Bethesda Responds To Oblivion Re-Rating

Gamespot has details on Bethesda's response to the ESRB for their (some would argue) knee-jerk reaction to fan-added elements of Oblivion. From the article: "There is no nudity in Oblivion without a third party modification. In the PC version of the game only - this doesn't apply to the Xbox 360 version - some modders have used a third party tool to hack into and modify an art archive file to make it possible to create a mesh for a partially nude (topless) female that they add into the game. Bethesda didn't create a game with nudity and does not intend that nudity appear in Oblivion." They go on to state they submitted a 60-page document detailing the violence in the game. If anyone is at fault here, I think it's the ESRB.

Comments

Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st cent

[elrous0]

You know one day we'll look back on the pre-Bush era in America as a golden age of freedom, where we acted more out of the desire to maintain our freedom than out of fear, paranoia, and ludicrous overreaction. We are now approaching the point where even the POSSIBILITY of an product's use is grounds for censorship or federal legislation, no matter how many might use that product legitimately.

Don't want the NSA monitoring your phone calls? Sorry, there is the POTENTIAL that terrorists could use it to call other terrorists.

Want to use myspace to talk with your friends? Sorry, there is the POTENTIAL that a pedophile might use it to harm you.

Want to mod your videogame? Sorry, there is the POTENTIAL someone could modify it to show more nudity or violence.

Want freedom of the press? Sorry, there is the POTENTIAL that something the press reveals could compromise our security.

Don't want the government to secretly demand all your Google search records, library book records, video store rentals, etc.? Sorry, there is the POTENTIAL that one of these could have been used by a terrorist to learn how to make a bomb.

-Eric

This is insane.

[incubuz1980]

People could paste a picture of "a partialy nude female" on their monitor while playing any game?

All games sould be rated M?

Hackers could possibly hack the ESRB website and add a picture of "a partialy nude female" on the site.

Sould the ESRB website be rated M?

Re:This is insane.

[iainl]

Pictochat on the DS should definitely be AO by that principle, judging from some of the things I've seen people draw...

Re:This is insane.

[Anonymous Coward]

Um don't let the ESRB know about my desktop, all games would be rated AO.

Re:This is insane.

[Surt]

I think the ESRB's (or really the people pressuring the ESRB's) argument is that if the game comes with the data, it should be rated for that data, even if the default codepath will never show that data. Personally, I think developers should just go along with this, and maybe start offering rated and unrated versions of their games like the movies do. The smart thing to do in general, though, is to be very very strict and compliant when you've made the decision to be compliant. Otherwise you're seen as trying to undermine a system that to many people has legitimate value.

Re:This is insane.

[earnest murderer]

This seems as good a place as any for a mention of maddox's "I just wanted a video game, not eternal damnation in hell.".

"What pisses me off more than anything is that I paid for a game rated for 17 year olds, or possibly 17 and 1/2 year olds, tops. What I got was a game rated for 18 year olds instead." - Maddox

Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Winterblink]

One could apply the same thinking to the original Hot Coffee debacle, that the content was only accessible via a third party hack. They got rerated, but somehow Bethesda wants to be treated differently?

I'm not saying I'm agreeing with this kind of crap, but it's nobody's fault but their own for including the content inside the game in some capacity and not cleaning it out after GTA suffered the same fate. They should just suck it up, and enjoy the free publicity.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[pezpunk]

if it's not in the game, the game should not be judged on that criteria. in order to see the pornographic content, users had to VIOLATE THEIR TERMS OF USE of the game. those pornographic images weren't in the game that rockstar sold. they were locked away and completely inaccessible, unless users broke the user agreement they agreed to when they installed the game.

it is the same as rating a movie based on scenes that were cut out, only visible by breaking and entering the studio editing room.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[greyfeld]

Apparently, you are misunderstanding the difference between Oblivion and GTA's "Hot Coffee" content. GTA had the sexually explicit content, a man and women engaged in a graphical depiction of sex, built into the game. This content was released by TakeTwo in all versions (Xbox, Playstation, PC, etc) of the game. Yes it did take a 3rd-party hack to unlock the content, but the content was an actual piece of code included in the game when purchased at retail.

Oblivion, on the other hand, does not have that content shipped with the game. It cannot be unlocked because it doesn't exist. What Bethesda did do, was make a tool set available so that players could make their own content for the game. There are dozens of player created mods available with new content that you can add to the PC VERSION ONLY. One of these player created mods happens to be a naked woman model.

Bethesda is complaining that this content was not included in the product that they shipped and thus they should not be rated on content they are not selling. I happen to agree with that. How can they be held responsible for something they really have no control over? If you buy a circular saw and proceed to cut off your hand, should the circular saw manufacturer be held accountable for your stupidity?

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[rabbot]

There was no nude content included in the game. Please read the article.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[PFI_Optix]

The difference with Hot Coffee was that the content was part of the game, people simply gained access to it.

This is like rating Half-Life AO because someone might release a multiplayer porn mod.

For that matter...have you *SEEN* some of the stuff that's been done with Garry's Mod?

HL2...it's not for kids any more. (not that it ever was, but whatever).

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[lbrandy]

One could apply the same thinking to the original Hot Coffee debacle, that the content was only accessible via a third party hack. They got rerated, but somehow Bethesda wants to be treated differently?

Yes, it could apply if we take two fundamentally different situations and irrationally apply the same logic, then yes. The "Hot Coffee" material was unlocked by a third party, and the Oblivion material was created by a third party. If your game can be modded and hacked into a mature game, then you should be a mature game? The game that comes on the disc contains nothing sexually explicit, locked or unlocked... you have to literally go out onto the web and download the explicit artfile yourself. If being able to "go out on the internet and download porno into the game" is sufficient grounds for calling something mature.. that's a wee bit ridiculous. Every game ever moddable, then, should be rated mature... since modders can make them mature at will.

Rockstar has mature materials actually on the game disc.. they created it, they sold it. It wasn't accessible, but it was there. It was their code with their name on it. I consider that situation to be materially different than Oblivion is getting blamed for art NOT on their game disc.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Zebadias]

This is not all true, in oblivion the females are naked under there tops in the relece of the game, the mod just removes the bra.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[twistedsymphony]

While I don't agree with the GTA decision or the ES4 decision there is a distinct difference.

In GTA the content WAS ON THE DISC, it might not have been accessible but it was on there. In ES4 the content didn't even exist, some user created it and added it into the game themselves.

Imagine this, you buy a computer with a hidden and locked folder that contains vulgar content... You don't know it exists but someone finds it out and starts telling people how to hack their computers to get at it... THIS is GTA.

Now Imagine you buy a computer with NO hidden or locked content at all. Someone starts a porn site on the internet and starts telling people how to download it to their computers... THIS is ES4

You might as well not sell computers, cameras, or even pens and pencils to minors because they might be inclined, to download, take pictures of, or draw their own nudity.

I think the REAL kicker is the 360 version, not having it's rating upped for nudity but for violence and gore, which according to Bethesda they noted as the highest possible level when submitting the game for review. It just shows the ESRB's incompetence, and THAT is the sort of thing that starts to draw the attention from the political types.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[AnyNoMouse]

Oblivion, on the other hand, does not have that content shipped with the game. It cannot be unlocked because it doesn't exist. What Bethesda did do, was make a tool set available so that players could make their own content for the game. There are dozens of player created mods available with new content that you can add to the PC VERSION ONLY. One of these player created mods happens to be a naked woman model.

Actually, that's not entirely true, at least in the PC version of the game.

In the packed BSA files there is a nude female mesh torso with a nude female texture associated to it. This mesh is meant to be used with armor and clothing to allow skin to show (arms, neck, upper chest, stomach, etc). The first nude mod released for Morrowind was simply this nude mesh and texture extraced from the BSA archive, renamed and placed in the proper directory.

As proof of this, Bethesda has not released a .nif exporter for Oblivion and only recently have people been able to create models for the game purely through the efforts of a few people reverse engineering the format (it's hardly complete and the support for models is limited at the moment).

Of course, I don't think it will be possible to use this mesh on the 360 version and Bethesda's 1.1 beta patch removes the nipples on the texture. Also, the nude mesh is horribly deformed to make it fit to clothing necklines better.

Just wanted to point out what the reality of the situation is... I think Bethesda is in the right on this matter (and Rockstar as well, btw).

-MD

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Winterblink]

That's an interesting point, but again I'm not agreeing with either case to be honest. Both required a third party to intervene in some capacity either through a hack to show content already there, or a mod to introduce the content.

Personally I don't think either company should be held responsible in their individual cases, but with the legal and regulatory systems so heavily based on precedence there's not much Bethesda can do here.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Shihar]

This is not all true, in oblivion the females are naked under there tops in the relece of the game, the mod just removes the bra.

Yeah? And I am naked under my clothes too. Quick, someone slap an M for mature on my ass.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[ultranova]

if it's not in the game, the game should not be judged on that criteria. in order to see the pornographic content, users had to VIOLATE THEIR TERMS OF USE of the game.

The horror. The user failed to follow orders from someone who sold a game to you, given after the deal had been made.

I'm starting to approach the point of equating the word "license" with the word "fraud". The reason is that while you buy the game from a store, you apparently don't own it, just a license to use it, and that license can be revoked and altered in any way at any time by the seller (sorry, licenser) of the game.

those pornographic images weren't in the game that rockstar sold. they were locked away and completely inaccessible, unless users broke the user agreement they agreed to when they installed the game.

So those images weren't in the game, but they were there, just locked away and inaccessible ? I'm confused, which one is it ?

it is the same as rating a movie based on scenes that were cut out, only visible by breaking and entering the studio editing room.

Except that breaking and entering into Rockstar's studio would be illegal and wrong, while failure to follow a unilateral declaration given after a sale by the seller attempting to alter the terms of the deal after it has been made is not wrong - dunno if it's illegal, copyright laws don't have much to do with common sense.

So it's the same, except that it's completely different.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[ultranova]

One could apply the same thinking to the original Hot Coffee debacle, that the content was only accessible via a third party hack. They got rerated, but somehow Bethesda wants to be treated differently?

Propably because the case is different. In the case of Hot Coffee, there was sex in the game, it simply required special measures to unlock it. In the case of Oblivion, there's none, but someone made a nude model and imported it into the game.

The real question is, in games where hundreds or thousands are killed with fists, swords and machine guns, why is the deciding factor of making these "adults only" whether someones breasts are showing or not ? I saw breasts for the first time before I was a day old, and don't have any psychopathic tendencies I am aware of...

...Altought this cellar does seem to accumulate more bones every night. Strange.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[baadfood]

Dude. I hate to point this out, But you had to go out onto the net to download the HotCoffee mod too.

By which, you assertion that "If being able to "go out on the internet and download porno into the game" is sufficient grounds for calling something mature.. that's a wee bit ridiculous.", yes, rating GTA mature *was* a bit ridiculous.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Bellewether]

The difference between the Coffeegate and the current Breastsgate scandal was that the GTA material was clearly intended to be lewd. The Oblivion assets only exist for technical purposes and, unlike the GTA stuff, was never meant to be seen- not just locked out before release, but NEVER meant to be implemented as a visible gameplay element.

The Breastsgate scandal is akin to looking at Da Vinci's sketch of The Vitruvian Man, meant as a study of anatomical proportions, and calling it obscene. Schlong or tit alone does not obscenity make, one would hope.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[garylian]

Bingo! Thank you for pointing this out.

The same ratings re-do could be done for a whole lot of games. I haven't seen "The Sims" or "The Sims2" being re-rated. Those were all rated T for Teen, and it won't take anyone more than a few minutes to Google for mods to have nude characters. This includes males skins with jutting erections.

The ESRB would have to re-rate literally dozens of games for this. This is a really bad precedent.

Now, where did I put my copy of NWN with the modded Aribeth model???? Put that new skin with that voice... Hubba Hubba!

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[happyemoticon]

Dude, I'm totally going to make a mod for Oblivion where Adolf Hitler guns down a hundred Redguards while sodomozing an underage Khajiit as a party of Dunmer in turbans burns the american flag. In the background, thanks to the Distant Lands LOD, you will see an endless sea of nude Imperial wenches singing an a capella version of "Flight of the Valkyries." Bethesda's going to be in so much trouble!

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Grab]

Nope - Bethesda shipped CDs which included this "nude" texture. You'd have to be some kind of nut to do that in the US and expect *not* to get into some kind of trouble.

I agree with you - the real question is why the US is so uptight about flesh when (a) all the RnB acts sing about nothing else and (b) the cinemas, TV and games are full of blood and guts. But this isn't something that Bethesda can control, any more than RockStar can control whether some nutjob goes out with a gun goes out to shoot Haitians - in that case the problem is the lack of restriction of nutjobs to guns. Yes, these questions need to be asked, and they are being asked. But until the conservative US gets its collective underwear from between its collective ass-cheeks, we're fucked.

Grab.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Ayaress]

The Hot Coffee content was included in the game. The textures, animations - the whole bit. The hack to unlock it was, in fact, almost trivial, and could be done without downloading the 6 kilobyte crack to unlock it.

The Oblivion nude mod is completely third party. It requires the use of a dowloaded addon and the addition of new texture and model files to the data folder. The simmilar mod for Morrowind weighed in at about 12 megabytes, and if the same people are behind this one, they would have cranked the detail up even more - their major justification for the mod had always been the less insectile look of the characters.

The difference is pretty clear: The ESRB rates games based on all content included on the disk. It's hidden, but it's still there. They can't rate games based on things users make and add to the game themselves, like they are with Oblivion.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Saige]

From what I've heard from game devs, with the sheer amount of art assets that exist in games today, it's near impossible for them to keep track of which ones are being used and which aren't, and that combing through them all to make sure everything is good beforehand would be a very mind-numbing, time-consuming, gargantuan task.

So not only was there this art that was not intended to be shown ever, it's likely that nobody there even knew it was present, and sure if they had known, it would have been removed.

I think it's totally ridiculous that a rating would be changed because of the presence of one image that required third-party modification to even view.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference between the Coffeegate and the current Breastsgate scandal was that the GTA material was clearly intended to be lewd. The Oblivion assets only exist for technical purposes and, unlike the GTA stuff, was never meant to be seen- not just locked out before release, but NEVER meant to be implemented as a visible gameplay element.

The alleged purpose of the ESRB ratings is to allow parents to determine what material they want their kids to have access to. In achieving that purpose, the intention of the game makers must surely be irrelevant. The questions are whether the material exists and how easy it is for kids to access it.

Which isn't to say that either game should have been rerated, but unless the ESRB ratings are intended to serve a different purpose to that claimed then the intentions of the authors must be irrelevant - it's what can actually be accessed that matters.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Vo0k]

and Bethesda's 1.1 beta patch removes the nipples on the texture.
Fuck, so that's why my darkelf girl has no nipples! Assholes didn't mention this in the release notes! If I knew I wouldn't install the patch!

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Anonymous Coward]

I realize that this attck is all politically motivated, but there were nude female skins for the original Unreal Tournament. I got them from a CD with the last issue of some gaming magazine (I forget the name) that was not to be published any more.
And those skins were pretty graphic (for their time). It seemed a little sick to me to be shooting a naked female. It was a different time, and I'm not sure how widely circulated those skins were so there was no public outcry. I'm trying to imagine what Tipper Gore (of Parent's Music Resource Center (PMRC) fame, see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMRC) or her modern equivalent would do with this today.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Bellewether]

The alleged purpose of the ESRB ratings is to allow parents to determine what material they want their kids to have access to.

Yeah, definitely. But the sex and violence the ESRB looks at ought to be viewed within some sort of reasonable context, or the exercise just becomes ridiculous. Take violence- the ESRB, quite rightly, doesn't harsh on exaggerated cartoon violence the way it does realistic violence. Mario's dumping Bowser into a pit of *lava* is arguably a lot crueler than one of the GTA guys putting a bullet through someone's head, but common sense tells us the latter is the bigger deal.

Especially now that 3D models are so widely used and there's real potential to see this repeated with other games that have no intention of causing offense, there has to be some sort of Miller test applied if the exercise is going to be at all meaningful. Oblivion's nude character models would clearly pass the Miller test, as they aren't intended to arouse a prurient (or ANY) reaction. So I agree with the first part of your post- but the intention of the author, and whether a *well-informed* observer would agree that it falls in line with popular standards of decency, are a lot more important than you said they are. Without them you get reductivistic analyses that ignore common sense, and the debate devolves to the level of "OMG, a TIT. EVERYONE PANIC."

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Criterion]

"So those images weren't in the game, but they were there, just locked away and inaccessible ? I'm confused, which one is it ?"

Don't be confused. It's both. Your logic flaw is considering the disk and the game to be the same thing, which they are clearly not.

Those images weren't in the game that Rockstar sold. True. The game had no mechanism whatsoever for you to access those images, as they were not a part of the game that was being sold. The images were on the disk, locked and inaccessible from the game.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Nazo-San]

Actually, please reread what people have said. Or buy/borrow the game, get a BSA extractor and extract the data from the game files. In the archive, inside the meshes is one LABELED female_nude or something along those lines (I don't remember exactly what it was called off the top of my head since I just passed by it and laughed at the thought that they actually put that in there and clearly must have changed it after when someone decided to switch from M rating to T as their target.) The fact is, Bethesda did indeed create this original mesh and textures to go along with it and did pack it into the final game along with a lot of other stuff they should have removed (they left a few test files and such in there, taking up extra space that will never be used in the final game.) They are just upset because this means they loose some of their target crowd. For some reason, with Oblivion, Bethesda decided "screw the PC audience, XBox is where we'll get all the dough" and decided to really do a poor job on the PC port (yes, I call it a PC port because it was obviously created for XBox360 and then we get the benefit of it being PC too just because they are so nice.) Don't take my word for it, just look through their own forums. You'll see a number of fans finding out the hard way that they didn't put the proper effort into the PC version at all. Actually, it's a little dissapointing that they still let a few bugs slip into the XBox360 version, but, there's just no excuse for things such as the performance and stability problems that flood the PC version.

Anyway, they'll get over it. Everyone knows kids still get the M rated games through their parents if nothing else. Darn, when I was a kid I asked for a copy of Doom for my birthday and my parents didn't even LOOK at the rating. They've gotten a little more concious about it in the modern day, but, they still have a tendency to not really care much so long as it doesn't feature nudity or something (and, ah, this is where Bethesda gets upset since that's the one thing parents WILL go into a panic about their children seeing.)

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Criterion]

Apparently, you are misunderstanding reality. They are both peices of code that were shipped on the disk, but not part of the game as sold.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[rabbot]

Oh I completely agree they did a half assed job on the PC version. I bought the PC version when it was released and was very disappointed.

I was refering to what Bethesda stated in their response about the ESRB rating change. They stated that there is no nude content in the game. Is there any confirmation that these nude meshes were anything more than skin color textures with no detail whatsoever?

The fact remains, the ESRB should not be making changes based off of 3rd party mods. At the most they should have a warning stating that "Gameplay experience may change due to 3rd party modifications" or whatever. If they had decided it was too violent, based on the game as is, and that warrented a rating change that would be fine.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Criterion]

It's not "in the game", it's on the disk, not accessable from within the game without a hack.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Criterion]

"The Oblivion nude mod is completely third party. It requires the use of a dowloaded addon and the addition of new texture and model files to the data folder."

No it's not. Why are so many people saying this here? The texture is *ON THE OBLIVION DISK*.

Why are people modding stuff like this informative when it's flat out wrong?

boggles

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Criterion]

"Is there any confirmation that these nude meshes were anything more than skin color textures with no detail whatsoever? "

I would say that all the moaning about nipples dissapearing when the latest patch is applied should be confirmation enough that there was at least some detail there.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Criterion]

The Oblivion content is also ON THE DISK.

Damn people, you're all foaming at the mouth about this and you don't even understand it.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Nazo-San]

No, they simply made two versions, one with nudity, one without. Then replaced the nudity one with the welded underwear one before hitting the shelves. Probably someone there thought it was funny tossing in a nude mesh. Nonetheless, the actual content is in the final version, it just requires a mod to unlock. In fact, if someone figures out how to trick the XBox360 version into working with user mods or some smart company licenses out or something so they can sell mods too (currently only Bethesda can sell mods for the XBox360 version) then someone might add such a mod. I doubt Bethesda would ever officially do this. All it has to do is point to the other file inside the data archive though.

That said, the ESRB is kind of being unfair about it. The fact is, they did disable it, and it does require just as much work to unlock it as with any other game. However, I do feel that the ESRB rating of M would be more befitting considering the realistic depiction of violence complete with blood and etc. God, you can drag dead bodies around and toss them off of cliffs to watch them bounce (hey, I was REALLY ticked off at an ambush, give me a break.) They do deserve an M rating. They are just upset because they had worked very hard to meet the absolute minimum requirements to get a T rating so they could get a larger audience. In particular, with the XBox360 crowd, they are aware they'll have to target a lot of younger people since PC gamers tend to be older overall. If ESRB said they'd change on the PC version, Bethesda probably wouldn't get very upset.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you buy a circular saw and proceed to cut off your hand, should the circular saw manufacturer be held accountable for your stupidity?"

Isn't that why we have warning labels on everything?

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[greyfeld]

After reading more about this online, I must admit that I am incorrect. The nude skins did ship with Oblivion. They still require a 3rd-party modification to unlock and are not unlockable on the 360. This is still way different in scope than the GTA sex game and that's why the ESRB didn't give it the highest rating. I stand by the chainsaw observation. Personally, it's an awesome game and you can turn the blood almost completely off if you want. And at least I can't cut off my hand in the game hehe. I think they will just sell more now that they are getting the extra publicity. Good for them. Maybe they will be able to make more great games to follow.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[drinkypoo]

it is the same as rating a movie based on scenes that were cut out, only visible by breaking and entering the studio editing room.

Actually, it's nothing like that whatsoever.

It's more like taking a DVD with IFOs that tell it to skip part of a VOB, and writing a new IFO that plays that bit of video.

Not that anyone ever made a DVD like this. Or at least, probably not.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[iamlucky13]

For that matter, one could fairly easily do the same thing to Half Life, Quake, Doom, and probably the Sims and Myst, too.

Regarding your circular saw analogy, you obviously haven't had to undergo an OSHA inspection. We've been asked to "fix" hazards not just to prevent people from getting hurt by being inattentive, but to prevent people from getting hurt by intentionally placing themselves in dangerous situations (ie, don't stick your fingers in the big spinning thing over there). The ERSB is not the only overzealous organization, but thanks anyways to Hillary Clinton and others for spearheading the effort to make them the leaders.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Control Group]

...any more than RockStar can control whether some nutjob goes out with a gun goes out to shoot Haitians - in that case the problem is the lack of restriction of nutjobs to guns.

*sigh*

You do recognize the irony of indemnifying an inanimate object (a video game) against what some nutjob does with it (emulating Haitian-killing), while simultaneously blaming an inanimate object (a gun) for what some nutjob does with it (kills Haitians), don't you?

Controlling guns to restrict crime is based on precisely the same rationale as controlling video games to restrict crime. Or as controlling condoms in schools to restrict teenage sex, for that matter.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Anonymous Coward]

The textures are in the game and on the originaly game disc. Nude textures have been in every Elder Scrolls since Daggerfall.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Scrameustache]

This content was released by TakeTwo in all versions (Xbox, Playstation, PC, etc) of the game. Yes it did take a 3rd-party hack to unlock the content, but the content was an actual piece of code included in the game when purchased at retail.

I think it was caged by TakeTwo, and that the third party released it.

Btw:

release
Pronunciation: ri-'lEs
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): released; releasing
Etymology: Middle English relesen, from Middle French relessier, from Latin relaxare to relax
1 : to set free from restraint, confinement, or servitude ; also : to let go : DISMISS
2 : to relieve from something that confines, burdens, or oppresses
3 : to give up in favor of another : RELINQUISH
4 : to give permission for publication, performance, exhibition, or sale of; also : to make available to the public
synonym see FREE

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[AvitarX]

I dont read restrict nutjobs access to guns as advocating gun control at all. I read it as advocating better mental healthcare in the US. With the emphasis on keeping the nutjobs away from guns, not guns away from the sane.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Dr. GeneMachine]

Thanks, Sir, you owe me a new keyboard, and possibly a new job as I had to explain to my coworkers why i was coughing coffee all over the table.
Apart from that, congratulations. I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter! If you need some help with this mod, you know where to find me...

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Grab]

Controlling guns to restrict crime is based on precisely the same rationale as controlling video games to restrict crime.

*sigh*

You do realise the irony in selling guns to anyone, no matter whether they have 20/20 mental health or are a whacked-out drooling psychopath, and then saying "we're going to have a war on terror", don't you?

I'm personally in favour of gun ownership, and fishing-rod ownership. If that's your hobby, then fine - I don't want to stop anyone going down the local range to fire off a few rounds, or going hunting, or going fishing. But the difference is that it's difficult (although not impossible ;-) to kill someone with a fishing rod. If any psycho can walk into a gun shop and walk out again with a rifle, then man, you and your whole town are screwed. Hence controlling who you sell the guns to is essential, to ensure that you only sell to people who are stable enough to not be a danger to the community with a gun in their hands. And laws on how you store the guns too, so that J Random Thief can't just break a window and take that 44 Magnum from your unlocked desk drawer.

Yes, it's possible to buy black-market guns illegally. I don't see that as an argument for failing to regulate legitimate sales though. It's possible to buy prescription drugs illegally too, but that's not a reason for your local pharmacy to dish out methadone on demand over the counter like it was cough candy, and the criminal (or just plain psychopathic) use of guns does a damn sight more damage than any prescription medicine.

Grab.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Control Group]

Not that you'll probably read this, since I waited so long to reply, but:

I fully agree with you that some people shouldn't have guns. I also believe that some people shouldn't vote.

The problem in both cases is I further believe that I don't trust anyone, and certainly not the government, to a priori decide which group I (or anyone else) fall into.

Not being completely divorced from reality, I do recognize that there are people that are legitimately mentally incompetent (I intend only the most literal meaning of the term, with no pejorative connotations), such as those suffering from severe mental handicaps. As long as they are also denied all the other rights that people of sufficient responsibility enjoy, I'm fine with them being denied the right to own guns. But anyone that can be trusted to drive a motor vehicle can be trusted to own a gun.

I guarantee that an average person, through either incompetence or malice, can kill more people per unit time in your average town with a car than with a gun. For evidence, compare the number of people killed in even the worst gun crimes with what happens when a sleepy truck driver plows into the pep band schoolbus, or an elderly gentleman confuses the accelerator and the brake near a sidewalk.

And when something like that happens, you don't hear people pushing for legislation to restrict the sale of cars to the elderly, or even people pushing for legislation to restrict the distribution of drivers licenses to the elderly. You hear (quite rightly) people blaming the person who was driving the vehicle, and calling for that person's license to be revoked. Which is precisely the way things should be - we trust you with all your rights until you demonstrate you're not to be trusted.

Half the time, we even trust you with them again: I don't know of any drunk drivers who are banned from buying a car, do you? Hell, most of the time, they're not even banned from driving a car.

And none of that even touches the practicality of the matter. You should look into whether gun violence has increased or decreased in Great Britain since the essentially comprehensive ban on gun ownership went into effect.

Oh, and:

*sigh*

You do realise the irony in selling guns to anyone, no matter whether they have 20/20 mental health or are a whacked-out drooling psychopath, and then saying "we're going to have a war on terror", don't you?

In fact, I do recognize the irony there...but I don't see anywhere in my post that I mentioned anything about terrorism. As opposed to the post I was replying to, which, in the same paragraph, said we shouldn't blame video games for violence, and then implied that we should blame guns for violence. You should make fewer assumptions about what I think about topics I haven't even touched on.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Grab]

Not being completely divorced from reality, I do recognize that there are people that are legitimately mentally incompetent (I intend only the most literal meaning of the term, with no pejorative connotations), such as those suffering from severe mental handicaps. As long as they are also denied all the other rights that people of sufficient responsibility enjoy, I'm fine with them being denied the right to own guns.

This is basically the problem. You're not allowed to drive a car until you've spent several months learning how to drive it safely and you've demonstrated (in front of an unbiased examiner) that you've mastered those skills well enough that you're not a danger to anyone else. In addition, your doctor can (and will) take you off the road immediately if he thinks that you're no longer safe to be driving.

But guns? Can you honestly tell me that every gun owner has had several months of formal training *and* a practical examination with an unbiased examiner in real situations, before they're allowed to use a gun? And if you're having some kind of psychological problems, can your doctor immediately force you to hand over your gun for the duration, until you've proved yourself fit to use it again? And are there police patrolling hunting areas to check that people are following the rules and using their guns safely? I don't think so, somehow.

I don't know of any drunk drivers who are banned from buying a car, do you? Hell, most of the time, they're not even banned from driving a car.

This is a flaw in the US penalty system then - a ban on driving is pretty much automatic in the UK. Sadly no-one checks you for buying a car either. Although when you buy a car, you do have to show your insurance before you can drive it off, and that would likely prevent a banned person from buying another one. Not to mention the cost - a $100 shotgun and a $10,000 car are a bit different in terms of accessibility!

Insurance would be a good idea though. There's compulsory insurance on car owners, so why not have compulsory insurance for gun owners too? They shoot someone, the insurance company has to pay out. It's still not ideal, but it'd work.

Grab.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

[Control Group]

This is basically the problem. You're not allowed to drive a car until you've spent several months learning how to drive it safely and you've demonstrated (in front of an unbiased examiner) that you've mastered those skills well enough that you're not a danger to anyone else. In addition, your doctor can (and will) take you off the road immediately if he thinks that you're no longer safe to be driving.

But guns? Can you honestly tell me that every gun owner has had several months of formal training *and* a practical examination with an unbiased examiner in real situations, before they're allowed to use a gun? And if you're having some kind of psychological problems, can your doctor immediately force you to hand over your gun for the duration, until you've proved yourself fit to use it again? And are there police patrolling hunting areas to check that people are following the rules and using their guns safely? I don't think so, somehow.

Don't confuse ownership with use - I am unaware of any laws that prevent unlicensed drivers from owning vehicles, or even from using them on private property. All the licensing requirements kick in once someone wants to take a vehicle on the road to use it. This is logical: there isn't anything inherently dangerous about owning a vehicle, it is inherently dangerous to use a vehicle.

I would be entirely comfortable with similar policies on gun ownership vs gun use.

As a sidebar: on a practical level, there is an important distinction between cars and guns, at least in the US. That is, your assumption of an unbiased examiner is warranted (relatively speaking) regarding driver licensing, since driving is not a political hot button issue of any kind. No one is trying to ban cars. I very much doubt the availability of anyone approaching "unbiased" when it comes to firearms training, and there is a serious effort to ban guns. This makes putting the right to bear arms in the hands of a government authority a much riskier proposition than putting the right to drive in the hands of a government authority.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Sven The Space Monke]

2 points:

1) I'm pretty sure you're referencing the DMCA. This was a product not of the Bush administration, but the Clinton administration.

2) Considering how most people seem to enjoy the concept of a nanny-state where their government will protect its citizens from "the bad people" (which may be Communists, terrorists, Socialists, homosexuals, hippies, pedophiles, athiests, intellectuals, liberals, etc), I'm pretty sure many people would enjoy living in a totalitarian regime that protects everone from being offended or shocked. Those who would not enjoy such a fate would likely be branded one of "the bad people".

everyone loves analogies.

[pezpunk]

let's say i go out and buy the lateset harry potter book. very nice. i find it in the children's section. then i decide to draw naughty pictures in the margins. uh oh! the book is now pornography! pull them all off the shelves and burn them!

Re:everyone loves analogies.

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent got modded a troll, but what he describes is exactly the same as what happened to Oblivion. Let's say someone takes Price of Persia (rated T for Teen) and edits the game files so the princess is not dressed in a red dress, but in a nude-colored dress that makes her appear as tho she were a naked archer. OMFG! ESRB NEEDS TO RERATE IT!! only, they don't, because it's the result of the mod community.
What if someone took HL2 and did a complete conversion so it's a romp through an orgy instead of fighting for the freedom of mankind? Would valve have to pull it from the shelves?

As an aside, no one got up in arms about seeing the prince half naked in Prince of Persia. He ripped his OWN clothes off. Stripping! Debauchery! Pull it from the shelves!

Re:everyone loves analogies.

[Criterion]

"what he describes is exactly the same as what happened to Oblivion"

No it's not. The content is (for the umpteenth time) *ON THE DISK*. Just like GTA:SA (not that there's anything wrong with GTA:SA... fucking awesome game, and I am an older female and mom.. no, the kiddo doesn't get to play, nor watch me play).

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[(A)*(B)!0_-]

"Want to mod your videogame? Sorry, there is the POTENTIAL someone could modify it to show more nudity or violence."

What does the government have to do with the ESRB?

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Kelt]

As much as I agree, and many of those statements are true, the "going after video games" trend is a bi-partistan thing. One of the heads of the inquest recently over Hot Coffee was Hillary Clinton. Both sides want to be seen as "making the world safe for our children" and moreover, don't want to be labeled as "wanting to make the world unsafe for our children" in political ads.

It's sad, but in the end the uninformed, uncaring voters are to blame.

-Kelt

Obviously an over reaction

[arkham6]

The ERSB is obviously over reacting to this 'hack'. This isnt blatant nudity, this is a form that has textures applied over it to give the appearance of wearing clothing. If you actualy SAW the 'naked' image, all you see are wierd looking psudo breasts, that are not even complete. There is no nipple, there is no obvious sexuality. And there is certanly no minigame where you get to boink anywhere ALA hot coffee.

the ERSB is just rying to show they "putting their foot down" against nudity in games. Unfortunately they are doing it the wrong way, but that does not really matter to them. Walmart mom and k-mart dad don't really understand layered modeling and don't really care.

Re:Obviously an over reaction

[ikkonoishi]

Err... You haven't seen the video have you? There are nipples on every race except for the Argonians.

Overall its nothing really bad.

Re:Obviously an over reaction

[Sylver Dragon]

Thanks, I was looking for a link to put this in perspective.
I just can't believe that Bethesda was this stupid. The Hot Coffee debacle is not some obsucre thing, and Bethesda had to have at least guessed that modders would get ahold of their game and try this sort of thing. Why in the world would you add nipples to the models if you don't expect them to ever be seen? Just make the skin texture a uniform flesh tone and be done with it. At least with that you could compare it to someone stripping a Barbie doll. Sure, at some point someone would figure out a way to change the texture to include the naughty bits, but you would still be able to say, "it wasn't us."

Re:Obviously an over reaction

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you actualy SAW the 'naked' image, all you see are wierd looking psudo breasts, that are not even complete. There is no nipple, there is no obvious sexuality."

it's ironic that you can go to the toy store and buy a barbie doll fitting the same description

perhaps they should be rated M for mature as well

Re:Obviously an over reaction

[DrEldarion]

Why in the world would you add nipples to the models if you don't expect them to ever be seen?

You do expect them to be seen, and once they are, it's free publicity.

Re:Obviously an over reaction

[Sylver Dragon]

And I thought I was cynical. Sadly, you're probably right.

Re:Obviously an over reaction

[Criterion]

You must be looking at a patched version ;).

Re:Obviously an over reaction

[StikyPad]

Which is I encourage all modders to release nudity patches for E rated games. Once all games have been branded as potential M/AO titles, the world will finally realize that video games should be banned altogether, along with those disturbing statues and paintings in the "art" museums. Maybe then we can finally start clothing our animals as well. I, for one, am sick and tired of seeing animal genitalia swaying to and fro right there in the open for everyone to see. It's a disgrace.

Why stop there ESRB

[rabbot]

Why doesn't the ESRB just go ahead and label every PC game as mature since the same thing can be done to every other game. The ESRB has officially failed at doing their job.

Re:Why stop there ESRB

[spyrochaete]

Why doesn't the ESRB just go ahead and label every PC game as mature since the same thing can be done to every other game. The ESRB has officially failed at doing their job.

You have a point but I disagree with your conclusion. The ESRB already appends their ratings with "Gameplay experience may change online" since they can't account for what 12 year olds spam in public chat channels. They should have another disclaimer saying that they are rating the product inside the box, and that the product may be modified by third parties.

AHHH !!! A TIT !!!! IN A MOD !!!

[Chaffar]

Won't somebody think of the children !?!?!

I believe they should also ban US children from travelling to the French Riviera since they'll get to see many more corrupting (and real-live) tits over there.

Re:AHHH !!! A TIT !!!! IN A MOD !!!

[PFI_Optix]

Ever been to New Orleans?

My first visit there was at the age of 12...let me tell you, walking down Bourbon Street in the middle of the day nowhere near Mardi Gras, a 12 year old still finds plenty of naughty things to look at when the parents aren't looking.

Re:AHHH !!! A TIT !!!! IN A MOD !!!

[twistedsymphony]

It depends on the Age of the children, we're allowed to see breasts for the first few months of our lives but then we're not allowed to until we're 18

Re:AHHH !!! A TIT !!!! IN A MOD !!!

[Jett]

This reminds me of the first time I went to Las Vegas, I was like 12 or 13 I think. The streets were literally blowing with pornography. Everywhere you went there were these cheap (but full color) flyers and booklets advertising sex workers with very graphic depictions of various sexual activities. One of the most surreal things I ever saw in my life was a huge dust devil of this pornography blowing down a street and then coming apart and flinging all of that porn onto a big group of people standing on a sidewalk. Las Vegas is such an insane place.

Re:AHHH !!! A TIT !!!! IN A MOD !!!

[drinkypoo]

They not only have booklets but they also have little business-card sized adverts as well. They're like collectible cards! Someone really needs to start a collectible trading card game based on them... Like, the digits in the phone numbers correspond to power or something.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[jawtheshark]

I'm pretty sure many people would enjoy living in a totalitarian regime that protects everone from being offended or shocked.

Except that the step from being the offended person to being the offending person is really small... One always has to keep that in mind when whiching for a nanny state.

So...

[minusX]

Why isn't FFXI M? Hackers did the same with the mesh.

Re:So...

[pezpunk]

same with every sims game ever released, and hell just about every other game ever.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[lbrandy]

You know one day we'll look back on the pre-Bush era in America as a golden age of freedom

Kinda like I already look back on the pre-Bush era of Slashdot... where we didn't blame every single thing we could irrationally connect to the President on him, and get modded up for it.

Yeah, it's rediculous

[Yuioup]

I'm gonna hack Super Mario Brothers DS. I'm gonna make it so that the princess will be topless, and Mario will be running around with his tallywacker swinging all over the place.

I'm gonna put it on the internet so that people can download it and install it.

ESRB is going to change the rating of Super Mario Brothers DS to "M" for mature.

Just you watch.

Y

Re:Yeah, it's rediculous

[Kierthos]

Ahem.... GU Comics beat you to the funny.

Kierthos

Re:Yeah, it's rediculous

[LarsWestergren]

ESRB is going to change the rating of Super Mario Brothers DS to "M" for mature.
Just you watch.

And rightly so! If only you knew what REALLY went on in those games. Tsk tsk.

Re:Yeah, it's rediculous

[Duds]

Only if said skin was ALREADY in the game!

Why is it everyone is being ignorent of this very central point.

The content being rated is everything shipped on the disk whether you can access or not. If you create something that was never on the disk it won't affect the rating.

Hot coffee was on the disk, but hidden. This was on the disk, but hidden, your topless princess will not be.

Re:Yeah, it's rediculous

[elrous0]

You need to RTFA. The ESRB nudity complaint WAS NOT based on what was actually in the game or on the disc. It was based on the POTENTIAL for fans to mod the game to include nudity with new "skins."

-Eric

Re:Yeah, it's rediculous

[Duds]

No, it wasn't. Bethesda are claiming that.

The ESRB said ", as well as the presence of a locked-out art file or 'skin' that, if accessed through a third party modification to the PC version of the game, allows the user to play with topless versions of female characters,' "

i.e - what's ALREADY on the disk.

Re:Yeah, it's rediculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. GU Comics has never been funny.

Re:Yeah, it's rediculous

[Knetzar]

Modify every game that comes out to have nudity. Heck, replace the the exe with one that plays a porno and then starts the game. Hopefully then all games will be rated M and people will stop paying attention to ratings.

Re:Yeah, it's rediculous

[Criterion]

You need to UNDERSTAND TFA. The content is *ON THE DISK*.

if this keeps up Games will have to be sumited for

[aka_big_wurm]

If this keeps up games may have to be submited for review by ESRB when they go gold and then given a rating after a review period.

america-where boobs are a bigger threat than guns.

[bunions]

I swear, we have more in common with the Islamic fundamentalists we're at war with than we have differences.

I can snap necks all goddamn day as Sam Fisher, but if there might be a possibility that a child might see OH CHRIST A BREAST HOLY SWEET JESUS FORFEND, everyone immediately jumps up their own butts.

How long until....

[shadowkin]

someone realizes people have been able to have households full of naked sims, and rerates The Sims to AO+?

Re:How long until....

[masterzora]

Jack Thompson already tried that one.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[PFI_Optix]

2) Considering how most people seem to enjoy the concept of a nanny-state where their government will protect its citizens from "the bad people" (which may be Communists, terrorists, Socialists, homosexuals, hippies, pedophiles, athiests, intellectuals, liberals, etc), I'm pretty sure many people would enjoy living in a totalitarian regime that protects everone from being offended or shocked. Those who would not enjoy such a fate would likely be branded one of "the bad people".

That's a little one-sided. Let's also add:

conservatives, neocons, Christians, et cetera.

There are just as many people out there who would like laws that silence those groups from expressing their potentially offensive opinions.

Oh...and pedophiles are bad people.

Big difference.

[Rob T Firefly]

In Hot Coffee, the data was on the disc, from an early concept for a minigame that was ultimately decided against including in the normal game. It was leftover data never meant to be accessible, but hackers found a way to access the nudity/bad polygonal dry-humping that Rockstar had originally created.

This is a far different case - fans created a mod which introduced nudity into a game that never had it on its original media. It'd be like me hacking a Super Mario ROM, adding boobs onto the Mario sprite, and then suing Nintendo for what I created and pasted into their game without their knowledge.

Re:Big difference.

[Criterion]

Wrong. The textures are on the disk. It's also nothing new. Bethseda had nudity in Daggerfall, all you had to do was take the shirt off your female character.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Sven The Space Monke]

At this point, not much. However, there have been attempts at legally enforcing ESRB ratings. To my knowledge, most of them have been unsucessful (at least in the US). There is at least one law that I know for sure is an attempt to legally enforce the ESRB ratings, but it's in Canada. Bill 30 is the province of Saskatchewan's attempt to make it illegal to even advertise or display a game where someone under the ERSB rated age could see it. It doesn't have much opposition at the moment, as the government is playing the lame-assed "you want our children to see PORNOGRAPHIC VIDEO GAMES?!?" card to anyone who speaks up against it. While it isn't shutting me up, it kills almost any support I manage to cull.

Windows (M for Mature)

[slashbob22]

Heck someone could use their computer to view inappropriate material (I am shocked). Windows should be the next target: it allows you to play games (some M for mature), view pr0n, and even kill people (military systems).

ESRB cannot protect children from things they see or do in the real world - but at least they can keep them ignorant, of the real world, in the virtual one.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[kaellinn18]

MOD PARENT UP! Seriously, it's amazing how anything questionable on this site gets pointed back at Bush. Granted, he hasn't helped the situation, but this shit has been going on for decades. I wish people would stop being so naive. It's not the president; it's the whole system.

Different Ratings?

[Anonymous Coward]

So based on the details and the platform difference shouldn't tne ESRB technically let the the Xbox version stay at "Teen" and the PC version be upped to "Mature"?

Now that's something that would be interesting to explain to parents. =P

Re:Different Ratings?

[PFI_Optix]

Isn't Counter-Strike rated teen?

I recall there being a lot of custom sprays depecting explicit...err...content.

How about a standard ESRB warning:

"ESRB ratings do not reflect potential changes to content by online or modified play."

Re:Different Ratings?

[jackbird]

Sorry, what you're proposing is rational and sensible. Go to the back of the line.

Re:Different Ratings?

[scaryjohn]

How about a standard ESRB warning: "ESRB ratings do not reflect potential changes to content by online or modified play."

It's either that, or all modifiable games get an —M— now.

Apparently it seems to matter that there were nipples on the CD. Grumble.

Re:Different Ratings?

[nsanders]

Most online games all ready have this warning, and it should apply to Modable games as well. Usually when you launch the game you will see an ESRB warning that says something along the lines of "Online content may change and may not be appropriate for rated ages"

Re:Different Ratings?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, his line should read "ESRB ratings are not based in rational thought and logic."

Re:Different Ratings?

[PFI_Optix]

I can remember seeing it in very small print in C&C Generals...when you log on to the multiplayer server.

In the interest of giving people as little as possible to complain about, why not put it on the box.

"This game includes multiplayer capabilities. Content of multiplayer games may vary and is not included in the ESRB rating printed on the box."

and

"This game gives users the ability to modify the game experience. Any third-party modifications cannot be guaranteed to fit within the ESRB rating."

Or something like those.

Mod Parent Down

[TooMuchEspressoGuy]

The "security culture" that the parent speaks of isn't a purely Bush-administration thing. Clinton was just as bad (he passed the DMCA, for example, and helped work toward several "think of the children" measures.) Before that, the justification for anti-freedom laws was the threat of Communism. Before that, National Socialism. Before that, thwarting the Great Depression. And so on.

There has been an anti-freedom faction in American politics ever since the Alien and Sedition Acts. Blindly blaming everything on Bush, despite his horrid presidency, will get you nowhere.

Re:Mod Parent Down

[Anonymous Coward]

Your wrong sir, it will get you a +1 Insightful blaming Bush for everything... frankly I am pretty sure this cold and cough I have was brought on by Bush and his cronies.

Re:Mod Parent Down

[Ours]

"Nostalgia for an age that never existed" as Jello Biafra said in a song. Then refering to the 50-60s US that people remember for Rock'n'Roll, milkshakes and proms. Instead 50-60s US was more like McArthyist commie-witch-hunts (war on comies...) and other problems that still exist today (racism, homophobia). Oh and those "Golden Years"... an apparthied existed in the US of A.

Ah such freedom, except if you happened to be something else then white-anglo-saxon-protestant.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Sven The Space Monke]

conservatives, neocons, Christians, et cetera.

My apologies, I should have included them in my list.

Oh...and pedophiles are bad people.

So are terrorists, but neither one are lurking on every corner and website waiting to blow up/molest people's children. I would argue that pedophiles, while a much more likely threat than terrorists, have been somewhat overblown by the people who make money and/or power by having the general poplulace afraid of things.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

You know one day we'll look back on the pre-Bush era in America as a golden age of freedom...

I think you mean "pre-Clinton". Don't forget all the crap he let happen *cough*DMCA*cough.

way to buckle under pressure

[Ender Ryan]

To the folks at the ESRB, way to buckle under pressure. Now you're (almost) useless as a ratings board. You can't ever please the people who are using you as a scapegoat, it isn't only futile to try, it's also damaging.

Fucking figures though... This kind of shit can be really scary in America. Go up against a jury of freedom-hating prudes, and you could be wiped out. But this sort of thing won't help.

Entertainment

[Joe U]

What we really need to do is capture the hot coffee mod to video, then start releasing patches for games like SimCity, Railroad Tycoon, Bejeweled, etc... It wouldn't be that hard, simple dialog box and then play the video file.

Then sit back and watch the ESRB implode.

Re:Entertainment

[CTD]

There is some wisdom in that. Get a team of volunteer coders to insert Hot Coffee into a random game each week as a 'mod' and make the point again and again until someone gets it: You can't rate what people do after they buy the product...

It's akin to changing the rating on a movie because someone may touch themselves inappropriately when certain actreses are on screen. Even clothed.

Re:Entertainment

[Joe U]

Ok, because I have too much free time, I present the universal hot coffee mod patch.
Just run this batch file, make sure to include the video in the directory and change the last line to your actual executable.

After running, file complaint with ESRB that the game you are playing suddenly needs a rating of AO because of all the adult content added in.

Then sit back and think of all the damage you can do to the game section at WalMart, they will, of course, have to pull every title.

@echo off
cls
set /p coffeemod="Would you like some hot coffee? (y/n)"
cls
if %coffeemod% NEQ y goto :end
start /WAIT hotcoffee.avi
echo "Wow, that was some HOT COFFEE!"
:end
set coffeemod=
pause
game.exe

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[H0p313ss]

where we didn't blame every single thing we could irrationally connect to the President on him, and get modded up for it

Exactly! That's what Microsoft was for, and we loved it!

Kids these days...

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[voice_of_all_reason]

Seriously, it's amazing how anything questionable on this site gets pointed back at Bush

That's called "responsibility." When you're in charge of the country, yes, you have to answer for everything that goes on.

Well, at least, that's the idea...

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[PFI_Optix]

I would argue that pedophiles, while a much more likely threat than terrorists, have been somewhat overblown by the people who make money and/or power by having the general poplulace afraid of things.

"Pedophile" is a favorite of the news media to grab the people's attention and keep them watching through the commercials.

Just this morning (or maybe last night) I saw yet another report about how pedophiles are using the internet to abuse children. The story: a guy adopted a Russian girl and used her for his personal playtoy. I'm thinking the airline who flew him to Russia played a bigger part in her being abused than the internet, but whatever. Perhaps the Russians need to be a little more selective when giving their children to foreigners. There's a reason, after all, that he didn't adopt a kid here in the States.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[lbrandy]

As much as I agree, and many of those statements are true, the "going after video games" trend is a bi-partistan thing.

No, no, no. All crazy government interference started with GWB. Al Gore wasn't a huge supporter of the V-Chip and internet "controls" to "protect the kids". Tipper didn't go after explicit lyrics to "protect the kids". Joe Lieberman didn't start the first major congressional inquiry into violent video Games "for the kids".

None of this actually occured until Bush. He is destorying the country.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Dr Reducto]

This "golden age of freedom" you reference never existed. Every president for the past 50 years has took away precious rights.

Clinton had a habit of pandering with the ever-so-popular "think of the children" in order to pass gun legislation in the wake of Columbine.

Even in the 1970's, Jimmy Carter first authorized the wiretapping many pan Bush (not to mention the countless other presidents who have used it) for employing.

Face it, the interests of those in power is to gain more power. It's not a left vs right thing.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, basically, the ESRB was created in response to government threats. So while it's a non-governmental body, the shadow of legislation has always hung over it. (It was always a bipartisan thing, led by right wing Democrats.)

This is all turning into an anti-hacking (the good kind of hacking), anti-fan created content action. I don't know if it will work, but I wouldn't be surprised to see at least heavy policing of the mod community.

Meanwhile we have some other unimportant things going on, like 6 dollars a gallon coming soon. (I don't have to say for a gallon of what, do I?)

Re:america-where boobs are a bigger threat than gu

[itchy92]

I know people say this all the time, but this may honestly be my favorite post on Slashdot ever.

I'm not sure if it's because this one statement is so acerbically accurate, or if it's the mental image of people jumping up their own butts.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[CTD]

Well that and the whole thing about totalitarian states being able to kill their citizens with impunity - I think a good number of people would rather be offended than dead...

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[lbrandy]

That's called "responsibility." When you're in charge of the country, yes, you have to answer for everything that goes on.

That is so irrational. I got lost my virginity during the Clinton administration and I'll be god dammed if you are going to give him credit for it.

Re:america-where boobs are a bigger threat than gu

[voice_of_all_reason]

So, how long do you think we have until burka laws start getting passed?

Hmmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

You know I have mods for most games out there that change the way a character looks. From now on when I don't like a new game I'm going to make a character look nude so they get rated as Mature.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[(A)*(B)!0_-]

"Kinda like I already look back on the pre-Bush era of Slashdot... where we didn't blame every single thing we could irrationally connect to the President on him, and get modded up for it."

Bravo. The state of intellectual discourse has sunk to a depressing level. People either blame Bush for everything or blame those socialist liberals for everything. There's no room for any discussion of points being made; there's just blind following of whatever label a particular person has decided to latch onto (usually without any real knowledge of what that label traditionally means - all they know is that they hate the other side.)

A lot of people strike me as rooting for a sports team when it comes to discussing politics. It's sad. Grandparent is a perfect example of someone who doesn't have any real knowledge or opinion on the issue - except that he read 1984, really liked it, and thinks it would be cool to fight the man.

Windows?

[Maljin Jolt]

Please, someone make a nudity hack to Solitaire...

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes except those who are crying "But think of the children" don't have any concept of this. They simply don't understand and don't want to understand. It's sad really.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

['nother poster]

Hm, lets see. What DOES the government have to do with the ESRB? Well, they have publicly announced in the past that if the industry did not regulate itself, they, the government, would step in and regulate them. This was the impetus for the creation of the ESRB. Later the government said that the ESRB needed to broaden their ratings enforcement or the government would step in and do so. Lately the government has said that they think that games are not being given ratings that are high enough for the ages listed due to the potential of mods, expansions, and hacks, and therefor will step in with legislative relief if the ESRB doesn't meet their unpublished arbitrary standards.

So, what exactly does the U.S. government have to do with the ESRB? They are the Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of a self regulatory body that was created simply because of threats of legislative regulation of a sector of business in a free country. Pretty simple, see.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[F_Scentura]

"You know one day we'll look back on the pre-Bush era in America as a golden age of freedom"

What the fuck, this is Hillary/Tipper nanny-stating. I'm as unhappy with Bush as the rest, but this is a different set of cunts at work.

Free publicity

[Cyrgo]

They should just suck it up, and enjoy the free publicity.

Ah, but isn't Bethesda's response to the ESRB more free publicity?

I think that Bethesda has done right, publicity-wise, by not sucking it up and continuing the fight on the media.
As they fight, everyone else listens.

On a completely unrelated note

[GeekDork]

Am I the only one who's getting a broken USAF flash ad that "leaks" over a part of the article due to borked transparency?

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[zaguar]

1) I'm pretty sure you're referencing the DMCA. This was a product not of the Bush administration, but the Clinton administration. No, I'm pretty sure he refers to the P.A.T.R.I.O.T act.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh...and pedophiles are bad people.

Fuck you. Pedophiles who give into their urges are committing bad acts, but bad acts do not inherently come from bad people--only wholesale surrender to their urges would. Pedophiles are just sick individuals, frequently under quite a lot of emotional distress from an attraction that they didn't choose, who need help rather than demonization.

You are part of the problem.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

['nother poster]

But usually not until it's some of their friends and family, or even themselves, that are being sent to the prisons or dying. As long as it's the people they don't like being persecuted and killed they are fat, dumb, and happy.

Well, if it wasn't for the ESRB....

[GuyverDH]

We'd have just that many more welfare recipients running around.

I mean, where else can incompetant, lazy, worthless individuals rise to power to think they get to determine what content I or my children should or should not see.

That's a decision for me alone. If I determine that my 12 year old is mature enough to handle gore/violence/nudity whatever, that's my choice - not some dork pulling a god trip trying to force feed the nation their *opinion*.

Re:Well, if it wasn't for the ESRB....

[spyrochaete]

I mean, where else can incompetant, lazy, worthless individuals rise to power to think they get to determine what content I or my children should or should not see.

The ESRB summarizes potentially objectionable content in 5 to 300-hour games in about 10 words, and simplifies even that summary down to one blanket rating. You can base your purchase decision on the rating or summary so that you don't have to play the whole game to decide whether the most objectionable material is in line with your personal style of parenting. ESRB ratings are not opinion, they are raw data. A dismembered corpse strewn around a room isn't "gore" in someone's opinion, it's just plain gore.

The ESRB's only power is credibility, and that power is earned, not imposed. The new M rating means you can't buy this already bestselling game at Walmart, and that your kids cannot buy it unless you accompany them when they try to purchase it. Perhaps you'd like to abolish licenses for cars and firearms because they are parenting your children for you as well?

The ratings system empowers parents; it doesn't replace them. If you let a sticker on a box father your children then you are the worthless one.

Re:Well, if it wasn't for the ESRB....

[GuyverDH]

Hmmm - let's see...

Letting someone else decide your morals - equates to letting dumb-ass shit-heads drive or shoot without licensure / training.... Hmmmmm - WOW - that's a really large illogical leap.

Since my child would not get to purchase a game without me being there (until they move out of the house) I don't see a real benefit.

So here we have society attempting to dump responsibility for another aspect of parenting off onto someone else.

Personal responsibility is EVERYONE's responsibility. It doesn't just end with yourself either. As a parent you are responsible for yourself and your child, until they become an adult. Schools aren't responsible, teachers aren't responsible. They play an important role, but in the end, it's the PARENT's responsibility.

Since you cannot get a license for a firearm, until you are considered by an adult in whichever area you live (at least in the US), I don't see how your statement applies. As far as drivers licenses go, that has nothing to do with parenting either. Training your child to drive, once they reach the legal age, is again the parent's responsibility, along with whatever state mandated driver's education program.

Credibility is earned, and to read that they want to change a rating because someone else hacked the game and *ADDED* content, causes them to LOSE credibility.

If the content was in the game to begin with, then yes, by all means - change the rating. However, to change a rating because of someone else's hacking is absurd.

As for gore or other things. Context is what states if it is GORE or not.

A dismembered body, mutilated by an animal attack isn't gore, it's a tragedy.
A dismembered body, mutilated by another human being, in an attempt to save their life isn't gore, it's surgery (ie - an amputation).
A disbembered body, mutilated by whatever means, in an attempt to destroy the person for whatever reason is gore.

To give flat unqualified *ratings* without giving the context for the rating is meaningless.

The ratings system is a crutch. If a parent reads the box, sees the images on the box - they can pretty well figure out for themselves what the *content* is. An MSRB rating isn't going to tell me if something in the content is offensive to me.

Here's an example....

Let's say a game comes out, and it's a goody-goody game, that portrays protective Angels. Your role in the game is protect the people of the game from being harmed in one way or another. There's no *gore*, there's no *language*, the only violence, is someone falls down, and scrapes their knee. The MSRB would find this acceptible and give a low (E) rating. Someone else would find this offensive, because they portray Angels in a manner that goes against their religious beliefs. How would the MSRB E rating help in this instance? It wouldn't. Are they then to add an RC rating, meaning religious content? Where does it end?

The question that I would ask, is *WHO* empowered the ESRB to be a ratings body? As far as I can tell, they did themselves. I have yet to see a government mandated or licensure that gives the ESRB the right / job to rate video games. Who pays the salaries of the ESRB employees? How do they generate revenue by just giving ratings?

Wow, I want to start the ratings company to rate Books. I would have to give the Bible an M for mature, because it involves sexual themes and explicit language.

Hmm, I seem to have wandered away from my original theme....

Re:Well, if it wasn't for the ESRB....

[spyrochaete]

The question that I would ask, is *WHO* empowered the ESRB to be a ratings body? As far as I can tell, they did themselves. I have yet to see a government mandated or licensure that gives the ESRB the right / job to rate video games.

The game companies opted to hire the ESRB to rate their games. The games industry wants to be self-regulated so that they don't have to have the government clamp down on their freedom of speech and artistic license. The government very nearly stepped in after zillions of mommies complained about Mortal Kombat, so the ESA became the ESRB and made box ratings easier to see and more descriptive. To this day ESRB ratings are totally optional, but every game (except those that would be rated Adults Only) goes out of their way to acquire them. Some parents would sooner buy their kids a game with specific warnings sooner than a game with no warnings at all. In the end, nobody's telling anyone what's appropriate or what to buy. The rating is just a short description of some potentially objectionable matieral in the box. It's your right to let it run your life or ignore it completely. Personally, I think it's responsible for a creative industry to self-regulate to preserve their artistic freedom while maintaining commercial availability. I guess where I'm confused is that I don't see what your problem is with these voluntary ratings. Who do they hurt? It's impossible for two people to classify an action the exact same way so the ESRB does their best to accommodate the population in general. They're a service, not a hinderance. Without the ESRB American games would be censored like they are in Germany - no gore, any blood must be green, nothing sexy allowed in games available in stores.

Potential Nudity Aside...

[lesleymac]

If you've played the game, there's more than enough violence and gore to earn a mature rating. I'm thinking in particular of the final Dark Brotherhood quest, and that daedra quest with the mad wizard...it was pretty "Resident Evil"-esque. Personally, I like the violence and gore. I don't really care that it's rated M, but I'm pretty sure the M rating is appropriate. The real question is how did the ESRB miss all of that gore? Maybe their just making a big deal about the topless mod to smokescreen the fact that the game should never have gotten a Teen rating.

Re:Potential Nudity Aside...

[spyrochaete]

Regarding your subject, you can't push nudity aside. Guns yes, boobs no. Make war, not love. How long until we see President Bush's last name pixeled out because it is sexually suggestive? I hereby suggest "George W. Bikinizone".

Re:Potential Nudity Aside...

[lesleymac]

I'm just saying that even though the ERSB is standing on very shaky ground with the topless mod, there are still grounds for an M rating because of the gore and violence. Why can't they leave it at that, instead of trying so hard to make it about sex?

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[(A)*(B)!0_-]

"So, what exactly does the U.S. government have to do with the ESRB? They are the Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of a self regulatory body that was created simply because of threats of legislative regulation of a sector of business in a free country. Pretty simple, see."

You give a lot of creedance to idle threats made by politicians who have nothing to say so they spit out the easy, anti-free speech line. I don't have such a fear of such people. Any time legislators have tried to take it the next step and actually get involved in regulating video games, the courts have struck the law down.

Lawmakers may threaten the ESRB but there's no reason to think that the ESRB should be affected by such threats. Do you actually think any politician wants the ESRB to meet their demands? No, of course not. The politician wants the ESRB to be done away with and the creation of a government body to handle suppressing free speech as a little notch in their bed post.

Now, since you've gone to the trouble of defending the post I replied to - why is the main thesis of the point that Bush caused all of this when Lieberman, Tipper Gore, and lately, Hillary Rodham are the real root?

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Beer Moon]

That is so irrational. I got lost my virginity during the Clinton administration and I'll be god dammed if you are going to give him credit for it.

Sounds like you got a book deal on your hands!!

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[voice_of_all_reason]

Excellent riposte :)

Re:america-where boobs are a bigger threat than gu

[Blakey Rat]

To be fair to parents, it's really easy to tell if your child is screwing up their life by being randomly violent-- in fact, usually the police will notice it even if you don't. But it's comparatively very difficult to figure out if your child is screwing up their life by having unprotected sex.

The Good Old Days

[Shihar]

I agree with parent. Remember the good old days of freedom? Can you recall how pleasant this world was when women stayed in the kitchen cooking a man his supper instead of going off to college and getting a job? Remember back when anarchists were jailed during World War I? Remember during the great depression when the federal government sweeped up a massive amount of power? Recall the good old days of World War II when the entire economy was turned to war and everyone of age was drafted? Recall how much more pleasant things were when we rounded up every single Japanese American on the west coast and put them in internment camps? Remember the pleasant days before the civil rights movement when them negros stayed with their own? Remember when we had nice clean segregated schools, buses, and water fountains? Remember the good old days of McCarthy when we hunted down those evil communist? How about the pleasant days of the Korean War where we drafted and killed Americans (to say nothing of Koreans) in the tens of thousands? Or how about the wonderful days of the Vietnam war where we drafted an entire generation and left our soldiers so fucked up that they would line up men, women, and children on the side of a road and shoot them all.

Get a grip. I'll take today over pretty much any time in 20th century. I am not saying today is a utopia either. I am saying that all eras had their problems. In fact, I would say that this era is far less fucked up, even with Bush drunk at the wheel, then most of the 20th century. 50 years ago I wouldn't have been able to merry my current girlfriend in the south because she isn't white. Up until 30 years ago since the 1900, I would have stood the risk of being drafted and sent off into a meat grinder of a war.

I am not saying you shouldn't be pissed at how things are, but don't hold up the past like it was some magical fairyland utopia because in a word or four, the past fucking sucked.

Re:The Good Old Days

[lbrandy]

I have a feeling, judging by your tone, if me and you had a long conversation, we'd end up disagreeing severely and it would probably end in a fistfight... that being said, that was an excellent post. I think, on all sides of every political argument since the the dawn of man, a lack of perspective is a common theme paralyzing the discussion.

Re:The Good Old Days

[Shihar]

I have a feeling, judging by your tone, if me and you had a long conversation, we'd end up disagreeing severely and it would probably end in a fistfight

I would hope not. Nothing disheartens me more then to find people so set in their opinions that they are offended by the opinions of others. I grew up in a family where each family member had radically different political views that swung from godless libertarians and socialist to staunchly religious conservatives. It was never a problem because no one took offense at the opinions of the others and were willing to listen and concede when they realized they were in error. One of the things I miss the most about home is dinner time conversation that last until well after the food was cold. We could easily play devils advocate and argue from point of views we didn't agree with. Voices never got raised and discussions were always civil.

In the real world though, this acceptance of others opinions and willingness to discuss them seems close to nonexistent. People either become upset and angry at disagreement or simply claim stupidity and declare they have no opinion and no wish to think any further. The closest I have seen to a good political discussion outside of a few rare occasions in years is a group of like minded people with the exact same ideology arguing about the semantics of their ideology.

All of that said, judging by your tone I imagine we wouldn't end up in a fist fight and this was just a long winded rant.

Re:The Good Old Days

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when women didn't HAVE to work. Those were the good old days... Actually I wish I could stay home and cook and clean for my wife. That would be soooooo awesome.

Re:The Good Old Days

[Anonymous Coward]

50 years ago I wouldn't have been able to merry my current girlfriend in the south because she isn't white.

You mean 6 years! Alabama repealed its anti-miscegenation laws in November 2000 by a narrow margin (40% of people voted to keep the ban on mixed marriages).

Re:america-where boobs are a bigger threat than gu

[bunions]

I guess I'm unaware of the correlation of boob-viewing and increased incidence of unprotected sex, perhaps you would care to enlighten us.

Not an over reaction

[Chris_Jefferson]

OK, there are two seperate issues here, with hot coffee and this patch.

First of all, should they be rated M at all, even if the content was available in the game easily? I'm not sure about that, I don't know how the American rating system works.

However, on the other hand, I DO think that these things should be used when deciding rating. The ESRB has to have a blanket "If it is on the CD, it counts" policy. So, at the moment we are fairly sure you can't get the hot coffee mod without external hacking, but how we be 100% sure of that? Often people find cheats and hidden things in games years after they come out. There is no way the ESRB can hunt into every corner, try every way of playing the game. So they have to have this policy.

Re:america-where boobs are a bigger threat than gu

[mwvdlee]

You don't want your children seeing a naked boob on the hooker they just butchered with a chainsaw either.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[tbannist]

A lot of people won't really think about that until they or someone they love is up for execution.

Support Bethesda in the Cause!

[Durrill]

I am sick of people hopping onboard the ethical bandwagon when something obscure, like nipples, could possibly be exposed to our once "breast fed" children. What the ESRB did was wrong. They should have done their homework on the nudity mod before making a re-rating of the game. I have placed a complaint to the ESRB concerning this problem and I ask that anyone else who loves this game do the same.

You can submit a comment/complaint here.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Not to mention the fact that Tipper Gore was the original "Uninformed Shrill-bitch anti-Gamer" wife of a politician, LONG before Al was Veep.

Nudity vs. Violence

[inflamez]

Included in Oblivion without 3rd party plug-ins / add-ons:
Dismembered corpses; human skulls split apart by an axe; a person with his face crushed and his entrails hanging around; skeletons of babies trapped inside the catacombs of their own mother; and lots of other (very graphical) forms of violence .... Rated TEEN.

And now we have (through a 3rd party modification of a mesh already in game):
Nipples ... Rated M. Oh my god! Teh Horror! N I P P L E S . Ban it! O_o

Re:Nudity vs. Violence

[Blakey Rat]

I'm guessing that this is just an admission that the ESRB didn't really examine the game as well as they should have. Here's a (paraphrased) conversation with a friend of mine about this issue:

Him: The ESRB doesn't really rate the games, they just get a summary of the story and a bunch of screenshots from the developer and rate that.

Me: Well, why don't they rate the actual game? It's not hard; the objectionable stuff in Oblivion would all be found in only a few hours of gameplay.

Him: The problem is that they don't have enough time to do it before the game is released. When the game goes Gold, there are only a few days before it's in stores.

Me: Gaming magazines seem to manage to review games that aren't out without any problem.

Anyway, all this does it make it look like the ESRB doesn't know what the hell they're doing. Which is the LAST thing the gaming industry needs right now, because it's a great excuse to put the government in charge.

Re:Nudity vs. Violence

[BlueHands]

as i understand it there aren't even nipples, just pale-flesh colored lumps. BAN IT!!!

Re:Nudity vs. Violence

[Anonymous Coward]

Skeletons?

That's even more revealing! How did this abomination originally get the teen rating?

Re:Nudity vs. Violence

[east coast]

through a 3rd party modification of a mesh already in game

How do you mean "a mesh"?

Re:Nudity vs. Violence

[inflamez]

The mesh was already ingame. Bethesda already had female character models with breasts along with textures for nude skin.

Taken from the description of the mod that possibly caused the ESRB to review their rating for Oblivion:

"In the process of trying to create a nude skin for Oblivion, I found Bethesda had already done all the work for me. They just covered it up with underwear afterwards. (At least in my version -- I know sometimes European versions are different, as those cultures accept the human body better.)"

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[heinousjay]

Yeah, that attitude and a buck fifty will get me a Washington Post

Re:america-where boobs are a bigger threat than gu

[bunions]

once he's butchered the hooker the metaphorical cows are out of the barn, chief.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[/ASCII]

I have met my fair share of bad people in my life, but I have yet to meet anyone who considered themselves 'bad' or 'evil'. We have an amazing capacity to rationalize our behaviour. Most serial killers, dictators and child molestors consider themselves good people. Aside from a small group of mentally unbalanced, no one considers themselves 'evil'.

In the end, the _only_ good meassure I've seen of an individual is what they _do_. In other words, it does not matter if a practicing pedophile says he loves children and thinks that what he does is good for the children, it only matters that he molests children and by doing so scars them for life. That makes him a _bad_ person. Even if he thinks that he does what he does to make children happy.

A pedophile who does _not_ molest children but has the urge to do so is not a bad person. He is a sich person in need of help and with my sympathy.

Re:america-where boobs are a bigger threat than gu

[Blakey Rat]

I'm not defending the ESRB, just trying to explain things from another point of view that's not generally acknowledged by Slashdot. Also I'm sick of seeing the exact same goddamned post on every single movie/game rating article on Slashdot... and always modded up to +5.

Personally, I think changing the ESRB rating is going to make people think they don't know what the hell they're doing.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

['nother poster]

Well, there is reason to think that the ESRB would take the threats seriously. Only an idiot would ignore threats by the government of a country, especially the one in which they reside.

Secondly, I don't expect the ESRB to ever be able to comply. Notice that I said "unpublished arbitrary standards".

Lastly, I didn't take the time to "defend the post" that you replied to. You need to read a bit more carefully. You asked a question. I answered that question. I never said a word about Bush. None. You will notice also that I used the terms "government" and "legislative" Never president, and I used no personal names at all.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[(A)*(B)!0_-]

"Only an idiot would ignore threats by the government of a country, especially the one in which they reside."

Reduced to implying that I am an idiot - good day.

Nudity vs. Sex

[beerman2k]

Why do people have such a hard time separating sex and nudity? A topless female figure? That's "Mature"? That makes no sense, even if it was part of the game and not a 3rd party modification.

Its not the tits

[tgd]

Its the hair. Within a few inches of the tits, no matter how glorious they may be, you're almost certain to find a sprouting bush of hair that gives real meaning to the old saying "buckwheat in a headlock".

No child should have to see that.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

['nother poster]

Once again, you need to read more carefully. I never implied that you were an idiot. Unless you are a member of the ESRB, and are ignoring threats by your federal legislative bodies.

ESRB responds to America's cultural climate

[popcultureicon]

As I understand it, the ESRB exists to warn consumers of potentially offensive material and allow them to make a more informed purchase. This rating is based on the content of said purchase. I assert that this content includes multimedia assets and game code/instructions. I do not believe you can separate the two and rate the game based on one or the other, but instead must judge the product as a whole, as it is available to the end consumer.

Through modification of the code, nudity is available. This is a modification of the content, and must be downloaded after market, or explicitly written by the user. I don't believe the ESRB has the right to change the rating of a product based on what people in the market can do after the product's release, but should stick to rating what the product actual does do. Otherwise, they are no longer of use to anyone.

The only way I can see a justification for the action they have taken (and this is a slim chance) is if they are including the construction kit in the rating evaluation. Because with that, any user can modify the game's content, using software (more content) that shipped with the product. But this still would not justify the rating change on the xbox 360 version. I see no reason for that change other than fear of Hilary Clinton and her political agenda. I don't own Oblivion, so I am not aware if the construction set is a separate download or not on the PC version.

According to http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid= 16600, the BBFC sees it this way as well.

Re:ESRB responds to America's cultural climate

[Anonymous Coward]

What if there was a game that changed from being e.g. a minesweeper clone to a tentacle rape sim if a single file (say hidetheporn.txt) was deleted.

The game publishers would pretty clearly be selling with the intention of getting a low rating on their porn game. You can't draw the line so easily at modifications.

However, I do think this whole thing is very stupid. We live in the magazine, cable TV and internet world: anyone, of any age, interested in seeing porn can do so unless they're actually handcuffed to their parents.

Re:america-where boobs are a bigger threat than gu

[bunions]

I agree that I'm certainly not expressing some kind of revolutionary unheard-of viewpoint here, nor do I think it's particularly insightful - we've all heard it before.

However, the reason that 'other point of view' isn't generally acknowledged is because it's simply wrong. There's no correlation between the two - the reaction is simply a knee-jerk puritanism that we're all guilty of. An equivalent response might be:

To be fair to parents, it's really easy to tell if your child is screwing up their life by being randomly violent-- in fact, usually the police will notice it even if you don't. But it's comparatively very difficult to figure out if your child is screwing up their life by spending all their time riding BMX bikes offroad.

A legitimate response is that "Yeah, ok, but some parents don't want their kids seeing boobs" which is fine. I don't want my little boy seeing overtly sexual images yet either. I was just trotting out the "jesus, just how many times does america have to reveal it's puritan roots" post for the Nth time.

What I'm wondering...

[parasonic]

To further your questions...

Is the ESRB even legally binding? Are publishers required to place the label on their games? You'd think that they could just make up their own "suggested age."

If the ESRB is legally binding, can a game just be rated NR, as some movies still are...think MPAA rating.

Re:What I'm wondering...

[illspirit]

Not legally binding, but nearly all retailers refuse tho stock unrated games. Even Best Buy, who sells unrated DVDs wont'. Nor will they sell AO games even though they have NC-17 films.

Re:What I'm wondering...

[Some_Llama]

ESRB and MPAA ratings are "guidelines" and are self enforced by retailers and movie theaters.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Feanturi]

There are a lot of potential things one could craft in the game's editor, and with Nifscope one can get pretty creative in spite of Bethesda not releasing a mesh exporter. So it is indeed out of their control what people do with the game.

The trouble here though is that Bethsoft isn't really being honest with the media on this one. The mesh in question does not have to be modified to be nude, it was MADE that way in their studio. What was 'hacked' was the format of the archive file that contains the meshes, so that the meshes could be extracted. Extracting them is necessary if you want to make unique copies (rather than instances) of objects in the game's editor. The nude female torso mesh is right there. It's not visible in the game, but it did indeed ship with the game and does not require modification to exist. It just has to be fitted to an object reference, and given a world-position.

False?

[Anonymous Coward]

The breasts were actually included in the game, all a player did was open the construction set and remove the mesh for the bra.. and underneath were breasts.

They tried the same for the underwear, but all they found underneath was a mud crab. (Actually they only found empty space)

Re:False?

[Criterion]

Mod the AC up!!!! Finally, somebody else that actually has a clue about what's being talked about here instead of all the "it's all added content created by third party" bullshit.

Re:america-where boobs are a bigger threat than gu

[Blakey Rat]

Yeah, but it doesn't matter whether there is a correlation or not, it only matters is parents and the ESRB think there is. And obviously they do. This is called "facing reality"-- whether you like it or not, that's the way it is. Either work with it and try to convince parents otherwise, or just ignore it and move on, but there's no sense in trotting out the same message over and over, preaching to the choir.

Your version isn't equivalent to mine because the majority of parents do not believe that BMX biking is dangerous, but most parents believe sex is.

I was just trotting out the "jesus, just how many times does america have to reveal it's puritan roots" post for the Nth time.

Next time just assume 90 other people will, as in every single other thread like this, and skip it. Slashdot's already repetitive enough with the crappy jokes and the "dupe!" posts.

doesn't make sense

[Anonymous Coward]

how come american culture so affended about a pixelated boob, when USA has the biggest porn industry in the world ?

Re:doesn't make sense

[{tele}machus_*1]

[sarcasm]Because only perverts look at porn, and perverts are shunned by decent citizens. Obviously perverts have such insatiable appetites that the porn industry has grown to huge proportions to serve this vile minority.[/sarcasm]

Re:doesn't make sense

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you meant, because american culture is so affended about a pixelated boob, the USA has the biggest porn industry in the world.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[ultranova]

That is so irrational. I got lost my virginity during the Clinton administration and I'll be god dammed if you are going to give him credit for it.

Actually, Clinton did his dishonest best of confusing people about sexual terminology, so you getting lost in your virginity might well be his fault.

I'm still trying to figure out what the whole ridiculous blowjob hulabaloo was manufacture to cover up by diverting public attention to a meaningless matter.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[lymond01]

The whole "You have the potential to commit a crime thing" hearkens back to Orwell's 1984 and the Thought Police.

IMHO I think the ESRB made a mistake changing the rating because of someone else. You're going after the wrong target - like the RIAA trying to sue the companies that allow filesharing, rather than the actual people committing the crime of sharing copyrighted music.

We need a couple things in this country:

1) Bartering
2) Alternative Fuel

Take away money and oil, and what does greed have left to fester upon?

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[SkyWalk423]

Let me get this straight... Pedophiles have sex with children, but all of us non-pedophiles are the real assholes??

Relativist liberal horseshit.

Damned if they do...

[BaronHethorSamedi]

As absurd as the decision may initially seem, the ESRB is certainly in an unenviable position here. They're doing their level best to try and apply some sort of consistent standard to a medium that by its nature doesn't lend itself to consistency. AND they have to do this in light of the lessons learned from Hot Coffee controversy, with all the bad press (to say nothing of the litigation) it engendered. Can you really blame them for altering a rating? Free speech activists and anxious parents have this to distinguish them: anxious (not to say opportunistic) parents are much more likely to sue (and win) over something as apparently trivial as a content indicator. You can complain loud and long about ridiculous double standards, but at the end of the day, the ESRB is sort of a compromise between free speech and the (oft-understandable) parental desire to have at least some pre-purchase indication of what goes on inside a game. This isn't censorship; no one's access to Oblivion is being cut off. As many have pointed out, there was enough violent content to make at least an arguable case for an 'M' rating to begin with.

The real problem here is the ESRB apparently shifting positions every time there's a complaint. If the ratings on the box aren't trustworthy AS OF THE DATE OF RELEASE, and are constantly subject to some sort of bizarre democratic revision every time someone's curious tot downloads a shady mod, then both free speech and parental information are frustrated. The ensuing vicious cycle will lead to more debate, more lawsuits, and less trust than ever in an industry already struggling for legitimacy. If the ESRB doesn't work, then legislators will step in, and we all know where that leads.

Re:america-where boobs are a bigger threat than gu

[bunions]

Next time just assume 90 other people will, as in every single other thread like this, and skip it. Slashdot's already repetitive enough with the crappy jokes and the "dupe!" posts.

Yeah, but then I wouldn't have gotten to use my "jump up their own butts" line. :(

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[(A)*(B)!0_-]

I don't even know why I am bothering at this point.

I suggested that the ESRB should not take such threats seriously and then explained why I didn't think there was a need to take threats seriously - mainly because politicians would gain more power by the ESRB not listening to them if they were able to push their agenda into law and nullify the ESRB. You never addressed the logic behind why I stated the ESRB should ignore the threats but merely said only an idiot would ignore such threats. The implication is easy to see.

Simply saying you didn't imply it doesn't make it true. You're very good at using rude language and telling people to read more carefully but your ability to have a discussion and respond to someone's opinion is quite poor. I will not respond to you again.

Gore more to blame than Bush ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

Others have mentioned that Clinton passed the DMCA.

I'll add that Gore was behind a morality crusade to restrict music, forcing the record industry to start a rating system. This system expanded to video games eventually. So technically, Gore has a greater responsibility for this ratings fiasco than Bush.

I find it far more offensive...

[ChaoticCoyote]

...that they put breasts on reptiles. Dear god, think of all those kids who play Oblivion and end up looking for tits on a snake.

Re:I find it far more offensive...

[PaxTharsis]

...That the idiot at the checkout line at Walmart checks my ID (an ovbious 30+er) to buy a T or M rated title, where a bartender does not to serve me a drink. Now that's screwed up.

Re:I find it far more offensive...

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm. They're not reptiles, they're Argonians. It's a different universe. I know, you might not have noticed the bipedal talking cat-people dodging magical fireballs tossed by the pointy-eared 300-year-old yellow elf dudes, but yeah. Different universe, different fundamental rules.

  Seriously, though, boobs on (some of) the Argonian females are one of the clues that make certain mages and scholars in Tamriel suspect that the beast races are the result of alterations made to men or mer by forces unknown . (Most likely the sentient Hist trees, in the Argonian's case -- they are powerful, one of the only living species to survive intact through the destruction of the first worlds made by Lorkhan. The Argonians themselves believe the Hist created them.) Other clues include the Ohmes Khajiit's striking similarity to the neighbouring Bosmer (wood-elves), and the Khajiit creation story's resemblance to the elven legend. (The Aedra and Daedra involved are basically just given Khajiit names and feline characteristics in the Khajiit version.)

  I would say the Khajiit are probably Bosmer altered by one of the Aedra for reasons unknown, and perhaps unknowable, as mysterious as the Aedra are. The lore seems to be vague on the Khajiit's origins. I need to dig some more. I know there are interviews and forum postings by Bethesda employees that might help, but I haven't gone over them, so at this point I'm unable to get a rough idea of when the Khajiit even appeared.

  The Argonians, I think are humans (first-era Nords, specifically) who fled slavery under the ancient High Elves after the destruction of the first human settlements in Skyrim, and in desperation fled into the Black Marsh, where few others would dare to go. There the Hist might have offered them a symbiotic relationship that would allow them to survive in the deadly swamps. In return for their sworn service to the Trees, they were given traits of the tree-dwelling lizards, their tough skin and strong resistance to the diseases and poisonous creatures that abound in the Marsh.
  Of course, I could be wrong, but as a huge Elder Scrolls lore freak, I believe this is consistent with the era that Argonians seem to appear in the histories, and consistent with the events of that period.
  - mantar

Re:I find it far more offensive...

[Anonymous Coward]

oh my god. subplot for snakes on a plane, anyone?!

Re:I find it far more offensive...

[ChaoticCoyote]

How do you explain the very reptilian (and non-breasted) Argonians of Morrowind? They (and the Kajit) have legs quite unable to wear shoes and boots, for example. My favorite being the poor cold Argonian at the docks in the Morrowind Bloodmoon expansion, who mournfully complains "All I want is a pair of boots. How hard could it be?"

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Psmylie]

No, but Left vs. Right serves as an excellent distraction for those trying to extend their power base without people noticing. You'll hide a lot of the finer detail and history of an issue if you can polarize it between political extremes.

Gore "invented" the ratings system ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

I didn't want to combine a serious post with a joke, so here is a separate post.

Gore "invented" the ratings system.

Re:Gore "invented" the ratings system ...

[gr18563]

Without Gore we would not be able to discuss this. He not only "invented" the ratings system.... He "invented" the "INTERNET" too...

Re:Gore "invented" the ratings system ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

Without Gore we would not be able to discuss this. He not only "invented" the ratings system.... He "invented" the "INTERNET" too...

There were electronic discussion before the internet. All that would be different is that Zonk would have posted this article to the BBS being run from his bedroom.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Dachannien]

Want video game developers to be free to work in their craft without the fear of government interference? Well, I hope you don't plan on voting for Hillary in 2008.

ESRB is the symptom, not the cause

[Moraelin]

See, grasshopper, the ESRB isn't the enemy. The ESRB is a sort of reaction of the industry against an external attack. Because, make no mistake, the industry is under attack.

See, there's a lot of political capital in bravely fighting off a bogus but very visible threat. So there are a lot of demagogue politicians (think not only of top level figures like Lieberman, but also at local levels, lobby levels, and "non-political" organizations), two-bit media hacks, and parasitic lawyers jumping on any such target like sharks on a bloody piece of meat. And there are some trained sharks out there. They can smell the blood in the water even in homoeopathic quantities.

It's been so for a while. For example, long before video games even _existed_, politicians were savaging comics and presenting them as the great Satan that turns innocent kids into savage mass-murderers, rapists, etc. And then it was, in no particular order, tabletop games, music, movies, etc. And now it's video games. There's a lot of political capital in attacking video games.

And the main thrust of attack is invariably: "think of the children!!!" It's invariably been that somehow children are deceived into buying something inapropriate. Invariably the "villain" (be it a cartoonist, a rock musician or an overworked game developper) is presented as lurking sinister in the shadows, luring unsuspecting children into his spider web. Invariably it's painted as if little Billy thinks he's buying a Mickey Mouse comic or Barbie video game, but *WHAM* those dastardly villains gave him something that'll mind-control him into sacrificing all his classmates to Satan.

And games make a particularly good target there, because despite the statistics saying stuff like "the average gamer is 30", it's easy to present them as something that's by definition for kids. Once you've hand-waved that in, the rest is much easier. After that, by definition any game containing any kind of nudity, violence, etc, is obviously a devious attempt to peddle that kind of thing to the children.

The ESRB isn't the enemy, it's the industry's _defense_ to that attack. (As incompetent a defense as it may be at times.) The ESRB is the industry's way of being able to retort "well, fuck off. We wrote right on the box that it's a bloody gory game and it's not for pre-schoolers. We even told people where to look for that label. What more do you want? Blood?"

And for that to work, the ESRB _must_ basically overshoot. The sharks would _love_ to have even one single game that was labelled lower than its content warrants. Look at the media circus that happened about the GTA mod. (Even there, the ESRB were _not_ the ones that started it. They just reacted to the attack.) And make no mistake, that was a mod too. Now imagine what those scumbag politicians would do with a game where inapropriate content is available in the game as bought.

So again, the ESRB _must_ overshoot. If there's as little as two characters slapping each other, the ESRB _must_ have "Violence" written on the box. If two characters as little as kiss each other (and I don't even mean some particularly hot tongue-sucking two-hands-under-her-blouse kinda kiss), the ESRB _must_ have "Sexual Themes" written on the box. (Point in case, "The Sims" had both written on the box, and before the expansion packs slapping or occasionally kissing were _all_ a sim could do in both aspects.) Because, again, otherwise the consequences could be a lot worse.

So, no, if there's someone I'm disgusted with, it's the hypocrites that are the cause of it all, not with ESRB.

Re:ESRB is the symptom, not the cause

[Anonymous Coward]

_Seriously_, _try_ relaxing _with_ the _underscores_. _We_ get _the _point.

Only 1 Democratic Senator voted against Patriot ..

[AHumbleOpinion]

"I'm pretty sure you're referencing the DMCA. This was a product not of the Bush administration, but the Clinton administration."

No, I'm pretty sure he refers to the P.A.T.R.I.O.T act.

So what, all but one Democratic Senator voted to pass the Patriot Act.

In case you are unfamiliar with the how laws are enacted in the United States, assuming you are a citizen of another country or a graduate of the US educational system :), the president does not create laws. He signs Bills into law *after* the House of Representatives *and* the Senate pass a Bill and send it to the president.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

I'm still trying to figure out what the whole ridiculous blowjob hulabaloo was manufacture to cover up by diverting public attention to a meaningless matter.

I'd say it was just meant to taint the last portion of the presidency for the 2000 elections. No real coverup for that particular hulabaloo.

It is trivial to hack Solitaire with nudity

[SloppyElvis]

However, Windows automatic file replacement prevents you from copying over WINDOWS/system32/cards.dll, the resource dll used by solitaire (and the other simple card games on Windows) to draw the cards.

You can, however, simply copy cards.dll and sol.exe from WINDOWS/system32 to a separate directory on your PC, open cards.dll with a program like ResHacker, and replace all the card images with naked people. This is trivial to do. It took me 3 minutes to create a "Solitaire: Swimsuit Edition" using this method, but I could have made "Solitaire: Donkey Pr0n Edition" just as easily - and put it on the web for all the children to download.

I'd post the result, but I'd hate to have Micro$oft lawyers dragging me into court for hacking Solitaire. Anyway, you can do it yourself very easily if you want.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

Jimmy Carter first authorized the wiretapping many pan Bush (not to mention the countless other presidents who have used it) for employing.
There is a minor, subtle difference in how Bush employed wiretapping. All other presidents obeyed FISA. They spied only on foreign nationals, and they got court orders from the FISA court every single time. If they broke this law, it has never become public news. So if you know different, there is a Pulitzer waiting with your name on it.

Bush refuses to say who he spied on, and he bypassed FISA. Considering that FISA generally approves every request they see, the fact that he felt he couldn't get an order through FISA speaks volumes. Bush was probably spying on US citizens, and very likely for non-national security reasons, such as getting intelligence on political opposition. Think this is far-fetched? Look at how every law enforcement agency in the country has abused the Patriot act to go after run of the mill criminals, political activists, etc.

Re:america-where boobs are a bigger threat than gu

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, the youngest children encounter more titty in a day than most of us have seen in years. (At least that's what I keep telling Mom.) I'm convinced that this is the root cause of terrorism. Unlimited titty upon request for several months (years in Kentucky), then no more until you're 18. Heck, I get angry enough when my wife sends me to sleep on the couch for _one_night_, let alone 17 years. Maybe I'll write my Congressman.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

['nother poster]

There was no logic. You made unfounded statements. Backed them up by stating that since *states* have passed overreaching legislation that has been overturned by the federal court system that if the Congress of the United States attempted to form a governmental control body it would also be nullified by the court system. It's a non sequiter.

Because of hypocrisy

[Moraelin]

IMHO the whole situation also exists because of a massive dose of public hypocrisy.

Take 1000 people separately, on their own, and you might notice that they _are_, after all, capable of thinking for themselves. Make a town or "community" out of them, and groupthink happens. Watch them shout against X or pro Y or swear that they'd never even consider Z, just because that's what they think the group opinion is. Even if taken separately they couldn't care less about X, or don't find Y that great, in a group they'll try to be the ones who shout the loudest, because that way lies being a fashionable upstanding member of the community.

And I'm not going to single any one nation, because hypocrites happen everywhere. People are people all over the globe.

But to stick to this particular topic, in America the hypocrisy of the century is about sex and religion. Guns are cool, being a violent "gangsta" is way cool (ever listened to Rap in the last decade?), but sex or nudity? OMG!!! THE HORROR!!! JESUS CHRIST SAVE US!!!

That includes not only why seeing a boob warrants Mature or AO, but braining people with a crowbar is Teen. This also includes why the industry is so scared of applying a M label on a game in America. Because of hypocrites. Including the likes of Wal Mart who'll refuse selling a M game because "OMG, IT COULD BE PORN!!! WE DON'T WANT THAT AS OUR CORPORATE IMAGE!!!" And including the many John Does who are basically all like "OMG, I CAN'T BE SEEN BUYING A M OR AO RATED GAME!!! PEOPLE MIGHT THINK I'M BUYING PORN!!!"

See all the outrage and "chilling effect" demagogy whenever someone proposes that more games get a M label, or that the label be made bigger. Invariably at the heart of the long tirade is something like "OMG!!! IF THE LABEL IS BIGGER, PEOPLE WILL SEE ME BUYING AN M GAME!!! THEY'LL THINK I BOUGHT PORN!!!" Yep, it's hypocrisy all right. It's not about whether they want to buy the game or not, but god forbid that it might affect their fake image of upstanding pillars of the community.

See, the funny thing is, nowhere else than in America that particular association happens. E.g., around here GTA games had a big 18+ rating and some stores (e.g., Saturn) put them in red plastic boxes. (So presumably the cashier would know to look at who's buying it, when they opened the box for you.) So everyone saw you taking a red plastic box to the cashier. It had no chilling effect, and noone made the association that it might be porn. But try even proposing something like that in America, and you get a whole "chilling effect" tirade, along the lines of "OMG!!! PEOPLE MIGHT THINK I'M BUYING PORN THEN!!!"

Again, I'm not saying that other parts of the world don't have their hypocrites, but each one's hypocrisy of the century is different. The American one is pretending to be horrified by breasts or anything even vaguely associated with sex. And god help you if you don't pretend to be horrified by the very idea of it.

Re:Because of hypocrisy

[nexex]

Guns are cool, being a violent "gangsta" is way cool (ever listened to Rap in the last decade?), but sex or nudity?

Rap music is full of sex. Misogyny permeates the entire genre of 'pop rap'.

When Ratings Cease to Rate

[Sage Gaspar]

1. ESRB rates games that have slightly questionable content accessed via modding up to M.

2. Half the games on the market become M. When Little Johnny shows off some M games to mom and dad they learn the ratings don't mean much.

3. ???

4. Pro... err, The Coalition of Nipple strikes another blow at the moral underpinnings of American society. President finally has rallied enough support to officially declare his War on Boobies.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

Leave. *shrug* You have every right to extricate yourself from a situation in which you feel unpleasant. It's part of that "pursuit of happiness" thing.

I hear Canada is nice this time of year.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Nephroth]

Yes, thank you!

Unfortunately, our point of view is pretty unpopular as it tends to be pretty hard for people to think back that far. They just want to deal with the little arguments that are fed to them to keep them busy, all the while their precious rights are stolen away in the name of "safety." Safety from whom, I ask?

It's not an issue of democrats and republicans or libertarians, it's an issue of the powerful wanting more power, the rich wanting more money, and ultimately, greed.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Dorothy 86]

You're fooling yourself if you're coming to slashdot for the "intellectual discourse."

Or, maybe it happens between FRist P05ty and GNAA posts and I just miss it.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

Relativist liberal horseshit.

All I know is, there was a guy once who said very similar things. How the "good people" whom everyone admired, who obeyed every law to the letter, who were always giving to charity, who never hurt a fly, were actually hypocrites filled with all kinds of evil. How the "bad people" that everyone hated, who broke laws left and right, who stole, embezzled, robbed, immigrated illegally, lied, and cheated on their partners, were in fact fundamentally good people who needed forgiveness, healing, and understanding, not punishment.

What was his name now? Began with a "J"...

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Nephroth]

Yes, Bush is bad. But the only difference between what Bush has been doing and what previous presidents have done, is that Bush has flaunted it. Instead of being secretive about taking our freedoms, he's created a unique political climate in which people aren't angry about it, they're actually cheering him on.

People are encouraging it, and if you don't want to wipe your ass with the constitution, you're not a patriot.

Shouldn't Bethesda be filing a lawsuit?

[TheNoxx]

If the ESRB flat out lied and implied that the topless skin was already in the game, whereas this response seems to indicate that the skin was added by 3rd party modders, shouldn't they be filing a lawsuit? I mean, this is pretty much the definition of libel and it's going to hurt Bethesda's sales.

Re:Shouldn't Bethesda be filing a lawsuit?

[isnoop]

The topless skin is already in the game. It is just covered up by a bra.

In fact, when you remove the bra, you are left with breasts with flesh shaped like there was a bra molded under the skin.

Aside from all of that, name one person who was ever harmed by looking at a breast.

Re:Shouldn't Bethesda be filing a lawsuit?

[TheCage]

Speech is only considered libel if the content is known to be false. So, Bethesda would have to prove that the ESRB knew that the content was added by a 3rd party.

Re:Shouldn't Bethesda be filing a lawsuit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Speech is only considered libel if the content is known to be false.

Complete crap. I have no idea whether you're a child molester or not. That doesn't mean I'm immune from libel laws if I allege that you are.

Re:Shouldn't Bethesda be filing a lawsuit?

[Criterion]

The response is obviously confusing some readers, but it does NOT indicate that the texture was not there.

Re:Shouldn't Bethesda be filing a lawsuit?

[mabinogi]

If you have no idea, then you don't know, therefore when you allege that he is, you know that you are lying, therefore it is libel.

If you thought you had evidence that he was, then you'd merely be wrong.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[(A)*(B)!0_-]

But rather than make that point - at which point this discussion could have continued as I would have responded to it - you implied I was merely an idiot.

You really don't know what you're talking about.

By the way, it's non sequitur. And my logic has been on display for all to see while the best you can muster is to call names and to tell people to read more carefully. That's your argument distilled.

Ever consider that perhaps, you're the idiot?

Re:Yeah, it's r*i*diculous

[Blakey Rat]

I think the real problem here is that the model for the female argonians is pretty goddamned hot, if you ignore the scaly skin. Oblivion was made by scalies!

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

['nother poster]

Thanks for the spelling correction. As to your Ad Hominem... No, I do not believe that I am.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Shai-kun]

The actual name of this law is the USA PATRIOT act, short for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism". Also called the U SAP AT RIOT act.

Pictures=dirty

[bombshelter13]

So, essentially, as far as the ESRB is concerned, any game capable of taking an image and mapping it onto a surface should be rated mature, since, well, you could always hack it to display something obscene.

My thought?

[DragonWriter]

Every game maker should add a disclaimer similar to the one used for online play:

"Game experience may vary when used in conjunction with third-party products which alter game functionality. Third-party content and experience resulting from modification are not rated by the ESRB."

(Of course, if parents really cared to control what their children were experiencing, they would install the games for them, using privileged accounts to which their children didn't have passwords, on an operating system whose security features weren't easily evaded, and their children wouldn't have the permissions to alter any of the game files in the first place. But since repeated surveys (and not just in the US) show consistently that parents don't actually pay much attention to what their children are playing, and don't effectively limit what they purchase or play by rating anyway, that probably doesn't matter. The ratings and videogame makers are, largely, just something else to blame for the effects of parental neglect.)

How about WoW?

[alexgieg]

I'm using since some months a mod for WoW that makes females and males from the eight races, plus succubus, show everything (and I mean it) when unequipped. It's very fun to walk around the main game cities with this installed, since there's always one or more people running or dancing around without equipment. Should the ESRB then rate WoW "mature"? What a nonsense...

The rating system should be changed. Instead of a single "Teens", "Children", "Mature" etc. rating, this should be multi-layered system. The box should have something like this:

- Violence: Extreme
- Sex: Low (may increase)
- Language: Explicit

"Enter code XXXXXX at
www.esrb.org for details."

Puting into the parents hands the burden of deciding what is and isn't appropriate for their children.

In short: any kind of measurement must be somewhat precise. There's no precision at all in compressing these different dimensions into a generic "this is okay for teens, that isn't".

Re:How about WoW?

[WNivek]

I agree with you about the ratings system. That's about the sort of system the RSAC used, and I much preferred it over the ESRB's. Actually told you what you were getting into, instead of trying to assign it to a generalized age-group.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Carter did it, but it wasn't illegal then. Because he did it, FISA was established, and laws came into effect that make what Bush has been doing illegal.

Of course, the point that Carter should not have done it is well taken.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Lusa]

I wouldn't put it that way. What they are getting at is only those that take action are bad. I'm sure a large percentage of the population would be considered bad if the mere private thought was the only criteria required. I'm thinking of just a basic work day, driving to work and someone cuts you up, you wish something bad would happen to them. Only if you act on that impulse are you going to be considered bad.

Now, I'm not trying to defend pedophiles but look at this objectively for a moment. Currently it's considered very bad to have sex with a child, but look back 50 or 60 years and I'm sure the same moral outrage was directed also at anyone having sex with someone of the same gender. The reason it is different now is people understand that it is not a sickness or illness of the mind that can be cured. Sexual orientation is just another part of what makes up an individual. The same can be said about pedophiles which is where we have the problem. We want to be able to cure it but we can't. Any method taken is likely to be equally morally objectionable as the problem itself.

Game Experience

[Anonymous Coward]

They should just slap something on the box that says "Outside content may change gaming experience" kinda like the "online play" stuff they write on there.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

Pedophiles are aroused by the idea of sex with children. Just like being aroused by the idea of choking Hillary Clinton doesn't make you a murderer, being aroused by the idea of sex with children doesn't make you a sex offender, just a deviant psychologically ill person.

You and your ilk are indeed part of the problem.

Black-and-white dumb-ass oversimplifying pontificating consevative horseshit. :)

Re:america-where boobs are a bigger threat than gu

[pinkocommie]

Bingo They're basic mirror images , both designed to oppress, instill fear and create a facade of a great relentless enemy. Bin Laden: US is evil, they'll rape your women, plunder your lands (resources/oil) and hate your religion Bush / his ilk: Muslims / Arabs are evil, they'll blow up your women and children and hate your 'freedom' Bottom line: Most people aren't evil, most (virtually all?) governments and religious figureheads are evil. We the people regardless of anything mostly all want to live in peace, raise kids have good food and live a half decent life. Sorry for the Rant O:-)

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Firehed]

Their argument might hold some salt if a pornographic video game actually existed. If they do, I certainly haven't ever heard of one. And no, third party mods (be it Hot Coffee or this topless thing which I'd view as a realism mod as it's not the slightest bit pornographic) wouldn't count, as they're not part of the game.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude! You lost your virginity to Clinton? Sweet! Now you can start selling handbags to douchebags!

ESRB Urges "M" Rating for Photoshop and IExplorer

[Brix Braxton]

Oblivion was the tip of the iceberg - next on their list are tools and viewers of the fruits of those tools.

Reply from ESRB

[KazerSoza]

Here is a reply from a e-amil (org below) I sent to the ESRB on this:

Dear :

Thank you for contacting the Entertainment Software Rating Board with your comments regarding the re-rating of The Elder Scrolls® IV: Oblivion(TM). This is a serious and complex issue, and we sincerely appreciate your concern.

Following the public release of Oblivion, and as a result of ESRB's post-release monitoring and play-testing activities, the ESRB learned of the presence of two separate types of content that were deemed legitimate cause for reconsidering its rating. The first was depictions of blood and gore that appeared to exceed in detail and intensity that which was submitted to ESRB during the rating process. The second was a third party modification to the PC version which unlocked an art file already present in the code of the game, allowing players to apply a topless model or "skin" to female characters.

These issues moved the ESRB to initiate a review that involved:

Comparing the material disclosed in the game's submission by the publisher to content that was captured during an ESRB test of the final product;

Verifying that the locked-out content was in fact in a fully rendered form in the code of the PC version of the game, and confirming the means to unlock it; and

Submitting the original submission materials for the game along with the content captured during ESRB testing of the final product for review by ESRB raters to evaluate the accuracy of the initial rating assignment.

This review confirmed that the company's submission for Oblivion understated content with respect to the blood and gore found in the game. Specifically, the depictions of blood and gore were found to exceed the detail and intensity of those included in the publisher's videotape submission, and to be inconsistent with a Teen rating. The ESRB raters' review resulted in their assigning the game a rating of M (Mature) for blood, gore and nudity, rendering the initial T (Teen) rating inaccurate.

The ESRB also verified that the code in the PC version of the game contained a locked-out topless female character model that, though programmed to be inaccessible, could be unlocked through the use of a third party tool. The skin associated with this content was found to exist in a fully rendered form on the game disc, and to require only a minor modification to a filename in the code of the PC version to access (the Xbox 360(TM) version of the game cannot be modified to unlock the skin).

ESRB rules require that publishers disclose locked-out content during the rating process if it is pertinent to a rating. Accordingly, all skins included in the code on the final Oblivion game disc are considered pertinent to the rating, whether accessible through normal game play or not. The topless female skin was not disclosed to ESRB during the rating process.

As a result of these findings, the ESRB changed the rating for both the PC and Xbox versions of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion from T (Teen) to M (Mature). The PC version of the game will carry an additional content descriptor for Nudity until a new version of the game can be re-mastered, replicated and released. Since the ESRB investigation confirmed that the Xbox 360 version cannot be modified to access the topless skin, the Nudity descriptor was deemed unnecessary for that version.

It is inevitable that some may disagree with the ESRB's actions in this instance. We simply ask those who disagree to consider that consumers, especially parents, count on ESRB ratings for reliable and accurate information about what's in a computer or video game. They deserve to know what they are buying, and the ESRB is both obligated and committed to providing the most reliable and accurate ratings information possible. If content that would affect a ra

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Isotopian]

This is why I think that the whole "gay is an alternate lifestyle" viewpoint needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Because if we preach universal tolerance of aberrant behavior (which homosexuality IS), how long is it before pedophiles and necrophiliacs say "Hey, we deserve the same rights as gays do!" Not saying it's likely, but it's a slippery slope.

In some ways it makes sense

[Knutsi]

Doesn't it make sence in some ways that a game that could possibly be modified outside the parents control should be labled as such? Maybe this labeling organisation (ESRB) should make themselves a new category scheme that says the experience could change over time, but the game itself is basically ok.

However, as many other Europeans, I still don't get how swearing and sex in a game makes it more dangerous than the voilence it's gameplay is based on. I remember a girl I know teling me about her Syrian father's opinion that "sex is more dangerous than voilence". Some people just need to adjust their compass...

Well, time to go out and beat up some hoockers! Oh yea...

Americans :rolleyes:

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just as stupid as the whole GTA-farce. What is it with Americans and nudity? You can have all the blood, gore and dismemberment you want in a game/movie/TV-shot/whatever, but the moment you even think about showing a womans nipple, someone's gonne start making a fuss.

And spare me of any "it's bad for the children" or similar crap which seems to be the reasons "you people" have for this sort of stupidity - if beheading, dismembering and beating old ladies on the street to a pulp isn't bad for a childen, seeing something they used to suck on several times a day, and (probably) will again once they grow up, certainly isn't gonna hurt them.

Damn hypocrites.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Silverstrike]

"slippery slope"

What an asinine and annoying argument that I'm so sick of hearing. Lets try this one:

People that live on mountains don't tumble into the valley rivers. Why? Because they know how far down the slope they're comfortable living and build their homes there.

What does that teach us?

Well, when the "pedophiles and necrophiliacs say 'Hey, we deserve the same rights as gays do!'", we simply say "No, you go back to your cell and be quiet".

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't want the NSA monitoring your phone calls? Sorry, there is the POTENTIAL that terrorists could use it to call other terrorists.
Especially if you're calling known terrorists or people publicly listed on the FBI terrorist watch lists.

Want to use myspace to talk with your friends? Sorry, there is the POTENTIAL that a pedophile might use it to harm you.
Especially if you're under the age of 18 and without adult supervision.

Want to mod your videogame? Sorry, there is the POTENTIAL someone could modify it to show more nudity or violence.
Especially since, like it or not, it's not "your video game" - it's somebody else's IP that you are licensed to use.

Want freedom of the press? Sorry, there is the POTENTIAL that something the press reveals could compromise our security.
No counterpoint here because I'm not aware of a case where the press has been muzzled because of the "POTENTIAL...[to] compromise our security". (Heck, the press has gone out of it's way fo late to compromise security every way it can).

Don't want the government to secretly demand all your Google search records, library book records, video store rentals, etc.? Sorry, there is the POTENTIAL that one of these could have been used by a terrorist to learn how to make a bomb.
Especially if your browser's history includes goatse (sorry, couldn't resist).

As infamously said in Stripes: "Lighten up, Francis".

(Score:-5, Rational)

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[elrous0]

I suggested that the ESRB should not take such threats seriously and then explained why I didn't think there was a need to take threats seriously - mainly because politicians would gain more power by the ESRB not listening to them if they were able to push their agenda into law and nullify the ESRB.

Okay, I can't make head-or-tails of that sentence.

Are you saying that the industry and ESRB have nothing to fear from Congress because it would increase Congress's power to destroy the ESRB and regulate the industry themselves? That's surely not what you meant to say.

-Eric

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, screw off then. The origional post had nothing to do with politics. It's jacka$$ like you who feel a need to insert crap like this into everything that makes it hard for normal people to enjoy life. If you don't like it go to Canada, you'll be able to avoid anything Bush related there.

Let's just get this straight once and for all.

[Nazo-San]

Bethesda CREATED the material. The nude textures and the nude meshes using said textures. It takes a third party mod to unlock them. The third parties did not create the material and, as far as I know, it's impossible for them to do so considering that a mesh exporter has yet to be released (nor any news pertaining to actual work being done on one last time I looked.) And for those of you thinking bad thoughts, a NIF exporter would allow us to do a lot of legitimate things such as new weapons, new armors, even better looking creatures or performance enhancing things such as the removal of the mind numbingly massive number of polygons dedicated to creatures that don't need them like the bear.

So, for the record, a third party mod is required to unlock the material, but, Bethesda created the material and then later renamed the model file so they could put in a different version with underwear welded to the people's skin without overwriting the original. They then placed this in the final game rather than removing it (along with a lot of other crap that doesn't belong, but, this is the only thing that's doing more than taking up extra space.) Third parties did not create the material. Please stop saying over and over that they did.

Re:Let's just get this straight once and for all.

[Nazo-San]

Actually, now that I reread the original article, it does look like Bethesda is actually lying a little. They say they didn't create a game with nudity, but, they put it in there. They disabled it, but, it's in there. Therefore, they created a game with nudity disabled.

Just so we're clear, the only "modification" necessary by these third parties is to rename a couple of files. Rename the old mesh to something else, then rename the nude mesh to the name that the old one was. Quite frankly, I consider this a lie as well since renaming a file isn't actually modifying the actual content of the file.

Re:Let's just get this straight once and for all.

[Criterion]

Bethesda is not lying. There is no nudity in the game they created. There is nudity in a texture file that is not used in the game that is on the disk.

Re:Let's just get this straight once and for all.

[Nazo-San]

Well, my only point is they are really stretching things here and the particular wording actually is a lie. The meaning was not, but, the wording was very poorly chosen. There IS nudity in the game they created. They hid it, but, it's still in the game they created.

Don't get me wrong, their real point is true. It is something not normally accessable, and not something you can get to by just typing some console command (well, unless there's a command that can change mesh references or something.) So it will require a third party mod to get to it, though from what I understand of how unlocking it works, probably a child could do it, which might be a part of why ESRB feels it deserves a higher rating. Then again, a child could install nudity mods for most of the games out there anyway. Many games make installing a mod easy and don't really differentiate between the content of those mods (and if they did people would be VERY upset because it's quite easy for any algorithm designed to determine what is appropriate or not to incorrectly detect inappropriate content -- for example, I can't say "cars" in the Need for Speed online chat. That's right. Cars. The subject of the game... Maybe they've finally fixed this since I last tried?)

It is unfair for ESRB to rate them on what can be done via modifications. I still think it's unfair for ESRB to rate them a T to begin with though, and I have a suspicion that ESRB is just using it as an excuse because they know Bethesda explicitely did the absolute minimum required to ensure they got such a rating knowing that their game really does belong in the M category with all that violence and such.

Re:Let's just get this straight once and for all.

[Criterion]

Oh, I agree, and I'm probably being a bit on the "technicality" side of the argument also. I personally don't see a huge problem with an M rating on the game. Funny that this should come up, especially since in Daggerfall there was nudity exactly equal to this (remove female characters shirt) in the game with no mods. Really not like it's a new thing or something. I think the rating was changed more because the violence was more graphic than they understood, and the nudity is just a scapegoat.

Tonight On the News

[darkonc]

Camera sales to minors (including in cell phones) is banned because some censorship ghit realizes that you can use them to make porn.

Video and image display software (including web browsers) fight against similar restrictionx.

A request.

[Don_dumb]

Can someone make a disgusting MOD for this- http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/action/americasarmyopera tions/index.html game.
I just love the idea of the US Army product getting a newer harsher rating because of a third party 'gay unclefucker gimp soldier' skin.

This really sets a dangerous precedent, to punish a company for an extension to a product that they have not made. It is exactly as stupid as Marvel (I think it was) suing the makers of 'City Of Heroes' because the users could create characters of their choice. You might as well censor school textbook publishers because of all the penis cartoons 'third-parties' have added.

Re:A request.

[tito13kfm]

It wasn't just books where the Penis Bandits struck at my school. We tagged everything from school busses, drivers ed car, announcement board in front of school, and the kicker... A giant penis wipe effect which replaced the star wipe which the principle LOVED to use during our video announcments.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[InsertCleverUsername]

With rare exceptions like Al Gore, few of our "representatives" (I use the term lightly) have the first clue about technology. Things like this ESRB rating stupidity really boggle the mind. Do you suppose legislators would ban Cadillacs if someone created a replacement hood ornament that looks like a dildo?

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

Pedeo: Young and spirited.
Phila: Love of
But probably better rendered as pation for.
(Se Philantropist, Philanthropoltics etc.)
How do we define young? Ask the law- you get one answer
ask a philosopher (Oh theirs that Philo prefex again). You get another. I would argue that someone who has a pation for young (at least young harted) are far less of a problem then someone neuroticle about to poison my water suply...

a plea to the slashdot community

[Anonymous Coward]

start creating patches for all games to add nude models, explicit language and actions.

i want to see bigbird with a strapon teaching the ABC's
make the typing tutors have you practice typing erotic short stories
go all out, lets get barbie fashion hunt III a topless mod as well

there are hundreds of games that could easily get that dreaded M rating with a simple mod or two...
so get on it.
get modding.
lets give the esrb folks some extra pointless work.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

Except homosexuality (or bisexuality, or corpophilia) usually occurs between consenting adults. Paedophilia and necrophilia does not occur include consent (children and dead bodies cannot give informed consent). I don't think the state (or church, or anyone else) has any business telling two (or more) consenting adults what they can do in the privacy of their own bedroom (or bathroom, or kitchen).

-TG

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[SkyWalk423]

What they are getting at is only those that take action are bad. I'm sure a large percentage of the population would be considered bad if the mere private thought was the only criteria required.

When I refer to a "pedophile", I'm talking about someone who has acted on their impulse.

I'm attracted to brunettes. The secretary where I used to work was an attractive brunette, and I'll admit to some unclean thoughts. But I never acted on the impulse. I don't think it's too much to ask for a (presumably) mature adult to resist his/her impulses to rape children. Do you??

This is plain silly

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats next Crayola's Rated M for mature. Games like Oblivian offer a great starting ground for aspiring game developers/programers that allow modification of models and the world and this is a reason for a re-rating. Allowing creativity should not be punished for providing a canvas. The ESRB has there hands full rerating alot of games like Mario Paint, Magic Pengel, Tokyo Extreme racer 2 (customizable decals)and too many more to count.

Konchu

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

No, child molesters are bad people. What has a pedophile done that makes him/her bad? NOTHING. 'Pedophile' is a state of mind, not an action. It is entirely possible to love children, even to find them sexually appealing, and NOT give in to the urge to do something about it.

Every time I see someone say 'All pedophiles should be killed!', I think to myself 'First we punish all of YOU people for murder, THEN we'll worry about them.' You're as guilty of murder as your average pedophile is guilty of any crime. If the pedophile ACTS on the urges in some non-approved way, then they're a child molester - They've actually DONE something wrong!

Get it? Probably not. That would involve THINKING, and you already seem to think that thinking is a prosecutable offense.

Idiots.

Weevil2

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Morrigu]

While I am loath to criticize the wisdom of another member of the Eric Conspiracy, I respectfully disagree.

El Presidente Bush II, despite all he has done to support the slow erosion of civil liberties and the increase of Presidential executive privilege in the US, is not the only one to blame here.

Arthur Scheslinger wrote The Imperial Presidency about the use of power by American Presidents since the beginning of the US. Especially since FDR, Presidents have steadily increased their powers and influence to a degree unimaginable by the Founding Fathers. This is just a tiny piece of that.

The 1990s and the Clinton years brought us political correctness, the rise of litigation culture and the other half of this problem - increasing desire for ratings and "protecting the children" on behalf of government and industry. Remember Tipper Gore?

It's certainly gotten worse since Bush was sworn in at the beginning of 2001, but he's not the guy who started these problems. Given their history, I don't think Mr Gore (or Mr Kerry for that matter) would have made a huge difference as President in this regard.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[SkyWalk423]

I'd love to see the reaction you would receive if you said that to the mother of a child who had been victimized by a pedophile.

The only thing worse than a relativist is a pacifist.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[TylerL82]

how long is it before pedophiles and necrophiliacs say "Hey, we deserve the same rights as gays do!"
Last time I checked, minors aren't legally allowed to consent to sex, and dead people can't consent to anything.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you're talking about a child molester, not a pedophile. Learn what the words MEAN, you idiot! You'll run into a lot less trouble that way!

Weevil2

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

Dead bodies aren't people, so the consent is meaningless... there is no person to give consent. "Victimless crimes" shouldn't be legislated against.

Let them here how you feel

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.esrb.org/about/contact.jsp

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[SkyWalk423]

Pedophiles are aroused by the idea of sex with children.

No, pedophiles are aroused by the idea of sex with children and have indulged their desires. Those who have the impulse are psychologically ill. Those who have the impluse and act upon it are criminals of the lowest order.

I'm not talking about "thoughtcrime" here. I'm not condemning anyone for having deviant thoughts, I'm comdemning those who have taken deviant action.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[SkyWalk423]

So when you rape a child, you are no longer a pedophile... I think I got it now...

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that you should be prosecuted for murder, by the same standards? A 'pedophile' hasn't DONE anything wrong! A child molestor has. One is a state of mind, one is an action. Get it? Not likely, I know..

By the same lights, you have just posted a desire - a state of mind - that you want all the people who don't *think* the way you think is 'right' all to be rounded up and killed. If thoughts are prosecutable, you're a murderer, bub.

Will this open your eyes? Not bloody likely, I know. All I can do is try, though.

Weevil2

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[B_Realll]

Get out of here with your logical right-wing blather you sumbitch. Don't you know we all think with our hearts around these parts? GWB is Satan so it is obviously his fault.

I would mod you up if I had points

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[NeutrinoLite]

Move out. If it hurts you so much to be an American than move out. Why does anyone still live here in this oppressive country where we have no freedom, are lose more of it everyday? I guess its your outlook on the world. Yeah it seems popular to picture life here to be depressive and near unlivable. Why stay then? I love this country. I am patriotic. You remind me of rot in the middle of a fruit. I for one agree with with the last statement of this story: "If anyone is at fault here, I think it's the ESRB." On a side note: It blew my mind one day when I heard my professor say something along the lines of, "Good! Anything bad about Bush is good news." - wtf is wrong with people these days?

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not very smart, are you?

When you rape a child, you can be prosecuted as a child molester and a rapist. Do you think you're going to get a charge of 'pedophilia' to stick? Hate to burst your bubble, chum.

Do you have ANY idea what percentage of children are molested because they were an easy target, NOT because the person who did it was a pedophile? Rape is about POWER, not sex. Most children are molested by parents, relatives, the closest neighbor - people you and the children know and trust. People with wives and children of their own, even!

This is a terrible example, but.. Think about all those prison rapes. Do you think all the hardened criminals who rape other men are no longer heterosexual anymore, because they've raped another man? They rape for POWER, not because they're attracted to men.

Idiot. IDIOT! At least come up with a good argument, won't you?

Weevil2
(the lesser of 2 weevils!)

Yes I remember the good old days

[SmallFurryCreature]

The days of the first Elder Scrolls games with plenty of pixel nudity. Nude harpies, nude paperdolls, topless harlotts, the works. They were everywhere. Well okay I went everywere in the game to find them but nobody really gave a fuck.

We have had the sexual revolution, then the do as you please eighties and now we are turning back into the dark ages.

This is about a nude body. You murder and pick the clothes of their still twitchng corpse and the bad thing is that you can see a nippel?

This world is fucked up.

Yes the past wasn't always perfect either but I long back to the days when a bit of nudity wasn't considered the end and people could rate their own games.

But seeing as I am well over 18 now I suggest a compremise to all those people who want to keep their kids safe from titties.

All games are from now on 18+ only. So are all movies, books, radio programs, plays, music. EVERYTHING. Kids who even put their hands on one are flogged and their parents go through forced parenting classes.

It is a simple class. A cattle prod and a question. "Who is responsible for your kids". BZZZZZZ wrong answer.

Re:Yes I remember the good old days

[Shihar]

Are you joking me? Did you forget the D&D scares of the 80's? What about the comic book stupidity of the 60's and 70's? Computer gaming censorship has a LONG way to fall before it can catch with the mind numbing stupidity of what happened to comics. If the stupid fucking rules that were once applied to comic books were applied to computer games you could only play a hero, never break the law, the game wouldn't let you lose because the good guy always has to win, and good guys couldn't kill bad guys except in self defense.

Look, I am not saying I am not happy with the state of things as they are. I fucking loath the FCC. I hate that our culture is so uptight that that the ESBR throws a fit when it realizes that people are naked under their clothes (slap an M for mature on my ass, because I am naked under my clothes too). My point is that you shouldn't look back to the past with this warm fuzzy nostalgia. The past sucked. These are the good new days of communication. If you really want to, you can see more porn in an hour of internet surfing then you the all the porn combined since the dawn of time to the 90's (hyperbole perhaps, but not by much).

Further, to be honest, I would happily take the voluntary rating system stupidity that goes on now over a draft, not being able to merry my non-white girlfriend, and all the other shitty things that happened in the not so distant past.

Today is not a shiny utopia, but neither was the past. Fuck the past, look to the future.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[heinousjay]

Bullshit. Some people are broken. That's how it goes. Ttoo bad, so sad, put your organic material back in the hopper and check out, please.

Why is That the Issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't it seem a little disturbing that the ESRB is more concerned with the chance that some BOOBs might be shown, and less concerned that you run around killing people?

I just don't understand why in America a little T&A is suddenly worse than glorified violence.
What Movies are Rated R anymore? Generally its adult movies with foul language and a sex scene,
all the while its OK to have a jedi murder a temple of children.

We need to get our priorities straight and realize violence kills, sex doesn't.

Re:Why is That the Issue?

[vpalexander]

An excellent, obvious, unanswerable point. It's okay to deal death by blade, poison or flashy spell (heck, for a small fee all is NPC-forgiven...even after depopulating an entire town). But throw in a lil titty and you've just gone too damn far. :)

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[nofsinga]

That's called "responsibility." When you're in charge of the country, yes, you have to answer for everything that goes on.

I know there has been a lot of criticism saying current Executive branch uses too much power in the government, but since when has the American president been "In charge of the country?"

Call me naive, ignorant, w/e, but I choose to believe the people are still in charge of this country, and certainlythe ESRB

Sounds like a plan

[phorm]

As absurd as it sounds, this would be a pretty damn funny mod. A lot of the games nowadays do use suggestive player models, especially for females (low-cut black leather armour, etc), although they tend to stop short of blatant sexuality. Mario games aren't this way, however, and the sheer unexpectedness of it would make it rather amusing to hack the textures/models on a friend's cart :-)

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD PARENT UP

Pink swimsuit

[phorm]

It's no more sexual (and probably less so) than those pinkish flesh-coloured swimsuits. From a distance it might look like the girls wearing them are nude, but on closer investigation it's not more exciting than any other swimsuit.

These textures, not being intended for nudeness, are even less attractive and certainly not anatomically correct.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. It's not murder if your "victim" is subhuman pedophile filth. Pedophiles are not people. They are targets.

Wrong

[phorm]

What they found on the 'bra' texture was a pinkish texture intended for use with clothing textures. No nipples, and not really anatomically correct. Not sexual.

Why do you say america?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Just typical, you yanks always think your the best well NOT this time buddy. We can be just as bad in the rest of the world and don't you forget it.

Just google for movies like E.T. that were banned in various parts of the world. Germany is a nutcase for it but most countries got some silly stuff going on.

As for the whole crusade agaist porn thing or rating systems gone mad.

Pegi is the european version and it is just as bad.

It is just that it is european and therefore restricted by fact that we don't have war any more in the EU so we need some place to vent our hatred of each other and doing it by not accepting the proposal from our fellow enemies, eh members is one way.

Yet the "war on porn" is being attempted here as well. Even with the same "think of the childeren" crap.

This turn back to puritan times is global.

Re:Why do you say america?

[Ender Ryan]

I feel for all of us. It is a sad state of affairs.

Ok, where was E.T. banned, and why? That's just nuts. Ok fine I'll go google. Damn, so nuts.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not condemning anyone for having deviant thoughts, I'm comdemning those who have taken deviant action.

Then you're talking about child molesters, NOT pedophiles, you colossal tit! 'Pedophile' means someone who finds children and/or young teens sexually attractive. It does NOT mean that they have taken any action on those desires, far less that they've ever molested a child.

Get your definitions straight and you might have less people arguing with you, and (rightfully I might add) calling you an idiot.

There is a FAR larger percentage of pedophiles in existance who HAVEN'T EVER acted on those desires, but you keep insisting that 'all pedophiles' should be jailed, shot, whatever.

If you aren't advocating prosecuting (or killing, beating, whatever) all pedophiles, then maybe you should use the proper terms to say what you actually mean, eh?

As has been pointed out several times, you don't mean 'pedophiles', you mean 'child molesters'. Perhaps you should look up the definition of the word, since you are arguing that it means things it quite obviously doesn't.

Idiot. Idiot. IDIOT!

Shall we go another round?

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[SkyWalk423]

This discussion has taken a silly turn. Our "arguments" are based on different definitions of the term "pedophile". I won't call anyone a pedophile until they have committed the act. I can't remember anymore, but I think it was you that asserted that you can't hold a person guilty of the acts that he carries out in his imagination. Yes, I know that the strict dictionary definition of that word doesn't necessarily imply a criminal act, but you can't deny that it carries a terrible stigma. Label someone a pedophile and watch that person become a pariah, regardless of his/her level of success at controlling his/her urges. Pedophile, child molester, kiddie rapist... I don't make any distinctions.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Isotopian]

Touche. Just a thought there. I guess I just don't have much faith in the intelligence of the average american is all.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Khaed]

This is such anti-Bush BS. It was Tipper Gore and her group of bored wives that started the campaign to get music labeled. The ESRB was around before January 20, 2001. Where has Bush spoken on ESRB ratings? He's not rating games.

And freedom of the press is just as strong as ever -- they're constantly critical of Bush, Abu Ghraib was all over the front page of the NYT for months, and whether or not you agree with the policy in question, the leaking of a top secret program is a crime, and it was a crime before Bush was president.

I've also yet to hear Bush's speech on the evils of myspace.

Maybe because I don't live on Planet Moonbat, where everything I disagree with is Bush's fault. I don't like that the ESRB changed a rating based on a fan-modification, but I fail to see how that's Bush's fault. You're like the guy who made Basic Instinct 2 blaming Bush for the movie not doing well in theaters.

There's a ton of stuff to blame Bush for. The ESRB being stupid is not one of them.

barbie and ken should be rated 18+, too...

[w4rl5ck]

at least, with some minor modifications (stripping) you can get them both NAKED! With nipples!

I even saw them in PR0N on the internet. No really there was this YouTube flick where... ah, anyway.

We Europeans have some problems of our own, but this whole "no-nudity-concept" seems even more flawed (and older, obviously) than the DMCA.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Cesa]

I get why you were modded funny. A ./er losing his virginity. Hilarious!

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[RxScram]

Al Gore definitely knows a lot about technology... he invented the Internet!

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[kadathseeker]

Why just Americans? I have little faith in people at all.

Wronger!

[Rob T Firefly]

The textures were extracted from the character model on the disk, and re-applied as an outside layer by modders. There was never a facility built into Oblivion for showing the characters topless, whereas the code for Hot Coffee was workable albeit hidden from use until modded.

If I photoshop a picture of you so it appears as though you are wearing nothing but a pair of novelty heart-patterned boxer shorts, and then submit that to the world as proof that you are a very silly person who wears embarassing undergarments, it's invalid whether or not I snuck into your house and stole a real pair of your novelty heart-patterned boxer shorts to use in my photoshopping. Whether you do own a pair or whether it's all my sick, twisted artwork, it's still not something you ever intended for public consumption, and not something you should be judged by.

In the case of Hot Coffee, that scenario would have you posing for real pictures in the less-amusing-by-the-minute boxers, with plans to pass them out to the guys at work on Monday to show them what a hottie you are and improve workplace morale. However, you change your mind at the last minute, and hide the photos away somewhere instead. Then, someone with a grudge manages to access the photos without your knowledge or consent, and leaks them to the Internet. It is still not something to judge you by, but in the latter case it was at one point something you had planned to make public.

Disclaimer: The above was not meant to reflect on you specifically, whatever your choice of undergarments.

Re:Wronger!

[Criterion]

Please enlighten me as to how your longwinded rant invalidates my point that the textures are on the disk? It doesn't matter how they are applied (as I understand it the bra is a seperate mesh and it is simply removed), what matters is that the texture is there and is NOT third party artwork.

BTW, I'm female, and if I decide to wear heart boxers it's nobodies business except my husbands and myself. :P

Re:america-where boobs are a bigger threat than gu

[hiryuu]

I swear, we have more in common with the Islamic fundamentalists we're at war with than we have differences.

Funny you should mention that, as someone has made an interesting comparison with regards to religious fundamentalism. First time I took it (few months ago, I think), I got 12 out of 20 on the quiz.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[yfkar]

Wikipedia FTW:

Pedophilia is itself neither a crime nor a legal term. It does not describe behavior, but a psychological state. It is, generally speaking, not illegal to be sexually attracted to a child, and not all pedophiles sexually molest children.

You're talking about child molesters (which the public tends to call pedophiles).

Boxer hax!

[Rob T Firefly]

if I decide to wear heart boxers it's nobodies business except my husbands and myself.

That's exactly my point. If hypothetically you did have those drawers in your drawer, I swiped them, and used them to create that photoshop of you, that does not mean you meant for me to create that photoshop. The texture is not part of Oblivion as a viewable item that you can play with, and was not created to ever be usable or viewable on its own. The hack extracts it, and reapplies it to the game in a way the creators didn't mean for it to be used.

Re:Boxer hax!

[Criterion]

Once again I am forced to inform you that you're arguing the wrong point. I'm not arguing if any of the actions taken were right or wrong, seen or not meant to be seen. I'm arguing against what you said earlier, and I quote...

"This is a far different case - fans created a mod which introduced nudity into a game that never had it on its original media."

To which I told you that you were flat wrong, as the image is indeed on the disk. What the creators did, or didn't intend for that image (I'm guessing it was simply forgotten to be deleted, big oops for them), ulimately DOES NOT MATTER. It's there, so they have to deal with the repercussions.

I guess you are one of those who just can't stand to be shown he's wrong, so you try to divert your argument to something wholly different.

Re:Boxer hax!

[Rob T Firefly]

That may well be, but oranges are good.

Actually, you're completely right. I didn't actually know the issue was with a texture on the game disk at the time of the original post. But, as a comedian, I'm legally required to stand by any argument that involves herart-patterned boxer shorts.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[ZiakII]

Why just Americans? I have little faith in people at all.

Bingo...

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I think that the whole "gay is an alternate lifestyle" viewpoint needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Because if we preach universal tolerance of aberrant behavior (which homosexuality IS)

As long as your definition of "aberrant behavior" includes something that has existed for all of Human history and in the animal kingdom. Anyway, it's a straw-man. Arguing for acceptance of homosexuality isn't the same thing as preaching universal tolerance of aberrant behavior.

how long is it before pedophiles and necrophiliacs say "Hey, we deserve the same rights as gays do!"

They say that now! And so what?

If you're honest, you'll admit that you can see the difference between those things. And don't forget that your same logic can be, and was, used to argue against things such as women's suffrage and the end of slavery.

Nippleless

[umbrellasd]

Yep, Barbie dolls have been out there for how long? Rated "M" for mature. My ass. Oops. That last statement makes this a rated "M" comment.

Re:Nippleless

[sesshomaru]

Barbie was modeled on a German cartoon character, an ambitious hooker named Lilli.

Oblivion will get a 'Nudity' descriptor.

[Spikeles]

Check out these two PDF's from http://www.esrb.org/about/news.jsp

1: http://www.esrb.org/about/news/downloads/oblivion_ parent_advisory.5.3.06.pdf
2: http://www.esrb.org/about/news/downloads/oblivion_ release_5.3.06.pdf

You will actually see that Oblivion will now require a 'Nudity' descriptor to be placed on the box.

This is unbelievable! I've finished the game and am through my second time and not once have i EVER seen nudity!

Although... seeing 'Nudity' on the box would make me more likely to buy it. :)

Re:Oblivion will get a 'Nudity' descriptor.

[traffichazard]

Anyone remember Daggerfall? Now there was a game that promised nudity and actually delivered, seems that Bethesda have since become big 'ol wowsers in their push to attract more sales. Incidentally, does the ESRB realize that female gamers of any age can view boobies without a third party hack or even a game? How are they gonna protect them? I've seen those shirts saying "Warning: contains coarse language and nudity." I guess they'll have an ESRB logo now.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Knightking]

http://www.somethingawful.com/hentai/
http://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=adult+video+ games

Uh, yeah.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

I certainly understand your logic, but here's the problem- it's totally worthless. Yes, thought cannot be classified as a crime. But someone who is sexually attracted to children is in the same boat as someone is sexually arroused by the idea of butchering and eating someone... the impulse is there, and all impulses find ways of interjecting themselves into reality, albeit by alternate means. If you are attracted to children, you aren't necessarily a bad person, but if you don't take steps to stay away from children and protect them from your impulses, you are negligent and weak.

By the way, you are putting a lot of energy into defending pedophilia. Aren't there a lot better causes in the world to fight for? You know, like starving children and genocide victims and such. Just a thought.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[MMMDI]

You've apparently never heard of games such as "Roger Ramrod" (which shockingly, I can't find too much info about online - go figure).

This game came out during the FPS boom, back when we had a new game such as Duke Nukem 3D, Unreal, and Redneck Rampage coming out seemingly every week. I only played the demo (which managed to make its way from zip disc to CD-R to DVD-R over the years), but it went a little something like this (all from memory):

You start out getting some action from your lady friend in what is basically a hardcore porn scene (well, it's animation, but still - nothing is left to the imagination). Some guy breaks in... or a gang... or something, it's a bit hazy here... but basically, the girl gets kidnapped. Our hero Roger looks at the camera and says "But I haven't came yet!", and the game begins.

Armed with only your various body parts, you have to rescue your woman. From memory, you were "armed" with:

1. Your penis - you could jerk off and cum on your enemies or piss on them. Jerking off too much led to blindness, and your "pissometer" needed to be refilled via beer kegs.

2. Your ass - you cock your leg up and fart on the enemies, resulting in a momentary stun. Needed to be refilled via taco stands.

The full version promised more weapons, but I never plunked down the cash to find out what they were.

Oh, and the enemies... there were "faggots" (their word, don't mod me down here) which were armed with huge penises and "attacked" you by coming up behind and anally violating you. There were dominatrices who attacked with whips. There were... a few other enemies, but the ol' memory thing is kicking in again.

Along the way, you can peek into various windows (sex-shops, mainly) and check out what was going on. There were fat women dominating men, men having sex with chickens, straight m/f sex, and various other things.

All of this was done in a comical way (obviously), but they left nothing to the imagination. Surprisingly, I think the engine was built specifically for this game... it wasn't merely a mod or some such for an existing game, nor did it appear to be a skinned version of another game.

So yeah... there are pornographic games out there, and sadly enough, I just spent twenty minutes writing about one at 3am. I can't find any links to back this particular one up (save for a brief mention here), but I can pass the optimized-for-1998-era-DOS demo around in exchange for a please and an email address.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

so you think "all impulses find ways of interjecting themselves into reality?" So the dude that said all pedophiles should be killed, and is probebly thinking about killing a pedophile, is going to go out and kill a pedophile? I have the urge to engage in sexual intercourse with Jennifer Aniston, and since I can not have sexual intercourse with her by consentuial means, and my impluses must be acted upon, therefore, I will rape Jennifer Aniston. Do you see the problem with your line of thought? You are wrong, not all impulses must be acted upon in the way they are thought it. Is not possible that rather I just masturbate to pictures of Jennifer Aniston, is it not possible that pedophiles satisfy their urges by masturbation to pictures (be they artist's depictions, or what is found in magazine)?

As for your second paragraph, I belive that is the fallacy known as a red herring. When argueing, you attack the issue at hand. It is possible to be fighting child starvation, but that is very difficult for that person to do from his own computer. Couldn't you rather be spending your time fighting child starvation instead of posting on slashdot?

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

If the pedophile ACTS on the urges in some non-approved way, then they're a child molester

That's not quite true. There's still child pornography, which is still a grey area (if a very dark grey, quickly turning to black if payment or other encouragement of further production is involved) and does not necessarily involve child molestation (well, not by the individual in question--obviously it had to happen at some stage of the game).

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Vintermann]

Well, there are some people who consider themselves evil because they think they look cool that way. Aleister Crowley is the classic example, but some go on to actually do evil acts. It seems to me that certain fringe heavy metal bands often create ridiculous images somewhat ironically, then get fans who are also somewhat ironical about it, and then they push each other into more and more seriousness, because they both believe the other side to be serious. I mean, how could we otherwise explain the vegan neo-nazis, or the nazi-satanists?

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[elrous0]

If it hurts you so much to be an American than move out.

Ah, yes the moronic old "Love it or leave it!" slogan. There are two problems with this argument.

First of all, it belies a defeatist attitude on the part of the speaker. In other words, the only person who would say "love it or leave it" is a pansy who throws his hands up in the air and quits everytime he sees something he doesn't like (as if the only two options available in life are blind acceptance and running like a girl).

And not only does it betray the speaker as a pansy, but it also shows that they are an ignorant pansy (the worst kind). Immigration isn't just a matter of "Oh, I'm tired of this country. I think I'll move to Canada." Immigration is difficult at best, nearly impossible at worst. The U.S. is not the only country with strict immigration policies to protect its borders (ours are actually much more liberal than many). Aquiring Canadian citizenship (or British, Mexican, etc.) isn't simply a matter of showing up in Canada and announcing "I was tired of my own country, so I've moved here. Can I have my citizenship now?" If borders were that fluid, there would indeed be plenty of Americans leaving every day, and plenty of new faces coming in (the kind of brown faces that probably don't like ignorant pansies very much, much to your dismay).

-Eric

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Jaruzel]

I don't think it's too much to ask for a (presumably) mature adult to resist his/her impulses to rape children.

It is. In most instances paedophiles (yup I'm british!) have no such control over their impulses (in a medical sense). These people commonly have Obsessive Compulsive Disorders as well to such an extent that it rules their life. Also common is that the brain is miswired. This miswiring, results in the effect that they know shooting someone is wrong, but 'loving' a 3 year old isn't. To their brains abuse isn't abuse it's 'love' and and is as normal as 'loving' a mature adult partner.

Ergo, the majority of paedophiles are NOT evil; they are victims. Yes they should be punished for any crime they commit, but they are not the devil incarnate. Rarely are things as black/white as good/evil and it's only 'Gun Toting Republicans' who think the world is divided as such.

-Jar.

Clarification...

[nsmike]

Okay, someone clarify here.

I got into an argument with a friend over this. He says that the nude art files were "included on the disc, but never accesible in the game" and that's why the ESRB changed the rating. I thought he just hadn't seen this gamespot article and didn't know, but is the statement here just cleverly worded to make it SOUND like someone added in the nude mod? For example:

FTFA:
"...modders have used a third party tool to hack into and modify an art archive file to make it possible to create a mesh for a partially nude (topless) female that they add into the game."

Does this mean they assemble the nude mesh from art files Bethesda created and then add that mesh to the game?

Or does that mean that they added a nude mesh that was made from a graphically altered art file by a third-party modder to appear nude?

My question is, is there a nude file on the disc that was never used, or did someone take an art file that normally applies to female characters and add their own bared mammaries?

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[sesshomaru]

Usually, when people are complaining about "America" they are actually complaining about the government or the people, anyway, not the trees or the ground. So, hang enough government officials from trees or put enough of the people in the ground, and it'll be a nice place to live.

Hell, the country was founded on this principal. Perhaps King George is looking down from Heaven thinking, "Love it or leave it, why didn't we think of that?!? Hey, you don't like taxation without representation? Love it or leave it, bub!"

I mean, the country was founded by traitors to the Crown! They were the most unpatriotic people who ever lived and their only loyalty was only to their own revolutionary principals. To truly live by the founding principals, if you hate the government or most of the people, you should seize part of the country by force and declare your own country!

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[UbuntuDupe]

Right. They can't stop themselves from visiting a park where children are. They can't stop themselves from offering the children candy. They can't stop themselves from driving away with the kid.

Molesting a child requires a complex chain of events and a well-thought-out plan. It's not something you can do on impulse like washing your hands.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[KDR_11k]

Not every totalitarian state kills people and many reserve death for the more serious offenses. Even a totalitarian regime has its limits, pissing off the populace too much increases your chance of being killed by an angry mob. Whether that mob is acting by itself or led by a formerly loyal general of yours won't matter much.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[KDR_11k]

The only thing worse than a relativist is a pacifist.

Yes because you have no right to believe that violence will land you in a bad place! You must kill! You must give in to your urges!

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[KDR_11k]

Can a drug addict just decide to stop taking drugs? It takes a number of conscious steps to get drugs and take them.

The body has various chemicals that can influence or override rational thought. If the urge becomes too strong it can make you think up rationalizations for your behaviour. It can make raping a child look like a good idea. If you want an every day example, ask a smoker why he isn't quitting despite knowing that it's bad for him. You'll hear numerous reasons but the real reason is just that they are addicted, that their urge to smoke changes the way they think and makes them believe that it's their choice and they can quit any time but they just don't want to.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[SkyWalk423]

I will refer you to this post, and then I will retire from this discussion. Good game, and good luck in your struggle for a kinder, gentler world for those dangerously sick individuals that society so callously shuns. May your children/grandchildren never reap what you would sow in the name of "tolerance" and "understanding".

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[SkyWalk423]

And let the record also show that I never resorted to name-calling here. Good day.

Enough with the "Left vs Right"!

[PhoenixOne]

Guess what, both sides of our "two party system" are fucking with our freedom. And we (the American people) are as much to blame as they are for letting it happen.

There is no "Good party, Bad party". If Al Gore got elected, we would still be in roughly the same position.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

Aleister Crowley was first a member of the Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn and
then the founder of Argenteum Astrum. At no time did he consider himself evil,
considering that both HOGD and AA were offshoots of the Freemasons, a
well-respected secret society if there ever was one. The British media declared
him to be the 'most wicked man of the century' in 1941. If you must demean people,
at least choose ones who actually deserve it.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[KDR_11k]

I just love how, whenever somebody criticises some politicians, there are replies that say "Yeah? But the opposing party has done X!". Perhaps we just don't fucking care about what the opposing party does or does not? What does Clinton have to do with Bush? Why do people assume everyone that disagrees with them has a specific party association?

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Damvan]

"the wiretapping many pan Bush (not to mention the countless other presidents who have used it) for employing."

Yeah, yeah, we have heard it before. Washington intercepted British mail, Roosevelt wiretapped Americans, etc etc etc.

The big difference is, there was no law forbiding those Presidents from wiretapping. There was a law in place when Bush did it. If he didn't like the law, he could have worked to have it overturned. Instead, he choose to ignore and violate it.

Just because previous Presidents did something doesn't mean it is ok for Bush to do the same thing. Washington, Jefferson and probably other Presidents owned slaves. Can Bush own slaves as well?

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Damvan]

""Good! Anything bad about Bush is good news." - wtf is wrong with people these days?"

Since you are in college, you are probably too young to remember, but substitute Clinton for Bush, and you would have heard this same thing many many times from conservatives and Republicans during the Clinton presidency.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[NeutrinoLite]

I forgot that you have to be under 25 to enroll in college. I appologize for my ignorance.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[MHolmesIV]

Don't be blaming an act created by Republican dominated house and senate on "the clinton administration". All clinton did was sign it, and add a note that portions of the bill "raised serious constitutional concerns".

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

because of your ridiculous two-party system, combined with the general feeling 'if you're not with us, you're against us', which is also fueled by both parties of that two-party system.

And of course a complete lack of clue from the one 'answering' to any critique by pointing fingers to the other party.

You don't talk about your mistakes. You don't change your mind. That would be showing weakness.

show them how it's done

[grrowl]

Someone really needs to release a 'patch' for a simple, harmless, and very kiddie-rated game to make it a hardcore porno. The same principles are being tested that get games like GTA and this game more extreme ratings, and I doubt they'll red-flag something intended to be so 'innocent'.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Vintermann]

Yeah, yeah, but didn't he call himself the "beast 666"? He enjoyed casting himself as some sort of Prometheus, but it's pretty obvious that he enjoyed (and ecouraged) the image as the most evil man on earth. And I think he (and a lot of other people, like Varg Vikernes to take an example) adopted his beliefs specially because that image appealed to him. He's exactly what I'm talking about.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

[Anonymous Coward]

"Wrong. It's not murder if your "victim" is subhuman pedophile filth. Pedophiles are not people. They are targets."

That's a good point, I concur and at the same time let's round up the jews, faggots, rednecks and drug users because i don't consider them people either...