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Manhunt 2 Ban Fallout, Game Rated AO By ESRB
In the wake of yesterday's announcement of a UK ban on Manhunt 2 , Rockstar has registered its disappointment at the BBFC's decision. The company simply stated that they 'respect those who have different opinions about the horror genre and videogames as a whole, but we hope they will also consider the opinions of the adult gamers for whom this product is intended.' Meanwhile, here in the US, the ESRB has given the game the dreaded AO rating, for adults only. If you're unfamiliar with this seldom-seen designation, it's essentially the 'kiss of death' for a title at retail; a number of popular videogame outlets refuse to carry titles with that rating. MTV's Stephen Totilo has a lengthy and considered discussion of these proceedings. "For 'Manhunt 2,' signs pointed to the title being both less and more extreme than the first. Gone from press previews were mentions of snuff films and Directors. Instead, a more traditionally violent video game premise: one man's struggle to stay alive in an insane asylum gone mad."
Seriously, a game like Manhunt 2 gets an AO rating, while true horror games like "Play with the Teletubbies" get rated EC (Early Childhood)! Where is the justice in that?
I'm definitely going to buy it. Can I order direct from Rockstar?
pls do not laugh at your own jokes.
thanks,
the management
Beacuse Britain has a stick up their ass, this game gets rated AO in an ENTIRELY different country?
I don't care, I'm 23 I can still buy it...it's just...that's really fucking stupid.
Living With a Nerd
Is there any reason why Rockstar can't just distribute the game via Steam or something like this?
Rather than selling it at a retail level, utilize the free PR to mention that the game will still be sold but is only available for online download.
They put in a disclaimer, you must be 18 to download this game, jada jada jada, and then sell it.
Can someone post the MTV article here? Gotta love super duper work filters.
and have an essay contest entitled "Why Microsoft Word is more likely than video games to incite people to commit violent acts"
Having played violent video games and used Word, one has caused me to become violent, and it wasn't video games....
It's a game for PS2, PSP and Wii. These platforms don't do Steam.
I personally don't know many gamers my age (22) that buy in stores. Unless we're stoned, and want to impress people with our Guitar Hero "skills". Lately it has been less expensive to purchase online (usually free shipping). Actually having a job doesn't allow for much playtime during the week, so the delay in shipping usually means i don't get the game til friday (for a tuesday release) which ensures that i have the entire weekend to play it. I think the big money question here is, will gamefly be renting Manhunt 2? And if so, will they allow purchase through themselves? That would help sales immensely.
oh marmalade.
So a game where people are brutally murdered is AO, but a movie like Saw, Hostel etc. where people are photo-realistically murdered are only rated R? WTF? And the game was rated M on PS2 and other platforms? Is this some nintendo hate?
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
Didn't they say that that the Brits are ignoring the Adult Gamers in their decision? So, since they made it for Adult Gamers, shouldn't they be welcoming the Adults Only mark? Oh it wasn't just made for a niche market then, eh?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
I for one am in my late thirties, and I'm really tired of having people bitch about "the children".
If they sell the AO rated version I'll buy it in a heartbeat. It would be nice to be able to buy an
"Adult" game for once. If we're lucky, this'll start a trend, and we'll see more AO games come out.
Is there any compelling reason why kids SHOULD be allowed to buy this game?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
And this is different than selling kids cap guns, super soakers, plastic swords, paintball guns, water grenades, cork guns, slingshots, bb guns, rubber nunchuks, tonka tanks, GI Joe with Kung-Fu action grip to hold that tiny sub machine gun, plastic light sabers that go Wha-Wha when waved and TCSHK when they collide with something (presumably a limb), bow-n-arrow sets with those rubber plunger tips, lawn darts, chess boards, bibles, those keychains that make exploding noises when you press a button, or those race car tracks that cross in the middle specifically to cause the cars to crash?
Am I the only one to wonder what business it is of Manhunt 2 to ban the upcoming Fallout 3?
personally I find it very offensive that a group of individuals have the authority to nanny me as an adult and what they deem appropriate for other adults to be subjected too. It's like saying we know better than you and if you are subjected to this kinda thing you will want to carry this out in real life.. These people need to go away and live in disney land or something. Nobody should have this right of other peoples rights.
Rockstar, if you're listening, please do us a favor. Keep the game just the way it is. Release it with the AO rating.
You have the capital to take a risk like this (especially with GTA 4 coming soon, and the tidal wave of cash it is sure to generate). Someone has to be the first to put out high quality AO content. The Atari 2600 came out in 1977. There are lots of adults that have been playing games for their entire lives, and want game content that falls in the same noire category as 300, Reservoir Dogs, and Sin City.
Until there is a proven market for this material, the vendors won't take a risk on it. But you have the ability to establish that market, and the cashflow to take the risk.
I don't even think it's that much of a risk; the first game to thumb its nose at the family-values whining minority. Everyone who would have bought the game will want it, 90% of them are old enough to legally buy it, and most of those will be willing and able to make the effort necessary to do so.
So please, give it a shot. You can always rerelease it with duckies and bunnies, and a gun that shoots hearts to make the furry animals love you, later.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I loved the first part so much I did import it from France because it was already banned in Germany at that time. Now I've heard it was also, already, honored with a ban in the UK which is almost as good as being sued by Jack.
This game rocks so hard... it ROCKS HARD!!!
Screw Sam Fisher and his "OMG, what have you done... GAME OVER!!!" pussies... this is entertainment for pro's who know how to move with the gamepad. I'll pay whatever price I have to for the import.
Wooooooot... bblablabla Manhunt 2 blablabla must have blahblabla...
funny really, because this is the kind of game that only under 18s want to play...
Was going to post this in the "UK BAN"-thread, but post it here instead.
I have always been a firm believer in films/games not making people more violent. Something happened to me, though, to sort of make me doubt my strong belief.
I bought Manhunt and played it. It was really fun, a great little sneak-and-kill game. But it was very violent and I did not really like being that violent but it was part of the game and making the gruesome kills was fun in a strange way. It was axhilarating to see how long you could sneak behind someone before you had to do the kill.
When I finished the game I played for a particularly long day and that night I had the most bizarre and gruesome dreams. I dreamt that I cleft people with chainsaws and ran over them with my car. Everything felt OK and I didn't have any moral complaints in my dream, which, if you ask anyone in my surrounding, is totally different from my personality. I am not a psychopath as far as I can tell. :)
I haven't had any such dreams since and I hope I won't again (though they weren't nightmares in the true sense since I wasn't scared in them, only by my reaction to them). What I'm saying is that I do believe we are affected by what we see/experience. At least if its done frequently enough.
In cases like very violent films or games, however, having a 18-year restriction on buying the game is enough. Grown up people can decide for themselves what they want to see/play. I felt desturbed by my experience and probably won't buy Manhunt 2 for that reason, but I certainly don't believe in denying the experience from anyone else who is old enough to make a grown up decision about this.
Badgers, we don't need no stinking badgers! - UHF
I really fail to see how an AO rating can hurt a game nowadays. With the publicity it has received, if anything, such a rating would INCREASE sales. Maybe you can't go down to Wal-Mart and buy it, but so friggin' what? Anyone old enough should have the means to order it online. And that's assuming that such a rating is as bad as everyone thinks. Surely their are some stores out there that would carry it simply BECAUSE of such the rating and the publicity.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but it really seems to me like people have grown soft in the last few years. Maybe it's the lack of a strong father figure in the home, or whatever. But it seems like kids aren't allowed to experience things for fear of getting hurt or "scarring them for life." What's wrong with a normal kid playing a violent video game? They're going to be exposed to it in real life anyway. Not preparing them adequately for it is just going to make them more immature when they "grow up."
Example: Toy guns. You can't find realistic toy guns anymore. When I was younger, we had full-weight, metal replicas of the real things. Now you can only find bright orange ones, usually made of plastic or foam.
Maybe this is why so many kids have no ability to handle reality. Instead of dealing with their own problems, they go crying to a psychiatrist.
In my opinion, keep the rating system to appease the crazy parents, but don't ban sales. That's just encouraging the kids to play these games anyway...
"Generations of men raised by women." --Tyler Durden from "Fight Club"
Quite frankly, I personally think games like Manhunt 2 are decadent garbage. That said, if someone wants to purchase and play these games they should be free to do so.
This sort of excessive regulation, to me, reflects the general decline and weakness of the West. We've got these nanny states run by people who increasingly believe it's their responsibility to control every aspect of our lives. More troubling is how citizens are themselves abdicating all responsibility, expecting their governments to do everything for them. What these people apparently fail to realize is that inevitable the system will eventually come around and start trampling on their freedoms; it's a very slippery slope.
Ultimately, it's the parents who should be responsible for what their children are doing. If a child who plays these ultra-violent games has violent tendencies I'll guarantee those issues stem from poor parenting and not the game. From personal experience this has always been the case. The fact that the child has access to such games is merely a symptom of that problem.
As long as humans have been around there has been violence. I'm not making excuses for that violence, but humanity has in general gotten along fine. Look at the level of violence depicted in a lot of anime that officials in the US feel the need to censor. Yet Japan maintains extremely low crime rates.
Sometimes I think trying to shield children by depicting an unrealistic, utopian fantasy is a big mistake. It renders them poorly equipped to deal with the harshness of the real world. I'm not advocating they participate in violent blood sports, but as always everything in moderation is best.
Nonsense. The summary made it perfectly clear why they don't want the AO mark: a number of cowardly stores refuse to stock AO games. Fewer stores means less visibility and fewer sales, even if they really only want adults purchasing the game. For a game that was expensive to produce, an AO rating can destroy the producers chance of making a profit. A Mature mark would get them into most stores with almost identical effectiveness (AO is 18+, while M is 17+).
Exactly as many people predicted, the ratings system, even a voluntary one, has stifled creativity. The ratings system resulted in incentives for stores to refuse to stock the highest rated games to appease the whiners. Not being carried in stores reduces sales, frequently to the point of ensuring the game will be a commercial failure. Developers and publishers to restrict what they do to avoid the top rating mark. End result: you get almost nothing specifically intended for the adult market. What you do get tends to be low quality and pandering, because shameless crap is the only thing likely to make money. The end result is that the highest rating becomes associated with pandering garbage, which just reenforces the entire cycle. You're pretty much guaranteed that some topics and some styles of gameplay that serious game developers might want to turn into a top quality title will either be watered down or simply never produced.
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To buy a rated M game you need to be 17. To buy an AO game you need to be 18. Is that one year gap really that killer that it would ruin the sales of the whole game? I can see why retailers wouldn't want to stock AO games that are basically porn, but games much less violent than something like Hostel or Saw III which they are selling should be able to share the space.
If a private, advisory, non-binding, completely voluntary, self-regulating, loosely affiliated industry association gets your knickers that in a bunch, you've obviously never had your rights inflicted upon in the slightest by anyone.
There is undoubtedly a sizeable audience for this kind of game, but it's understandable that RockStar would not want to release the game with an AO rating, as certain large resellers (Wal-Mart?) will be unwilling to carry the title. Perhaps the solution is to release two different versions of the game. I, for one, would like to play the AO version, but in order to placate overly-protective parents around the globe, RockStar could release a watered-down version for the teenage set. That's not to say that I think that video games are responsible for violence in society any more than movies are, but if the only way to preserve the integrity of the game is to cater to the alarmists then so be it.
I'd like to see this as well. Unfortunately, the video game industry seems to think more "mature" content means more tits and buckets of gore. I'd like to see more developed characters and plotlines that deal with more adult themes. To use a horror/spooky movie analogy, I'd like to play the video game equivalent of The Sixth Sense where there's tension, eerieness, a few BOO! moments and actual character development. What the publishers deliver, however is more like what Eli Roth has regurgitated on the moviegoing public.
If whales learn how to use weapons we're all screwed!
I read that wrong at first, I thought Fallout had been banned in the UK, which would make me sad.
Menendez Brothers will be packaged with Columbine Massacre ala Super Mario Brothers and Duckhunt and available on Wii's virtual console the end of 3rd quarter '07, just in time for christmas. I would pre-order now if i were you.
oh marmalade.
The real issue here, above and beyond the "do games make people violent?" question, is why are adult gamers demanding such violence? "Please consider the opinion of the adult gamer," sort of disturbs me, somehow. Why is the opinion of the adult gamer, consistantly, "we want more violence!"? 30 years ago, this level of violence was unthinkable. It's not the violence itself that I mind, it's the fascination with violence that really disgusts me.
When the topic first came up, and that pretty much started in the mainstream with Mortal Kombat, the defense was that it added realism and immersion. But to be honest, I never bought it. And that's becoming apparant now that we're going above and beyond realistic violence to DEMANDING that violence be much more prevolent than just an innocent desire to uphold "realism".
I think there's really two reasons for this:
1) We're not talking about adults here, we're talking 13-18 year olds. It's basically the job of teenagers to try to disgust their parents as much as possible, as a form of rebellion.
2) Culturally, males are being taught that they're basically immoral and unintelligent, and that the only way to prove your masculinity is to be the ultimate in those areas. "I want a beer, and I want to see something naked... that's all." When better way of establishing that identity by sitting and playing ultra-violent video games with no emotional tie-in? I've seen it, 15 year olds saying, "check this out, I can cut off his head" and then go up to some guy, and chop off his head while he's screaming in pain. It basically says, "I can do this, and I won't even feel remorseful about it, it doesn't bother me, because I'm a man."
So my theory is that violence is largely used as a means of establishing independance and gender identity. It's not the fault of video games, it's the fault of our culture for not having any possitive rolemodels to look up to. As a friend of mine likes to quote, "where have all the cowboys gone?"
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
And even if the games originally came out before the ESRB came into existence, that Pac-Man collection that you plug directly into your TV is still going to need an ESRB rating before they'll sell it.
Are the age ranges for board games assigned by a review board or do they just say who they are marketed towards?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I bought the first one at EB Games, having heard nothing about it. I guess the box art grabbed me, so I picked it off the shelf and though I'd give it a whirl.
Well I was absolutely horrified. The set up of the game was so vile and disturbing to me that I could not bring myself to play it.
I brought it back to EB, told them that they shouldn't even be selling a game like this and that I wanted my money back. The manager quickly agreed and gave me a full refund.
Head office must have sent advance warning that any open-box refund requests should be quickly granted on this game. Curious to know if they're going to take a position this go-around and not stock the sequel.
It IS limiting adults from purchasing the game. Most major retailers refuse to carry AO rated games. So not only are you limiting sales to minors, you're also limiting sales to adults.
OK, why does this game get "AO" rating (and completely banned from sale in multiple countries) while extremely disturbing games like Silent Hill cause no uproar? Seriously, I've never played games more psychologically disturbing and scary than the Silent Hill series. Along the same lines, movies like Saw are totally popular (and not banned) despite their excessively disturbing scenes (which all involve bloody violence and, again, psychologically disturbing situations). So, what's the deal?
a more traditionally violent video game premise: one man's struggle to stay alive in an insane asylum gone mad."
Translation: You are a peon who works for the federal government...
No wonder the Feds want to regulate these sorts of games!
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=238959&t hreshold=1&commentsort=1&mode=thread&cid=19584879
When does the video game about raping women and kids, blowing up an elementary school filled with children and committing genocide against various races, cultures, and sexual orientations come out? What differentiates those acts from cold-blooded random killings? The severity of the penalties despite the length of the punishment? Or that those acts draw more concern because they affect us more as a nation rather than a random killing? Can it be that so called "freedom of speech" and "right of censorship" have altered our views of what's right and wrong? I can understand your Harry Potters, Spiderman, or Batman storylines (obvious good vs evil) are easier to comprehend, however random acts of violence like cold-blooded killing glorified in video games are just wrong.
"...an insane asylum gone mad."
An insane asylum gone mad?
So major retailers won't carry or sell copies of Manhunt 2 now that it's AO. That doesn't mean that a local video game store won't be ready and willing to get copies of Manhunt 2 to they adult audience that wants to play it. Small, local stores such as Marquette, Michigan's own Ultimate GameZone (www.ultimategamezone.com) can and will sell adult games to the adult audience that their intended for. When GTA: San Andreas was pulled from Wal-Mart, Target and GameStop, we changed the advertized rating and kept it on our shelves. Video Games have an adult audience, and we want to play adult games as much as we want to play other games.
That doesn't seem likely. Video game remakes of movies are, much like movie remakes of video games, always inferior to the original.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Why isn't the parent already rated 5, Informative?
In fact, I would like RockStar to make GTA4 an AO-rated game too. Then the stores would be forced to reevaluate whether they'd rather lose millions of dollars in sales, or stock AO games. GTA4 is pretty much a guaranteed big seller.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
The primary reason for such a strong reaction to this game is that the player is killing humans. Were the player killing zombies it would totally be ok.
I could not have seen a comment that was so wrong on so many points.
"...cowardly stores refuse to stock AO games."
Cowardly how?
Business is always a profit vs. risk equation.
If they thought they could make money off of them without adverse repercussions, they would.
"For a game that was expensive to produce, an AO rating can destroy the producers chance of making a profit."
Then it's not about creativity is it? It's about profit.
"Exactly as many people predicted, the ratings system, even a voluntary one, has stifled creativity."
Bull. You could not be more off base here. A ratings system avoids the death knell of any industry: regulation. Look up "Hayes Code" for films and then we can talk.
Without a ratings system you would have a de-facto hayes code because a large majority of the public would push for it.
"End result: you get almost nothing specifically intended for the adult market."
Adult market = violent content?
Funny, I always thought violence for the sake of violence in entertainment was childish. Newsflash: nothing in the mainstream entertainment industry is aimed at adults anymore; 99% of movies released in a year aren't aimed at adults either.
"Not being carried in stores reduces sales, frequently to the point of ensuring the game will be a commercial failure."
How, then, do indie films, which have quite limited theatre distribution make money?
Does anyone stop making them because of the comparatively meager box office draws?
"What you do get tends to be low quality and pandering, because shameless crap is the only thing likely to make money."
And this is different from 90% of the industry how (regardless of ratings)?
Few games rise above the mediocrity; just like in any other popular medium.
To think that not having a system would solve this requires you put your head in the sand. The mentality that shock value sells has been around for ages.
... is also "Adults Only" but stores still sell it. Go figure.
I think the retailers and society at large hasn't realized yet that the average gamer is 24 years old. They are still stuck in a Nintendo-induced "games are for kids" fantasy world. Even after Nintendo consoles got stuff like Conker's Bad Fur Day, the whole Biohazard/Resident Evil series, Eternal Darkness, that sword-fighter for the Wii etc.
Then again I guess you cannot find movies like Salo or Cannibal Holocaust at Blockbuster either...
Just call the enemies in the game "terrorists" and you can murder and torture them in any gruesome way you like. No one would ever consider banning it if you changed the name of the game to "War on Terror" or "Kill the Evildoers". I wonder what the rating would be for electrocuting someones testicles? The next violent video game I expect to see is "America's Army: Invasion of Abu Ghraib".
So don't worry about killing civilians in video games, we do that well enough in real life already. You don't need video games for violence, you can just watch the evening news, now with pictures of REAL corpses!
Manhunt 2 probably IS Adult Only. The issue here is that retailers are threating not to sell it, because they're not supposed to sell it to kids? They allready ID check M rated games (even though they don't techincally have to), it seems like they're just being ridiculously uptight by refusing to sell AO games. Thankfully, the game probably sucks, so I don't really care. But I can imagine an AO game being made that was good, and it is kind of messed up that it would never be released.
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
Interesting to note that Nintendo is not going to allow Manhunt 2 to be released on the Nintendo Wii. Their argument is that they do not allow games rated AO.
a o-manhunt-270741.php
http://kotaku.com/gaming/original/nintendo-nixes-
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
"But wait, there's more! It's not found in any store!"
Imagine the Manhunt 2 infomercials running at three in the morning between Girls Gone Wild and Time Life Music. "It slices! It dices!"
Precisely what the differences are might be harder to put your finger on but it should be fairly clear that they are different and while we don't understand what the differences are comparing the ratings between the two isn't really possible, it's probably reasonable enough that the ratings for each make some kind of sense in their own right.
:(
For example movies longer than two hours start being hard to watch. I'm no hardcore gamer but I think it's much easier to play for much longer than that (depending on the game style). I don't know exactly what that tells us, but it certainly tells us that the way we respond to movies is different to the way we respond to games.
An AO rating for a game like Manhunt does not seam unreasonable on the face of it. Here in Australia we don't have and adult rating for games so Manhunt will almost certainly get banned
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
The reason you had your dream concerning your gaming experience is because what you have been thinking about before you try to sleep, has a significant input to your dreams. In other words, you can control your dreams to a high degree. The first time I had heard of this concept was when I was in high school more than 15 years ago, but the ideas http://www.wikihow.com/Control-Your-Dreams are still valid today.
There is a reason for why you have the initial dreams you do. The stronger your focus before you go to sleep, the more likely you will have a dream concerning that particular subject. It is likely once you finished the game you were not actively thinking about it the following night at the same level of intensity, which is why you did not dream about it much if at all, the following night.
Just because you get modded "insightful" on Slashdot doesn't mean you actually are in real life.
Both Nintendo & Sony have said that AO-rated games will not be allowed to play on their consoles.
So an AO-rating basically means Rockstar HAVE to change the content or trash the game.
* Game Over * High Score: 264,846,927 -- Your Score: 14
Altough the events on Silent Hill games are much more disturbing in a personal level (you guys that know the games know what I'm talking about), the Manhunt games are simply about the gore, the shock and the extreme. At face value, it shocks to see someone use a plastic bag to kill another guy, but it's more "hummanly shocking" the things that some of the characters of Silent Hill do during the games.
"A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"
Politicians who think they know better than their people provoke violent revolution and should be censored!
The UK ratings board said the ban was based purely on the content. So the PS2/PSP version will probably recieve the same treatment.
I really doubt they even played the game to any notable extent. I'm not implying they were squeamish (they work at a ratings board, they've seen worse), but even the screenshots tell you this is one twisted game, there was probably no need to play it much.
AO Ratings, according to the ESRB website, has been given to quite alot of games, alot of games that I've seen selling rather well, including GTA: San Andreas. What with all this publicity Manhunt 2 has been getting, I'm sure that if it reaches market, any market, it's bound to sell one way or another.
the game rating system is messed up anyways so screw them. if anyone rembers conker for the n64 later relised on the xbox even thow the xbox version was cencerd more the n64 version had swaring voliance and even breif nudty and look it got a m rating now we have manhunt 2 witch only has voliance and it gets a a ao rating its a load of shit. they just have it out for rockstar for that gta vc mod. i say tell the esrb to shove it keep the ao rating relese it for pc and the 360 and also tell sony and nintendo where to shove it. i dont think ms will mind the ao rating all that mutch sence the 360 is a adult market anyways and sony loses yet another ps3 game they aruldy cant afford to lose. nintendo doesent need manhunt 2 anyways sence the wii is indeed a famly system and probly whont sell well on it anyways. if the big retailer whont sell the game then ill just order it directly from rockstar couse everyone is right anyone of age to buy this game will have the means to order it from rockstar. leaving it ao and if it sold well that way might even force retailers to eyther stock ao rated titles or force the rating back down to m without any changes to the game.
Rephrasing the headline:
"Fallout banned by Manhunt 2. In other news, the ESRB rated a game as AO.
I can confirm this with my experience of being spiderman in my dreams after playing the spiderman games... There was a point where I played the games for the dreams that they.... ok, posting anonymously.
The Bible should be banned because it is a book of murder and cruelty,
but Manhunt should be allowed to be played because its murder and cruelty is entertainment.
Earth really has a prosperous future...
not this time suckas (chortles)
If there was such high demand for mindless violence in games, somebody would put shops selling just that.
Maybe, just maybe, many people think it is a sick pursuit and in reality, apart from some individuals with psychological issues, nobody wants to play such crap?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Even if portrayed in a game.
The trivialization and glamorization of violence is something that we expect only fully developed adults to manage appropriately, young people lack the necessary life experience to know better, specially children, that learn by mimicking.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
This ruling of the ESRB is the greatest thing to happen FOR the video game industry in a very long time. It gives the industry the argument now that the ESRB is serious about the ratings and that it doesn't need the government to step in. Further, the worst problem all along has been Take-Two, not the entire industry. Specter and even Lowenstein have been moving to isolate and ostracize Take-Two, and it finally happened. Take-Two, with its chronic scofflaw attitude, has painted a bullseye on the whole industry's back, and now the industry ESRB has struck back and its biggest problem, far bigger than me, Jack Thompson. So, in response to the ESRB's finally getting one right and helping the industry, in part because of my raising the visibility of Take-Two and its illegal antics, you all are very welcome. You in the gaming nation have tried to marginalize and threaten and harm me, and I understand, but you now are starting to figure out what this fight has been about. It has not been about "banning games" or "banning even violent games." It has been about stopping the marketing and sale of mature and adult games to minors. Period. The good guys won this one, and so did the industry. Got get the Hell off my back and tell Take-Two's new Chairman, Strauss Zelnick, what an absolute idiot he is. Jack Thompson, Attorney and Still Standing
Lets look at US history for just a brief moment. Who came here first? Oh thats right the uber puritans.
Last I checked the pilgrims landed on Plymouth rock in 1620. Jamestown was founded in 1607, 13 years earlier. If anything, the US was founded on the basis of good old fashion mercantilism and attempting to make a profit by growing tobacco. The other flaw I'd see in the argument is that were heritage the cause, you'd expect Massachusetts to be ground zero for the religious right; nothing could really be further from the truth.
I think the real cause is isolation. Religious conservatism is much more at home in smaller, more insular towns, where "big city ideas" threaten their "way of life". One of these "big city ideas" was the idea of the sexual revolution in the 60's; while the ideas spread quickly among large cities of cosmopolitan populations (that's where it started after all), such ideas are slower to spread to smaller more homogeneous populations where there's active resistance to cultural change.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
They may be whining, but they are not a minority.
The minority are "adults" that want to be entertained with hyper violent games.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
But he is pointing out, correctly, that they had a psychological impact.
If they did not have an impact they wold not sell, plain and simple, so what should be done is addressing the topic but without reaching for the weasel out exit of "there is no proof" this or that. Enough people seem to have anecdotal evidence that certain kind of people are often involved in very violent fare this should not be dismissed just like that, because we are talking about people's lives being damaged.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Any sane person can see how the premise of tetris is harmless.
That is not the case when you are simulating horrific acts of realistic violence against realistically rendered people. TO come with these rubbish examples is an attempt to insult the intelligence of other people frankly...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
People are as violent as they have always been. Fortunately there is a legal and cultural framework that tries to make sure people are not hurt randomly.
A frame of respect and pacific resolution of conflicts is not being soft, one of the bravest things you can do is to control your violent impulses to give negotiations and accommodation a chance.
The softy-softy namby-pamby approach to conflict resolution is to smack somebody whenever you feel like it. It solves nothing and gets people hurt.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You pseudo libertarian quasi anarchist types decry the nanny state but offer no solutions to achieve pacific coexistence.
I utterly fail to see how rating, not banning, but rating a game is nannyism in any way.
The UK very often is completely out of whack, but banning is nowadays a very rare occurrence to their credit. A game that is obviously viciously and gratuitously violent, if the accounts I have read are to be trusted, rightly should be available only to adults, since only a demented person would agree that such material is readily available to minors (who are not equipped emotionally and intellectually to deal with this type of material. For bunnies sakes, they are struggling to find who they are, in such state they are completely unqualified and unprepared to deal with horrific violence, even in the form of a game).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Play whatever the heck you want.
Questioning the reasons behind gamers demanding, enjoying and consuming such tripe is a legitimate question that is not asked often enough.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Where are all the games from the era trivializing such behavior?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What you are saying is completely out of context.
All the histories in the bible are said with a clear moral aim. SOme are scare tactics, some others are edifying moral tales, some others are anecdotes, but the moral of the history, so to speak, is always there.
In the ohter hand games are aimless violence whose only aim is to pander to basic savage instincts, which are normally very close of the worst part of our humanity.
Even an atheist like me can understand the difference.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
(See title of post)
So...books are the least evil, movies the middle evil, and videogames just one step away from cold blooded murder. That's quite the progression. Call me crazy but I've found books to be more disturbing and graphic many of the films I've seen. The imagination is a powerful thing.
Lest we forget that back in the day we didn't have violent cinema for our entertainment, we as a species watched other humans murder and maim one another in the Colisseum where even the spectators would sometimes get the chance to vote for the defeated gladiator to be executed. Seriously, the worst society has to offer right now is Hostel and Manhunt 2? I think we're doing fine.