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Clinton To Take On Rockstar
Hillary Clinton, protector of the innocent, has vowed to see an FTC investigation launched against Rockstar because of the 'Hot Coffee' sex mod (already under investigation by the ESRB). From the Gamespot article: "...following recent reports revealing that the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has graphic pornographic content which may be unlocked by following instructions on the Internet, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will hold a press conference to discuss legislative solutions to keep inappropriate video game content out of the hands of young people."
ARGH! Okay...seriously...it's already rated M. It's out of the hands of children. If Rockstar actually left the content in that wasn't the smartest thing they've ever done, but it's not like they killed a puppy.
However this is pure stupidity. The game has to have a downloaded patch to get it to work on a modded XBox. This is unlikely to fall in the hands of the average 7 year old by accident.
In case you aren't aware, Hillary Clinton is planning a Presidential run. She has been going after various right-wing concerns in an attempt to make herself look more palatable to what the Democrats perceive as the mainstream of US politics.
She has been talking about abortion as a "sad, tragic choice" that should happen "only in very rare circumstances", supporting the war in Iraq, talking about how she's adamantly against illegal immigration, and so on. It's all rather blatant. I'll be curious to see if it works.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Rockstar's claim in PR talk. On my Xbox version a simple byte flag change in my saved game file unlocked that minigame, no files added/removed from the game. It's been called the censor flag. The Xbox version also has clothes on the players in the minigame, but I've heard the PC version they are nude.
The larger PC mods simply add more features hacks to make the mod easier to pull off and more interesting. And they contain the changed file, not instructions on what bytes to change in the files to achieve the result.
The thing I'm confused about, other games such as Playboy Mansion on the Xbox has an even more graphic love scenes in the game than in San Andreas, because the Playboy mansion scenes the players are nude, not in GTA Xbox. That "mode" don't have to be unlocked, it's part of the game. It is also an M rated game, just like GTA. The only difference? One is a LOT more popular because it's a much better game, that would be GTA.
I too agree with improved regulation of age ratings for Video Games, and movies. Because if a parent wants their 8 year old kid to play GTA, they'll buy it for the kid reguardless. But don't just let the kid go and buy the game, let the parent decide if the kid is mature enough to play it.
I am a parent of two children myself. A soon-to-be 6yr old and a soon-to-be one yr old.
My son is in major Star Wars mode right now. He's obsessed with ALL of the movies, from Ep1 to Ep6. I myself am very much a fan of all 6 movies. I was there opening week for Ep 1-3. However, my wife and I opted to leave our son home for Ep3 knowing the increased violence. There were parts we weren't comfortable letting him see. After about a month of discussing with him and warning him that there were bad parts in the movie, and explaining to him what happened and how those bad things happened because Anakin was a bad person in this movie, he understood it very well and enjoyed the movie (I did cover his eyes when Anakin was being burnt alive though. There's some things I don't want him to see). Because we had the chance to know it wasn't outright appropriate, and we could view it and discuss the 'problem areas' with him beforehand.
That said, I've been playing the GTA series since its first game, on the PS1. I DO NOT let my son watch me play this last installment, and I do not let him play it either. I don't feel its appropriate for him at all. However, as pointed out, children cannot buy this game as is. Pushing legislation or taking action is not needed here. What is needed is moronic parents to preview material before giving it to their kids. I'm not one of those goodness-nazi parents, there's just some things I don't want my son to see at age 5. I can judge when he is mature enough to handle it. Parents going ape-shit over this are, simply, IMO, bad parents.
C Pungent
The ESRB rules specify that Rockstar must provide all the potentially objectionable material to their reviewers in an easy-to-view fashion. (i.e. don't make their reviewers play the entire game through 50 times to 'unlock' it.) Rockstar didn't submit the "hot coffee" minigame, and yet it shipped on the disk.
The question here is whether material on the disk, but normally inaccessible, should be rated by the ESRB... and it's a good question that needs to be answered. The ESRB is upset that it shipped, but Rockstar says they did nothing wrong, so obviously there needs to be some procedure in place to handle this situation.
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