From Hot Coffee To Warm Tea

I've been avoiding posting about it, but Joystiq has a completely and utterly sane discussion of the non-story that is the Bully boy on boy kissing 'scandal'. Despite the ravings of Jack Thompson, the homosexual behavior in Bully was seen by the ESRB and is not the first game to feature such content. From the article: "The ESRB would be insane if they were bullied into giving an 'M' (Mature 17+) rating to Bully, as this story continues to gain traction in the mainstream press ... It would also force the ginormous Electronic Arts into the mix to defend the 'T' rated Sims. We're willing to wager that Electronic Arts, which has a Human Rights Campaign corporate equality index score of 88 and had transsexual game designer Danielle Bunten Berry on staff, will put up a good fight if challenged. Rockstar played this brilliantly, they slid in a topic that is controversial, but perfectly defensible, and those that would attack 'Warm Tea,' won't have an easy time of it compared to 'Hot Coffee.'" SFGate put up a thoughtful opinion piece / review of Bully this past weekend. If you're not familiar with the game, it's a great way to fully understand how there's really nothing to worry about here.

Comments

classification

[illegalcortex]

Hot Coffee = male/female sex

Hot Tea = male/male kissing

Oh, the brits aren't going to like this one...

Re:classification

[Yaotzin]

This gives a whole new meaning to the Boston Tea Party...

Bigotry

[APE992]

Anyone who truely finds this offensive should be considered a bigot.

Re:Bigotry

[HappySqurriel]

Anyone who truely finds this offensive should be considered a bigot.

I'm personally going to disagree with you mainly because I think the type of statement you're making undermines the freedom of speech (and religion) that western society is based on; it is the type of statement that prevents open (and honest) discussion on any subject and is just as damaging as "Anyone who rejects this videogame violence bill condones child abuse" or "If you oppose our participation in Afganistan you don't support our troops.".

Personally I don't find the content in the game offensive but saying that someone who does is a bigot is pretty extreme. Maybe my education was poor, but I was always lead to believe that biggotry had to do with someone being intolerant towards another group. Now Tolerance (inspite of some people's opinion) does not mean to embrace something, it means to put up with; if your parents said they would tolerate the person you choose to marry you'd probably get very angry.

I will try to make what I'm saying more clear ...

Suppose you started working in a cubical next to someone who came from the gym every morning and dried their work-out gear in the open; being that they only wash this gear on the weekend by wednesday it smells pretty funky and on friday it smells like a dead animal. Now if your boss told you to "tolerate" it does that mean that you have to stop being offended by the smell of the sweaty workout stuff?

In a similar fashion, someone who disagrees with (or is offended by) Homosexuality is not necessarily a bigot; it depends on how they act on it that would define whether they were a bigot or not.

Re:Bigotry

[NoodleSlayer]

See! You're onto something here! All we have to do is stop reporting the crime and it will all go away! That must be the solution!

'Hot Nougat' Squirrelsex mod

[dryriver]

Is there anything Rockstar won't do to attract a little press attention?

Re:'Hot Nougat' Squirrelsex mod

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Is there anything Rockstar won't do to attract a little press attention?"

If Jack Thompson wasn't such an asshat, Rockstar wouldn't be able to have something as simple as a boy-kisses-boy feature in the game to attract press attention.

Yeesh

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

SFGate put up a thoughtful opinion piece / review of Bully this past weekend. If you're not familiar with the game, it's a great way to fully understand how there's really nothing to worry about here.

I bought the game last week. I haven't found the boy you can kiss. So far, though, my impression is that the 'controversy' here is laughable at best. When you target people options appear indicating what you can do with them. With some females, for example, you can profess your attraction to them and potentially woo them into smooching. My guess is that there's a boy floating around you can walk up and the heart icon will appear. Wee. Polish those pitchforks. /sarcasm

I have to be honest: I think it's more controversial that Bully is described as having 'gay sexual content that deserves a higher rating' than it is to have the option to kiss a boy in the game. Nice little double-standard there.

Re:Yeesh

[bunions]

> Polish those pitchforks.

Stop that, you'll go blind!

Re:Push the envelope

[RsG]

Rockstar tried pushing the envelope in GTA and got burnt. So, they just picked a different letter and moved it very slowly.

Got burnt? Yeah, they cried all the way to the bank! Those poor, maligned success stories....

Seriously, Jackass here is the best thing that ever happened to them. As long as he keeps up his "crusade", they get free press, and a reputation that will attract people purely for the controversy.

What's more, they've now made it a political issue by shifting the controversial content from sex and violence (which both the political left and right oppose on "moral" grounds) to homosexuality (which will piss off the right, but get sympathy support from the left). I wouldn't pity these guys. They know how to sell a game, ethically or otherwise.

Re:True...

[jb.hl.com]

At last, a reason to turn down cucumber sandwiches!

"I'm sorry, no thanks, they make me insecure about my sexuality."
"..."

This will cost Rockstar sales

[ConfusedSelfHating]

Very few people want homosexual content in their games. There will be quite a number of people who were going to buy Bully and now they won't. The vast majority of heterosexual males are disgusted with homosexuality. This isn't something that liberals want to hear, but it's true. This is about forcing something on the consumer that they don't want. The standard reaction of the consumer is not to buy it.

I'll give a non-homosexual example of where my digust for something made me regret a purchase. I watch a lot of movies in the theater. The movie Beloved had come out and I decided to go see it. There was one scene I was repulsed by. Oprah Winfrey urinating. God, I hope that was faked. It wasn't her sitting down and doing her business ... it was an arc of urine coming out from beneath her dress.

So I don't like watching homosexuals kiss or watching Oprah pee. If a media product comes out which includes either, I will not purchase it.

Re:SimCopter

[Beardo the Bearded]

No, he got fired because it's a WCB violation to be around whirring blades without adequate safety equipment.

Never mind getting "caught" in the rotor - all characters have to wear reflective vests and helmets when near working helicopters.