Slashdot Mirror
Condemned 2 Trying to Avoid Manhunt 2's Fate
CVG is reporting that Monolith, makers of the upcoming Condemned 2, are working with the ESRB to avoid an AO rating. As we've discussed previously, an AO ban in the states is effectively a ban on retail sales. From the article: "When asked for examples of what we might now never see in a game again, we were told, 'An example of what we cut would be putting someone's head in a vice. That was too much, you know. There are also some decapitations we've lost. But this is more Sin City than it is real world and we want people to know that this is not a real world.'"
I'd like to see a retailer grow some balls, tell the ESRB to shove off, and start carrying AO games on the shelves. I don't care if they section it off in it's own little area or something, so long as it's available for purchase. Then companies could make whatever they feel like making and who cares what the ESRB rates it.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
No, that link you posted to a web comic we've all seen a hundred times is not "obligatory."
If anyone else played the original Condemned, you'd probably agree wtih me that it would probably be rated AO, simply for all the blood. (And probably the ending.)
Nonetheless, I'm extremely pissed that game makers have to worry about ratings now in order to get their games on the shelves. In the past it was, "Oh, look.. That conservative group is trying to nag at our game. Ha! We're number one on the selling charts!" And then finally, those "conservative groups" get a couple of lawmakers to enforce this type of law because of some group of idiot developers who decide to put an extremely well hidden sex scene in their game.
Just great. So while we're censoring every form of art, how about Michelangelo's statue? Someone needs to put some leaves there. Oh, is that a breast on that artwork? Better get the censor bars out.
No matter what it is, there's always some group that complains enough that, "This shouldn't be shown, because it's just.. shouldn't." Of course, I'll also assume that their kids will group up and be smiling adults that always do the right thing, help old ladies cross the streets, turn their head away from those XXX nightclubs, and of course, never ever get angry.
Beautiful, just beautiful. I suppose if people have a bad enough psychosis that they can't tell that Condemned has a world in which demons exist and physically manifest to cause riots apart from the real world, well.. My opinion on humanity is at a loss for words.
I don't know when these game makers are going to learn. If they want their AO game to be release without having to sensor it, dumb it down, worry about sales, worry about being banned or any other thing, they should just release it for the PC. Consoles are generally family entertainment machines. Fanboy's, back away from your keyboards. Soccer mom's, Thompson, Tipper and Hillary don't really know what a PC is so games for the PC go unnoticed. Console machines are so ubiquitous that they can't help appearing on stupid's radar. I say to the Video Game companies around the world "WISE UP!!!" - support the PC.
...we want people to know that this is not a real world.
I'm getting really sick of all this pussy-footing around. Personally, I have a strong aversion to graphic, unnecessary violence, but if you are so unhinged that you can't tell the difference between reality and a game you are ALREADY off your rocker.
Is this supposed to avoid children from accessing violent games and growing violent themselves?
Or are children growing violent as a way of rebelling to the hypocritical repression upon them?
Why not create a escape-goat rating for games so that we are all on the same page?
...and realize there is a huge market out there for a console that will allow AO games? Can't they just have parental lockout for games with a certain rating, just like DVR's and TV's do now? Why does the entire industry push forward this notion that video games are played primarily by children?
When I saw this article title, I choked up a bit.
Hold on, my friends. With each passing day, games are being more and more scrutinized. It's only a matter of time until it's a criminal offense to make a violent game.
And you know what the absolute worst part about all this is? The original video game generation is the generation calling the shots on this one.
How big of a pile of bullshit is that?
Living With a Nerd
Several posts have mentioned that the console makers have to give their ok for an AO game to be released on said platform. Does anyone know if there is any sort of work being done on an open source hardware platform kind of thing, for which AO rated games would be freely available without mfr's "upgrade kit/license"?
I wonder if Doom would make the cut if it were released today.
If yes, would it run on Linux?
Just have rainbows shoot out of someones neck when they are decapitated.
No, the problem is not the console makers. The problem is not Rockstar. The problem is the ESRB. The ESRB adapted its rating system from movies, deciding, I assume, that each rating should correspond to an age group. Sounds like a great idea until 90% of the games market decided to ban AO.
So now any store that wants to carry Manhunt 2, a game which just barely inched into the AO rating, is also consenting to carry interactive donkey porn. As far as the ESRB is concerned they are one and the same.
Ok, so maybe it was hard to forsee, but once it happened the rating should have been adapted without any delay! There should be both a sex/nudity rating and a violence rating each with several levels. That way walmart can carry a game with "mild violence" and tell the press that, why yes, it has banned excessive levels of violence.
This is 100% the ESRB's fault. Whoever has been the head of that organization the last few years is fucking idiot. Maybe the whole place is staffed by monkeys. No, monkeys could have done better.
And to top it off, every time some insignificant asshole lawyer generates a headline the ESRB caves and changes a rating. Basically admitting guilt. It encourages critics to continue taking more and bigger bites out of it. Why shouldn't they, it worked last time. It gets the press used to attacking game companies. What they should have done is tell the press that they are in the process of reviewing their rating and then just let it die. And it will probably die, because not very many people care. If after a month the pressure is still on, fine go ahead and do something about it.
Give me a break! The only reason game manufacturer's are throwing a shit-fit is because they want to sell adult-content titles to our young ones. It's tantamount to the porn industry having issue with children not being able to buy XXX material. There's a reason adult content isn't and shouldn't be sold to children: It's morally reprehensible and it's damaging. To the game makers: Stop trying to sell adult content to children. If your demographics show that there aren't enough adult consumers to make a profit on a game you're going to develop... (here's a clue) DON'T MAKE IT! Simple, huh? Gee, if the rest of the frikkin' world would get their heads out their butts maybe the sane people of our planet wouldn't have to listen to these stupid-asses whine all the time!
Rockstar should aim for an AO rating with GTA 4 - just put some sex and drugs in it, that would keep with the more realistic look of the game - and then refuse to change it. I don't think retail and platform holders' bans on AO games would last long in the face of the almighty $.
When movies get an X or NC-17 rating that doesn't prevent them from being sold in adult stores or in back-rooms of rental places. Why not just allow a game to get an 'AO' rating, then put them in adult retail stores or etc. and let the rating do what it is supposed to and allow the sale of the game to the proper audience just like porn... I don't mind being carded for buying an 'R' rated movie or even an 'X', so I wouldn't mind being carded to buy an 'AO' game, because I'm an adult and like to buy what I choose. And what's gonna happen to my Manhunt 2 pre-order sigh... It's easier for kids to obtain cigarettes and alcohol and porn than it is for them to get video game's that are less violent than some PG-13 movies, not to mention look a whole lot worse, because they are completely digital and done in real-time, and any blood or gore is super fake, movies at least get time to pre-render everything so those nasty scenes from movies like SAW actually look real. If they made a SAW video game and put in half the twistedness it would get an AO rating, but ... you get the point.
"An example of what we cut would be putting someone's head in a vice."
I'm all for freedom of speech and anti-censorship, but is it really such a shame that a game with the above content might get rated "adults only" instead of mature? I mean, my god, that's a horrible thing to do to a person, game avatar or no, and a hell of a lot worse than the sex in other AO games.
It seems like a downloadable, DVD/CD burnable version is feasible these days, given the bandwidth available to much of their target audience. Give each downloaded image a unique key to be emailed to the purchaser and entered on the console to run.
(I'm assuming that it's possible to make recordable DVD/CDs that will run on un-modified consoles)
Sure, the keygens will happen pretty soon, but it's not really any more problem than chipped consoles and copied games are now.
A smaller market than Walmart shelves, but surely better than nothing!
AO it should be, but AO should mean AO no banned.
Casino had a head in a vice and it wasn't banned.