The question that I would ask, is *WHO* empowered the ESRB to be a ratings body? As far as I can tell, they did themselves. I have yet to see a government mandated or licensure that gives the ESRB the right / job to rate video games.
The game companies opted to hire the ESRB to rate their games. The games industry wants to be self-regulated so that they don't have to have the government clamp down on their freedom of speech and artistic license. The government very nearly stepped in after zillions of mommies complained about Mortal Kombat, so the ESA became the ESRB and made box ratings easier to see and more descriptive. To this day ESRB ratings are totally optional, but every game (except those that would be rated Adults Only) goes out of their way to acquire them. Some parents would sooner buy their kids a game with specific warnings sooner than a game with no warnings at all.
In the end, nobody's telling anyone what's appropriate or what to buy. The rating is just a short description of some potentially objectionable matieral in the box. It's your right to let it run your life or ignore it completely. Personally, I think it's responsible for a creative industry to self-regulate to preserve their artistic freedom while maintaining commercial availability.
I guess where I'm confused is that I don't see what your problem is with these voluntary ratings. Who do they hurt? It's impossible for two people to classify an action the exact same way so the ESRB does their best to accommodate the population in general. They're a service, not a hinderance. Without the ESRB American games would be censored like they are in Germany - no gore, any blood must be green, nothing sexy allowed in games available in stores.
I'm a PC repair consultant and I can't even recall how many heartfelt thanks I've gotten, not to mention unsolicited cash bonuses from ma and pa residential clients, just for installing Mailwasher or Thunderbird or some other free and simple spam filter. Governments don't realize that people are DESPERATE for a solution as email is the primary means of telecommunication for more and more citizens each day. How long until governments and ISPs realize that it takes way less effort to buy an umbrella than to keep throwing wet clothes in the dryer?
Regarding your subject, you can't push nudity aside. Guns yes, boobs no. Make war, not love. How long until we see President Bush's last name pixeled out because it is sexually suggestive? I hereby suggest "George W. Bikinizone".
Why doesn't the ESRB just go ahead and label every PC game as mature since the same thing can be done to every other game. The ESRB has officially failed at doing their job.
You have a point but I disagree with your conclusion. The ESRB already appends their ratings with "Gameplay experience may change online" since they can't account for what 12 year olds spam in public chat channels. They should have another disclaimer saying that they are rating the product inside the box, and that the product may be modified by third parties.
I mean, where else can incompetant, lazy, worthless individuals rise to power to think they get to determine what content I or my children should or should not see.
The ESRB summarizes potentially objectionable content in 5 to 300-hour games in about 10 words, and simplifies even that summary down to one blanket rating. You can base your purchase decision on the rating or summary so that you don't have to play the whole game to decide whether the most objectionable material is in line with your personal style of parenting. ESRB ratings are not opinion, they are raw data. A dismembered corpse strewn around a room isn't "gore" in someone's opinion, it's just plain gore.
The ESRB's only power is credibility, and that power is earned, not imposed. The new M rating means you can't buy this already bestselling game at Walmart, and that your kids cannot buy it unless you accompany them when they try to purchase it. Perhaps you'd like to abolish licenses for cars and firearms because they are parenting your children for you as well?
The ratings system empowers parents; it doesn't replace them. If you let a sticker on a box father your children then you are the worthless one.
And don't forget the good ol' fashioned sarlac pit! The stupid flytrap tentacles were way less scary than the original leathery tendrils coming out of a gaping desert mouth.
If you don't want to change settings every time your coworker's IP changes check out No-IP's dynamic DNS service. I've been hosting many live services from my home network for years including POP3\SMTP email and it's been impeccably stable, and totally free!
Home internet users are usually grouped into big subnets of IPs that are constantly being shuffled around. IP addresses expire and reconnect on a schedule, houses have power failures, modems do something funny, or whatever. IPs in a huge pool are being retired and reassigned constantly. The bigger the pool, the lower the chance of obtaining the same one before someone else's modem nabs it.
If they offer it, ISPs charge extra for static IPs. Nobody would pay extra if it wasn't an issue.
I guess it depends on the definition of "visitor". Maybe the site tracks unique IP addresses, or maybe it ignores them where the client has a permanent cookie installed.
However, I can attest that my ADSL connection is pretty DHCP heavy. Sometimes my IP won't change for weeks, but I've had 5 or 6 IPs in 24 hours on several occasions.
If, like me, you were convinced by this story to install Blue Frog and fight spam, and if, like me, you use the Mozilla Thunderbird email client, then this official open source extension is for you!
Note - You need a Blue Frog ID to use this software and the Blue Security site is currently down. I will definitely get this going ASAP to give spammers a swift kick to the database!
Kudos to you for your work ethics! My college's network admins were very conservative and required students to personally request access to closed ports for a limited time. There is great educational value in any computer network application - even games - and keeping the network open encourages exploration and learning. Your open network policy no doubt creates much more work for you and your staff, but in turn you are doing your part as an educator just like the teaching staff. Thank you on behalf of college students everywhere!
It looks like it's time to migrate to utorrent if you haven't already. There no commercialization associated with it
Unless you count the fact that the sole developer works for one of the anti-p2p companies that helped take down Suprnova, and he refuses to open the source of his client. Don't you find the desperate pleas on www.utorrent.com very suspicious? utorrent is a brilliant lightweight client but I wouldn't touch it with a 50 foot pole.
Last time I checked, there were dozens of games companies in Britain, and a smattering in France and even a fair few in Sweden. There's no evidence that poor working conditions lead to better games.
I'm arguing the same point as you. Happy (or hopelessly oppressed) empoyees always produce a better quality of work. And I don't know how many game companies are in Britain and Sweden (lots of mobile game studios I bet), though if I'm not mistaken, game developers in France get a special government subsidy which provides better salaries and affords less risk for startup companies. Quebec, Canada has a similar subsidy based on France's model.
Don't count on it. I think it'll be hard to find games without ads in the near future. This could be a great thing for the games industry as it will provide alternative funding to indie developers who don't want to be tied down to a repressive publisher.
This is a very smart move by MS. They've jumped on this concept before Google could get its mitts on a similar venture. There's an entire industry to be founded on in-game advertising.
Undoubtedly we'll be seeing ads in full priced games, but I sincerely hope MS uses this leverage to make full versions of free games (like Geometry Wars) profitable.
Japan, USA, and Canada are notorious for having some of the longest workweeks and shortest vacations in the world. (Coincidentally?) These are also the homes of the most and largest video game studios. Just because one particular industry has its own trends, doesn't mean it's right. Overtime deserves extra pay, and hard work deserves vacation.
Considering you pointed out almost nothing positive, I'd say your 'review' is really just a bitch session. I agree with some of what you said, but overall, you're just proving it's easy to criticize.
You're not the only one who's told me so. Maybe you're right.
I just feel like there's nothing I can say that's positive about the game that hasn't already been said by the 7+ page reviews. I meant to be as much of a stickler on the game as the reviews were generous. I didn't really make it clear that I was reviewing other writers' reviews as much as I was reviewing the game itself. I'm roleplaying the true neutral rogue, I guess.
Yeah, give it a try. It's especially nice to walk around in a beautiful world that isn't mobbed with people shouting about Britney Spears and the Green Bay Packers. Plus the more action-based combat is more involving than hitting buttons to adjust statistics.
Yep, nothing more disgusting than taking free open source mods, surrounding them with Flash (and\or flashing) ads, making you wait 90 minutes to download them, and extorting you to pay to download them instantly. Fileplanet and Planet* are scumbags.
I blogged pretty thoroughly about many shortcomings of Oblivion. At least 75% of the mods out there are fixes that mould this game into what it should have been out of the box. Oblivion was very obviously designed with the 360 in mind as is made obvious by the horrible UI, enormous font, cryptic icons, tiny buttons, and lack of onscreen information - and that's just for starters. Read for yourselves if you can stand fair criticism of everyone's favourite game.
The/. story doesn't really allege anything. It just brings to light the "Growing Censorship Concerns at Digg" (RTFTitle). A concern does not equal or pretend to be a fact.
Slashdot Mirror
The question that I would ask, is *WHO* empowered the ESRB to be a ratings body? As far as I can tell, they did themselves. I have yet to see a government mandated or licensure that gives the ESRB the right / job to rate video games.
The game companies opted to hire the ESRB to rate their games. The games industry wants to be self-regulated so that they don't have to have the government clamp down on their freedom of speech and artistic license. The government very nearly stepped in after zillions of mommies complained about Mortal Kombat, so the ESA became the ESRB and made box ratings easier to see and more descriptive. To this day ESRB ratings are totally optional, but every game (except those that would be rated Adults Only) goes out of their way to acquire them. Some parents would sooner buy their kids a game with specific warnings sooner than a game with no warnings at all. In the end, nobody's telling anyone what's appropriate or what to buy. The rating is just a short description of some potentially objectionable matieral in the box. It's your right to let it run your life or ignore it completely. Personally, I think it's responsible for a creative industry to self-regulate to preserve their artistic freedom while maintaining commercial availability. I guess where I'm confused is that I don't see what your problem is with these voluntary ratings. Who do they hurt? It's impossible for two people to classify an action the exact same way so the ESRB does their best to accommodate the population in general. They're a service, not a hinderance. Without the ESRB American games would be censored like they are in Germany - no gore, any blood must be green, nothing sexy allowed in games available in stores.
I'm a PC repair consultant and I can't even recall how many heartfelt thanks I've gotten, not to mention unsolicited cash bonuses from ma and pa residential clients, just for installing Mailwasher or Thunderbird or some other free and simple spam filter. Governments don't realize that people are DESPERATE for a solution as email is the primary means of telecommunication for more and more citizens each day. How long until governments and ISPs realize that it takes way less effort to buy an umbrella than to keep throwing wet clothes in the dryer?
Best reply I've seen on /. all month!!! Concise and irrefutable!
Regarding your subject, you can't push nudity aside. Guns yes, boobs no. Make war, not love. How long until we see President Bush's last name pixeled out because it is sexually suggestive? I hereby suggest "George W. Bikinizone".
Why doesn't the ESRB just go ahead and label every PC game as mature since the same thing can be done to every other game. The ESRB has officially failed at doing their job.
You have a point but I disagree with your conclusion. The ESRB already appends their ratings with "Gameplay experience may change online" since they can't account for what 12 year olds spam in public chat channels. They should have another disclaimer saying that they are rating the product inside the box, and that the product may be modified by third parties.
I mean, where else can incompetant, lazy, worthless individuals rise to power to think they get to determine what content I or my children should or should not see.
The ESRB summarizes potentially objectionable content in 5 to 300-hour games in about 10 words, and simplifies even that summary down to one blanket rating. You can base your purchase decision on the rating or summary so that you don't have to play the whole game to decide whether the most objectionable material is in line with your personal style of parenting. ESRB ratings are not opinion, they are raw data. A dismembered corpse strewn around a room isn't "gore" in someone's opinion, it's just plain gore.
The ESRB's only power is credibility, and that power is earned, not imposed. The new M rating means you can't buy this already bestselling game at Walmart, and that your kids cannot buy it unless you accompany them when they try to purchase it. Perhaps you'd like to abolish licenses for cars and firearms because they are parenting your children for you as well?
The ratings system empowers parents; it doesn't replace them. If you let a sticker on a box father your children then you are the worthless one.
And don't forget the good ol' fashioned sarlac pit! The stupid flytrap tentacles were way less scary than the original leathery tendrils coming out of a gaping desert mouth.
If you don't want to change settings every time your coworker's IP changes check out No-IP's dynamic DNS service. I've been hosting many live services from my home network for years including POP3\SMTP email and it's been impeccably stable, and totally free!
Home internet users are usually grouped into big subnets of IPs that are constantly being shuffled around. IP addresses expire and reconnect on a schedule, houses have power failures, modems do something funny, or whatever. IPs in a huge pool are being retired and reassigned constantly. The bigger the pool, the lower the chance of obtaining the same one before someone else's modem nabs it.
If they offer it, ISPs charge extra for static IPs. Nobody would pay extra if it wasn't an issue.
I guess it depends on the definition of "visitor". Maybe the site tracks unique IP addresses, or maybe it ignores them where the client has a permanent cookie installed.
However, I can attest that my ADSL connection is pretty DHCP heavy. Sometimes my IP won't change for weeks, but I've had 5 or 6 IPs in 24 hours on several occasions.
If, like me, you were convinced by this story to install Blue Frog and fight spam, and if, like me, you use the Mozilla Thunderbird email client, then this official open source extension is for you!
Blue Frog Thunderbird extension
Note - You need a Blue Frog ID to use this software and the Blue Security site is currently down. I will definitely get this going ASAP to give spammers a swift kick to the database!
Kudos to you for your work ethics! My college's network admins were very conservative and required students to personally request access to closed ports for a limited time. There is great educational value in any computer network application - even games - and keeping the network open encourages exploration and learning. Your open network policy no doubt creates much more work for you and your staff, but in turn you are doing your part as an educator just like the teaching staff. Thank you on behalf of college students everywhere!
It looks like it's time to migrate to utorrent if you haven't already. There no commercialization associated with it
t -ased.html - my blog entry on the subject
Unless you count the fact that the sole developer works for one of the anti-p2p companies that helped take down Suprnova, and he refuses to open the source of his client. Don't you find the desperate pleas on www.utorrent.com very suspicious? utorrent is a brilliant lightweight client but I wouldn't touch it with a 50 foot pole.
http://demodulated.blogspot.com/2006/03/we-are-no
Last time I checked, there were dozens of games companies in Britain, and a smattering in France and even a fair few in Sweden. There's no evidence that poor working conditions lead to better games.
I'm arguing the same point as you. Happy (or hopelessly oppressed) empoyees always produce a better quality of work. And I don't know how many game companies are in Britain and Sweden (lots of mobile game studios I bet), though if I'm not mistaken, game developers in France get a special government subsidy which provides better salaries and affords less risk for startup companies. Quebec, Canada has a similar subsidy based on France's model.
Don't count on it. I think it'll be hard to find games without ads in the near future. This could be a great thing for the games industry as it will provide alternative funding to indie developers who don't want to be tied down to a repressive publisher.
This is a very smart move by MS. They've jumped on this concept before Google could get its mitts on a similar venture. There's an entire industry to be founded on in-game advertising.
Undoubtedly we'll be seeing ads in full priced games, but I sincerely hope MS uses this leverage to make full versions of free games (like Geometry Wars) profitable.
Japan, USA, and Canada are notorious for having some of the longest workweeks and shortest vacations in the world. (Coincidentally?) These are also the homes of the most and largest video game studios. Just because one particular industry has its own trends, doesn't mean it's right. Overtime deserves extra pay, and hard work deserves vacation.
People who enjoy populating alternate realities are interested in narcotic consciousness expansion? Shocking!
Jeez, I swear that hyperlink worked in the preview. Why does /. have to have a different a href convention than the rest of the damn internet?!
o n-and-back-again.html
http://demodulated.blogspot.com/2006/04/to-oblivi
Considering you pointed out almost nothing positive, I'd say your 'review' is really just a bitch session. I agree with some of what you said, but overall, you're just proving it's easy to criticize.
You're not the only one who's told me so. Maybe you're right.
I just feel like there's nothing I can say that's positive about the game that hasn't already been said by the 7+ page reviews. I meant to be as much of a stickler on the game as the reviews were generous. I didn't really make it clear that I was reviewing other writers' reviews as much as I was reviewing the game itself. I'm roleplaying the true neutral rogue, I guess.
To Oblivion and back again
Ugh.. I have no idea how I broke that hyperlink.
Working link
Yeah, give it a try. It's especially nice to walk around in a beautiful world that isn't mobbed with people shouting about Britney Spears and the Green Bay Packers. Plus the more action-based combat is more involving than hitting buttons to adjust statistics.
Yep, nothing more disgusting than taking free open source mods, surrounding them with Flash (and\or flashing) ads, making you wait 90 minutes to download them, and extorting you to pay to download them instantly. Fileplanet and Planet* are scumbags.
I blogged pretty thoroughly about many shortcomings of Oblivion. At least 75% of the mods out there are fixes that mould this game into what it should have been out of the box. Oblivion was very obviously designed with the 360 in mind as is made obvious by the horrible UI, enormous font, cryptic icons, tiny buttons, and lack of onscreen information - and that's just for starters. Read for yourselves if you can stand fair criticism of everyone's favourite game.
o lls-oblivious.html
http://demodulated.blogspot.com/2006/04/elder-scr
The /. story doesn't really allege anything. It just brings to light the "Growing Censorship Concerns at Digg" (RTFTitle). A concern does not equal or pretend to be a fact.