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Government Pressure on ESRB
Alex Blonski writes "There is new CNN coverage on the recent pressure the government is putting on the ESRB to crack down on mature-rated titles, after the Grand Theft Auto Debacle. ESRB President Patricia Vance says that 'It is very important for people to realize that this game is rated " for mature,' Vance said. 'This game is not a game that was rated for children. Regardless of what if anything was modified, it's a game that the ESRB has made as clear as it can that it was not intended for anyone under the age of 17.'"
If a child decides to emulate the antics of a character in a video game, it is not the game's fault...it is the fault of the child's parents who have failed to instruct the child in the fundamental differences between fantasy and reality. They are the ones who should and must be held accountable for the misdeeds of their progeny.
When parents use their televisions and consoles as nanny and babysitter, they shouldn't be too surprised when their children begin using them as role models.
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
From TFA: Critics say the board's guidance is toothless and does little to help parents trying to protect impressionable children from questionable content.
It's like clockwork. After "Won't somebody please think of the children!" comes "Won't somebody please think of the parents!" After all, kids can't vote, so it's important that the demagoguery focus on the most politically valuable "victims."
My question is, what do the parents want? Of course the ratings are toothless. They're just a guide. The "Mature" rating tells parents that a game labeled "M" is considered by the ESRB to be potentially inappropriate for people under 17. The ESRB is basically saying: "If you're in doubt, and your kid is under 17, don't allow this game in your home." If a parent is really in conniptions over video-game sex, violence, whatever, then they only need to exert minimal effort to convert their fears into action.
For parents that care to be more nuanced and/or involved, there are strategy guides in every game store that present the content of games in great detail. And there's also gamefaqs.com, which is free and convenient. Parents don't have to be gamers to avoid being totally oblivious. Now, I certainly don't expect every parent to be this savvy from the get-go. But the parents who claim to give a shit could educate themselves with what I think is a reasonable amount of time and effort.
But no, let's legislate the fuck out of the video-game industry because Hillary Clinton is running for president.
According to the article itself, the "unlocked nude sex scene" only applies to the PC version of GTA. That means that any kiddies that get exposed to it must first find and download the mod off the internet, then apply it to the game. If the child can/will do this, then he is already being potentially exposed to all the pornography on the internet. In other words, whats the difference between downloading and applying this mod and just downloading porn off the internet? Ratings are meaningless when children have unfettered access to the internet. It all comes back to parental oversight. Government is not a substitute for parenting.
I find it quite telling that when GTA only allowed you to pay for sex and then murder the prostitute in cold blood to get your money back, it was commented on but there was no big push to governmentally censor games.
But now that you can actually see yourself engaging in consensual sex with your in-game girlfriend, we need to "protect the children".
Doesn't this seem a little backwards? Apparently violence and murder is completely fine, but a little sex and the pols all go batshit.
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
..and have no idea what is going on here's the dirty video
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
I don't know about some parents, but if I was a dad and my kid asked me to pony up $50 bucks for a video game, I'm sure as hell going to find out what its about. Plus most stores have the "M" games on lock down, anybody under 17 can't even buy them. This means a lot of these kids are getting adults that should know better to buy it for them. But as they say, money talks, bull**** walks, and these games are racking in the dough like crazy, more than what some blockbusters make.
insert inflammatory anti-microsoft comment here
I just have to say that I would've voted for Clinton if she made a run for President before she had diarrhea of the mouth and brought up this unrelated shit. She made a completely wrong (as we all know), completely uneducated statement, and based on factually *wrong* information called for a revamp of the whole system. That was a bad move on her part if she was expecting any of the geek vote. We all know what game mods are, and they've been around since the early days of computer gaming. Her statement was ignorant, and irresponsbile.
This is such classic "Think of the Children" fever hysteria. And there is a simple solution. Some enterprising game hacker needs to release a mod for the Left Behind Trivia Game that causes it to display explicit hardcore porn photos.
Either the crazy censors will go much too far and try to ban all video games, or maybe just maybe they will realize that THERE IS NO WAY FOR A COMPANY TO CONTROL WHAT OTHER PEOPLE DO TO/WITH THEIR PRODUCTS.
Why 17 and not 18, or 21? Deciding by committee for every child in the US is stupid. They should use a system that lists the 'level' of sex, violence, dirty language or whatever and let parents choose appropriately for their own fears.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
It's really quite simple. This game was rated M, for mature players 17 and older. I'd like to talk to the parents of under-17 children playing GTA. I mean, COME ON. The name of the game is GRAND THEFT AUTO. It has a big ol' M on the front of the box. Who in their right mind thinks this is made for kids?
Parents are ultimately responsible (and held accountable!) for what their children do and are exposed to until the age of 18, at which point they become personally accountable. That's part of being a good parent. Read the ratings and use them in your purchasing decisions. Keep up on what your child is into and does with his/her time. BE A FUCKING PARENT, for God's sake!
If little Timmy played GTA at a friend's house, bitch to their parents about the game and then explain to your child why they shouldn't be playing Mature-rated games. You have the ultimate say-so in what your child does, so use that to RAISE THEM!
The way I see it, this is a complete and total non-issue. The ratings are there, broken down into the actual reasons why the game got that rating. Use them. End of story.
"Apparently so, but suppose you throw a coin enough times. Suppose one day, it lands on its edge."
If the ESRB has already rated a game as Mature, what is it these rabid parent groups expect everyone else to do? It is up to the parents to ensure their children aren't buying these games. It is up to the parents to ensure their relatives aren't giving these games as gifts. It is up to the parents to ensure their children's friends aren't bringing the games over to play.
It is not society's responsibility to censor such content just in case some parents are too lazy or inept to keep an eye on their own kids.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I must have missed that GTA San Andreas and Manhunt ads during saturday morning cartoons.
How exactly do they market to children.
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
Why stop there? Why rely on some nanny entity to tell you what to do about a game? I, for one, believe that the parents should take an active interest in the products they are purchasing for their kids and know for themselves the "rating" a game should have. Either that or it needs to be a crime to NOT enforce the ESRB ratings. Otherwise, you have a useless system that only gives vague definitions of what a game contains, if even that.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
I am apalled at Microsoft for their blatent disregard of our children. Apparently, it is possible to enter in a special code into a search engine, and get Internet Explorer to display lude pictures. This is outrageous!
I was also informed that other Microsoft products have similar problems. Outlook has a built-in feature for detecting pornographic emails and filing them into a separate folder called "junk." The product even comes with a built-in list of keywords to help the search!
I think we need the government to step in and regulate this stuff.
Parent my children for me, for I cannot do it myself. Protect my children from my laziness and unwillingness to do the 5 minutes of Google research it takes to find out the contents of a game rated M. While you're at it, let's get rid of R rated movies. I know, it has the R rating on there, but somehow my kids are going to see it. After all, I don't keep track of their whereabouts, nor take an active role in their daily lives. Also, get rid of profane music. Tipper was right; the kids will still get their hands on it, and it'll scar my little babies even more than my completely incompetent parenting skills.
When the rating system became a requirement for the video game industry, everyone seemed to think that the system used for the motion picture industry would be adequate. However, the video game makers could not accept that because it would have been a major hit to their bottom line. So they put a few dollars into the legislative vending machine and out popped a pretty ambiguous rating system.
Instead of an "R" rating, we have "M" for mature. Of course, every parent would like to think that their child is mature. This probably increases sales, rather than decrease. Had the motion picture rating system been adopted, GTA would have an NC17 rating.
Thank your congressmen for half of the problem. I agree that the other half is the fault of the parents.
More
Really, this issue is getting tiresome. It isn't just parents, it is the ratings system and the developers too.
Yes, absolutely, it is the parents above all else who should be aware of what their children are playing and have them play things they feel are appropriate for their age.
But, the game industry is *not* helping them. And why should they as long as they can get away with it since they make that much more money because of it. The problems are:
- Games are not always properly rated
- Ratings are confusing(why not use the same system as the movie industry?)
- Stores don't enforce ratings, ever.
- Stores don't even advise on ratings hardly ever.
- There are so many games out there all jumbled together, for older parents who are not gamers themselves, its pretty much impossible to tell one thing from another.
Games need to be rated better, the ratings displayed much more prominently, and ratings checked with each sale. This isn't something hard to do and the game industry could do it without a problem, no government intervention needed. The problem is they aren't.
Developers are a problem too. I mean come on, Rockstar was an idiot with this whole sex game thing. They obviously didn't include it in the normal game because they felt it was too much. They should have never left that content in the game. And, if they are bound and determined to make an "adult" game, they need to stop being so half way about it and just make an adult content game.
The government is going to end up getting involved in this unless the industry gets their act together. It is amazing how much of a free pass the game industry has gotten so far actually compared to music and movies. They have been given ample opportunities to just do what they promised: "Self enforce a ratings system". And while I don't want government intervention any more than anyone else, its going to happen and soon if things don't change.
You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
Why? Because no one sells AO games. Block Buster, Circuit City, Best Buy, Walmart, Target, GameStop, etc don't sell AO games (as far as I know). Just like most theaters don't show NC17 movies.
So games that should be Adults Only like the GTA games (let your kids play them if you want, but it should be your decision since you'd have to buy it) don't get the rating because they wouldn't sell many places (GTA is large enough that it would probably get an exception, but think about other games like Manhunt or State of Emergency (which I think is MUCH worse than GTA)).
I think the solution is a new ratings classification. Either P (Pornographic), or X (eXplicit). Sex games go under those. Extremely violent wont-someone-think-of-the-children games would go under AO (which stores could sell without having to sell pornographic games) and then this problem would be closer to being fixed. You must be 18+ to buy an AO game (get legal enforcement behind that like the 17 or older rule for R movies).
Now, I realize that enforcement for R movies isn't perfect (and often VERY shoddy). And I'm only talking about GTA with the violence and "minimal" sex (before Hot Coffee). With the Hot Coffee content in there, my opinion would be it should go under P or X. Without it, AO. Whether you agree with my views or not, that's my theory; and I think it would at least help.
On a side note: what is wrong with Rockstar? Surely SOMEONE must have thought it would be a good idea to REMOVE THAT UNUSED CONTENT off the discs? That would have solved all this. The only reason I can think of for it to be left on there is either 1) they were going to use it later or 2) they wanted it to be found. They hung themselves on this one (over-reactions not withstanding).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
As long as you can be drafted at 18 and shipped off to a foreign country to shoot strangers, I think you can handle a videogame with an M rating.
Esoteric reference.
What about the theatre?
Once, for theatre class, I had to play a character who "liked little girls. Girlfriend: You mean, little women? Me:No, little girls." I was "dramatizing, living the example" that was layed out in the script for me. I was training how to *be* that guy, who just so happened to have a penchant for very young ladies...
How is are video games like GTA subjected to such reviews when there are so many plays with such infinitely more disturbing content that people not only like, but consider classics? Which is worse, letting a child play a game where he goes on a game-long mission of killing all the drug dealers that have been destroying his town (the *PLOT* of GTA:SA), or letting a child read/see a play where the main idea behind it his the worthlessness of mankind, the pointlessness of existence, or something like that?
Think about the horrible things that could happen to the mind of an impressionable child if he reads something post-modern, but doesn't quite get the whole self-liberation part of it. Or hell, if he reads something modern and *does* get it! Just like playing this game, I wouldn't let my child read something like that without *my guidance*.
A little more realistically, what about Tom Clancy? I remember one of his books, the one where Clark goes and kills a bunch of drug dealers (can't remember the name...), has the same basic idea of GTA:SA. Hookers being beaten, raped, and killed. A vigilante going out and killing drug dealers in horrible, horrible ways (the decompression chamber?). No one said a damn thing about that. I managed to check it out my middle school library (I went to an uptight, north-easter style private school in the heart of Texas, the Gay-Straight Alliance wasn't allowed official club recognition even though half the faculty were members because they were afraid of parental retribution) without anyone saying a thing. That is, until my dad read it when I was through with it and banned me from reading Tom Clancy for a few years (which I completely ignored...).
How is GTA any worse?
No trespassing. Violators will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
I would hardly say its useless thats like saying that the PG, PG-13, R etc rating at movies is useless. I do allow my children to watch most PG movies and generally watch it with them unless I exactly know what is in the movie. But an R rated movie I will always preview as simply watching it with them is not enough. Having no rating whatsoever would force me to preview every single thing they watch. A good idea yes, but hardly something anyone has the time for.
Well... Not as such, anyway. The "mod" is re-enabling stuff that was left in the game but just sorta edited out.
That is, they originally programmed the Hot Coffee stuff in there in the first place, then added code later to cause it to skip that bit. The "mod" just makes it not skip that bit.
How do we know this? Because there are codes for the PS2 version (using a Game Shark or whatever the equivalent is) to do the same basic thing: re-enable these hidden mini-games.
This isn't stuff added by the hack, it's stuff re-enabled by the hack.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Yes, I TOTALLY agree. We need a ratings board that has a secret team of ninja's, that hunt down and kill anyone buying a game rated higher than their age (or buying it for a minor.) That's the problem with society today: we have to much freedom. What happened to good old soviet communisim? Jeez.
Honestly, the ESRB does what it's meant to do, and does it well. They warn people of what content is in a game. It's the parent's responsibility, and if they want to succum to their childrens pressure, then maybe someoen should call childrens aid. Not the ESRB's problem.
Let them make their own decisions.
This is the most fundamental principle of liberty.
The information is a self-explanatory game ratings.
The decision is whether or not to buy this or allow your child to play it.
I know, I know. Precious Little Johnny (er.. Taylor or Tyler or Hayden or whatever the hell you people name your kids these days) leaves and goes over to his friend's house and plays GTA on little Mikey's (er... Connor or Tanner) computers, and he's out of your control. Well, it's your job as the parent to go meet Mikey's mother and find out if you can trust her to oversee your child for a few hours.
My girlfriend's son came home the other day and bragged about how his aunt let him play a game that was rating "M". He wanted to throw it in Mom's face that he got to play one. That landed his ass banned from his Game Boy for about a week and then she didn't know what to do. "How do I get him to make good decisions?" I suggested that the KID be made to go talk to Aunt Ignorant and that HE explains to her that he's not allowed to play rated M games and that he should have told her the game was rating M, but he made a bad choice. The kid did it, Aunt Ignorant was horrified at her transgression, and said that it just never crossed her mind.
I promise you that if it was a movie, Aunt Ignorant would have thought about it, but video games are "kid's stuff" to that generation, so it's not part of their decision-making to consider that the game could be inappropriate.
Anyway, the point is that my old lady is responsible for her child and trying to teach him how to make good decisions by turning situations like this into learning opportunities for her son. And that's a hell of a lot better for a kid than having some paternal-minded windbag like Senator Clinton spending our tax money on investigating how in the world a video game that is intended and rated for adults ended up having adult-only content.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
They will modify and censor CD's movies and magazines to make sure they fit their "family values".
You're not likely to intimidate Walmart with threats.
It devalues sex as a commodity and puts the woman's sexuality into her own control. In this context, killing the prostitute is not only acceptable, it's preferable. The prostitute is doing something wrong (taking control of her own sex), and gets punished. It's a morality play.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
It never ceases to fascinate me the way that "liberal" is a word whose definition is created and defined by absolutely everyone except whoever the liberals themselves are supposed to be. Ever notice that? Practically no one ever stands up and says "I am a liberal, because I believe this". We just get people going "you are a liberal, because you believe [blah]". The word is starting to be like "commie" or "nazi"; it isn't a political category, it's an insult.
Also fascinating that Bob Dole and George W. Bush are apparently "modern liberals". Who knew?
Why not choose some less ambiguous terms to describe Hilary Clinton, like "socially conservative"? Or why not just ditch the idiotic "liberal/conservative" dichonomy altogether, stop playing shell games with words that may or may not mean the same thing to different people, and discuss things in terms that actually describe what is going on? Here, I'll give you an example:
Hillary Clinton supports media censorship and is not worthy of anyone's support. If anyone looks at this in terms of "she's just lost my vote", then this means they weren't paying attention 10 years ago, because she's always been like this.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Most of the posts here, presumably, will be of the "blame the parents" variety, many, I suspect, from children themselves.
But, such attempts to exonerate game makers for playing to the purient interests of children. Sure, responsible parents ought to ensure that their kids don't buy or play any game they think is inappropriate. But, frankly, parents cannot accompany their kids on every trip to the mall and they certainly cannot stop their kids from playing any game they choose at a friend's home.
The people who make and market games have as much responsibiility for the impact of their products as do the people who make and market heroin, tobacco, or assault weapons.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Isn't it possible, that there are mature(AGE) adults purchasing video games and maintaining sales? Or must it be every sale is from an irresponsible parent. I want to save the children too. I only have the power to save my own. Don't destroy the tools I use to do so. They are NOT outdated or useless. I use them every time I buy. I also watch G4, read GamePro & PC Gamer and, I know its a crazy idea, PLAY GAMES With them.
My kids respect my decision on games because I speak from an obviously informed position.
My wife on the other hand is clueless about gaming, and cannot uderstand why I pay so much attention. Fortunately, its not important to me if she understands why I watch/read/play.
I prefer to uses the systems that we all know and love: MPAA for movies, ESRB for games, TVRB for the telly. Listen to whatever sounds best to you for music. Screw Tipper.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Oh and you might want to brush up on your ability to understand sarcasm. It helps here at /.
- a huge budget deficit
- thousands of people without health insurance dying each year from treatable illnesses
- a war in Iraq and Afghanistan that at this point looks like it has no end, killing thousands of US soldiers (both KIAs and other theater related deaths) and over 100k (by some counts) Iraqis
- "Plan Columbia" that is pissing off most Columbians, causing everything from birth defects to cancer and destabilizing a good chunk of South America
- Decent, full-time manufacturing jobs being replaced with poor paying, part-time service jobs (many with no health insurance)
- the "War on Drugs" which costs over 60 billion USD each year with little to no results.
- public schools that are crumbling right before their very eyes and the best they can do is "No Child Left Behind", which is a piss poor program that is grossly underfunded.
Gay marriage yesterday, "Hot coffee" today, Bush's announcement of his SCOTUS replacement (which he'll make tonight) next week. It's all "bread and circus" to the US Congress. Most of them only care about their $158k to $203k USD paycheck and getting all the shit they can steal without getting caught.
Fuck'em. They're doing it to you.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST