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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.
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".
A man who can't pronouce "nuclear arsenal" shouldn't have one -sig ends here.
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
My intelligence insults itself.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
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.
A man who can't pronouce "nuclear arsenal" shouldn't have one -sig ends here.
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.
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
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...
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
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
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
-Redundancy Man strikes again!
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.
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.
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.
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."
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Included in Oblivion without 3rd party plug-ins / add-ons: .... Rated TEEN.
... Rated M. Oh my god! Teh Horror! N I P P L E S . Ban it! O_o
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
And now we have (through a 3rd party modification of a mesh already in game):
Nipples
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.
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
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.
Yeah, but then I wouldn't have gotten to use my "jump up their own butts" line. :(
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
...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.
All about me
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.
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.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.