statistics are coming from, but you may find this report interesting. It breaks things down by age and state, and also reports pregnancies next to abortions and births. Your statistics for pregnancy in states like New York are off, but you may have been looking at birth rates. Also, people in states like Mississippi and Texas tend to marry earlier and have children earlier, which explains some of the data.

I am not moralizing, I am simply stating facts. My wife worked in an inner city school, and fatherlessness is a huge problem. It leads to lack of discipline in school, and ultimately an unproductive life. Marriage is simply a stabilizing influence in the lives of children.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[dhakbar]

Yeah, but it's far easier to just talk about how stupid and backwards Americans are. Making comments like that also immediately counts you as one of the intellectual elite, as well, and mod points will flow like water.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Quikah]

Most of the australians I have met have been racist, blowhards and drunks. Guess that means all of Australia is like that?

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Anonymous Coward]

It's simply not that simple.

Sure, abstinence is the only way to prevent pregnancy. But no, it is absolutely NOT realistic in any way shape or form unless you've got a real good shrink to keep you straight for your whole life.

Human beings are programmed to procreate. This includes wiring to make us want to have sex, both at a physiological and psychological level.

Abstinence is the act of going against everything you exist to do. You really only do exist to procreate. Sorry, but when it comes down to it, this is the case, period.

Look at the (religions,societies,sects whatever) that advocate abstinence very strongly. Look at the issues these groups have. And you're trying to suggest that abstinence is the only answer?

Sorry if I disagree. Education and openness is the only answer.

Here's a test for you: What comes to mind when I say something like "Look at this picture of your mom naked."

Did you get shivers?
Are you nervous now?

Why?
Do you really think that that is a reasonable response to something as simple as a picture of a human being in their natural state?

There are all matter of reasons that might evoke this or similar reactions, which is tragic as it should convey absolutely NONE of these reactions at all. It's your damned mother. The only reasonable reaction should be something unrelated to nakedness or sexuality. Something like: "Hey, that's my mom! I was just talking to her this morning...

Its like some freak who sees a picture of a kid in a swimming suit on a magazine, and then calls the authorities complaining of child pornography. Who's sick? The ones that read this kind of nonsense into something as inocuous as a simple picture of a mother or a child.

Getting the picture yet?

We as a society are sick.
Abstinence ain't gonna fix that.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[spitzak]

Actually I think people have sex more often then they are killed :-)

However I certainly agree with your sentiment!

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Matt the Hat]

As for your European statistics, correlation does not imply causation. Furthermore, American TV shows plenty of sex on television - MTV, soap operas, the Super Bowl, etc. Do you have anything to support that TV in Switerland is racier than TV here? Or TV in Japan? Here, you can get hardcore pornography delivered to your TV in three clicks. I'm not sure I accept your premise that this country is less "sexually permissive" than Europe. Trust me, I was born and raised in St. Louis and lived for 4 years in Germany, they are more accepting of sex over there. There is nudity on billboards, sex shops with nude posters in the windows, there was even a butter commercial I saw that had a naked woman spreading butter on bread. I don't mean naked like in U.S. shampoo commercials, I mean you could see everything. And nobody thinks anything of it, they are more accepting.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[blincoln]

Teenagers are simply not emotionally ready for sex, demonstrated by the plain fact that despite state mandated, rigorous sex ed with lots of information and explicit directions, teenagers continue to get themselves pregnant.

Teenagers are simply not emotionally ready for interacting with the real world, demonstrated by the plain fact that despite state mandated, rigorous education with lots of information and explicit directions, teenagers continue to get themselves killed or seriously injured.

Humans are evolved to start mating well before they turn 20. Please stop assuming that the results of America's ridiculously puritanical and backwards society are any indication of "plain facts."

Re:This is pure STUPID

[blincoln]

Do you have anything to support that TV in Switerland is racier than TV here?

I don't know about the Swiss in particular, but in most of Europe there is at least toplessness on broadcast (not cable) television.

Or TV in Japan?

Japan is even more repressive of sex than the US, and look where it's gotten them in terms of their attitudes towards things like rape and schoolgirl BDSM tentacle fetishes.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[thebagel]

The parent said 'Somehow, people who say "abstinence is the best way to prevent unintended pregnancy" are derided as being unrealistic...' That's the problem. They ARE unrealistic. People WILL HAVE SEX, you can't get around it, and telling them "abstinence is the only way," all the while beating the Bible is not going to change that (and guess what our sex ed courses do anyway?). If your aim is to keep illegitimate pregnancies down, you need to show an array of methods, not just abstinence, because the people who are most likely to need the course are also the ones most likely to completely disregard abstinence as an option. Voltaire said, "Ice-cream is exquisite. What a pity it isn't illegal." Taboo will always draw people, and by trying to push a "NO SEX EVAR" agenda you effectively tabooize it.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[N3WBI3]

Violent crimes include rape and sexual assault..

Look people have been complaining about the violence in GTA for a good long while now, and when they did that they were laughed at (believe it or not by people here) for saying that game violence might move kids to do real violence.

Now they find this and complain... the result is people complaining that they are ignoring the violence..

Re:This is pure STUPID

[N3WBI3]

Actually America should do something about sex. Like stop breeding and slowly die out so that this time we can send over balanced, well-rounded individuals, not our religious outcasts.

But then who would come over to save you when the balances, well-rounded europians start yet another world war...

Re:This is pure STUPID

[cassidyc]

Well if it was anything like last time you wouldn`t and didn`t want to get involved until Japan blew your navy out of the fucking water

Re:This is pure STUPID

[DavidTC]

You're right, I was looking at birth rates.

But pregnancy isn't much better:

(Switching to per thousand.)
France: 20.2
Sweden: 25.0
Canada: 45.7
Great Britain: 46.7

United states: 83.6

These statistics are about a decade old, but I couldn't find any newer. So the US is outpacing the UK by 2, and France, of all places, by 4.

And here are the teen pregnancy stats broken down by state. Texas falls to fifth. (And that's for 2000, so we can see the average rate in America still '84'.)

You're right about New York, though. Either they have shitty healthcare or a lot of abortions or, more likely, some combination thereof.

And according to that sight, the teen pregnancy rate did slip back up 10% at the end of the 80s (Although not to where it started at), and now it's way under.

And other countries show a lot more nudity on television, at least. I don't think you can measure 'sex' on TV.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Tikiman]

Japan is even more repressive of sex than the US, and look where it's gotten them in terms of their attitudes towards things like rape and schoolgirl BDSM tentacle fetishes.

The original topic was teenage pregnancy - since Japan has one of the lowest teenage pregnancy rates in the world, it provides a counterexample the the thesis that sexual repression leads to higher rates of teenage pregnancy, as the grandparent was trying to indicate

Re:This is pure STUPID

[N3WBI3]

Yea its not like we were sending supplies to England right? something about wolf packs in the water shooting up ships containing US goods going over to jolly old England? And are you saying there were not American pilots flying over England before Perl Harbor?

The fact we were not involved is what turned western Europe into German territory and England into a bombing range for German planes. Should we have gotten involved earlier? perhaps but the folks wanting to keep us out of WW2 at all cost are the same ilk that now wants to fight terrorism as if it were a legal problem.

Piss and moan about Americans all you like history tells the truth. In ww1 and ww2 we sent our supplies to England, inww1 and ww2 we crossed the pond to fight in a mess which was completely of European (the level peaceful and enlightened people) making. If Europe had listened to the US after WW1 and not been punitive towards Germany maybe ww2 could have been avoided..

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Tikiman]

People WILL HAVE SEX, you can't get around it, and telling them "abstinence is the only way," all the while beating the Bible is not going to change that

Are you denying that abstinence is the best way to prevent pregnancy? That is all I said. If your goal is to stop teenage pregnancy, I'm afraid that the current problems are so deep that health class isn't really going to change anything.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to humor this troll and assume you got that number from the last election?

If so, you're a complete moron. 60% of americans voted in that election, so a majority vote would be more in the range of 31%.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[LittleBigLui]

You are assuming a priori that there is nothing wrong with teenagers having sex. This is of course a faulty assumption, since there is no reason for a teenager to be having sex.

Yeah. Just like there is no reason for a teenager to be listening to music. I mean, at too high volume they might damage their hearing.

The problem with American society is that it is disfunctional. We claim that people are not mature enough to vote until 18, or drink a beer until 21, yet we educate them on how to have sex without (hopefully) having a baby when in high school (13-14).

I don't know enough about american society to claim anything.

Over here (Austria) drinking beer is legal at age 16, and at least somewhat accepted before that.

13-year-olds that are drunk every weekend are seen as problematic, but someone who makes first experiences with alcohol at 15 is probably regarded as perfectly fine by most of the people here.

For local elections in part of Austria, voting age has been lowered to 16 recently.

Oh yeah, 16 was also the age at which i first had sex, and at that time i had known enough about contraception and STDs for probably a few years. "Official" sex ed was probably at 13-14, but i don't remember exactly.

IMO i had plenty reason for having sex and was also as ready as you can get emotionally.

Also, over here teenagers don't continue to get themselves pregnant. The problems your society seems to have definitely don't (only) stem from teenagers and their having sex.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Tikiman]

United states: 83.6

One thing that really separates the US from Europe is the black population, which has a teenage pregnancy rate of 153.3 per 1,000 - the white non-hispanic rate is 54.7 (according to the AGI link), which is probably most similar to a standard European population. Astoundingly, the black abortion rate of 54.9 is higher than the white non-hispanic pregnancy rate! It is hard to wrap my head around such statistics.

You're right about New York, though. Either they have shitty healthcare or a lot of abortions or, more likely, some combination thereof.

The CDC link has numbers for abortions per 1000 births in the city (723) and state (272) - thats a lot of abortions

And other countries show a lot more nudity on television, at least. I don't think you can measure 'sex' on TV.

To the original question, another poster pointed out that Japan, a county with perhaps the lowest teen birth rate in the world, is *very* sexually repressed. I also think that the US is, in many ways, just as sexually permissive as the rest of the world. Just consider the "free love" movement of the 1960's, or the "The Man Show", or those two mostly-naked women fighting in the fountain in that beer commercial. While there is not explicit nudity, it certainly permeates everything.

One question to get to the bottom of the high US rates is, why are the rates so much higher among blacks? I suspect that there are socio-economic explanations behind it.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Anonymous Coward]

Had america not built up Germany between the wars, the second might well have been avoided, and the Bush family might well not have made their fortune.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[DavidTC]

To the original question, another poster pointed out that Japan, a county with perhaps the lowest teen birth rate in the world, is *very* sexually repressed.

Well, yes, but Japan is very repressed regardless compared to the rest of the world. But I don't think that's a sane measure of sexual repression...it really only makes sense within a society. So: Is sex repressed more than other things? Probably not.

Whereas in America we pride ourselves on individuality and expression and freedom and whatnot.

I.e., it's not some absolute measure. Obviously in a completely fascist society that controls every aspect of people's lives, teen pregnancy will not exist.

And I don't know in what universe Japan is the paradigm of sexual uprightness, anyway. Have you seen their porn? Have you seen their game shows? Their repression comes out in very...odd...ways. Just apparently not in the actual 'teenagers having sex' way.

Japan is a very wacked-out culture to start with. They haven't quite figured out what they want to be after WWII.

One question to get to the bottom of the high US rates is, why are the rates so much higher among blacks? I suspect that there are socio-economic explanations behind it.

Well, yes. In fact, it's high among the poor. Check out Washington D.C. stats, which is the only 'state' that consists of one poor inner-city area.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[kop]

You are not going to stop teenagers having sex, they are progammed to do that. If you want to lower unwanted pregnancy you should educate children about sex and hand out condoms. To me this is so obvious that i have problems understanding what all the fuzz is about.

If you want to see the scene you can download a movie here

http://www.geenstijl.nl/paginas/hotcoffeemovie.htm l

The sex is not as abusive as the rest of the gameplay, you are supposed to give her pleasure. It is probably the most female friendly part of the game ;)
Silly part is that he keeps his clothes on while she is naked.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Chess_the_cat]

FBI Crime Statistics for year ending 2004: Nationaly Reported Violent Crimes: 258,000,968

America is a nation of 300,000,000. How is that statistic possible?

Re:This is pure STUPID

[kasparov]

I've already moderated comments in this story, but I have to respond to this; moderator points be damned!

You are drawing an irrelevant conclusion. Your statement,

This is of course a faulty assumption, since there is no reason for a teenager to be having sex

incorrectly assumes that there are no reasons for teenagers to be having sex. There are many reasons (it feels good, the drive to have sex is wired into the species, the desire to be closer to someone, gaining life experiences, etc.), you just may not think that they justify teenage sex. Also, your list of reasons is inadequate to prove that teenagers should not have sex. Risk can be mitigated through contraceptives (both chemical and barrier) and one could argue that having life experiences (including sex) is what develops emotional maturity.

As far as your 'proof' that teenagers are simply not emotionally ready for sex,

Teenagers are simply not emotionally ready for sex, demonstrated by the plain fact that despite state mandated, rigorous sex ed with lots of information and explicit directions, teenagers continue to get themselves pregnant.

I can only say that maybe teenagers would be more apt to not get pregnant if they felt they could go to their parents and say "I am going to start having sex, could you take me to get birth control?" instead of feeling like they had to sneak around behind everyone's back to do it. Making sex a mystical thing that you are bad if you do is certainly no way, in my opinion, to keep the majority of kids from getting pregnant.

I'm from the Midwest United States (the 'buckle of the Bible belt' it is frequently called), and in my experience growing up those who were taught abstinence were as likely to get pregnant as those that weren't (3 girls from my church youth group--all of which I had been to a 'True Love Waits' event with--got pregnant pre-maritally which was proportional to the pregnancy rate at my high scool).

Although not having sex is a sure way to not get pregnant, telling people to not have sex is not necessarily the best way to keep them from getting pregnant. The argument basically boils down to whether telling someone to not have sex or showing them ways to have sex while lowering the risk of pregnancy (and hopefully not making them feel guilty about gaining access to birth control) is more effective. The argument is open-ended enough that there can be debate, but telling the grand-parent post "This is of course a faulty assumption" because it happens to be what you believe is a bit flippant when you have no proof of your claim.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[snuf23]

Ted just admit...

Sex is violence!!!!

Re:This is pure STUPID

[aywwts4]

Duh, 86 Percent of Americans were knifed in the face last year alone. Apparently the news stations were going to carry this story, but what with the Michael Jackson thing and all...

Re:This is pure STUPID

[aywwts4]

Seriously though, after doing some research this seems to be the best source of info I could find http://www.fbi.gov/filelink.html?file=/ucr/cius_03 /xl/03tbl01.xls
(It's an Excel file, but loads fine in OO)

It only goes to 2003, seems like 2004 data is still preliminary

Re:This is pure STUPID

[KDR_11k]

That's still like saying "the best way to avoid computer viri is not to turn on your computer". Well, yes, true but completely pointless because that's not a solution that can be consistently applied to the real world. In other words, these people want to have sex and they're going to have it, whether you tell them not to or not. Better make sure they understand what sex is, does and means BEFORE they go and have it.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[fbjon]

The thing is, the current representation of every single one of you in the USA is G.W. Bush. He's been elected as the highest representative, and... well, there you go.

Well, it's just a few years more, it'll be interesting after that.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[TapeCutter]

"Because in the absence of good parenting, they learn sex about from MTV and Grand Theft Auto."

If a kid is playing GTA and installing sex "hacks", I am sure that downloading porno is nothing new either.

"Illegitimacy" does not mean a fucking thing except the parents are not married.

"Because when teenagers have sex, they are in no position to raise their children properly."

That should read ..."no financial position"... teenagers have been bearing and rasing children for millenia.

"The link between this culture's openly permissive sexual attitude is clear."

Well it might be clear if you actually told us what "this culture's openly permissive sexual attitude" is supposed to be linking too? I am assuming that it is linked to...

"locking up every criminal without addressing the more fundamental problems"

having built a massive strawman you can now show that the fundamental problem is...

"Is complaining about nudity going to fix everything? No its not - but its more of a step in the right direction"

Cut the crap, healthy naked bodies are a thing of beauty, sex is an act of love, yet some people still want to put a fig leaf over the statue of David's gentitals.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[leecn]

You really have a problem with the Euros dont you?

Re:This is pure STUPID

[N3WBI3]

Not really I have a prolem with euros who say things like "Actually America should do something about sex. Like stop breeding and slowly die out so that this time we can send over balanced, well-rounded individuals, not our religious outcasts."

I just pointed out the balanced, well-rounded euros manage to find their way into more than their fair share of wars, dictators, and atrocities.. (not that Americans are in any way immune to it..

Re:This is pure STUPID

[N3WBI3]

And had teh euros not continually appeased the NAZI's France may never have fallen..

"We, the German Führer and Chancellor, and the British Prime Minister, have had a further meeting today and are agreed in recognizing that the question of Anglo-German relations is of the first importance for our two countries and for Europe. We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.

We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other questions that may concern our two countries, and we are determined to continue our efforts to remove possible sources of difference, and thus to contribute to assure the peace of Europe."--Neville Chamberlain

Re:This is pure STUPID

[GeckoX]

Fuck off, jesus fucking christ. That's the problem with people like you. You keep bringing up some minor point to frame your major point, but the minor point is WAY OFF BASE.

Who the fuck brought up teenage pregnancy? Who the fuck turned this conversation into pregnancy prevention? Who suggested that that is anyones goal except for yours?

What if I believe we should be fucking and procreating like freaking rabbits?

Fucking one trick pony.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Tikiman]

Fuck off, jesus fucking christ. That's the problem with people like you. You keep bringing up some minor point to frame your major point, but the minor point is WAY OFF BASE.

If I recall correctly, you brought it up:

Ignorance is bliss, until your teenager comes home knocked up.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Tikiman]

Well, yes. In fact, it's high among the poor. Check out Washington D.C. stats, which is the only 'state' that consists of one poor inner-city area.

I agree - this report that links poverty and birth rates comes to the same conclusion.

So at the end of the day, how much does sexual permissiveness at the societal level contribute to teenage pregnancy? Probably not that much either way. I think it is probably safe to say though the open sexual permissive makes it harder (but not impossible) for parents to instill an attitute in their children that it is better to wait before having sex. Parents just need to talk about it early and often with their children.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[CFTM]

Wrong. Censorship and prohibition does not work. Particularly given the nature of the internet today, this is an absurd statement. We have more access to sex today then ever; the only solution would be revamping the education system.

The very unfortante downside is there is an entire generation that for the most part cannot be helped. It's not a pretty picture to say the least and America doesn't seem very interested in dealing with it at the moment we just like to gild the lily and act like we're trying to improve education.

Censorship is a waste of time, it just encourages people to explore "taboo" subjects and teens having sex is as old as humanity itself. People [I'm not attempting to troll here when I say people just making a generalized statement] need to get off their soapboxes and start dealing with the real issues. Video Games are not the problem they are just an easy target for short sited morons.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Anonymous Coward]

Abstinence is 100% effective if 'used' with perfect consistency. But common sense suggests that in the real world, it can and does fail.

What is the 'real' succes rate (being defined as not winding up pregnant or with an STD) of teenagers who claim to be practicing abstinence?

I will bet anything that it's lower than any of the other methods.

Re:This is pure STUPID

[Evangelion]

Have you noticed, that people are still having sex?
All the denouncement, had absolutely no effect.
Parents and counselors, constantly scorn them.
But people are still having sex and nothing seems to stop them.
Do you realize that people are still having sex?
They've been told not to, perhaps they are perplexed.
When you see them holding hands, they're making future plans to engage in the activity.
Do you understand me?

People are still having sex.
Lust keeps on lurking.
Nothing makes them stop.
This AIDS things not working.
People are still having sex.
It's been going on for quite awhile.
Perhaps it's quite fashionable.
It hasn't gone out of style.

It's a fact that people are still having sex.
It's rather obvious, it's just what one expects.
The evidence is all around.
That everyone in every town has had it one time, or another in their life.
At this very moment people are still having sex.
In a downtown condo, or street in the projects.
Although you can't see them or hear their breathing sounds.
Someone in this world is having sex right now.

People are still having sex!
People are still having sex!
People are still having sex!
People are still having sex!
Sex! Sex! Sex! Sex!
Sex! Sex! Sex! Sex!

People are still having sex.
Lust keeps on lurking.
Nothing makes them stop.
This AIDS things not working.
People are still having sex.
It's been going on for quite awhile.
Perhaps it's quite fashionable.
It hasn't gone out of style.

People are still having sex!
People are still having sex!
People are still having sex!
People are still having sex!

Sex!

Re:This is pure STUPID

[redwiregmail]

Ask the FBI, but I am guessing over 365.25 days in a year more then one violent thing can happen to a person...

It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[anakin513]

I'm confused. GTA has been a Mature rated game, meaning 18 and older for a long time. How about we educate the parents, to take an interest in what their children are doing, and stop buying inappropriate games for them.

Sit down and play the games that your kid is playing, who cares if you're not interested, at least you won't be blind sided by your ignorance, when something like this comes out of left field.

Take an interest in your kids activities, and you won't have 12 year olds, playing games with organized crime, prostitution, assassinations and sex.

I think it's called parenting.

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[tomstdenis]

It's much easier to blame others than to actually take responsibility.

I don't know about kids now but I stopped getting a fixed allowance when I was 10 [and even then it was only a couple bucks a week, basically enough to go out and buy balsa wood planes or pop or something], had to either beg or work for the things I bought when I was a teenager.

I remember working a few months at Zellers [Canadian version of Walmart] to buy a Cyrix MII computer to call my own...

If the parents just stopped writing off their children they wouldn't have this shit to worry about.

It isn't as if GTA is $5 or something. It usually sells for between 40 and 60 dollars. That's a shit load of cash for a 12 yr old kid.

But furthermore what I hate about these right wing "save the children" groups is

- Kids can't play video games because they will get violent tendencies

but

- War is heroic and patriotic
- Must fight the war on $NOUN_OR_OFTEN_VERB

Parents have no problems sending 17, 18, 19 yr old kids off to Iraq to get shot up and permenantly damaged. But if a 15 yr old plays GTA ... well that's the end of the free world as we know it.

Also I'm tired of this "kid world" we live in. I pay for cable, not 12 yr old kids. Fuck them. I want tits and explosions and hard core shit on tv. Why should it be all power rangers and FCC censored can't say "fuck" bullshit.

Maybe if all the american teenagers/kids started paying for cable, movies, video games instead of us adults it would be different.

In short, fuck kids and their hyperactive irresponsible parents too.

Tom

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[fixer007]

If the parents are letting a child play GTA before they heard of this so called 'sex scandal' then why should they be worried about this game now? They obvously don't give two craps about what the child is doing.

The only things these so called warnings do are increase sales and informing people that would have never heard about this mod in the first place.

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[arkanes]

In one of the articles, one of the sky-falling guys blathers about how "any internet-savvy child could unlock this terrible pornography yadda yadda yadda". Who here thinks that "an internet savvy child" who wants porn can't find it *without* resorting to modding his video games?

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[saintp]

There's porn on the intertron? Holy crap! Why didn't anyone tell me?

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, cable doesn't have the FCC Censoring stuff. That is anything beyond channel 13.
I'm not positive on nudity, but swearing is definately possible on cable channels. The reason they don't say "fuck" all the time on cable is because the sponsors don't like it and call it quits.
Some stations DO show shows that have swearing. Comedy Central has played the South Park movie with no censoring. YES, they actually played Uncle Fucker on TV.

More info on this is on Wiki, Here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_dirty_words
It's under the "Current" part.

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.jesuslovesporn.net/

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[BaudKarma]

These days, it takes an internet savvy child to avoid all the porn out there.

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[heinousjay]

intertron

This has never been funny or clever. Please stop it.

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[mkavanagh2]

intertron

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[Anonymous Coward]

Surfs up, time to wax the surfboard ;)

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[Dmala]

Oh my God, you're right!! BAN THE INTERNET NOW!! People, think of the children! Think of the kittens!

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[Jim Hall]

Amen. I live in Minneapolis, and I had a conversation about this topic with a guy on the bus the other day (he saw me with my GBA, asked me about gaming, then jumped right to the GTA thing.)

This guy said that he was upset about "those game guys" (Rockstar) selling a game like that, with sex and stuff in it. He said he was really worried about his 12-yr-old son, who plays the game on his XBox.

My response: people are trying to get GTA:SA moved up to a "Adult Only" (AO) rating. That means 18 and over. But it's already got a "Mature" (M) rating. So kids under 17 shouldn't be playing it anyway, and did he know that before he bought it? (Emphasis mine.) The guy got real quiet after that.

I wonder how many parents just bought this game for their kids because it was "hot", not realizing what the game was about, or even checking the rating.

(Disclaimer: I loved GTA3, got bored in GTA:VC, haven't gotten GTA:SA yet.)

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[Rayonic]

Parents have no problems sending 17, 18, 19 yr old kids off to Iraq to get shot up and permenantly damaged.

I've seen this meme several times, and it always confuses me. Who in this country sends their children off to join the military? Nobody that I know of.

You cannot be forced to join the army -- not by the government (at the moment), and certainly not by your parents. The military recruits able-bodied adults of their own volition. Simply saying "parents send their kids to war" absolves the soldiers of their own choices and seems to infantilize them.

Kind of ironic that earlier you said "It's much easier to blame others than to actually take responsibility."

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[cowscows]

FWIW, cable TV isn't as tightly regulated in terms of content as broadcast television is. Comedy Central, in particular, often has shows with the swearing and whatnot still left in. Although, even though they might legally be able to get away with it, most stations avoid that because it can alienate advertisers.

The rest of your argument is right on, however. When I was a kid, I only got new video games on my birthday or christmas, and someone else was paying for them, because back then I thought $10 was a whole lot of money to have saved up. I would, however, like to think that if I did get a chance to play a more violent game at age 10 or whatever, I'd have been able to distinguish it from reality.

Kids aren't dumb. If you can figure out how to play a game like GTA3, then you should be smart enough to understand how it differs from the real world. If not, then your parents have failed you.

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[startled]

I'm confused. GTA has been a Mature rated game, meaning 18 and older for a long time. How about we educate the parents,

Here's the problem. Parents who are plenty educated about the ESRB rating system might want their 16 year old to play an M rated game, but not an AO rated game. They've read the labels, they know what the different ratings mean.

Unfortunately, since Rockstar apparently failed to properly disclose examples representative of the most extreme content on the game disc-- which is required when you submit a game to the ESRB-- the ESRB was unable to assign the correct rating to the game.

If people were actually serious when they talked about parenting, consumer education, and the video game rating system, they'd be outraged when a company subverted that system. If they were just being apologists for the industry, they'd be, well, exactly like they are right now.

P.S. Before anyone claims they weren't subverting the ratings system because the content was never intended to be seen: AFAIK, that's irrelevant. It's what's on the disc, not what's in the game, so intentional or not, failure to disclose would be a violation of the agreement you sign when submitting a game. If there are people working at publishers here with corrections/more information, I'd be interested in hearing more.

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[bcattwoo]

It isn't as if GTA is $5 or something. It usually sells for between 40 and 60 dollars. That's a shit load of cash for a 12 yr old kid.

I don't think that $50 is that much money to a lot of 12 yr olds anymore.

Back when I was that age, that would buy a pretty fancy pair of sneakers, a console system cost only like twice that amount, and 5 or 6 friends would chip in together to buy another a game for his birthday.

Now kids that age are running around in $100 sneakers, cell phones and all other kinds of expensive crap. Hell, my wife was telling me the other day about this morning radio host who let her kids use her credit card to buy a Magic card (or whatever scam they got going now) off ebay for $75. They decided to buy two instead!

There are plenty of kids who can cough up their own money for this.

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[vitaflo]

Just a correction, an M rating is for 17 and older. AO (Adults Only) rating is the 18+ rating.

GTA:SA was rated M. If the hacked material would have been in game from the begining it would have gotten an AO rating (and subsiquently not sold many places). I believe the issues on the table are more about if R* knew this was in the code when they released it, whether they should have told the ERSB about it if they knew and whether the ERSB should even rate something based on material that isn't playable without hacking the software. Lots of weird legal questions there.

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[Anonymous Custard]

You can't force someone into the military (except for military school for minors, but that's not really the military). But you can't deny the social pressures parents can exert on their children to either join or not join the military once they are old enough.

"My father joined, his father joined, and I joined. You join too, or you're out of this family" is a compelling reason to go for many kids.

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[Evro]

Apologies to the master, but this sprang to mind reading your post (which for the most part I agree with).

"Now, something else I'm getting tired of is all this stupid bullshit we have to listen to all the time about children. It's all you hear in this country. "Children; help the children, what about the children, save the children." You know what I say? *Fuck* the children. Fuck 'em. They're getting entirely too much attention.

And I know what you're thinking, you say "Jesus, he's not going to attack children, is he?" Yes he is. He's going to attack children. And remember, this is Mr. Conductor talking, I know what I'm talking about.

And I also know all you single dads and soccer moms who think you're such fucking heroes aren't going to like this but somebody's got to tell you for your own good; your children are overrated and overvalued, you've turned them into little cult objects, you have a child fetish, and it's not healthy. And don't give me that weak shit, "Well, I love my children!"; Fuck you. Everybody loves their chidren, it doesn't make you special. John Wayne Gacey loved his children; kept them all right out in the yard near the garage. That's *not* what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is this constant mindless yammering in the media; this neurotic fixation that somehow everything, *everything*, has to be revolved around children. It's completely out of balance.

Listen, there are a couple of things about children that you have to remember: First of all, they're not all cute, okay? In fact if you look at them close, some of them are rather unpleasant looking. And a lot of them don't smell to good either; the little ones in particular seem to have this kind of urine and sour milk combination or something.

Stay with me on this; the sooner you face it, the better of you're going to be.

Second premise, not all children are smart and clever, got that? Kids are like any other group of people, a few winners; a whole lot of losers. There are a lot of loser kids out there who simple aren't going anywhere, and you can't save them all. You got to let them go, you got to cut them loose, you got to stop over protecting them cause you're making them too soft. Today's kids are way too soft.

For one thing, there's too much emphasis on safety. Child-proof medicine bottles and fire-proof pajamas, child restraints and car seats and helmets. Bicycle, skateboard, baseball helmets; kids have to wear helmets now a days for everything but jerking off! Grownups have taken all the fun out of being a kid just to save a few thousand lives. It's *pathetic*. What's happening is these baby boomers; these soft fruity baby boomers are raising an entire generation of soft fruity kids who aren't even allowed to have hazardous toys for Christ sakes.

Hazardous toys, shit, whatever happened to natural selection? Survival of the fittest? The kid who swallows too many marbles doesn't grow up to have kids of his own. Simple as that. Simple, nature knows best. We're saving entirely too many lives in this country, of all ages, nature should be allowed to do it's job of killing off the weak and sickly and ignorant people without interference from airbags and batting helmets. Just think of it as passive eugenics, okay?"

(c) George Carlin, Reprinted without permission.

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[Anonymous Coward]

One slight error in that: the ESRB's Mature rating is 17+, not 18+. It's a small nitpick, but it's worth pointing out.

As for your other points, you hit my feelings dead on the head.

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[Thing 1]

I'm going to attach this comment here, because it relates to your sig and someone else's, and is very OT as far as military is concerned:

The first rule of PATRIOT act is do not talk about PATRIOT act

You're right about that. Someone else's sig is "Labeling something that ISN'T terrorism AS terrorism IS TERRORISM!"

Therefore, the USA PATRIOT (or "U SAP AT RIOT") act is, itself, terrorism: it creates the fear in all US citizens that, if they say or do the wrong thing, they could wind up in jail on foreign soil for potentially forever!

Which means: the terrorists didn't like the freedom we have in America, and decided to do something about it. They ultimately got the PATRIOT act put into law. The terrorists won.

That's pretty fucking scary. Tits in games? WHO GIVES A FUCK WHEN OUR SOLDIERS ARE DYING??? 30,000 humans and how many billions, and people are getting worked up over sex? Jesus Fucking Christ, people are sick.

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[KDR_11k]

Many games include hidden material, many games that include female characters in a prominent rule have nude skins for them buried somewhere in their datafiles.

Or, as a game developer put it:

What was Rockstar supposed to do? Hand over the game to the ESRB and say:

"Oh yeah, we've got some old content & code in there for a sex game that you can't see or activate, some old art for this hooker character that's not there, this old code for driving unicycles that never gets run and I think someone used the word "cunt" in one of the comments in the code somewhere. Oh yeah, and one of the artists wrote "asshole" in the unused space on one of the texture maps."

Seriously, there's lots of shit lying around in games. The ESRB can't rate you on what's just lying there. They rate the game, and that's all. They shouldn't be allowed to rate everything on the disk.

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[YomikoReadman]

This type of statement brings us back to the very circular arguement of good parenting vs bad parenting and personal responsibility for our actions. If my parents had said that to me, my first and only response would have been "See ya later, assholes". As it were, that's not the case; I have wonderful parents who have supported me in every decision I've ever made, although they've certainly questioned my motivation in the ones I didn't think all the way through.

As an aside, I did wind up joining the military, like my father, and grandfather, and even a great-aunt. However, I did it entirely of my own volition, with nothing but support from my parents; not them breathing down my neck.

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[Anonymous Custard]

I did wind up joining the military, like my father, and grandfather, and even a great-aunt. However, I did it entirely of my own volition, with nothing but support from my parents; not them breathing down my neck.

That's great; and I'm glad you were lucky enough to have a supportive family. But as you must know, it's not always the case.

I expect it's very hard to find the right balance of guiding your kids sensibly and letting them learn by finding their own way.

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[YomikoReadman]

In my admittedly limited experince observing the parents of friends, girlfriends, etc, I've found that most normal, functioning individuals have very little problem balancing giving their children sound advice that they really should follow, and letting them screw up enough to find out what they shouldn't do. Of those who weren't able to do that, I can't recall any who would attempt to force their children into military/civil service that were not both

1. abused by their parents and forced out at around 18

and

2. followed the same pattern of abuse as their parents did upon their children.

Now, IANAP, but to me, raising your children the way your parents did seems kinda crazy in cases like that. You obviously didn't like it, so why repeat it all? As for people who didn't have the same support that I did, I feel for them, but ultimately it's up to them to rectify the situation through the means they have at their disposal, which can include packing up and getting out if needed, as I mentioned previously.

Re:It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents?

[le_defaut_tragique]

I'm 18, and I agree with every word you just said.

Is that wrong?

Get a Life!

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean you, you gamers, and anti-gamers!

Sheesh. Time to uncheck the Games slashbox.

Ever play risk

[FidelCatsro]

In risk a game i do very much enjoy , you partake in domination of the world , wiping out countless thousands of imaginary soldiers in your exploits.
I also enjoy Chess , a game where you goal is to massacre the opposing army and capture their monarch.
Or even "the game of life" there is some implied sex in that you know , you can GET MARRIED Have a ..you can be a winner in the game of life(alluding to the old UK TV advertisement )

Of-course you don't actually see any of those things, they are implied though , just as they are implied in GTA SA
Even if they were not , and you go to the trouble of unlocking the code , these are still polygons representing people having sex.
OMG SEX its a cursed thing that will destroy our society if our young children are exposed to it , the shock the horror of children over 16(or whatever M means in real terms , i would of minded it when i was 12) seeing some graphics depicting sex .
Lets face it most Male children of around that age have seen or own porn mag's (or most likely now a days JPEG collections , or PNG if your an OS proponent ;) )
Sex is natural , sex is fun , people love to watch others having sex .
Sex has never hurt any society , in fact it could be argued that prudent attitudes have generally coincided with the fall of many societies
Basically , anyone offended by some cut sex scenes in a game which require a lot of twiddling (heehee) to unlock really is very immature .
People have sex , if we didn't we would all be rather F*cked(well no we wouldn't) , stop trying to save people from one of the most natural and wonderful things in the world

Re:Ever play risk

[Thing 1]

Sex has never hurt any society , in fact it could be argued that prudent attitudes have generally coincided with the fall of many societies.

Yep. Take for example the Shakers, who forbade sex among their followers.

Small wonder they died out!

Pathetic

[RasendeRutje]

The game is rated 18+, and only after installing a patch the 'naughty bits' become available.
There a thousands of 18+ movies/site with far more explicit sex scenes, and far more easily accessible.

Re:Pathetic

[atomic-penguin]

No, it is rated Mature 17+. It carries the same requisite as an R rated movie. You should be 17 or older to play the game unless a parent or guardian allows you to play the game. Just as you should have to be accompanied by an adult to watch an R-rated movie under the age of 17. Really the game contains less than what you would see in an R rated movie. I can understand the social panic, but this game has been out for a year now. Movies don't generate this kind of buzz, because of deleted nude scenes on the DVD a year after their original release. That is really what this is about deleted content on a DVD.

Maybe if the rating were R more parents would understand.

Re:Pathetic

[Phisbut]

No, it is rated Mature 17+.

Right... because when you're 17, you're not prepared to see polygons have sex, but the minute you turn 18, everything changes, right?

The M (Mature) and AO (Adult-only) rating is the worst I've ever seen... waaaayy too fine-grained. What the hell happens between your 17th and 18th birthday that make you all so much more mature?

Re:Pathetic

[snorklewacker]

> What the hell happens between your 17th and 18th birthday that make you all so much more mature?

Do I need to give you a civics lesson?

The state laws are also uniform at 18+ as well, none consider 18 or over a minor. Of course we continue to make the whole alcohol thing a titillating illicit thrill until the age of 21, so the patronizing doesn't quite stop, but at least it's legal for 18 year olds to see see polygonal boobies.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

whew, good luck that this doesn't mean you can't execute minors!

Re:Pathetic

[atomic-penguin]

What the hell happens between your 17th and 18th birthday that make you all so much more mature?

Nothing, you missed the point. I am just stating a fact, the meaning of the ratings. I am not questioning the maturity difference between 17 and 18 year olds. The point I think we can all agree on is that you wouldn't take a young child to see Pulp Fiction. Why would you let them play a game of an equivalent rating?

Re:Pathetic

[FriedTurkey]

There a thousands of 18+ movies/site with far more explicit sex scenes, and far more easily accessible.

But the voters, that politicians are targeting to blame everything on video games, watch movies. If they talked about controling content in movies they would lose support from a good portion of the population. Targeting video games only loses a younger population that doesn't vote anyway. Senetor Liberman doesn't care about losing a vote your not going to cast. Young people should get off their ass if they don't want thier hobbies targeted as scapegoats for problems that are much more complicated to fix.

How about some screenshots?

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

How could we effective disapprove of this awfull material if we can't get a look at it? I mean, it's our duty to guard the morality of the gaming world, right? So can we please get a few screenshots?

Re:How about some screenshots?

[Punboy]

I second that

Re:How about some screenshots?

[Carnil]

And not only that, we must know the way to modify the game to make this material appear, in order to judge whose fault it is.
Not to do it ourselves, of course, just for the sake of judgement...

Re:How about some screenshots?

[Arkham]

Google and 10 seconds can solve that problem for you.

http://elliottback.com/wp/?p=908

The whole deal should be viewed differently:

[haggar]

First of all, the problem is not the sex "interlude" (which, without some hacking, isn't really accessible, but that's beside the real point), but rather the mind-boggling violence omnipresent in the game.

Said that, I don't think this kind of game shouldn't be sold. I think it shouldn't be bought! And by that, I state that it's a pretty sick mind's need to play such a game. There is something to be done by all educating parties: parents, school and most importantly, the media.

Re:The whole deal should be viewed differently:

[ExKoopaTroopa]

I beg to differ, one of the pleasures of playing games (and reading books and watching movies) is exploring possibilities you wouldn't normally (and in this case legally) be able to do.

Re:The whole deal should be viewed differently:

[Tune]

OK. So you differ on whether it's sick or not to explore this kind violence. But you're not debating that it's your choice and your responsibility first and not that of the institution rating the game, least the author creating it.

It's just sad that some parents can't make out the difference between a titled "Mario Kart" and "Grant Theft Auto". I don't think any toy out there is safe enough to trust your kid with without any supervision or attention.

Re:The whole deal should be viewed differently:

[ExKoopaTroopa]

I believe that it should be an (independent) institution rating the games, not the authors. (I was reacting to the

I think it shouldn't be bought! And by that, I state that it's a pretty sick mind's need to play such a game. There is something to be done by all educating parties: parents, school and most importantly, the media. comment.

Who are you to define what is sick in my mind ? (you can't beat a good old ST prime directive conundrum )

It's just sad that some parents can't make out the difference between a titled "Mario Kart" and "Grant Theft Auto"

Parents who don't play games are going to have a tough time selecting games for their kids if they are clueless about their content (same thing for movies, except these same parents might know a tad more about them). Just because your kids do something doesn't mean you have to become an expert on the subject.

BTW my gf and I both being video-game-junkie DINKS I might not be the most authoritative person on the subject, but I can sure feel for those clueless parents (I've guided one or two lost souls in the VG section of the supermarket)

Re:The whole deal should be viewed differently:

[Tune]

Who are you to define what is sick in my mind? (you can't beat a good old ST prime directive conundrum)

Great!
I think we're on the same line. I totally agree you shouldn't condemn someone's moral standards. Even when it comes to the debate on democratic/economic progress in China I'm reluctant to judge their way doing thing with my western background. Nevertheless - from my perspective - I think I'm allowed to say I personally find some of the stuff we see on TV, games, books and movies repulsive. But the right to speak does not entail the right to be taken seriously.

Parents who don't play games are going to have a tough time selecting games for their kids if they are clueless about their content (same thing for movies, except these same parents might know a tad more about them). Just because your kids do something doesn't mean you have to become an expert on the subject.

You don't need to be an expert to not be clueless. You don't need to watch over your kids shoulder all day to know what's going on. I lost my interest in video games long before 3d games were available (well, I did play Elite in wireframes), but I know what's going on.

My critism is with parents that just don't seem interested in what goes on in their kids life and just want to rely on ratings and certificates. I mean, you don't buy your 4 years old a bathing suit and leave her at the beach to play on her own just because it lacks a proper rating that says that sort of thing is dangerous.

Even clueless parents know enough about computer games to realized some stuff needs a bit of supervision.

Re:The whole deal should be viewed differently:

[hahafaha]

I beg to differ, one of the pleasures of playing games (and reading books and watching movies) is exploring possibilities you wouldn't normally (and in this case legally) be able to do. But exploring such possibilities involves the same results as in the real world, but virtually. (e.g. if you commit serial murder, SWAT will be after you).

This is ridiculous!!!

[mindaktiviti]

In Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, gamers can play basketball, play pool, dance, grab some fast food, buy clothes, work out at the gym, base jump, have girlfriends, and race remote-controlled cars--all completely legal activities in the real world. However, the game's main character can also shoot innocent bystanders, stomp the heads of prostitutes into a bloody pulp, and launch rocket-propelled grenades at police helicopters--all decidedly illegal outside the realm of gaming

There are crimes being committed inside a video game!!! Well gee, who would have thought that crimes could possibly be committed in a video game, why can't we think of the children!?

I will agree, the actual sex stuff is really unecessary and I don't personally think it adds any real value to the game, but that's as far as they should go. They shouldn't yell about being able to kill prostitutes, or shoot police helicopters with grenade launchers (where's this grenade launcher anyway?). You can do that to pedestrians and villians as well, and it's the open ended gameplay that people love and not the sex mod that gets them hooked on the game.

Re:This is ridiculous!!!

[karnal]

Yup, illegal activities in a game.

I oughta send them a link to PimpWars.

Or I could give em a copy of Dopewars for the Palm, if they want to commit crimes in a game on the go.

Re:This is ridiculous!!!

[kyojin the clown]

In other news, it has been revealed that Super Mario refuses to obey many laws of physics! In the real world it is not possible to jump many times your own height, however Super Mario completely disregards this.

investigations into witchcraft, drug abuse and anilmal cruelty are ongoing.

Re:This is ridiculous!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

(where's this grenade launcher anyway?)

Perhaps they're talking about a Rocket-Propelled Grenade (RPG) launcher?

/haven't played it
//yet

Re:This is ridiculous!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not enough of a weapons expert to know which is right, but I think the "grenade launcher" is actually a rocket propelled grenade launcher, the kind you see footage of people in the Middle East running around with. Start at the southeast corner of the bulls-eye-shaped park in Las Santos, go east, and it should be on top of the second building you pass. There's tons of other spawn points to, check here.

Re:This is ridiculous!!!

[Celadus]

play pool, dance Wow, I'm amazed no one's up in arms about that. I mean, playing pool and dancing have in the past in the United States been considered immoral behavior. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if in some places in the U.S., playing pool and dancing were still considered immoral and therefore banned.

What I think...

[mindaktiviti]

The National Institute on Media and the Family should wake up and smell the (hot) coffee. :P

Insightful

[Tune]

I agree completely.

It's so lame to gather a group of people to complain about the dangers of a product that's available in a consumer-driven society. Worried parents should put their efforts into watching over their kids, and ask why those kids are even interested in games like GTA, rather than demonstrating against the game creators that somehow stumbled onto a booming market.

Creators responsible?

[Kaali]

How can the creators be resposinble for material that was never supposed to be seen. How about in an online game, for example an MMORPG where people strip their clothes and use the dance emotes to act some really naughty stuff. Is the creators resposible for people "abusing" the system to create something that would be over the original rating of the game? How are the programmers supposed to block from player doing things like this? How about those Video Game porn archives where there are really really naughty scenes involving Pikachu and Yoshi, i guess those games should be banned too.

As the GamerGirlAdvance article said, this is just works of the anti-GTA crowd. There are no intellectual/logical base for these accusations, they are just flames that are thrown towards their enemy. In court, i doubt that these claims would stand. The only problem is some distributors and store owners that might ban the game from their shelves by these flames. On the other hand, the sales of the game will propably rise anyhow as it gains more free controversial press.

Re:Creators responsible?

[Xionen]

As the GamerGirlAdvance article said, this is just works of the anti-GTA crowd. I am a full believer in this concept. It's when someone comes up with game ideas that may be unethical in most sorts, however very fun, sell the most. I am sure everyone has read the Ninja Theory journal? It shows how hard it is for games to be made in the first place, so when someone comes up with something that works you have to have the peopel that want it taken down. Plus, amen to the modder, when someone has the time to check coding and realize what is in the game, then open it up. He has obviously hit his 100% game complete eh?

Re:Creators responsible?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rockstar does have some culpability, although perhaps not the amount that the anti-video game lobby would assign to them. They are responsible for any and all content that actually shipped on the disk, regardless of how the user actually accesses it. In the current era of PC gaming, modding has to be assumed to occur.

Now, the thing I am taking issue with here is the fact that a model with nude textures was included. Take, as a counter-example, Neverwinter Nights. There's plenty of nude Aribeth models available online for the game, but the difference is that Bioware did not include a nude texture with the game - 3rd party artists took it upon themselves to design nude content for the game.

I'm not trying to tackle the sticky issue of sex vs. violence in gaming - that's a barrel of monkeys I don't want to go near in this post. But let's not pretend that Rockstar does not bear responsibility for their actions. Full disclosure should have been made of all content in the game, and content cut in order to meet the ESRB's requirements should have been removed from the build, not simply disabled.

Re:Creators responsible?

[Kaali]

Very good point that there are nude textures involved that was included by the Rockstar games. It might be that the developers did this feature for fun, never intented to be released, but the content was accidentally put in gold. It's easy to make this kind of a mistake in a big production when there are strict schedules etc. But as you said, it is included so they have some culpability. Even though i don't think they should be punished in any way because the content cannot be accessed by normal means.

Re:Creators responsible?

[patio11]

There is a large difference between someone who provides a game which can be manipulated into producing something which can be interpreted as porn, and someone who orders porn produced for the video game. We know what the budgets are like for video games nowadays -- this wasn't a rogue programmer, this was in the design document, it was on the white board, somebody actually sat down and animated while somebody else (likely) did the vocal work and a third person the "game logic". Mini-games don't just happen. Say what you will about how bad it is, but you can't pretend this is in the same league as accidentally allowing Super Smash Brothers to look as if Yoshi is fellating everything in sight just because it has a positionable camera and he's a walking tongue-machine who is practically the textbook definition of asexual.

Great, they disabled it before it shipped. What kind of morons do we have in the industry that someone thought "Hey, I know a great way to push the envelope a bit"?

Re:Creators responsible?

[westlake]

How can the creators be resposinble for material that was never supposed to be seen

GTA has become a lightning rod, a symbol of trends that are not well-liked or trusted outside the gaming community.

If you were trying to defend "mature" content in gaming, access to M rated titles, you did not need to hear that Rockstar had embedded sex games within GTA:SA.

I don't much care about the future of GTA. I do care about losing the next Fallout, Half-Life, System Shock, Deux Ex, etc, because the M rating has becoming as poisonous to a retailer as an AO.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

...And how come everyone seem more upset about some (virtual) porn than all the violence that's been in computer games for years. This is so USA.

National Institute on Media and the Family

[vettemph]

>National Institute on Media and the Family
NIMF as in nymphomaniac?

Oh my GOD

[gullevek]

millions and millions of young people now see how sex works. They will try it out, have sex and not buy guns and kill or whatever. They will have sex.
Right now millions of people do have sex. Almost everybody on this globe has, had, will have, has right now sex. Sex is everywhere. We reproduce through this.
And those american morons have nothing better to do than whine about such a stupid mini-game?
I think those people have a too god life. They should be sent to some poor areas in the world. Live there for 5 years in shelters, boxes and eat the dirt and trash from the others. I am sure they will never ever complain about such a stupid useless thing again.

Re:Oh my GOD

[jasonmicron]

I think those people have a too god life. They should be sent to some poor areas in the world. Live there for 5 years in shelters, boxes and eat the dirt and trash from the others. I am sure they will never ever complain about such a stupid useless thing again.

Not to mention that they will be out of our hair for a while. ;)

Re:Oh my GOD

[heinousjay]

those american morons

Was this necessary to make your point? This issue is being flogged by specific religious nutjobs - they hold no power, they raise a stink about everything, and the only people that listen to them are people that already agree. Why act like all Americans think the same way they do?

Are all non-Americans insecure asshats? Would that be a valid assumption?

Re:Oh my GOD

[radish]

The people he's referring to are American, and (in his opinion) morons. Therefore, calling them American morons seems quite acceptable. If I see a bunch of cars driving past me at 100mph and say "look at all those fast cars" it doesn't mean I think all cars are fast.

Re:Oh my GOD

[myukew]

Almost everybody on this globe has, had, will have, has right now sex.

Execpt slashdotters

Re:Oh my GOD

[Anonymous Coward]

millions and millions of young people now see how sex works.

I dunno, it's still pretty hard to figure out. I keep hitting A B A B, but nothing's happening.

Re:Oh my GOD

[gullevek]

sorry. I did not want to offend all the other "normal" americans. I refer to those americans who are religions nuts. Those who scream the loudest way and those who are known as "americans" around the world.

As always, one negtive person can make a million look like idiots.

Re:Oh my GOD

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep hitting A B A B, but nothing's happening.

I guess all those women complaining that guys don't know what to do with the "C button" are right.

Re:Oh my GOD

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right, of course. I apologize for jumping on you, I spent the day defending myself from people who questioned my intelligence because of the country of my birth. Kinda put me on edge.

I'll make a deal with you - if I manage to kill all of the religious loonies, will you respect Americans again?

Re:Oh my GOD

[yaweh]

if you consider that some of those poor people you speak of are victims of overpopulation, a tragic side effect of... TOO MUCH SEX, then you might find a flaw in your arguement. sex is not always healthy, contrary to popular, "progressive" belief.

btw, speaking of the unfortunate masses in other parts of the world, did you know that among the 200--300 or so of africans dying every day of aids, the vast majority of them do not know how they contracted the disease? pneumonia or tuberculosis are common misclassifications of the disease.

Re:Oh my GOD

[gullevek]

Well, do you know what a big reason for this overpopulation in some areas of this world is?

Religion, fanatic catholics and others who think condoms and such things are "bad" and against their believe.

If they would tell the people the oppisite of it, I am sure this overpopulation, etc could be stopped.

Plus, overpopulation is a sign of a growing country. Until it reached its peak (europe, america, japan) where it is no more needed to have children, people will have a lot.

Re:Oh my GOD

[yaweh]

youre probably right. the 2 reasons you gave are the most dominant elements in overpopulation, i believe. moslems, chrsitians AND jews are all pushed by the religious leadership to procreate as much as possible, which goes to show the "corruption" in modern islam, for example. the koran gives explicit information and guidelines for having children, and states that if you are incapable of funding children, or four wives, then you dont have them.

Sounds like a programmer joke that got left in

[infonography]

Somebody at ESRB was joking around and made the game using the tools that GTA:SA was built with. While I don't feel that there was any intent to have this show in the final release even as an Easter Egg, its plausible that with code revisions and backups a deleted file could have been unintentionally returned. From a Techie point of view, both the Games creation and the oversight in it's un-removal are realistic theories. Likely the lockdown wasn't so much a lockdown as non-activatied feature.

Once I used winRAR to explore Return to Castle Wolfenstein's assets, really simple. I was able to snag sound files of monsters and use them to scare trick-or-treating children on Halloween. Those were outside normal access but findable by a tech.

Re:Sounds like a programmer joke that got left in

[JFitzsimmons]

Hahaha, you make it sound like that was some sort of amazing feat or something. PK3 and PK4 files are just plain old zips. And yes, they did that intentionally, so modders would have access to the base resources, and so that it would be far easier for modders to package their releases.

Re:Sounds like a programmer joke that got left in

[infonography]

I know that, you know that. I ment it as an illistration.

It's not only the parents...

[Ranma-sensei]

...it's the vendors, too. Only one week ago I was in a Saturn (site's in german) on Vienna's (Austria) "Mariahilfer Strasse" to dig through the rooting crate (with old but great games from 1997 and older!), and what I saw at the cash booth was - to say the least - terrible! A boy, by no means older (presumably much younger) than 14 years went up to the saleswoman and placed GTA: San Andreas (the 18+ version, not to be sold in Germany) on the desk. The saleswoman took it, scanned it, and sold (!!!) it! IMHO protection of children and young people should start were the items in question are sold, don't you think? BTW, I own GTS:SA in the 18+ version (including hot coffee mod) myself, but hey, I'm 22. :P

Re:It's not only the parents...

[Ranma-sensei]

Note to self: Next time check "break" commands even when in hurry. ^^

Re:well-rounded

[capoccia]

have you ever seen an american? they are the most well-rounded anywhere in the world! http://www.ibiblio.org/bop04dl/0454/190.jpg

no one is as round as the americans are!

How long...

[TEMM]

Until someone creates a mod for a game thats rated 14+ that allows kids to have full on hardcore sex and all games end up being rated M or AO because of the potential for adult content. I mean really thats as proposterous as people who try to ban guns on the premis that they may possibly be used to kill someone.

Re:How long...

[endersdouble]

Well, to some extent, already happened (the sex mod, not the banhammering)...know how many games have nude mods for the hot chicks?

Re:How long...

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me there's one for tekken 5, Christy is soo hot ;)

Unlock sex games... in Real Life

[hoggoth]

I just tried the unlocking codes on a pretty girl waiting for a bus... you know... just in case it might work.

She looked at me like I was insane, asked what I just said. When I explained, she slapped me.

There was no sex.

Oh well, I didn't think it would work, but I had to try... just in case.

Ban the violence?

[BrainstormOC]

I'm hearing everyone rant about it's not the sex, it's the violence, but I wonder what everyone would be saying if Congress tried to do something about the violence in these games. *rolls eyes*. I'm not a puritan by any stretch of the imagination (and yeah I'm a Christian) but I don't think it's that big a deal to want to try to steer games into healthier directions. Don't get me wrong, I love a shoot-em-up as much as the next guy, but I'll watch what my younger kids play until their minds are old enough to be able to discern what is appropriate, what is not,and what is somewhere in the middle but still fun. I don't see much point in having graphic sexual stuff in these games besides the titillation, and if anyone can honestly say that America's kids are not being affected by the constant stream of sex in our culture then i'll eat my hat. Obviously it's my job as a future parent to guard them, but if the culture keeps making it more and more difficult to guard them by pushing this stuff into every nook and cranny of society HOW should a parent guard them? Can't lock them up. They want and deserve appropriate amounts of freedom and privacy too. Where's the line for this stuff? Can someone please shed some light on that? What should I tell my 12 or 13 year olds when they start giving/getting blowjobs or more? It is happening. My wife is a middle school teacher and you should hear the stories. Can't tell me it's not because they're absorbing more.

Re:Ban the violence?

[ColdSam]

I'll watch what my younger kids play until their minds are old enough to be able to discern what is appropriate...

Don't you mean: until they can discern what you think is appropriate?

Re:Ban the violence?

[BrainstormOC]

not really but thanks for showing your true colors there, chief. it's people like you that really are bringing down this country.

Re:Ban the violence?

[grimharvest]

Well, for whatever it's worth I ain't no expert on parenting, don't even have kids, but I think you simply have to use your best judgement and learn to live with it. Your best is all you can do.

However, as a child from a dysfunctional household, my best advice is whatever happens, make damn sure that you keep communications open with your kids. In my experience, it's when the trust erodes and talking becomes forced that the real problems start. Talk to your kids as often as they let you, and remember talking means listening too not just laying down edicts.

Re:Ban the violence?

[BrainstormOC]

Well put.

If the public can't follow laws...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets just do what the gov does here in Canada about tabacco sales to minors.

Fine the store $5000 and fine the chashier $5000 if they sell it to a minor.

If an adult purchases or gives it to a minor fine them $5000.

I think then ppl might think twice!
Doesn't stop it, but once ya been fined once ya don't do it again. Good thing I haven't been fined yet. LOL

Kurtz

[xMonkey]

This kinda thing always makes me think of the Brando line for Apocolypse Now!

We train young men to drop fire on people. But their commanders won't
allow them to write "fuck" on their airplanes because it's obscene!

That does it..

[BigZaphod]

I'm going to have to buy this game out of principal. Since I don't have a PC for gaming I'll have to get the XBox version (which doesn't have the sex game hack), but that'll have to do. Anything that causes this kind of sensation is bound to banned sooner or later and I'd like to have it before it finally gets pulled from the shelves.

Re:That does it..

[igrp]

Since I don't have a PC for gaming I'll have to get the XBox version (which doesn't have the sex game hack)

As a matter of fact, it does.

Personally, I think a lot of people (especially the "I know what's best for you" and the "Do it for the children" crowd) are missing the point. It's a sex scene that is disabled in the retail version. It was not meant to be played. Great. But more importantly, it's part of a *game* (and I can't emphasize that word enough) that requires the player to silently kill a bunch of people in order to get the lyrics of some song (I'm talking about the "Madd Dogg's Rhymes" mission).

Now, whether you have a problem with that or not is up to you. If you do: fine, that's an absolutely 100% valid point and I can see why people might be offended. But, please do yourself and everybody else a favor and simply don't buy or play the game. It really is that simple.

Worried about your kids? Don't allow them to play it. Exercise parental discretion. Spend some time with your kids. Be a parent. Problem solved.

But don't go on a crusade over some deleted mini-game in an M-rated game that's named after a felony. You don't take your 8-year-old to a movie called "1st Degree Murder - the Butcher's Chronicles" and complain afterwards, do you?

What it comes down to, and what, quite unfortunately, many of these advocacy groups are lacking is common sense.

WTF?

[ElleyKitten]

Anyone who's old enough to play GTA is old enough to see whatever sex scenes the hackers can find on it. Though I'ld have to ask anyone who bothers to hack it why they didn't spend that time looking for real porn.

Maybe GTA should be rated AO. But I really don't think anyone gives enough of a shit about the difference between M and AO (17 and 18). Yeah, some stores say they won't sell AO games, but that's just because there's no AO game as popular as GTA. So all giving GTA an AO rating will do is put AO games in stores. Actually, that would be a pretty funny outcome to Media and the Family's bitching.

Re:WTF?

[QuantumG]

No, that's not clear enough. Put a "Parental Warning" on the box. Put a "Not for kids" on the box. Put a "Aimed at Men aged 21-46, ya know, what surveys say is the gender and age of the average gamer" on the box. Put a "Not made by nintendo, this game contains graphic sex and violence, not happy italian stereotypes eating mushrooms" on the box. Put a "For fuck suck will you prudish bitches please piss off back to the suburbs and let grown men play the games they want to without having to think about what someone else's children may or may not see" on the box.

This is going to backfire on the prudes

[LocalH]

Regardless of how many people knew about this beforehand, with this being made such a big deal of (I even saw it featured on fucking ABC News last night), there are millions of people who do know about it now, and went straight to Google and typed in "san andreas hot coffee". Great move, guys! You don't want something available to a large subset of gamers, and now you've told them exactly what to search for to find the actual mod itself! Fucking brilliant!

Re:This is going to backfire on the prudes

[purpleplatyduck]

And compliments of your comment, the other 100,00 people that didn't get around to googling for it the first time have now done so. Congratulations ;)

We're the USA!

[Rimbo]

Shoot as many people as you want! Cuss until your face turns blue! Practice satanic rituals! Invade foreign countries! We don't care! But show one image of consensual adults fucking, and we'll lock you up in jail you SEX CRIMINAL!

'Merica

[th3space]

"Now the cops got tanks cuz the kids got guns / shrinks pushin pills on everyone / cancer from the ocean, cancer from the sun / straight to hell we go."

Ahhh, The Descendents...proving that even biochemists can be mildly insightful.

Seems like nitpicking...

[BackInIraq]

...to me.

Considering the amount of inappropriate content already in the game, is this one thing really enough to warrant changing the rating? Especially considering that the game, as shipped, has this portion locked out? It's like complaining that they used the F-bomb one too many times in Pulp Fiction.

In addition, the M rating already restricts the sale of the game to those 17 and older. The AO rating would make it available to those 18 and older. Seems that one of the other is redundant. The only reason that the MPAA features an R and NC-17 rating (which are considered the equivalent of M and AO) is because in a theater setting, NO minors are allowed to view an NC-17 rating, regardless of parental consent. You cannot even take your own kids in. In a take-home setting (such as video/video games) there is no discernable difference between the two, because either way the parent can just hand it to the kid when they get home.

The only reason the two distinct ratings were created was to allow stores a black-and-white line to filter out which titles they would refuse to carry. God forbid the management make those decisions on their own.

Really, I think it was created less to give stores like Target and Wal-Mart an excuse not to carry AO rated games, and more an excuse for chains to explain why they DO carry certain M-rated titles. "I know it's inappropriate for kids, ma'am...but it is only M rated, and we do carry M rated games." That way they can milk the GTA cash cow (along with other "offensive" content) and still act like a family store.

This is the reason for the 1 year age difference as well...by making it 17 and under, they can claim that since it can be legally sold to minors it's appropriate for a family-oriented store.

Wait just a minute....

[Anonymous Coward]

You're saying that there's porn, hard core porn, on the internet. Anytime I want it? My God. This changes everything....

What really bothers me..

[bearclaw]

..is not that people are outraged. That is there perogative. People can vote with their dollars and not buy the game. What gets me is that groups like this are so well organized that they can effectively move legislation to outlaw games like GTA (which is fun, btw), even while the "silent majority" just doesn't care.

Would I let my young son or daughter play GTA? Of course not, it is extremely violent. Would they play it behind my back? Probably. But like most rational people, I'd probably talk to my kids about why I didn't want them playing it.

Either way, what I wouldn't do is force my neighbor to make his children not play GTA.

But this is exactly what this group is going to try and do.

Pub Stunt

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a publicity stunt.

That was easy... mod me up :0D

I better cancel my DoomIII mod

[Anonymous Coward]

I was creating a Doom 3 mod with bright, cheerful areas, full of educational tools and positive renforcement of christian values. Now I'm scared they may demand the Mature rating is removed and give it a PG or -gasp- a "E"veryone rating.

Netherlander

[FlacoFuerte]

Somehow I'm not surprised it was the Dutch that found the secret boobies.

Irony

[TapeCutter]

Irony - A slashdot post laughing at another's knowlage of computers because they failed to understand plain english.

GTA Sex Game Debate Intensifies...

[Anonymous Coward]

...nearing climax!

Website anyone....

[CFTM]

Does anyone have a website or contact information for this watchdog group? As a citizen of the United States I'd like to drop them a little letter suggesting they start addressing the real issues at hand and stop looking for a scapegoat. All they are doing is sensationalizing things in order to force their perspective on people; the real tragedy is that the people they are trying to protect, the children, are being forgotten...anyone else find this somewhat reminiscent of South Park Bigger Longer & Uncut? Blame Canada folks, it'll make it ALL better.

GTA-San Andreas: Free falling into the Faultline

[vague_ascetic]

Gratuitous Violence, Talking Heads, Slothful Media, the War Upon Iraq.

Question: does hacking the DVD constitute a violation of the EULA? If so, then here's someone else's kid, whose parents are allowing to play a game rated Mature +17. The rating is clearly marked on the box, on the cartridge and the start-up screen. Then the kid illegally hacks the DVD, and the parents are mad at the gamemaker?

Give me a break.

Besides, what's a bit of gratuitous sex; in between Texas Chainsaw Styled Contract Hit Massacres, multiple acts of deadly assault with the intent to carjack and, players looking really Soldier of Fortune GQ in high fashion body-armor, difficult to obtain in the Iraq Theater, while they engage in heavy artillery firefights with police? Sex puts the game over the top? What the hell is wrong with America anyway? The country is still hung up over the decade past Clinton's lies under oath about consensual sex with a willing and adult partner, but presently, a president led this country dishonestly into a war upon Iraq, and it is okey dokey Dubya, you tried...wink and a nod?

Priorities please. They are not my children, nor my responsibilities. I am sorry if this places a burden on parents. I freely chose NOT to have children, and have carefully entered into and participated in relationships with this in mind. Isn't it enough that I am required by law to cover some of the tax burden that Congress has chosen to foist upon me, in an effort to shield parents from the fair market costs of procreation? Now, there are cries to censor too, because a pernicious preponderance of piss poor parenting prevails in our society?

Listen, off in the distance; is that the Urologist I hear gleefully snipping away in his outpatient clinic's operating theater?

To top it off, Corporate Media Outlets expose their lazily negligent practises again with their willingness to accept copy from any policy breeder org without researching the source. Why has nobody questioned the overtly commercial nature of the National Institute on the Media and the Family's website, dripping saturated advertisements for their services and products throughout. Is it because the org's title itself exudes the aroma of predictable reports fattened up after feeding on Adobe's bloat enabling Acrobat software? Their statements and public releases spew commercialisations. Their National Parental Warning Press Release regarding GTA last week began with an introductory sentence that was a blatant pitch expressing speaking engagement availability for the Chairman:

"Hidden Pornography Easily Accessible; David Walsh Ph.D. Available for Comment".

Within the meat of the release, a hook was incorporated into the warning, reeling the fish back to one of the National Institute on the Media and the Family's register trademarked product lines. It's an unseen below the belt subliminal sucker punch. From the release:

"Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" never belonged in the hands of kids," said psychologist Dr. Walsh. "We are taking the unusual step of alerting parents to the pornography available through this game to any child or teen who is Internet savvy. This gives greater urgency to our message to parents: Become MediaWise: Watch What Your Kids Watch."

It is self-evident that any game with a Mature rating doesn't belong "in the hands of kids". Why is Dr. Walsh restating the obvious? Could it have anything to do with the fact that upon visiting their website, one discovers that MediaWise has morphed into MediaWise® a product-line for sale on the Institute's website with a price tag of $250 for the MediaWise® parent education kit, $995 for the

cut and dry, few things are,

[yaweh]

but this is. rockstar messed up. to put pornographic content into a product marketed mainly toward teenagers, (remember, your teens END at 19) is obviously asking for trouble. you dont put a pornographic picture in between pages of a coloring book and hope that no-one finds it. if it's not a mod, then rockstar is wrong. and a "mod" and a "hack" are NOT the same thing. the difference between a "hack" and a "mod", in this case, is like the difference between a translation of a book, where the content is essentially unchanged, and, scribbling your notes into a book, where you are adding content which does not necessarily correspond to the ideas of the author. the author is obviously not responsible for the content of those added notes, but would be responsible for the content of the translated work, unless he could prove the translation to be erroneous.

ratings dont prevent anything. they dont even work at the movies, i remember going to see all the R-rated horror fliks with my friends when we were young as twelve. they only ban children from R-fliks depending on the theatre's location. another "self-policing" scheme bites the dust. perhaps this is the reason that pornography is not just an "X" rating, pornography and the like has always been restricted to certain areas of the city. 42nd street in NY, for example. you'll also notice that all the (and there are many of them) nudey bars in NY are all in industrial areas. firm LAW, not a self-policing bs rating system, is the only way to keep porn from the general community. and i guess rockstar has merely done the inevitable by releasing pornography to children.

but rockstar is not the only porn-pushing company on the internet (computer-land, what ever you call it). there are many corperations MUCH larger than rockstar that have sponsored computer porn. yahoo is one that i know of that has sponsored sites that promote child pornography. AT&T has it's hands in the computer porn racket. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/porn /business/mainstream.html

so where's the law? i guess the law is waiting for the outrage? so where's the outrage? consumers are willing to trade their outrage for their orgasmatrons, i guess. its all pretty lame to me. we've never seen porn in our supermarkets, we never see porn as we drive our children to school, we dont sit and watch ads for porn at the movies, or on tv, so why is the internet so different? its different because it's new, thats all. and the test is now whether or not americans really want to remove porn from their computers, because now, the "modern" generation has the responsibility to do this, it hasnt been "taken care of" by the previous generations ;). americans are obviously enjoying their new freedoms and access to great porn, free, anonymous, diverse selections, all tastes, kicks and trips, do they really want to get rid of it? i suspect the answer is "no".

Re:cut and dry, few things are,

[vague_ascetic]

Ratings are not in place as an inpenetratble bar to the young tykes, they are there as advisories to aid parents. It is not the government's place to censor, nor is it Rockstar's responsibility to be a mom to the throngs of unlucky kids with incompetent parents.

Why should some have access taken away from them, because of people who irresponsibly have thrown their DNA into the winds of the future?

Focus on your own damn family, and don't Prey on me, OK?

Re:cut and dry, few things are,

[yaweh]

maybe you havent noticed this before now, simply because it wasent in your face, but pornography is now very easily accessable to anyone, children. it should be censored, as it always has been. but i guess the country's morality has changed in the past 50 years or so i guess. and im no prude, i just hate the idea of my kid getting their first sense of sexual intercourse from some wierdo computer porn. i remember the first time i had sex and there was a brief moment there when i noticed a similarity to a position i saw in a pornographic movie once, this was in the late '80's, computer porn wasnt big yet. it didnt exactly ruin my day, lol, but i guess i could have done without it.

you also happen to be flat wrong about your opinion about what a rating system should be. the mpaa or whatever rating system used for american movies today was initiated as an alternative to actual federal regulation, so it should be taken seriously. its currently against the law to allow a minor to see pornographic material. The COPA (child online protection act er something or other) is a law that declares that a person can be fined up to $50,000 and sentenced to six months in jail for providing children easy access to pornography. It was signed into law by President Clinton and is supported by the Bush administration. so my criticism that there is no govt control is a valid one, where's the law? who's going to be held responsible for promoting the viewing of porn by youngsters?

sorry, but its for your own good

Re:GTA-San Andreas: Free falling into the Faultlin

[yaweh]

...Then the kid illegally hacks the DVD...

you are misusing the word "illegal". either you dont know what a EULA is or says, or what the word "illegal" means. there is absolutely nothing "illegal" about hacking or modifying a commerical product. i dont know from where people have gotten this idea, but it is absolutely wrong. redistribution of a modified commercial product may be illegal, sometimes, but illegal in the civil sense, more pertenent to intellectual property rights, not the type of thing one usually labels as "illegal". like cheating on your spouse, you'll lose your divorce case and all that goes with it, but you'll never go to jail for it, unless you live in iran. otherwise your post is very interesting, you've given me some avenues to investigate.

Da DMCA

[vague_ascetic]

Contracts are law. If you violate a contract, you've broken the law. Maybe the EULA is not a lawful contract though, but the mongrel enactment, The DMCA growls angrily.

...The mod's author - Patrick Wildenborg of Deventer, Netherlands - told The Associated Press Friday that his code merely unlocks content that is already included in the code of each off-the-shelf game, the latest edition of the top-selling "Grand Theft Auto" series.

...Wildenborg, 36, wrote in an e-mail. "My mod does not introduce anything to the game. All the content that is shown was already present on the DVD."

[. . .]

"Lock me in a room with a computer, an original San Andreas DVD and a binary-file editor, and I will be able to unlock the stuff in a matter of minutes," he said defiantly.

---Ron Harris, Investigation, denials and outcry over video game's sex scenes, AP-Published in San Francisco Chronicle, July 8, 2005

• H.R.2281
• Digital Millennium Copyright Act
• Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems
• (a) VIOLATIONS REGARDING CIRCUMVENTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURES-
• (1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter.

Wildenborg hacked the code blocking scenes not released as a part of the software. He circumvented a "technological measure that effectively controls access" to these scenes.

Anyone who uses the mod is also violating the DMCA, and probably the EULA.

You bet it's trivial and pansey-assed, but consider the source of the law.

Re:Da DMCA

[yaweh]

this guy sounds like someone we should be praising for merely bringing this to light. i believe what he says, knowing the kind of game GTA is and the material that is NOT hidden in the general gameplay.

the DMCA cant change any law. it doesnt circumvent existing law. that itself is a law. but it does try, and succeeds, at defining boundaries in areas that would be considered "grey" by old fashioned copyright rules, as the digital era does presents new circumstances. a eula does not actually say anything contrary to what has been generally known about copyright rules for the past 100 years, you cant copy and redistribute for the purpose of making money. and whether that money comes from advetising on the site you host with, or whether the money comes from the direct sale of hacked or booted commercial products, doesnt matter. free distribution though, is still controversial. there is currently NO reason i cant copy the MOST aggresively gaurded commercial software and distribute it discretely among people I know other than the obstacles presented by the coperation manufacturing that software, such as anti-copy, hack coding, etc.