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Target May Discontinue Manhunt 2 Sales
Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog is reporting that retail giant Target may be pulling Rockstar's Manhunt 2 from store shelves and their online storefront. "This could be an interesting case: there is no content in Manhunt 2 that goes above and beyond what we've seen in other M-rated games without the extensive hacks needed to unlock the more graphic content. If Target wasn't seeing high sales of the game though, it wouldn't hurt the company financially to pull the game, and it gets to look family-friendly. From a public relations standpoint that's a win-win situation. My question remains: would Target be as quick to pull the game if it were a runaway success? " GamePoltics has up a discussion of the issues surrounding this move, with commentary from analyst Michael Pachter.
I think I speak for the majority of gamers when I say "Who gives a rat's ass?"
I mean seriously, when the major marketing point of a game is whether it's banned, not the graphics, gameplay, and technical merit, one has to wonder whether anybody besides Jack Thompson is ever going to bother with the game.
Can we stop talking about this lame and pathetic excuse for a game now? Violence as part of a game is shiny. Crappy games that use it to sell instead of actually being decent suck, let's move on.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
If it's marked that only 17+ can buy and should play it because of stated reasons (I believe that's the target for M rated games). Unless it's just sitting and collecting dust what good reason does a company have for pulling it off their shelves.
These are the same people who sell the "Unrated" version of movies to teenagers without a second thought but because video games are the hot button for "Think of the children" THAT'S what gets attention.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
Indeed. If IIRC, the video game withe most copies ever sold is: Deer Hunter. A bargain bin queen sold mostly at Wal-mart.
Now, personally, I actually do hunt deer in real life, but the GAME was stupid. You click, get into the game, and these huge deer walk up to you within seconds (in game you'd never go more than 3 minutes without a monster buck walking up. IRL, it's not uncommon to go days without seeing ANY deer, and those huge trophy bucks are a once a decade thing, assuming you're not just paying some rancher to shoot big deer inside of his fence). Anyways, you shoot the deer, a "Good job!" sign pops up, and you do the exact same thing, again, and again, and again.
This thing sold in DROVES because it was a) cheap, b) easy, and c) didn't require any time investment.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
No. (Kind of a silly question, isn't it.)
Players think the game sucks: they aren't falling for the enormous "carnage to the limit is cool" marketing campaign that's been going on here on Slashdot and elsewhere for six months. If anyone wanted it, the game would earn its shelf space. But...they don't, so buh-bye.
Of course not. That doesn't mean they wouldn't end up doing it in any case. See also: Don Imus' aborted radio career. It took an awful lot of pressure to bring him down, with all his political influence and the extreme financial rewards he reaped for his bosses. Manhunt and Take 2 have little to no political influence, and if their products aren't a financial success, who's going to be hurt if Target takes them off the shelves and sells them at firesale through another venue, maybe even eBay.
Producers do the editing. The same "clean" version you get from Wal-Mart is the same thing you hear on the radio. Ever heard a DMX song on the radio? Every other word has to be censored, it's hilarious. But it's done using sound effects and such. However, there are also other artists / producers that will just create a "clean" (radio edit) version of the song. Replacing "bitch" with "girl" or "ass" with "thang", whatever it takes to get it played on as many stations as possible. Sometimes singles even include both the original and the radio edit. Probably for DJ types who may need to occasionally play the "clean" version of the song. (Right, like telling a girl to rub her "thang" on you instead of her "ass" is soooo much more PG). At any rate, I can guarantee you that no artist would want the likes of Wal-Mart doing their editing for them.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Me and a friend were discussing this the other day and decided that we liked the concept of the original manhunt, but the game was just too violent to be worth playing. If the game involves violence but has another focus (Tenchu comes to mind, it's a very similar game style) then the violent is acceptable, it's there as a means to an end and fits the setting, but when that flows backwards (The game is the violence not the violence is part of the game) it just loses all interest to both of us.
We're both 21, both been avid gamers since we were kids and both play games ranging from Mario to GTA:SA to Silent Hill, we're not the type of people to be overly conservative and avoid a game based on religious content or violence, but we expect a game to use these mediums and others in a way which enhances the game, rather than steals focus from it. If Manhunt was a good stealth game which just happens to be realistic in it's violence to the point of being uncomfortable we both would have picked it up, but being a violence game with a bit of stealth just makes it appeal to children (12-16 year olds) rather than appeal to the exact audience they claim to be aiming for.
These manhunt stories seem like iPhone stories to me now. The hype is feeding the hype rather than the product. The iPhone was on Slashdot daily, it was going to spawn undead and be the new hot drug on the street, instead it just faded into the mists and rarely gets mentioned any more, the hype is no longer needed and the content of the product just isn't enough to stand on it's own two feet. That's how I feel Manhunt is going, it's unlikely we will see a third, or they will attempt to be even more extreme by which time the crowd will have gone "bored of you beating nurses to death with a fetus, I'm off thanks" and it won't get hype or sales.
I like muppets.
If they don't want to carry MH2, don't give them GTA4 (or any GTA titles) either.
I've built up so much character I have an alter-ego