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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.

29 of 309 comments (clear)

  1. meanwhile by AtariAmarok · · Score: 4, Funny

    meanwhile, Bill works feverishly to open the sex game in GTA before Hillary puts a stop to it altogether.

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
  2. legislative solutions? by enrico_suave · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "... 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."

    Can you legislate good parenting?

    e.

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    1. Re:legislative solutions? by 88NoSoup4U88 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Legislate, nah :

      Keeping parents partly accountable for misdeeds their kids might do : Yes.

      I think Hillary shouldn't be focusing on this game (it's not even -allowed- to be sold to minors : So wtf is the problem), but more on her husband, who seems to be slipping his dick in stranger's mouths...

    2. Re:legislative solutions? by alvinrod · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Not really, but for some reason a lot of politicians think that they can, or at least substitue legislation for the necessity of parenting.

      Rather than parents taking an active interest in the gaming, television, and online habits of their children, politicians would rather pass laws regulating the flow of information and sale of materials that they feel are harmful to a child. Never mind the fact that these viewpoints are completely subjective.

      Maybe I might feel it necessary for any children I might have to play GTA and experience violent behavior. Maybe I might want them to be able to view pornographic scenes in movies or video games. Who the hell do they think they are to act so self-rightous and decide what is and what is not good for the rest of the world? Essentially what we end up with is a form of censorship, someone else deciding what's appropriate for me to view. I don't mind a review board that posts recomendations and warns me of the content in a product (I don't want to pop in a cartoon and have it turn out to be horse porn or brutal executions), but I want to have the freedom to decide for myself or my children what is appropriate.

      It falls right into line with the American Way though. Why do if yourself when you can get someone else to do it for you and save you the work? These politicians can garner votes by promoting their activities as good for the American public and can go home and sleep at night convincing themselves they've somehow done some good in the world.

    3. Re:legislative solutions? by RealityMogul · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They don't enforce "good" parenting, they enforce "required" parenting. There's a big difference.

    4. Re:legislative solutions? by slughead · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not really, but for some reason a lot of politicians think that they can, or at least substitue legislation for the necessity of parenting.

      I find it funny that whenever republicans do this, everyone starts talking about "THE RADICAL RIGHT," but when democrats lead the way, it's all about "the government" or "politicians" in general.

      It works the same way with gun control: when republicans do it, it's "big government," when democrats do it, it's "the liberal's" fault.

      It's so confusing, that's why I can't vote for either of those two parties.

  3. Something Familiar - Here to Help by Sammich · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We are the from the Government...we're here to help

  4. Makes sense (not!) by clausiam · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ...keep inappropriate content out of the hands of young people...

    Let's see:

    * Killing pedestrians by running them over: Appropriate for children.
    * Shooting people in the head: No problem, kids are ok with that
    * Toasting cops with flamethrowers: Hey, that's cool, go on my little angel dear.
    * Nudity and pornographical images: What is this, I'll call my congress[wo]man immediately. They need to stop this filth from getting to innocent kids.

    Somebody really need to get their priorities right! Not to mention it already has an M-rating as someone already mentioned in another post.

    1. Re:Makes sense (not!) by mooingyak · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I happen to agree that this nation has it priorities a little screwed up.

      But consider that the negative consequences of violent acts tend to be fairly obvious, while the negative consequences of sexual acts are a good deal less so, especially since there's no guarantee that any particular time will have a negative consequence.

      So some people are not that worried about the violence their kids are exposed too. They expect it to be clear what the problems with violence are. But the same people get nervous about exposing their kids to sexual content, as the problems are less clear.

      I think we (Americans) freak out way too much about nudity, though I feel it's a bit more justified in the case of pornagraphic material.

      --
      William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
    2. Re:Makes sense (not!) by DavidTC · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What I think is scary in this country is we're discussing this like consensual sex and violence are somehow comparable.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  5. Naked Sims, film at 11 by jon787 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Not investigating Maxis over The Sims Nude Patch

    INCONCEIVABLE!

    --
    X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
  6. Thanks Hillary by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ...some of us are tired of characterizations of us liberals as meddlers in issues that should be a matter of personal responsibility. You seem to be doing all you can to persuade everyone otherwise.

    If a parent allows a child to play a game named "Grand Theft Auto" (a major crime), with a clearly visible rating that clearly identifies it as being for adults, then it's hard to see how this is any fault of the publisher or anyone else but the parent concerned.

    It's also hard to see the obsession with preventing children from seeing anything "sexual" while, apparently, being unconcerned about children coming across something violent. Here's a major clue for you, speaking as someone who was a child for 12 years of my life, and a teenager for about eight: children think stuff to do with sex is icky anyway. As for teenagers, on the other hand, they'll find something sexual in a church newsletter. Hidden scenes in stupid video games aren't going to make a major difference.

    A second issue you may not realise is that sex is, fundamentally, neutral. It can be used for good and for bad. It is not inherently evil and to be used only under extreme circumstances, such as when bad things threaten you. In fact, it's actually, usually, a beautiful thing. This is not true of violence. So why people like yourself give a stuff about the former but not the latter will... god, am I really pointing this out? I must be the 912,291th person on Slashdot *alone* to have pointed out this rather obvious fact.

    Seriously. I appreciate that you, Senator, as someone born at the tender age of 21, probably do not realise any of this and so have some screwed up views on the subject. They may or may not be distantly connected with people close to you. For all I know, a night in bed with Bill is worse than five rounds with Muhammed Ali. Nevertheless, please do us all a favour and shut the f--- up. You do not know what you're talking about. You are meddling in a way that gives those of us that would otherwise support you a bad name. If this is part of your presidential ambitions, I think I speak for most of the liberals on Slashdot when I say: Kerry '08.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    1. Re:Thanks Hillary by metamatic · · Score: 4, Informative

      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
  7. FUD by n3k5 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hillary Clinton alrady spread FUD about GTA* being a 'murder simulator'; either she is an idiot for critisising a game she never played, or if she played it and still gives the public this biased view, she's a liar. As i previously said, it's just an arcade game about driving from A to B and then maybe to C, and shooting some targets every now and then. There's no real death, no real sex. Not even virtually real. Just Pac-Man-like game mechanics (but quite entertaining). The player is rewarded for helping people, punished for harming innocents, and taught how to be a better driver.

    Now she has found another lump of coal to throw on her fire and pretends that San Andreas has pornographic content, which is like saying Quake 3 Arena has a brutally realistic damage model (you just need to install this little mod, but most of the code is allready in there!). Again, that's either idiotic or an outright lie. And the large majority of the population (read: voters) isn't all that familiar with this matter and just believes her.

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    but what do i know, i'm just a model.
  8. Boo for sex by FidelCatsro · · Score: 3, Funny

    Sex is a clearly dangerous and malevolent thing that needs wiped from our society.
    If nobody had sex , then pretty soon (about 100 years tops ), then their would be no crime , No poverty , no overcrowding , no more poloution , many animals species would be allowed to thrive.
    I clap my hands for Hillary Clitnon , and support her cause to wipe out Humanity .
    Security Welfare ,Senator Clinton .
    (/sarcasm)

    --
    The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
  9. Re:How about getting the facts right first? by McCarron · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  10. Re:I like hillary by stinerman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    She's already starting her run to the center for her presidential bid in 2008. Hopefully most people will see right through this.

    She represents the worst of the Democrats in that she doesn't have any positions that won't change based on tomorrow's opinion poll. Not only that, she repesents the "government knows better than you" wing as well.

  11. Re:I like hillary by macdaddy357 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I wonder if the Junior Senator from New York and everyone else having a cow realize how much free press they are giving this game? People who had never considered buying it before will be curious now, and it will fly off the shelves! Rockstar couldn't have bought this kind of publicity.

    --
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  12. Re:I like hillary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the "government knows better than you" wing as well.

    Which wing was that, the "both sides of the line" wing? Face it, when one party wants the government to intrude into our daily lives to make sure we're all safe and happy from ourselves, and the other party wants the government to intrude into our daily lives to make sure we're all safe and happy from terrorists, we're all boned.

    When the Libertarian Party's alternative quits being "the government knows nothing", I'll vote for them.

  13. Oh, come on by ALeavitt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hasn't anybody considered the fact that downloading this patch requires the internet skills necessary to locate the patch, and then the computing skills necessary to apply it? If a kid can find the Hot Coffee mod on the net, he/she can find porn on the net. Hell, most people who couldn't find the Hot Coffee mod could find porn on the net. But censoring the intarweb was sooooo 90s, and it didn't succeed, so now they're going after video games.
    As a complete non-sequitir, does anybody know of a country where the right to free speech actually exists, and the government doesn't tell the citizens what they can and can't choose to view?

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  14. substitue legislation for the necessity of parenti by dpilot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not that I approve of "substitute legislation for the necessity of parenting," but if we've substituted day-care and latchkeys for parents, a lot of the damage to parenting has already been done.

    Back in the 50's we had the classic "Leave it to Beaver" parenting model, where Dad went to work, and Mom stayed home with the kids. Perhaps Mom was swilling the liquor and playing poker with her friends, but mine wasn't, and AFAIK, the other moms in the neighborhood weren't. We had active and involved moms who enforced values, (to put it in current-speak) kissed skinned knees, and got us back up on our bikes, etc.

    Fast-forward to today, where the norm is either two incomes, or a single working income. Young kids are in day-care - presumably the low-cost provider, and older kids lock the doors after getting home from school. If parents get home at 5:00 and put the kids to bed at 9:00, that's 4 hours, 5 if you include an hour in the morning. You can "teach" all you want during that 4-5 hours, but that's dwarfed by the "imprint time" with the sitter for small kids and classmates/media for larger kids. But then again, two wrongs don't make a right. Further legislation doesn't correct the problem of busy parents, it only tries to hide it.

    Not that I think 2 working parents is always bad. Some families can handle it. I just don't think it's good as the "standard model" for our society. But from the Government's point of view, it's great! Put Mom to work and you also partially finance a day-care worker, collecting taxes from both. You also find less cooking-from-scratch and more prepared foods, with attendant higher corporate profits (taxes, again) and job creation rates.

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
  15. Generational warfare by petrus4 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Attention Boomers. I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but despite the amount you might wish it to be the contrary, the 1950s are well and truly over. Deal with it. Yes, the world is a lot more secular, and a lot less racist, and yes, the gays and wiccans have ascended from the sewers and are now legally able to walk among the rest of us. On the other side of the sexual hypocrisy-related fence, a man (or woman) can now actually be caught and criminally charged for molesting their children. Horrifying concepts, I know...but if I've learned to acclimatise to it, so can you. Postmodernism and moral relativism have inherited the earth, and like it or not, there ain't no going back.

    That of course is the crux of what this is about...people in Hillary's generational bracket having delusional recollections of the era of their own childhood, and wish to attempt to force said delusions upon the rest of the world. With the dawn of each new day I seem to read yet another report of an attempt at fascist control by some beurecratic 50+ year old suffering from the effects of advanced neurological decomposition. I've said it before, and I'll say it again...Hillary and the rest of her geriatric, sexually deprived ilk need to be in nursing homes...NOT in the halls of government.

  16. Re:I like hillary by Cornflake917 · · Score: 3, Funny

    "I would hope that the government is more informed and intelligent than than I am."

    Fortunately, I don't think it's that hard to be smarter than me.

  17. Not like they killed a puppy? by Rimbo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    You're not too familiar with the United States, are you?

    Remember, this was the country initially founded by Separatists, the country that put the "duh" in "fundamentalism."

    The country where you can have all kinds of death and explosions and only get a PG-13 rating, but show one human penis and you get slapped with NC-17.

  18. Re:I like hillary by jebell · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What if the will of the majority tramples the rights of the minority? It wasn't that long ago that politicians in the American South fought to keep blacks and whites from using the same public facilities. This was what the majority of their white constituents wanted but that doesn't make it right.

    --
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  19. Strange turn of events by BlightThePower · · Score: 4, Funny

    I was of the understanding the Mrs Clinton was rather good at overlooking sexual escapades right under her nose.

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    Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
  20. Re:I like hillary by Gherald · · Score: 3, Insightful

    > When the Libertarian Party's alternative quits being "the government knows nothing", I'll vote for them.

    I am a Libertarian, and I don't see anything the Party platform that can be construed as "the government knows nothing."

    I would start by saying "the government is terribly inefficient and should be reduced".

  21. Rockstar deserves what they get. by nobodyman · · Score: 4, Insightful
    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.


    Actually, I find Rockstar's behaviour incredibly irresponsible. Now now, hear me out . It sounds like I'm about to make a moral stand... i'm not.

    Here's the deal. Rockstar has been playing a very dangerous game. They that the controversy of GTA3 helped their profits more than it hurt. After making this realization, they've been ratcheting up the controversy -- the GTA series has arguably become more and more violent and lost most of its "comical" violence, and of course there's Manhunt. Manhunt is the most obvious example - were it not for the controversy (and subsequent free publicity to gamers wanting to know what that controversy was about) that piece of crap would have sold all of 3 copies.

    So they've playing this game of chicken with the media and the US government, trying to see just how far they could push it. Then they include the "hot coffee" content, knowing it would be easily unlocked while having the out of saying it was the work of hackers who had to tweak the code. Make no mistake: Rockstar wanted the hot coffee content to be unlocked.

    Unfortunately, it's not just Rockstar that takes the heat. The media resoundly thinks that Developers are amoral thugs and that all gamers are pathological timebombs. And when congress steps in and decides to regulate, they wont regulate only Rockstar games. Everyone in the industry suffers.

    I believe in freedom of expression, and it puts me in the position of defending Rockstar. I think they should have the freedom to do make any type of game they please. However, not for one second do I think that the company is run by anything other than irresponsible media whores.
    1. Re:Rockstar deserves what they get. by NBarnes · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That was kinda my responce, too, actually. And that from someone who is themselves a game dev professional. Right or wrong, our country is obviously having a social debate about videogames, and in the middle of that, Rockstar is not just putting out iterations of GTA3, but... releasing content like this. Thanks for helping the rest of us in the industry reach some sort of accord and avoid uneccesary regulation, Rockstar. When I have to put my next indie release through some chickenshit review board process, I'll make sure to send you a nice note.