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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.
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.
"... 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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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.
Not investigating Maxis over The Sims Nude Patch
INCONCEIVABLE!
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
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.
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.
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.
How ya like dat?
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.
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.
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.
I was of the understanding the Mrs Clinton was rather good at overlooking sexual escapades right under her nose.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
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.