Golf is for the rich and powerful to meet and talk at length without dealing with the non-rich and non-powerful in anything other than servile roles. Golf is useful because it excludes the riffraff. No offense intended, but WoW is the riffraff. WoW might be the new bar, or the new mall, but it's definitely not golf.
If Google were to attempt to replace Windows now or even in the near future, it would fail miserably and tarnish Google's image. Now is not the time.
What if they gave it away? What if they told PC manufacturers they could ship with it at no charge? What if they gave away a nice installer available on the web for anybody to install over Windows?
Linux is a better OS. People hate Windows and are dying for an alternative. What if Google made a better OS that ran everything you needed to run, and gave it away for free?
Why? Look what the free iTunes does for Music Store sales. Now imagine being able to control the entire OS.
There is no indication that Google would use this to get into the hardware business, and there is every reason why Google would distribute this as a Windows alternative. If they sold it, they could easily get a slice of the Windows pie. If they gave it away, they would control the desktops of millions. Apple gives away iTunes, and it's a decent jukebox, but the expense of giving this away is far outweighed by the money it generates bringing people to the iTunes Music Store. Now imagine the same philosophy applied to the entire OS.
Mac OS X is a great alternative, but Apple's giving no indication of any intention to ship it on the generic x86 machines.
Indeed, they are highly motivated to never, ever release OS X for non-Macs. Apple is a hardware company. They make much more money from a Mac sale than an OS X sale. MS makes its money from software, without any hardware to sell with it. It's no surprise that Google would want a slice of that pie. And, like Apple, they are using a solid open-source operating system and making it usable.
Google OS helps Dell sales. If it runs on Macs (and why wouldn't it?), it will also help Mac sales, so expect Apple to embrace this project. The only person this hurts is MS.
Democrats and Republicans are basically the same today. The Republicans don't represent conservatives, and the Democrats don't represent liberals. They represent the various corporations and industries of America, or the best interests of foreign nations.
Please, Mr. Nader, if you can't stay calm we'll have to put you back in your room. Now take your medicine like a good boy.
Did nobody bother to consider the other obvious conclusion? Maybe both sides are getting the facts right! Why would subjects need to engage in reason unless there was some logic problem presented to them? Clearly, the successful politician isn't going to go against the grain of agreed-upon truth (and what other kind of truth could we be talking about here, really?). Instead, she will select certain agreed-upon truths to bolster a conclusion with moral resonance. The areas activated by political speak in this study are activated during all moral judgments. In fact, neuroscience is finding that all "rational thought" (whatever the hell that is) is based much more on the emotion centers of the brain than ever thought before. According to the latest theories, the rest of the brain is used to compute answers, but the limbic system -- the "emotion center" -- actually chooses the right answer from all the candidates by generating an emotional response. People who lack this ability are called sociopaths. Shouldn't we all be rejoicing that everybody is looking past the facts, which rarely have all the answers, and using their own personal judgement to choose a government?
But no, the story relies on the agreed-upon fact that all politicians are liars to bolster a theory that, because the emotion centers are tapped during political speech, the facts do not matter.
Most people have a computer powerful enough to handle it in their house...
Um... surely you are not saying what you mean to say. Most people don't have a computer. Most people in North America with TVs don't have a computer. Maybe you mean, "Most people reading this have a computer powerful enough..."
The grandparent post is still valid. For most people Tivo is cheaper than a PVR.
Just a friendly reminder that the Hot Coffee controversy is not about sex in GTA. It's about Rockstar defrauding the ESRB to get a lower rating so GTA would be carried in Walmart and Gamestop and other stores that won't carry AO games. Rockstar was contractually obliged to reveal all content to the ESRB. (I work for a major game developer, not Rockstar, and I know that we must disclose all disk contents to the ESRB.) They didn't disclose the sexual content, and once they were caught they lied about putting on the the disk and tried to blame some hacker who found the enabling bits.
Game developers can put whatever content they want in their games. Nobody is stopping them. (Not even congress.) But you can't lie about it to the ESRB. Don't get caught up in the "is sex worse than violence?!" argument. That's not the point. The point is that sex won't get carried in Walmart, but sex sells, so Rockstar put sex in the game and lied about it to the ESRB.
As a game developer, I'm pissed as hell at Rockstar for screwing things up for the rest of us. If you're gonna put sex in the game, at least fess up to it. Don't act all surprised and say, "Goodness, how did that get in there?" What a bunch of cowards.
"the seans are not in the game, the game has to be modified. The UNMODIFIED version is rated M, somneone changed it."
That would be great if those were the terms of the ESRB contract. But those are not the terms. You must disclose everything on the disk, accessible or not. Everybody who writes games that get ESRB rated knows this, or at least they should. I know it gets repeated to me a million times when the ship date comes around.
And remember that an ESRB rating is voluntary. Rockstar wasn't forced into this situation. They chose it. Idiots.
I work for a large computer game company (not Take-Two), and the ESRB rating agreement states that you must disclose all content on the disk, whether it is accessible or not. This is made very very clear to us at work: we must report all cheats and easter eggs, and must remove all unused content from the disk. You're not allowed to put a movie file on the disk and not have it considered for the rating, even if you can't get to it from the game. In this case, it wasn't even seperate from the game like a movie file, but intergral to the game itself.
To this day, Rockstar claims that they had nothing to do with the porn content, which doesn't even pass the laugh test. But they keep saying it because admitting otherwise would open them up to a fraud suit from the ESRB.
I'm surprised how easily everybody seems to be won over by the corporate response to what is really a case of fraud. This is not about the sex and violence in the game. It's about defrauding the ESRB.
Hillary is not trying to ban violent games. Nor is she trying to ban porn. But the game industry agreed to police themselves with the ESRB. Now we have an example of a game company lying to the ESRB, getting a rating that will let them sell games in Walmart, but putting porn on the disk anyway.
The FTC investigation is not "Is there sex and violence in games?" The investigation is: "Did Rockstar knowingly defraud the ESRB, and how can we stop companies from doing this in the future?"
And for those who would blame the parents, remember that the ratings are supposed to help parents pick the right games for their kids. You can hardly blame the parents for using the tools that are given to them, especially when those tools are subverted by the industry.
I blame Rockstar for engaging in questionable business practices and potentially ruining it for the rest of us. This whole argument about "how bad is violence and sex in games?" and "creative freedom" is really beside the point, and put forth by the game industry to divert attention from the real problem. Nobody is trying to stop anybody from writing any game they want. But you can't wrap an X movie in an R rating and shrug your shoulders and say, "Gee, how did that get in there?" Give me a break.
People need to stop whining about making game sex and violence illegal. Nobody is even talking about that except you.
The problem is not that Rockstar put sex into the game. The problem is that they lied about it! The ESRB was formed by the gaming industry with the promise that they could police themselves. When you rate a game with the ESRB, you must reveal all content whether it is accessible or not. (I work for a large gaming company (not Take-Two), and they are very explicit about this.) Rockstar defrauded the ESRB and continues to deny putting porn on the disk!
Congress is investigating this because they believe this is proof that the ESRB is useless: Rockstar can just hide porn on the disk, not tell the ESRB, get the M rating, get into Walmart et al, and cash in on the "unexpected surprise."
Nobody mentioned in these discussions has any problem with publishing porn, as long as you don't lie about publishing porn. Publish it and sell it to your heart's content. But the industry can't say "trust us" and then turn around and betray that trust and not expect to get smacked.
If you get mad at anybody, get mad at the cowards at Rockstar. Why don't they just fess up and admit they put the porn on the disk? Why did they defraud the ESRB in the first place? Rockstar is ruining it for the rest of us.
Actually, I think the most worrisome part of the story is that Rockstar defrauded the ESRB, along with Sony and Microsoft. Game developers are required to report all disk contents to the ESRB and to the console manufacturers, whether that content is accessible or not. In fact, if it's not accessible, Sony will make you take it off the disk.
If the ESRB catches them in this lie, they could refuse to rate future games, which would severely cripple Rockstar's distribution deals. If Sony and Microsoft call them on violating their console licence, they could put an end to Rockstar's future Xbox and PS2 titles.
Clearly, Sony and Microsoft would rather not have to do this, because GTA sells consoles. But if the political uproar continues (and it will), it may turn out to be less costly for MS and Sony to shut out Rockstar.
Set aside the moral issues, and Rockstar still made a very stupid business move.
Yeah, I think he's worried about getting sued. He certainly didn't break any laws, though. All he would have to worry about is a civil suit coming from parents.
It's not helping matters that Rockstar is villifying the modder. "In a statement, Rockstar claimed it is not responsible for the so-called 'Hot Coffee' mod. Instead, the company said it was the result of 'the work of a determined group of hackers who have gone to significant trouble to alter scenes in the official version of the game.'" (from Gamespot)
Given that Rockstar is lying, the modder is probably (and rightly) worried about being scapegoated.
Rockstar says this: "Hackers created the 'Hot Coffee' modification by disassembling and then combining, recompiling and altering the game's source code." (from Gamespot)
The modder says this: "All the contents of this mod was already available on the original disks. Therefor the scriptcode, the models, the animations and the dialogs by the original voice-actors were all created by RockStar. The only thing I had to do to enable the mini-games was toggling a single bit in the main.scm file." (from PatrickW)
Can some savvy person out there verify either of these claims?
You are actually required to report all content on the disk, whether it's accessible or not. You are also required to report all hidden features and easter eggs, and any content revealable by mods.
When we produce game disks where I work, disk space is very tight, so we know every 1 and 0 on that disk. There's no way Take-Two didn't know about it. And in the end, even if it was a mistake (which is really not possible), it's still Take-Two's responsibility. It's as if Time magazine had a full nude photo tucked in the middle of an issue. The editor can't just go, "Gee, how did that get in there?"
If this content is on the disk, and they didn't tell the ESRB, that means Take-Two defrauded the ESRB.
The only other case of this happening that I know about was a version of Tiger Woods that included a South Park episode on the disk. In that instance, the ESRB forced a recall of all Tiger Woods games.
So, the big deal is not that there is sex in GTA. You can make a game with sex, and you can sell it. Nobody is stopping you.
The big deal is this: Parents are trying to raise their kids responsibly by monitoring their media... their TV, their movies, their music, and their games. They don't necessarily want to stop their kids from listening to an album, or playing a game. They just want to know what the heck their kids are getting into. Just a little help, like a rating system, and a way to stop kids from getting particularly graphic content. You may not like it, but that's what parents want.
Like all other media, parents want laws to force game manufacturers to label their games, and game sellers to restrict sales to minors. The game industry has argued in response that we don't need laws because "we can police ourselves" via the ESRB.
Well, the ESRB blew it big time, although apparently through no fault of their own. This GTA hack is a glaring example of the failure of self-policing. The ESRB was set up to stop parents from demanding media control laws. Now the ESRB has failed in their mission, and parents are going to start demanding those laws. So the ESRB is furiously trying to protect its reputation.
I work at a large game company (not Take-Two/Rockstar). We are required to reveal all hacks, easter eggs, hidden features, etc. to both first-party (MS, Sony, Nintendo) and the ESRB. There can be no content on the disk that is not reported to these folks, or there a serious consequences. (I'm told they're serious. I don't know what they are.) If Take-Two did not reveal that this content was on the disk, they have defrauded the ESRB. That's bad news for Take-Two and their cash cow. If this content is on the Xbox or PS2 media, they defrauded MS or Sony, who are now liable for the explicit content. That's really bad news.
That's why this is a big deal.
Side Note: This is not censorship. Nobody is banning any games. Adults can buy whatever games they want. Restricting sales of adult games to kids is no more censorship than restricting sales of porn or booze. The censorship argument is a Take-Two argument to whip up support for anything-goes game development so that they can continue to make piles of money selling porn to kids.
Well, you can't argue that computer games have no effect on behavior, but they provide a way for people to "blow off steam." Either they affect behavior or they don't. If they affect behavior (and I think they do), then we all should agree that we have very little idea *how* behavior is affected by violent video games. If they don't affect behavior, then your point is invalid. (Or, if you're the average slashdot reader, insightful.)
"The problem is that THIS ALREADY EXISTS... Yes, the ESA rating system is flawed. But GTA, and just about every other scapegoat game that comes out, has a rating of M, which means it is not appropriate for children."
The ratings exist but they are unenforced. Game shops actually have a high motivation to ignore the ratings and make the sales wherever they can. The new legislation (in CA, Japan, etc.) would make it illegal to sell M games to a minor.
Preventing an 11 year old from buying GTA is exactly what I'm talking about, and apparently exactly what you are arguing against. And it's ridiculous to say that Take Two/Rockstar holds no responsilibity for this happening.
"Really the problem, in my opinion, is that parents don't like they way their children behave and need a scapegoat."
No, really the problem is that parent's want to raise their kids responsibly by monitoring the content of their media. Nobody wants to ban these games. They just want some control over whether their kids buy a game that lets them kill cops and rape prostitutes.
But that would hurt sales. So Take Two calls it an infringement of free speech. And suckers on slashdot buy it hook, line and sinker.
"What in American society is spurring the violence? American society encourages competition. It, in itself, is a form of aggression."
You have *got* to be kidding! This whole post is such a load.
Japanese workers are less agressive than American workers? Japanese business is less efficient than American business? Is that why Japan is kicking America's ass in cars and electronics? Japan is arguably the most competitive country in the world. So tell me why, braniac, the Japanese violent crime rate is a fraction of America's?
And America has a higher standard of living than Japan or Europe? I don't know what you base that on, but it's bologna no matter how you slice it. The income *average* might be higher in the US, but the spread is enormous, and you can't rightly say that the US has a higher standard living when a greater percentage of the population live in squalor.
I simply cannot believe the crap that passes for "Informative" in defense of violent computer games.
How this post got "4, Insightful" is evidence for how far people are willing to ignore logic to save their precious games. I can't believe I have to even type the following sentence.
Just because Hitler didn't play GTA doesn't mean GTA doesn't cause violence.
And Lenin? Are you kidding me?
Machine guns may not cause violence, but I can assure that, if 14-year-olds could buy a machine gun at the mall for $29.99, our world would be a lot more violent.
No, I'm not saying that GTA is equal to a machine gun. But the argument that we shouldn't restrict gun sales to minors, and instead contemplate man's "inborn propensity for violence," is absurd. So how should the same reasoning apply to video games?
Man, I have so many problems with this, I don't know where to begin. So, in no particular order...
Of course games affect behavior. I write games for a living, and job depends on the fact that games affect behavior. Mr. Brown says it himself. "The allowance of violence, while it does play to our carnal nature, does suck us in."
Yes, yes, "suck us in" is not the same as shooting cops. But once you concede that games can affect behavior, it's not hard to conclude that nobody has a good idea how they affect behavior. So claims like "GTA does not force you to kill cops" are really groundless. And it totally misses the point. Even if games don't "force" people do to anything, they can still be dangerous if they encourage certain behavior, or make certain behavior seem better than it actually is.
"The great part about those games was that i could do what i wanted." Saying that you like violence in video games because they let you do what you want is frightening indeed. But I actually don't believe that Mr. Brown is violent in games because he wants to be violent in games. Later in the paragraph, he reveals the real reason: "Granted, it took more skill and time - but it was worth it. The bloody way is fun too, if i'm looking for a quick thrill." Games may give you a non-violent choice, but they make the violent choice more fun! Who doesn't want to have fun?
I'm really surprised at people who try to make the sale of games to minors an issue of free speech. I'm sure the game companies appreciate the connection between game sales and constitutional rights (I know my company does), but it simply isn't the case. In the US, you must be 18 to make many decisions for yourself, and you need a parent or guardian to make those decisions before that. Parents are responsible for their kids, a point that Mr. Brown makes! "My parents finally realized that parents suck. It's the parents fault."
So why, God, why are we trying to make it harder for parents to raise their kids? Parental advisories on games won't stop a 20-year-old from buying a game. But it will, at least, slow down the sale of certain games to minors. And if the parents don't have a problem with the game in question, they can still pick it up and let their kid play it. Restricting the sale of cigarettes and booze and porn to minors is not a violation of free speech, and neither is restricting the sale of computer games.
Simply, corporations like Take Two make games like GTA because violence and sex sells. And, like the tobacco industry or the auto industry, they'll keep claiming that "there's no evidence our product kills people" because they don't want to know. When people try to stop them, they'll claim that letting 13-year-olds rape hookers is free speech, and laugh all the way to the bank.
I remember Brooks Brown from back then, and I remember thinking what a remarkable guy he was. It's a shame that now, however unwittingly, he has become a corporate shill.
Slashdot Mirror
Golf is for the rich and powerful to meet and talk at length without dealing with the non-rich and non-powerful in anything other than servile roles. Golf is useful because it excludes the riffraff. No offense intended, but WoW is the riffraff. WoW might be the new bar, or the new mall, but it's definitely not golf.
What if they gave it away? What if they told PC manufacturers they could ship with it at no charge? What if they gave away a nice installer available on the web for anybody to install over Windows?
Linux is a better OS. People hate Windows and are dying for an alternative. What if Google made a better OS that ran everything you needed to run, and gave it away for free?
Why? Look what the free iTunes does for Music Store sales. Now imagine being able to control the entire OS.
There is no indication that Google would use this to get into the hardware business, and there is every reason why Google would distribute this as a Windows alternative. If they sold it, they could easily get a slice of the Windows pie. If they gave it away, they would control the desktops of millions. Apple gives away iTunes, and it's a decent jukebox, but the expense of giving this away is far outweighed by the money it generates bringing people to the iTunes Music Store. Now imagine the same philosophy applied to the entire OS.
Indeed, they are highly motivated to never, ever release OS X for non-Macs. Apple is a hardware company. They make much more money from a Mac sale than an OS X sale. MS makes its money from software, without any hardware to sell with it. It's no surprise that Google would want a slice of that pie. And, like Apple, they are using a solid open-source operating system and making it usable.
Google OS helps Dell sales. If it runs on Macs (and why wouldn't it?), it will also help Mac sales, so expect Apple to embrace this project. The only person this hurts is MS.
Please, Mr. Nader, if you can't stay calm we'll have to put you back in your room. Now take your medicine like a good boy.
But no, the story relies on the agreed-upon fact that all politicians are liars to bolster a theory that, because the emotion centers are tapped during political speech, the facts do not matter.
Bullshit.
Um... surely you are not saying what you mean to say. Most people don't have a computer. Most people in North America with TVs don't have a computer. Maybe you mean, "Most people reading this have a computer powerful enough..."
The grandparent post is still valid. For most people Tivo is cheaper than a PVR.
Just a friendly reminder that the Hot Coffee controversy is not about sex in GTA. It's about Rockstar defrauding the ESRB to get a lower rating so GTA would be carried in Walmart and Gamestop and other stores that won't carry AO games. Rockstar was contractually obliged to reveal all content to the ESRB. (I work for a major game developer, not Rockstar, and I know that we must disclose all disk contents to the ESRB.) They didn't disclose the sexual content, and once they were caught they lied about putting on the the disk and tried to blame some hacker who found the enabling bits.
Game developers can put whatever content they want in their games. Nobody is stopping them. (Not even congress.) But you can't lie about it to the ESRB. Don't get caught up in the "is sex worse than violence?!" argument. That's not the point. The point is that sex won't get carried in Walmart, but sex sells, so Rockstar put sex in the game and lied about it to the ESRB.
As a game developer, I'm pissed as hell at Rockstar for screwing things up for the rest of us. If you're gonna put sex in the game, at least fess up to it. Don't act all surprised and say, "Goodness, how did that get in there?" What a bunch of cowards.
I just signed up with a Canadian mobile phone, so the whole "US Only" thing isn't strictly true.
"the seans are not in the game, the game has to be modified. The UNMODIFIED version is rated M, somneone changed it."
That would be great if those were the terms of the ESRB contract. But those are not the terms. You must disclose everything on the disk, accessible or not. Everybody who writes games that get ESRB rated knows this, or at least they should. I know it gets repeated to me a million times when the ship date comes around.
And remember that an ESRB rating is voluntary. Rockstar wasn't forced into this situation. They chose it. Idiots.
I work for a large computer game company (not Take-Two), and the ESRB rating agreement states that you must disclose all content on the disk, whether it is accessible or not. This is made very very clear to us at work: we must report all cheats and easter eggs, and must remove all unused content from the disk. You're not allowed to put a movie file on the disk and not have it considered for the rating, even if you can't get to it from the game. In this case, it wasn't even seperate from the game like a movie file, but intergral to the game itself.
To this day, Rockstar claims that they had nothing to do with the porn content, which doesn't even pass the laugh test. But they keep saying it because admitting otherwise would open them up to a fraud suit from the ESRB.
I'm surprised how easily everybody seems to be won over by the corporate response to what is really a case of fraud. This is not about the sex and violence in the game. It's about defrauding the ESRB.
Hillary is not trying to ban violent games. Nor is she trying to ban porn. But the game industry agreed to police themselves with the ESRB. Now we have an example of a game company lying to the ESRB, getting a rating that will let them sell games in Walmart, but putting porn on the disk anyway.
The FTC investigation is not "Is there sex and violence in games?" The investigation is: "Did Rockstar knowingly defraud the ESRB, and how can we stop companies from doing this in the future?"
And for those who would blame the parents, remember that the ratings are supposed to help parents pick the right games for their kids. You can hardly blame the parents for using the tools that are given to them, especially when those tools are subverted by the industry.
I blame Rockstar for engaging in questionable business practices and potentially ruining it for the rest of us. This whole argument about "how bad is violence and sex in games?" and "creative freedom" is really beside the point, and put forth by the game industry to divert attention from the real problem. Nobody is trying to stop anybody from writing any game they want. But you can't wrap an X movie in an R rating and shrug your shoulders and say, "Gee, how did that get in there?" Give me a break.
The problem is not that Rockstar put sex into the game. The problem is that they lied about it! The ESRB was formed by the gaming industry with the promise that they could police themselves. When you rate a game with the ESRB, you must reveal all content whether it is accessible or not. (I work for a large gaming company (not Take-Two), and they are very explicit about this.) Rockstar defrauded the ESRB and continues to deny putting porn on the disk!
Congress is investigating this because they believe this is proof that the ESRB is useless: Rockstar can just hide porn on the disk, not tell the ESRB, get the M rating, get into Walmart et al, and cash in on the "unexpected surprise."
Nobody mentioned in these discussions has any problem with publishing porn, as long as you don't lie about publishing porn. Publish it and sell it to your heart's content. But the industry can't say "trust us" and then turn around and betray that trust and not expect to get smacked.
If you get mad at anybody, get mad at the cowards at Rockstar. Why don't they just fess up and admit they put the porn on the disk? Why did they defraud the ESRB in the first place? Rockstar is ruining it for the rest of us.
Actually, I think the most worrisome part of the story is that Rockstar defrauded the ESRB, along with Sony and Microsoft. Game developers are required to report all disk contents to the ESRB and to the console manufacturers, whether that content is accessible or not. In fact, if it's not accessible, Sony will make you take it off the disk.
If the ESRB catches them in this lie, they could refuse to rate future games, which would severely cripple Rockstar's distribution deals. If Sony and Microsoft call them on violating their console licence, they could put an end to Rockstar's future Xbox and PS2 titles.
Clearly, Sony and Microsoft would rather not have to do this, because GTA sells consoles. But if the political uproar continues (and it will), it may turn out to be less costly for MS and Sony to shut out Rockstar.
Set aside the moral issues, and Rockstar still made a very stupid business move.
Yeah, I think he's worried about getting sued. He certainly didn't break any laws, though. All he would have to worry about is a civil suit coming from parents.
It's not helping matters that Rockstar is villifying the modder. "In a statement, Rockstar claimed it is not responsible for the so-called 'Hot Coffee' mod. Instead, the company said it was the result of 'the work of a determined group of hackers who have gone to significant trouble to alter scenes in the official version of the game.'" (from Gamespot)
Given that Rockstar is lying, the modder is probably (and rightly) worried about being scapegoated.
The modder says this: "All the contents of this mod was already available on the original disks. Therefor the scriptcode, the models, the animations and the dialogs by the original voice-actors were all created by RockStar. The only thing I had to do to enable the mini-games was toggling a single bit in the main.scm file." (from PatrickW)
Can some savvy person out there verify either of these claims?
You are actually required to report all content on the disk, whether it's accessible or not. You are also required to report all hidden features and easter eggs, and any content revealable by mods.
When we produce game disks where I work, disk space is very tight, so we know every 1 and 0 on that disk. There's no way Take-Two didn't know about it. And in the end, even if it was a mistake (which is really not possible), it's still Take-Two's responsibility. It's as if Time magazine had a full nude photo tucked in the middle of an issue. The editor can't just go, "Gee, how did that get in there?"
If this content is on the disk, and they didn't tell the ESRB, that means Take-Two defrauded the ESRB.
The only other case of this happening that I know about was a version of Tiger Woods that included a South Park episode on the disk. In that instance, the ESRB forced a recall of all Tiger Woods games.
So, the big deal is not that there is sex in GTA. You can make a game with sex, and you can sell it. Nobody is stopping you.
The big deal is this: Parents are trying to raise their kids responsibly by monitoring their media... their TV, their movies, their music, and their games. They don't necessarily want to stop their kids from listening to an album, or playing a game. They just want to know what the heck their kids are getting into. Just a little help, like a rating system, and a way to stop kids from getting particularly graphic content. You may not like it, but that's what parents want.
Like all other media, parents want laws to force game manufacturers to label their games, and game sellers to restrict sales to minors. The game industry has argued in response that we don't need laws because "we can police ourselves" via the ESRB.
Well, the ESRB blew it big time, although apparently through no fault of their own. This GTA hack is a glaring example of the failure of self-policing. The ESRB was set up to stop parents from demanding media control laws. Now the ESRB has failed in their mission, and parents are going to start demanding those laws. So the ESRB is furiously trying to protect its reputation.
I work at a large game company (not Take-Two/Rockstar). We are required to reveal all hacks, easter eggs, hidden features, etc. to both first-party (MS, Sony, Nintendo) and the ESRB. There can be no content on the disk that is not reported to these folks, or there a serious consequences. (I'm told they're serious. I don't know what they are.) If Take-Two did not reveal that this content was on the disk, they have defrauded the ESRB. That's bad news for Take-Two and their cash cow. If this content is on the Xbox or PS2 media, they defrauded MS or Sony, who are now liable for the explicit content. That's really bad news.
That's why this is a big deal.
Side Note: This is not censorship. Nobody is banning any games. Adults can buy whatever games they want. Restricting sales of adult games to kids is no more censorship than restricting sales of porn or booze. The censorship argument is a Take-Two argument to whip up support for anything-goes game development so that they can continue to make piles of money selling porn to kids.
Anecdote aside, there is zero evidence that violent video games reduce crime, while there is at least some evidence that violent media harms children.
Just one more rationalization from a group of readers who will say anything to allow an 11-year-old to buy GTA. Take Two thanks you.
"The problem is that THIS ALREADY EXISTS... Yes, the ESA rating system is flawed. But GTA, and just about every other scapegoat game that comes out, has a rating of M, which means it is not appropriate for children."
The ratings exist but they are unenforced. Game shops actually have a high motivation to ignore the ratings and make the sales wherever they can. The new legislation (in CA, Japan, etc.) would make it illegal to sell M games to a minor.
Preventing an 11 year old from buying GTA is exactly what I'm talking about, and apparently exactly what you are arguing against. And it's ridiculous to say that Take Two/Rockstar holds no responsilibity for this happening.
"Really the problem, in my opinion, is that parents don't like they way their children behave and need a scapegoat."
No, really the problem is that parent's want to raise their kids responsibly by monitoring the content of their media. Nobody wants to ban these games. They just want some control over whether their kids buy a game that lets them kill cops and rape prostitutes.
But that would hurt sales. So Take Two calls it an infringement of free speech. And suckers on slashdot buy it hook, line and sinker.
"What in American society is spurring the violence? American society encourages competition. It, in itself, is a form of aggression."
You have *got* to be kidding! This whole post is such a load.
Japanese workers are less agressive than American workers? Japanese business is less efficient than American business? Is that why Japan is kicking America's ass in cars and electronics? Japan is arguably the most competitive country in the world. So tell me why, braniac, the Japanese violent crime rate is a fraction of America's?
And America has a higher standard of living than Japan or Europe? I don't know what you base that on, but it's bologna no matter how you slice it. The income *average* might be higher in the US, but the spread is enormous, and you can't rightly say that the US has a higher standard living when a greater percentage of the population live in squalor.
I simply cannot believe the crap that passes for "Informative" in defense of violent computer games.
How this post got "4, Insightful" is evidence for how far people are willing to ignore logic to save their precious games. I can't believe I have to even type the following sentence.
Just because Hitler didn't play GTA doesn't mean GTA doesn't cause violence.
And Lenin? Are you kidding me?
Machine guns may not cause violence, but I can assure that, if 14-year-olds could buy a machine gun at the mall for $29.99, our world would be a lot more violent.
No, I'm not saying that GTA is equal to a machine gun. But the argument that we shouldn't restrict gun sales to minors, and instead contemplate man's "inborn propensity for violence," is absurd. So how should the same reasoning apply to video games?
Honestly, folks.
Man, I have so many problems with this, I don't know where to begin. So, in no particular order...
Of course games affect behavior. I write games for a living, and job depends on the fact that games affect behavior. Mr. Brown says it himself. "The allowance of violence, while it does play to our carnal nature, does suck us in."
Yes, yes, "suck us in" is not the same as shooting cops. But once you concede that games can affect behavior, it's not hard to conclude that nobody has a good idea how they affect behavior. So claims like "GTA does not force you to kill cops" are really groundless. And it totally misses the point. Even if games don't "force" people do to anything, they can still be dangerous if they encourage certain behavior, or make certain behavior seem better than it actually is.
"The great part about those games was that i could do what i wanted." Saying that you like violence in video games because they let you do what you want is frightening indeed. But I actually don't believe that Mr. Brown is violent in games because he wants to be violent in games. Later in the paragraph, he reveals the real reason: "Granted, it took more skill and time - but it was worth it. The bloody way is fun too, if i'm looking for a quick thrill." Games may give you a non-violent choice, but they make the violent choice more fun! Who doesn't want to have fun?
I'm really surprised at people who try to make the sale of games to minors an issue of free speech. I'm sure the game companies appreciate the connection between game sales and constitutional rights (I know my company does), but it simply isn't the case. In the US, you must be 18 to make many decisions for yourself, and you need a parent or guardian to make those decisions before that. Parents are responsible for their kids, a point that Mr. Brown makes! "My parents finally realized that parents suck. It's the parents fault."
So why, God, why are we trying to make it harder for parents to raise their kids? Parental advisories on games won't stop a 20-year-old from buying a game. But it will, at least, slow down the sale of certain games to minors. And if the parents don't have a problem with the game in question, they can still pick it up and let their kid play it. Restricting the sale of cigarettes and booze and porn to minors is not a violation of free speech, and neither is restricting the sale of computer games.
Simply, corporations like Take Two make games like GTA because violence and sex sells. And, like the tobacco industry or the auto industry, they'll keep claiming that "there's no evidence our product kills people" because they don't want to know. When people try to stop them, they'll claim that letting 13-year-olds rape hookers is free speech, and laugh all the way to the bank.
I remember Brooks Brown from back then, and I remember thinking what a remarkable guy he was. It's a shame that now, however unwittingly, he has become a corporate shill.
So, go ahead, flame away.
EOF
Sorry, I didn't read past this.