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ESRB President Vance On UT3's User-Generated Content
Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog passes on the comments of ESRB President Patricia Vance on user-generated content in Unreal Tournament III . As you may recall, it was announced at E3 that user mods will be available for the PS3 version of the game, and eventually the 360 as well. Vance clarified the situation from the ESRB's viewpoint: "The ESRB's Online Rating Notice, which warns consumers that 'Game Experience May Change During Online Play,' is intended to advise the buyer that, because the game enables users to play with others over an internet connection, they might encounter user-generated content that isn't a part of the ESRB rating ... That content can vary, whether it's chat or skins or maps or what have you, and it's certainly possible that some of that content won't be in line with the rating that we assigned to the product. That's why we created the notice in the first place."
Is it me, or is this ESRB bureacracy now broken?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
How exactly are they broken, in your estimation?
I hope they at least screen the user generated content for online play. I don't want to play against a stick and testicles. I mean, where do you headshot that thing anyway? But seriously, I don't want all the crap that's gone through second life coming through UT.
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I suspect that they'll have the option to turn off custom models, just to save bandwidth if not everything else that goes with them.
This is a non-issue. User-created content cannot and should not be regulated by any agency other than server admins.
I was always under the impression that that disclaimer meant "Slowness, Choppiness and/or lag may be present during online game play". Not that there's user generated material within the game. If what they say "chat or skins or maps or what have you" is supposed to be meant with their disclaimer, they may want to modify the verbiage a little bit (e.g."Game Content May Change During Online Play").
I always thought that sentence was an advertisement! Like, "play online, it will CHANGE your EXPERIENCE". What I thought was boring advertisementese was just boring legalese... my bad!
Don't take my posts literally; it's just code to control my botnet.
User generated content is a huge part of the gaming market on PC's, and now that a console may get a piece of the action people start freaking out. Shows that people really aren't too concerned about PC imo, or they know the truth: we PC gamers are mature enough to handle it. I just hope they don't damage the customization of unreal tournament that gave it such a long lifespan in the past. Damn console's screw it up for everyone.
I can't see the difference between "unlocking content that's 'already there'" and "modifying content" if you need to download a patch to get it to work.
If you'd just needed to type "ABACABB" then I could see your point.
But if you have to apply a patch to unlock the "existing content" then from the user/parent point of view, you have a situation where:
1. As installed, there is no explicit sex or nudity in the game, and no way to get it to appear.
2. After downloading something from the internet and installing it, there is explicit sex in the game.
From the point of view of any end user (as opposed to a behind-the-scenes point of view, or a looking-for-an-excuse point of view), there is no difference.
To some extent, I agree with what you are saying. People couldn't access the "Hot Coffee" materials unless they downloaded online content (or modified the code themselves, if they played on a computer). But at the same time, the content WAS on the disc, it WAS part of the program and that does technically make it content included with the game. As a side note, this article is pointless; this is nothing new and I'm mystified as to why Slashdot put it up as a story.
That's an excellent reason why the phrase should be clarified. If you had a problem understanding it, then chances are that a large portion of the audience is also not getting it. "Game Experience May Change During Online Play" While I've always understood what they mean, I've always felt it was written in such a way as to intentionally confuse. It's as if they're trying to be a bit coy about it. "Yep, this game is perfectly fine for kids. Except....well, I don't want to startle you or anything, but...something really bad could happen online. Oops, look at the time, gotta go!"
I always thought it was a saftey net so mommy doesn't start suing companies when little Jimmy learns some new four letter words from his games.
Insert Sig Here
Microsoft have already said no. There is an interview on Gametraliers, and the Microsoft dude says XBL is a closed platform.
Can I ask where the author of this article got the impression there would be? (assumption???)
I fully agree. I was scrolling through to see if anyone had said as much before I posted, and I'm glad I'm not the only one. I'm amazed this made /., and I'm amazed (or perhaps saddened) that the ESRB felt obligated to justify this. When you go to the movies and see a PG movie, you can't yell at the MPAA if someone sitting behind you in the theatre drops the F-bomb 10 or 20 times while watching it.
Perhaps slightly more accurately, if you pick up a children's book in which someone has drawn obscene pictures throughout (thus becoming a part of the medium rather than adjacent commentary, the difference between game content and live chat), you can't exactly blame the publisher or author. Why this distinction is hard to make I really don't understand.
However you need to get that gameshark code from somewhere because I doubt the memory address tracing* of the thing can find a value that isn't changed, ever so you either get the code or poke arbitrary addresses in the hope of getting something done.
On the PC you can theoretically enter a "cheatcode" yourself by using a hex editor or the debug program that's included with Windows.
Anyway, I think the ESRB should rate what you can access from the default state without direct alterations to game files, not what you can reach if you change data the game never changes. Doesn't matter what is hidden in the game, if it cannot be reached without external modification of the game's files (including savegames) you have to consciously choose to encounter it.
Besides, it's just silly that the hot coffee scene could push the rating of a game like GTA up but that's another issue.
*=The only cheat device I used was an Action Replay for the original Gameboy, it allowed you to filter memory addresses by tracking their changes in certain situations. Not sure if today's cheat devices can still do arbitrary memory writes.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
If it's anything like the PC games that support user-created playermodels (which includes all previous UTs, by the way) it will just display the default model if you didn't download the custom one.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
They hid it from the ESRB because they considered it deleted.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
to release Manhunt 2 as a mod for UT3...?
Two of the definitions on dictionary dot com mention not just the bureaus, but the excessiveness of them that is the common use of the term. If you've ever played this game, I think you would agree.