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The ESRB Gets An 'F'
GamePolitics reports on a failing grade given to the ESRB by the National Institute on Media and the Family. The report card did not look good for the ratings board, which almost immediately fired back at the organization. From that article: "The reality is that publishers understand that retailers largely choose not to stock AO-rated games, and so in the interests of producing marketable games, publishers will oftentimes revise and resubmit a game that was initially assigned an AO by raters in an effort to produce an M-rated game. When this happens, the process starts again from the beginning, and each new version of a game is reviewed independently. The call to issue more AO ratings has little to do with rating accuracy, and more to do with NIMF's real agenda, which is to destroy the commercial viability of games it deems objectionable. Unlike NIMF, ESRB's job is to be a neutral rater, not a censor."
Parents should have the right to determine for themselves whether or not a game is appropriate for their child rather than worrying that the little tyke is at the store buying an M-rated title behind their backs.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Is it just me, or does that name just SCREAM "fundamentalist, religious, biased prudes"?
This is good in a way though, this battle is mostly being fought in the court of public opinion rather than being imposed by governmental fiat.
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Why do they just have to have generic rating. These companies should be obligated to print exactly what kind of material is in the game and let parents decide. I work in a video/game rental store, and I've seen mothers pick up M rated games for their 10 year old kids (I'm not joking) and I have to explain to them exactly why M doesn't just mean "blood". I have shocked more parents than I'd like to believe I have. An M game can have a hundred different things in it. I'd rather have a new system with more explanations.
The call to issue more AO ratings has little to do with rating accuracy, and more to do with NIMF's real agenda, which is to destroy the commercial viability of games it deems objectionable.
Sounds likely to me.
While it seems to me that an objective rating system could be a useful tool to parents, I am wary that it is probably the first step in restricting the sale of "violent" games to minors.
It just doesn't make sense to me to try to regulate the sale of video games. I am fine with legal age limits on movies, cigarettes and alcohol, which people often try to compare it to, but there are a few key differences:
1.) Movies, cigarettes and alcohol are relatively cheap. The ten or twenty dollars a teenager might have can go a long way. But what teenager has the $300 for a game console plus $50 per game without getting the money from his parents, which I would interpret as implict approval of their use? (And if a kid does earn that kind of money on his own, he is probably already sufficiently independent of his parents to make it a moot point.)
2.) Cigarettes and alcohol are relatively easy to consume on the sly, and short of never letting a kid out of the house, parents can't directly control what movies they see in theatres with friends. Games, on the other hand, pretty much require a setup that is going to be used at home, where presumably there is usually someone around to supervise. It's not like kids can sneak out after school and hang out in the woods playing GTA with their friends.
Anyway, my point is that the "protect the family" groups fundamentally misrepresent the danger posed to kids by violent games. And it seems especially hypocritical to claim to be "protecting the family" by undermining a parent's authority to have the final say in what is acceptable for their children... The regulation of games serves no purpose except to create the perception that these games are bad and thereby push one people's set of values on another.
I know if I was a kid, the most coveted games for me would be rated "AO" or "M", just because I technically couldn't buy them. As a kid, even if my parents were religious freaks, I would have just gone down the street to my friend's house, whose parents choose to expose their kids to everything instead of locking them up in a bubble.
I think the game manufacturers are probably quite happy with the ESRN simply because it adds an extra incentive to buy that title for kids who "can't". It's kind of like slapping those "explicit lyrics" stickers on CDs...doesn't do a thing.
you mean that *gasp* the video game industry does the EXACT same thing the movie industry has done for years?? I really wonder about the mentality of these censorship groups.
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I laugh at these people. If they only knew what kind of porn their kids were looking at when their not around.
Bunch of dumbasses.
Speaking of which:
so tightenning the standards means more censored games for people of all ages.
It's only censorship when the government does it. When the market does it, it's called "developing a salable product."
We are just not as vocal as the Ralph Reed variety.
I am a Christian. I believe in God. I also read fantasy novels, play D&D, and even play some violent video games. I am also an adult.
I do not press my views on other people, yet I do not hide what I believe when asked.
I can't scare people into heaven, but I can tell them that I have a close relationship with God. Nor do I claim to know everything, or have a perfect understanding of God and religion.
My beliefs are personal, between myself and God. I will let other people develop (or not) the same relationship. I just know it works for me.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
publishers will oftentimes revise and resubmit a game that was initially assigned an AO by raters in an effort to produce an M-rated game.
How is this any different from directors re-editing violent or sexually-explicit movies to avoid the NC-17 rating?
"AO" is understood to mean "pr0n" and therefore most retail outlets will refuse to carry any game with an AO stamped on it.
You can't reach the adult market, let alone the all-important teen market, if your games are "behind the beaded curain" along with the hentai cartoons and Penhouse videos. In the eyes of most consumers, including those who don't mind the sex and/or violence, it's as if the game doesn't even exist unless you can find it at Best Buy and Wal-Mart.
So of course a game which is fated to wear the Scarlet AO is going to be re-edited and re-submitted in hopes of being accepted as an "M" game. Designers would otherwise stand to lose millions of dollars over this.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Blah blah. Any solution that requires any personal responsibility is clearly going to fail, because the number of people who are willing to take any responsiblity for their actions is vanishingly small.
If you have a child, and he gets into a bottle of your pills and kills himself, is it:
A) The childs fault, for not knowing better
B) Your fault, for being careless
C) The pharmaceutical companies fault, for making the pill in the first place
D) The pharmacys fault, for making the pill bottle openable
E) A & B
F) C & D
The right answer is clearly 'B', but it seems like 'F' is the only popular option these days. It's got to be someone's fault, and obviously it couldn't be the parents fault, are you MAD?
Makes me sick. Not to bring up the Bush Corolary of Godwin's Law, but take 9/11. 1 day to happen, 5 years of finger pointing to follow. Why? We can't just say, "Okay, we all screwed up, let's learn something and move on." No no no, we've got to find out exactly whose fault it was that we didn't see it coming, so we can, I don't know, set them on fire or something.
It's getting hard to even blame the government for refusing to take responsibility. Jesus, look what we did to the tobacco companies! I missed the bit where they held people down and made them smoke, but it clearly happened at some point.
We've gotta stop the finger pointing, and man up to some responsiblity. It's freaking absurd.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Well, at least you put "hate" in quotations.
... We have laws against murder because our society could not properly operate without them. God would not want laws against murder, instead he would want everbody to appreciate everyone else enough that we would choose to discuss and resolve our problems instead of resorting to killing each other. Unfortunately, we have not yet achieved this altruistic state, so we do require such laws.
I think what so many of these religion-backed groups are missing (in the case of Christianity) is that God does not want people to enforce their will on others in order to make them moral and ethical people. Instead, God wants people to talk to one another and share the benefits of a moral and ethical life - lead by example, not by leash. God does not want societal laws to mandate morality and ethics in people who do not want to adhere to them. God wants people to appreciate the results of those morals and ethics, and make their own decision to live that life.
To take this point to the extreme, we don't have laws against murder because it is an immoral action, or because the founding fathers were religious and believed this one little religious law would fit fine in our laws
The same goes for many other laws that have existed for a long time - they exist because society as we know it could not survive without them, not because the government has mandated morality and ethics. However, many people dont see this (such as NIMF), and they are wrongly trying to mandate morality and ethics through law.
I absolutely agree with that, my point is that the standards for AO now are fine. A game with porn in it should be rated AO because that's what it is. My concern is over the fact that they want some games that are currently being rated M as AO. I'm not a GTA fan, but I'm sure a lot of adults would be pissed if the next installment was watered down ("sweat" replacing blood a la Mortal Kombat, for example) because the standards became more strict.
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Maybe Christians are tired of seeing the proliferation of these things throughout society, because they see them as harmful to people whether they are Christian or not.
Sucks to be them - what hey see as harmful and what IS harmful are two completely different things
Maybe if more Christians took more of a stand and told people to stop swearing, drinking, screwing around or watching porn the society at large would be more courteous, have less drunk drivers, and broken marriages.
Christianity, especially not fundamentalist christianity, is not the answer to this.
First and foremost you have to prove swearing is harmful - a swear word is just a word, you choose to take offense. Now words can be used in a way that is intended to be harmful - but i can intend to insult you by calling you a "feces eating dog fornicator" without ever swearing.
The very concept of "swear words" is anathemic to free thought
No sexual relationships before marriage is equally unhealthy as too many - just unhealthy in different ways - and no sexual relationship with the person you are going to marry before you marry them can, and does, cause divorces
Drunk driving is unlawful, against even relativistic morals, etc - you don't need religion to say drunk driving is bad- and religion doesn't ameloriate the rate of alcoholism.
Broken marriages now.. that's something really ironic for a fundamentalist to preach about. It has been shown that the divorce rate among the most fundamentalist christians is TWICE that of the divorce rate among atheists and agnostics - and that the divorce rate between the two is pretty much linearaly related to the level of fundamentalism the couple is involved in. A nice example of this is Rush Limbaugh, or my fiancee's biological father is another good example of this.
Sure, anybody can do whatever they want. That doesn't mean that their activities don't end up hurting other people directly or indirectly, Christian or not.
Yep my looking at porn (alone and with my fiancee), farking my fiancee (and only two other girls ever before her), and swearing are really harming you!
oh the humanity!
PS: not all porn is tasteful, stuff that is really degrading to women is not only NOT HOT, but is pretty disgusting
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
...what the movie studios do? A movie is made and goes before the MPAA for rating. MPAA rates it R, but the studios were hoping for a PG-13. The MPAA tells them what they would need to cut for a PG-13 rating, so the studios comply and get the rating they need to sell their movie the way they want. The ESRB also includes some description on the box of the game that says why the game was rated the way it was...i.e. "intense blood and gore" or "drug use", etc. In a way they are doing better jobs than the MPAA. All music CDs say on the front of their packaging is "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics", no mention of how explicit or the subject matter of the explicit areas. So they must suck worse than the MPAA. I don't understand how anyone can be upset with the ESRB rating process other than those who simply do not want the rest of society to have a choice as to how people go about entertaining themselves.
On another note, if the ESRB tightened their ratings, couldn't game vendors get around it by releasing expansion packs that make the game more graphic or explicit, much like "The Sims" has been doing? Rockstar could earn their weight in gold by offering expansions to GTA that make the game "AO" while selling the base game under an "M" rating. Would the expansion pack have to have an "AO" rating even if the expansion pack can not be played on its own, so if a kid bought it they would not be exposed to its content since a kid should not be able to buy an "M" rated game anyway?
Maybe I see certain strains of Christianity as harmful to society.
Maybe I feel that their agenda is responsible for an increase in sexually transmitted diseases, due to their utter refusal to consider educating children about sex.
Maybe I feel that their beliefs are responsible for failures in education which are causing the united states to lose its edge in the global information economy, due to their insistence that science has to conform to their religious dogma.
Maybe I see their beliefs as the root cause for hate crimes, due to the culture of intolerance they foster. It is not difficult to draw a connection between islamic fundamentalism and christian fundamentalism; the christians seem to conveniently forget that we've had two major terroist incidents on US soil: 9/11 and Oklahoma City.
Does that then mean that I can go on a crusade to have them eradicated from our society?
Ask yourself if you really want to take a step into a world where were are allowed to restrict the freedoms of others who use those freedoms to do things we don't agree with.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Maybe if more Christians took more of a stand and told people to stop
If more Christians "practiced what they preach", plain old market forces would instantly result in the nonavailability of these products.
At least in the US, we have somewhere between a 78 and 90% Christian population (according to the last two census). If 90% of people refused to support content that included violence, sex, profanity, blasphemy, science, drugs, firearms, toilet paper, or whatever peeve-of-the-week you want to claim makes the baby Jesus cry, then such content would vanish overnight.
"Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"
Maybe Christians are tired of seeing the proliferation of these things throughout society, because they see them as harmful to people whether they are Christian or not.
If I want to "harm" myself by pretending to blast aliens with my demonic powers while scantily clad CG cheerleaders talk dirty to me, you don't have any say in that.
Deal.
It looks that more and more Taliban-esqe lobbygroups and associations are getting momentum in the US, all these groups do the same thing, that is trying to pull as many rights as can from under the people. All this with cheap excuses as if kids* are in danger.
*Fill in any other group that you can hyjack for your political purposes.
The Taliban moved exactly the same way in Afganistan, slowly poisening society followed by a sudden coup, they also used exactly the same arguments as these right wing socalled christian groups in the US.
More and more I feel for the sane half of the US population.
It always irks me when some NGO feels it's appropriate to issue a 'report card' on any other organization, and even more so when it gets any attention.
The entire concept implies that that writer of the report card has superior knowledge about the issue at hand, like a teacher, and is dispensing wisdom to those lesser informed 'students.'
More often than not, the organization criticized has all the experience there is to be had in that particular field, while the issuers of the 'report card' are just assholes with a questionable, ill-founded agenda.
Moreover, the issuance of a report card is symbolic of a complete lack of humility, something I think most people could use more of. They don't consider themselves adults having a disagreement, they consider themselves unquestionably superior to the ESRB. I'm not particularly religous, but the right amount of humility causes you to seriously reflect on yourself, your motivations and your knowledge before you take decisive action. It also allows you to take criticism constructively instead of ignoring it or lashing out defensively.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
1. Serve God first (not the flag, not your boss, not the IRS, not your family)
In what brainwashed world is God more important then family? Most people would die to protect their loved ones. Most (sane) people would not die for their god -- although the current situation in the Middle East seems to defy this logic.
2. Don't have anger towards God. If life is bad, you didn't prepare properly.
Everything in life can't be prepared for. Can you prepare for a mugging? How about a car accident?
3. Don't worship logos, fads or ipods err idols.
Hahaha, at least we agree on something :)
4. Set aside one day a week to do God's work.
If it works for you.
5. Respect your parents
I know a few abused children that would take exception to this rule.
6. Never kill -- no war is just
That blanket statement is as stupid as people who would assume war is the solution to everything. Fighting aggression is as just as it comes.
7. Don't cheat on your spouse
Can't say I argue with that one.
8. Don't steal - Taxation is theft, currency inflation is theft
Taxation is theft? I'll remember that the next time I'm driving on a paved road. Currency inflation is theft? Sounds more like an economic theory to me. Do you think that reasonable interest on a loan is theft? I'm not trolling -- that's an honest question.
9. Be honest with all your words and actions
Hard to dispute that one.
10. Don't be jealous or control what isn't yours - Zoning laws are wrong, business regulations are wrong, slavery is wrong (the draft)
Zoning laws are wrong? How is the community deciding what to do with a community resource wrong? How is the community deciding to regulate a business that was harming the community wrong? It's pretty easy to be anti-zoning laws until somebody builds a toxic waste dump right next to your house.
God commands this of me. Nowhere does he say "force others to do these things"
That's nice. And what I'm about to say may or may not apply to you -- but I'm just as disgusted by people with morally superior attitudes who don't "force" it on other people as I am by people who do. We live in a community of human beings. That community begins with your family includes your neighbors, your countrymen and ultimately the planet. I have a hard time putting a deity that I can't prove exists before that community.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Why can't there be more Christians like you?
There are, but most of us are adults with kids to raise, jobs to do, and (hopefully) fun lives to lead, just like anyone else. That means we generally don't have the time, energy, or commitment to raise a high, holy stink every time the world acts upon its free will, so we don't get a whole lot of media attention.
As a Christian, there are more opportunities to make positive, constructive differences in my life and the lives of my friends, family, and local community than I have time to do them in. I sure as heck do not have time to be some 19th century knuckle-dragging Creationist, or whatever else the Religious Mediahounds are carrying on about. As Austin said, "Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are."
Peace.
Of course, this is very similar to the movie industry. If the movie got rated NC-17, it wouldn't be shown in most mainstream theaters, and thus it gets edited until it gets an R rating. When a movie that is directed at the 12-15 year old market gets an R rating, they usually try to get it down to PG-13 so as to attract more of their intended audience. What is so wrong with this? If you rely too much on the rating system to make decisions for your children, you have more problems then how good a job the ESRB is doing.
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.
Check out my website: Playfully Clever
It's bad because Wal-Mart doesn't sell AO games. (Nor do a number of other major retailers...)
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The fallacy of your statement is that most of us grew up with game stores where nearly every game was made and marketed for kids. You haven't understood or followed the change in the industry because it was happening while you grew up.
When you were a kid you could play nearly every game in the store. Imagine an eight year old now and nearly a third of the games they see, they can't play because they are not age appropriate.
I suggest, as a Christian, that you follow God's 10 commandments rather than your invented list of 10 commandments which talk about taxation and zoning laws.
But no, let's legislate the fuck out of the video-game industry because Hillary Clinton is running for president.
Speaking as one who is not thrilled at the prospect of Senator Clinton becoming our next president, I can think of nothing better than for her to roll through the primaries trumpeted as the politician who torpedoed the GTA and Resident Evil game franchises.
All McCain would need at that point would be one photo op of him trying out the PS3, and he's have the "Rock the Vote" crowd abandoning the party of George Soros in record numbers.
Can we get them banned?
They're using false logic in saying there should always be a certain percentage of games rated AO. That means no matter how bland and boring the games are, there's still some rated AO. Then games are forced to be blander and blander.
I've seen a FEW games this years that should have been rated higher,
So you're saying they're right -there are games out there rated M that should be AO? Is so, where's the problem?
Seriously, the 1st post has it right. Two competing entities each saying they're better than the other. Two companies providing information on which parents can make informed decisions. That's a good thing. What's the problem?
I haven't seen any single game go BEYOND what your typical R rated film does. Look how gory and disturbing The Devil's Rejects was (that is a good thing, btw)! That received an R.
Besides, M and AO aren't that different. M is 17+ and AO is *gasp* 18+. One year doesn't make a bit of difference.
Every game has a movie equivalent. So what game you wanna pick on? GTA? Then let's go after Goodfellas, Casino, or The Godfather.
You don't like Doom or Quake? Let's go after Aliens.
So in reality, the rating system is just fine. The problem here is that we put people in charge who think it's perfectly acceptable to push their bullshit moral agenda onto everyone else. Another problem is that those in charge are naive and ignorant, and dismiss video games as something "only children play".
If there's really that big of a problem with mature games falling into the hands of younger players, perhaps people should use their head and point the fingers at the parents. When they get the complaint about the game (otherwise, why do they care?), the person filing the complaint should ask the parents, "Where were you and what were you doing to let this happen? Sounds like a family communication issue."
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
My boy is 5 years old.
Here is a list of the things I don't want him exposed to,
1) TV news, especially local news. Seriously, watch the news tonight, count how many random murders, rapings, child abductions and deadly car accidents they describe in gruesome detail. I counted 13 reports of people dying on a local Tuesday night news report. Talk about scarring the SHIT out of children. Show a picture of a cute little blond haired blue eyed girl and then show a picture of this grisly looking bald drunk that kidnapped and rapped her home while her mother watched. Show the mom on the news crying. You want to fuck up your kids, let them watch the nightly news. The news glorifies and lingers on REAL horror and violence. Not appropriate for children or adults. Should be rated XXXX.
2) Really scary movies, I would never let him watch the excorcist because I don't need him waking me up at 3:00 in the morning telling me he hears a scratching sound on his wall, because that would scare the hell out of me. Movies that scare the shit out of young children should be rated XXX.
3) McDonalds, Must be 18 or older to enter. I can't count the number of parents who shove that processed food stuff in front of little children because their to lazy to make them something healthy to eat. Your kid weighs 300 pounds in 3rd grade and seeing a set of tits is his problem. Fat kids should be allowed to see porn, it might be enough motivation for them to lose weight once they realize they are never going to get laid being that fat.
4) pop and candy, my little boys best friends, both 4, eat a shitload of candy. Their parents are always giving us shit because we won't give our kid candy or pop, with the exception of cake at birthday parties. Both those 4 year olds have had multiple cavities. Once again, multiple times they have been to the dentist to get teeth drilled. We took our son in a few weeks ago for the first time. The dentist says it was quite rare to see a kid his age with such perfect teeth. If all that candy and shit is rotting our kids teeth out, what the hell is it doing to their insides, but why focus on that when we can focus on complete bullshit like kids shooting a virtual gun.
5) Dumb kids, everybody has met stupid adults, well guess what, those stupid adults were once stupid kids. Those people didn't become stupid when they grew up, they have always been stupid. I know their are some kids stupid enough to believe that video games are real. Ain't shit you can do to help these kids. They are STUPID. It wouldn't matter if it was a video or movie, some jackasses will mimic anything they see. My solution, create bullshit rating systems... oh wait, a better idea, teach my kid to pick out stupid kids and learn to avoid their presense at all cost, just like the rest of us do with stupid adults. I don't walk up and start a conversion with a drunk walking down the street with shit stains on his ass. Same thing goes for my kid, if he sees a kid sitting in the corner of his classroom eating his own snot, I tell my kid he should stay the fuck away from that kid because he will one day be that shit-stained drunk.
Here is a list of things I could care less if he sees,
1) GTA or any violent video game, he knows its no more real than pretending to have a gun in his hand and his friend having a pretend arrow. GTA, is just cowboys and indians 2000 version. My choices are, sitting down and playing these terrible games with my kid and explaining their all just make believe and showing him how offended I am at some parts of the game which helps him understand what is and isn't acceptable in real life, or letting him end up playing it anyway at some other kids house with his only influence being the other kid, the same kid who's parents would allow him to have a game like GTA and have his friend come over to play it without first asking the other parent if this is ok.
2) Nudity, seriously,
Indeed, and you even forgot the two easiest ways to get a little more involved and finding exactly what the "objectionable content" is... Not only do all games have the ESRB rating on the front, but on the back is the list of reasons why that rating was given. And lets not forget one of the most effective ways to figure out a games content... Ask. Any good store that sells a significant number of video games should have someone who can give you an idea of the content of a specific game. If a store doesn't have someone who can, then it is not a good place to shop for video games.
You'd think this kind of stuff would be common sense, but it seems its up to us to educate people on this stuff.
Shoot Pixels, Not People!
My job as the Bible mandates is to enforce responsibility in my brothers and sisters in Christ, and be a model for non-believers. I can not control a non-believer and using Caesar to do so is wrong.
I just want to thank you for starting this thread. In it's responses, I'm finding there are a lot more Christians just like me, and I'm adding them (and you) to my "friends" list.
It's refreshing to see others in my faith who are not intent on converting the world by force. Jesus said to spread the good word, not to force it upon people. If someone isn't interested in religion, no big deal, we can still be friends (as long as he isn't bitter enough to hate Christians).
Christian groups who want to stomp sin out of everyone's lives by creating a police state are just as bad as athiests who want to stomp God out of everyone's lives. Why can't we all sit down, chill out, and respect - or at least tolerate - one another?
Yes, but a game with sex and tits in it that is _not_ porno should be considered on the same metrics as a film with those features. Since there are R rated movies with lots of sex in them (i.e. Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut") then a game should be held to the same standards before being discarded as pr0n.
What do you want to bet that such a game would be AO?
Oh, and as an aside: the NIMF does not publicize who funds them. For all anyone knows, they're funded by the DVD industry who wants to main the game industry so that people will rent more movies. That should set off alarm bells to everyone - even the "they have a point" folks. At least we know who pays the ESRB.
Ok, I agree with most of what you said, but I will lay out the parts I didn't catch too well.
These are known as Guidelines, the ratings are Guidelines for the issuance of the games, and sadly enough the Christian "Save Our Family" movement has weilded them to their benefit. They have become what most of these "Watchdog" groups turn into. They become near Socialist in their implimentation of what they view is "good for you".
Games are meant to be played by everyone, and of course there's going to be people who like "Leisure Suit Larry: Unrated and Uncut", and those who will like "My Princess Pony: The Makeup Game" or something like that. But to purposefuly mark these games with ratings that would kill thair sales is akin to barring a certain artish or writer to publish his work because it "isn't nice". Anyone seeing the parallel I'm making here?
I might be one of the few, but I view games as Artwork, as well as amusement. Someone had to think up the concept and guide it through the evolution from code to graphics to controls to beta testing to make sure his baby was perfect. In essence, he worked as hard as Picasso to bring us something for our enjoyment. So why can't his works be set out to the public arena for scrutinization. If Mommy and Daddy don't want little Suzie to play "Guts And Gore, Entrails Galore", then they shouldn't buy it for little Suzie. Plain and simple.
But this rant also goes to the stores who buy the games to sell. Shame on you for stifling artwork! Shame on you for saying that someone's hard work and perserverance doesn't pay off, Shame On You!
Rant done, thank you for your time.
" i r 1337. j00 a l0z3r "
That talk kinda makes you cry, doesn't it?
That's right..cry those nerdly tears
Hot Coffee didn't deserve an AO rating anyways. Yes, it was explicit sex. Guess what, tons of movies have explicit sex, and they get rated R, not NC17. Until either (a) the whole point of the movie is explicit sex, and (b) they show genitalia, it's still rated R.
Consider that Eyes Wide Shut got rated R for sex. Meanwhile, GTA:SA, with one little sex scene, got effectively rated NC-17 (and thus unviable in stores) for sex.
The game industry could loosen their standards and still be further than the movie industry. It's just that grumpy old people like movies better than games.
If any government-driven media rating should go on, it would have to be across-the-board to be fair. Everything from comics to TV shows. Otherwise, it gives competing businesses an advantage. You think that comics and games and movies don't all compete with each other for kids' eyeballs?
When everything I can buy or watch is not censored because "some" people are offended by them. I am an adult and I should not be treated like a child because other people don't agree or don't like some things... Unfortunately this probably means I will have to move out of the US.
Now i'm off to go play some Far Cry multiplayer with my 9 and 10 year old (seeing who can do the best ramp jumps in the drivable boats) woot!
There is absolutely nothing anyone can say that can't be made absurd by taking it in your own mind to rediculous lengths the original utterer never even implied, and then asking the sort of questions you've chosen. With this method any pro-death penalty arguement can be shot down with a quick "So I suppose you're for hanging litterers then?". Any anti-death penalty arguement can equally be shot down with "So we just let murderers and rapists go free then?".
There is not one, single thing you yourself can positively assert that isn't subject to this sort of undercutting, and you are using a weapon that, if its fair to use it here, makes every single opinion you yourself hold automatically foolish in turn when it's used on you.
Your approach is why lawyers write 300 page contracts that spell out every last detail of what we aren't allowed to do with software - because some fool says "But what if I use a hex editor - it isn't decompiling it if I don't use a complier backwards, is it? So we get 30 synonyms for reverse engineering in one EULA.
There's such a thing as shedding more light on a subject, and there's creating a smoke cloud instead. You're trying for a nasty black cloud here - does the mere thought the 10 commandments might be genuinely divinely inspired scare you that much? (Yes, I just stooped to somewhere still well above your level, and it's still admittedly a cheap shot.)
Who is John Cabal?
---Penn (from Penn & Teller) said it best, "You do not have the right not to be offended." I'm an adult and as an adult, I expect that there will be things that are available to me that are not available to children. We have a whole host of them that we as a society have deemed unsuitable. The include things like booze, porn, and cigarettes just to name the three most notable examples.
.. You know what the biggest "thing" to do in middle school is? Any guess? It aint sex, as Bill Clinton put it. Yeah, oral sex. 12 year olds in middle school do this.. Now tell me that a few pics of Playboy would hurt em... Screw that, take them to an art museum and show them the many pictures and portraits of nudes. They evidently didnt think the human body was "bad". Pictures dont give veneral diseases.
---While I'm not a big proponent of any of these three, I think that they should be available for the adults who wish to indulge. Are they suitable for kids? No. Would I give any of the above to an eight year old? No.
I absolutely DO NOT agree with you. First, the 3 products you mentioned do not have a good age limit on them. Thanks to USDOT and Congress, they have made very state the limit to drink 21, which is UNFAIR to us citizens. I can fight for this goddamned country and get bullets in my head and knifed along my throat in the military, but how dare I drink a drop of beer. As a note, I first started "drinking" at 6. Yes, it was one of those small port glasses filled 1/4 of the way (very little, but with our supper). That never killed me.
Next, smoking... Most kids who smoke already have smoker parents who they steal cigs off of and cant smell their kids cig smell. Wow. If they want a shorter life, well, fuck em. Not my problem. You can thank those parents.
Wow, porn.
Still, my biggest beef is how courts try so many people as an adults. If they were GODDAMNED ADULTS, they'd have the same rights as adults. Surprise, they dont! Since they want to try kids as young as 10 as adults, I want drinking, porn, smoking, and voting rights extended to that age. There's been young leaders of whole nations who've died younger than our "citizenship" age.
They gave the ESRB an F for ratings accuracy because M games have gotten racier. Well duh! Games have actually gotten a lot more graphic in the last 10 years. And I suspect the success of the GTA franchise has made a large contribution to this trend.
But the conclusion they are drawing is incorrect. M rated games aren't supposed to be sold to young children anyway. So the fact that these games are even more inappropriate is moot. It's like that old expression, "the food is bad and the portions are small."
---Look, we as a society have set boundaries for things that we as a society consider to be "unsuitable" for children. Children are not given drivers licenses, allowed to enter into contracts, and cannot legally give consent for sex. Perhaps you'd like to extend that to 10 year olds as well? My point about the booze was that a 10 year old cannot go to the liquor store and make a purchase on their own.
Actually, children (15 and up) can get drivers licenses. They do cosign with an adult though, but nonetheless, are given legal rights for such. Also, "children" can consent to sex, as long as the state has posted statutory rape laws with certain ages. In Indiana (where Im from) that age is 16. 16 and above can consent.
---Seriously, be reasonable. I know plenty of 12 year olds. I come from a very large family. While I don't have spycam's on them 24-7, I'm pretty sure that they're not having Clinton sex or any other kind of sex. Most of them still think the opposite sex is "gross" or "has cooties". I'd say you might want to find a better neighborhood to live in if the 12 year olds are getting busy. Perhaps you should move out of what ever backwoods place you live in since the "old enough bleed, old enough to breed" philosophy seems to be in force.
Easy for you to say. Try driving by that high school when they let out. Many of them look lke 20 year olds by the way they develop. Along with that, what do you expect from the way they dress? I even had a cousin who was recently in middle school.. She said the biggest thing around school was herpes in the mouth. Turns out kids of this generation do not equate vaginal sex with oral sex. One of the very bad things from that are rather nasty viral mouth infections.
That school was bad enough that it actually made the newspaper. Similar stories are around here too (1 hour south of Indianapolis). And thanks to forcing sexual (and drug DARE prop.) talks on kids at such an early age stimulates them to want it.
---While I do agree that if you are old enough to be drafted, you ought to be old enough to drink. Frankly, I think that the legal age of responsibility ought to be raised to 21. No voting, no draft, no drinking, until that age. You obviously aren't old enough to recall when the drinking age was 18. The drinking age was raised because of the number of alcohol related deaths among those 18-21. A large number of them were from alcohol poisoning. The draft age was also originally 21 but was lowered during the Vietnam war because the Fed's ran out of 21 year olds. I find the fact that it's never been raised back up to be a bit disturbing.
I very much agree with this. All I want is a standard that once you hit a certain age, you're it. Other than limits like becoming a congresscritter, senator or president, you should have absolutely full rights of a citizen. None of this half-assed "can die for country, but cant drink" crap.
---My personal opinion is that if you think you're old enough to commit an adult crime like rape, armed robbery, murder, etc. then you're old enough to be tried as an adult. I don't know about where you live, but that's generally how it works here in Texas. We don't try 10 year olds as an adult for swiping a Snicker's bar from the 7-11. We will try a 10 year old as an adult for something like pre-meditated murder, though.
I believe in Indiana, it's about the same. We also fry bad people too, though not as much. I do think the 1000'th will be one of ours. Though my problem is you should never be treated as an adult unless you have the full rights of an adult. When you're a child, you are taught from all around you. Tells me that severe remediation should be used instead until they become an adult. Now, when they rape/murder a passerby in a side alley at night, fry the fucker. Im not for throwing somebody away, but sometimes, thats exactly what is needed. Texas got that right. I just dont agree when they should be dumped.
---In all seriousness, I wouldn't want a kid like that in my neighborhood. If you li
A) The childs fault, for not knowing better
B) Your fault, for being careless
C) The pharmaceutical companies fault, for making the pill in the first place
D) The pharmacys fault, for making the pill bottle openable
E) A & B
F) C & D
The right answer is clearly 'B',
No, the right answer is B & D, if in fact the pill was potentially harmful but not in a child proof bottle.
Personal responsibility is great, as long as it doesn't involve absolving others of their responsibilities in the process. Perfect example:
I missed the bit where they held people down and made them smoke, but it clearly happened at some point.
You missed the bit where nicotine was discovered to be one of the most highly addictive substances, in particular in terms of difficulty of quitting, despite the under-oath testimony of tabacco executives to the contrary?
Did smokers make a mistake they need to take responsibility for when they took up smoking? Absolutely. Did the tobacco executives make criminal mistakes that they need to be held accountable for when they advertised an addictive product, suppressed research regarding it's true effect while creating fake research that claimed it was harmless? Absolutely.
Any sense of "personal responsibility" that requires that only one party can have any responsibility is nonsense.
Any sense of "personal responsibility" that absolves the makers of an addictive product of guilt for lying about the nature of that product for decades is the opposite of responsibility.
The enemies of Democracy are