Does the ESRB fine Walmart for selling M rated games to minors?
Yes. I imagine they care about as much as when the MPAA fines them for selling R rated DVDs to minors. But I never hear anyone bitching that the lazy clerks (or automated checkouts) don't card for DVDs.
I've never heard of a retailer refusing to sell M rated games to children.
What? Every major game store has a policy against selling M games to children, and almost every independent store (name one that doesn't). If they aren't enforcing it, it's because we leave the enforcement to lazy high schoolers making minimum wage. Which is the same problem DVDs have. How come we aren't bitching about DVD sales?
There don't appear to be any federal laws in the US controlling adult printed material and films, but there are lots of municipal laws that do.
There are laws restricting pornography. There are no laws restricting R rated movies. I've never seen a pornographic game. I imagine the laws applying to pornography would apply to them.
There are most certainly laws in Canada and Europe controlling the sale of adult material to minors (but not games, yet). There was a story a while ago about BC (a Canadian province) classifying a game as an R-rated movie, making it illegal to sell to minors. Activision threw a hissy fit and claimed censorship.
I'm not familar with Canada's and Europe's laws. I know in America, movies and games are treated the same, but I guess some people don't understand games, so they want to ban them. Same thing happened with comic books in the 60's, and who knows what else in the previous generations. In 30 years, games will be all mainstream and no one will be calling for special laws for them. But we'll have something else that's new that we'll all freak out over...
There are adult sections in some video stores. You have to be of age to go into the back room to view the porn videos and to rent them.
What game stores have adult sections? Import stores with extensive preteen on octopus hentai? Even most of the video stores I go in don't have back rooms. They have a section in the back, but it's not it's own room or anything, just a part of an aisle.
Where the fuck does 30 come from?
The part where they card you if you look under 30. Calm down. No one's taking away your games.
Which means violent and pornographic games get treated like pornographic and violent films. I still don't understand why that's not just the default and requires special legislation.
Violent and pornographic games are treated just like violent and pornographic films. A violent film gets an R rating and the MPAA (not the government) fines the theater if they sell tickets for it to minors. A violent game gets an M rating and the ESRB (not the government) fines the store if they sell it to minors. A pornographic film gets an NC-17 rating... ok, usually doesn't bother getting a rating and then goes to the back of FYE. A pornographic game... where the hell would you find a pornographic game?
I don't know why treating games like movies isn't good enough, and we have to get special legislation to treat them like cigarrettes. It's not like games cause cancer.
Half the fricken' comments in this story wouldn't have been posted if people had happened to notice this point: You have to be over 18, not 30. They will only card you if you look under 30. Very inaccurate summary and headline.
To be fair, it isn't/.'s fault this time. The article's headline is "NY Laws Seek to Block Sales to Gamers Under 30" and includes this quote "Rep. Wright's law also mandates the creation of an "Adults Only" section in your local game store, where any game containing the above is kept under lock and key, accessible only to people over 30." You have to actually track down the actual bill and read it to realize that they just want to card people under 30. So boo to 1up for this one.
That common age should be when a person can obtain a drivers license also. If America had something like this it would clearly distenguish between Adult and Child. However, I don't care much what age is actually picked, 16, 18, 21, 25, whatever. It'd probably be 18 though that way the military could still grab people right out of high school.
I favor a tiered system, because one does not magically blossom from a child to and adult on one birthday. Now, you can argue that the current tiered system doesn't make any sense (you can die for your government but you can't have a beer first?) or that the ages are too old/young, but I think that responsibility is best given out in small doses.
I'm 28, have two kids and a mortgage, and apparently some of our elected officials think that I lack the maturity to purchase my own games. I guess I'll have to find other ways to get my games.
No, just 1up thinks that. If you read the actual bill, it's restricting mature games from those under 18 (same as those laws in those other states that got overturned). Someone misread the part about carding people who look under 30 (like they card for alcohol and cigarettes). So don't worry, even if it passes (which it either won't or be overturned shortly after) you'll still be able to buy games.
Vegan sausage, whole wheat bagel, and tea. Except on Sundays, then it's a chocolate chocolate chip muffin (not a typo, it's chocolate, and it has chocolate chips) and a mocha.
What is this? I've never heard of it. I usually flip my shirts inside out when putting it in the laundry, and then inside in when wearing it. The idea is that inside out during the laundry is supposed reduce the wear and tear on the outside. In other words more peach fuzz on the inside. I also do this with my pants, shorts and sweaters.
There was a commercial for some feminine cleaniness product that was basically "Men have their way of freshening up (man turns dirty shirt inside out) and we have ours (woman bubbling up in a shower)". I'm pretty sure most men take showers (typical slashdot geek excluded;) ) I only mentioned the commercial because it highlighted the stereotypes I was talking about.
That's a nice idea, but not very realistic. Yes we all want fair and equal rights, but the fact is, that's not the way life is. Women have gender roles and men have gender roles. Those roles happen to be very different. I'd like to set some realistic goals, not idealistic ones.
What about the men who are the primary caregivers? I'd make a terrible stay at home mother but my husband is very good with children. I'd like him to get the same opportunities for parental leave, flex time, workplace childcare, etc, that I would if/when we have children. That's only fair. Anyways, if you're so hyped up that men and women have very different gender roles then why the hell are you promoting women in engineering? So women should do both men's and women's roles but men can only do men's? That'll turn out well.
I sympathize with you, because it's not really fair. However, the easiest and best solution would probably be to allow clauses in contracts to penalize women for taking maternity leave, and with Democrats in Congress that's not going to happen any time soon...
I'd rather the opposite approach, men should be encouraged to take paternity leave. If child rearing was equally split between the genders, then one gender wouldn't be left scrambling to do it all and the other gender would be able to get to know their kids.
Whether he boss has an innie or an outie is immaterial by itself. The discussion is about attitudes, BECAUSE of what sex they are, not their sex per se. And my point was that it may NOT have been because of her boss, but becuse of her boss' wife, the current legal climate that - like it or not - very much dictates how people in the workplace relate to each other. And neither of those has anything to do with her boss being sexist.
Right, but if her boss was female, then her boss wouldn't have to worry about being accused of sexual harrassment for inviting her out for drinks, nor would she (likely) have a wife that would object. On the flip side, if the female boss had a male employee, she'd worry about sending the wrong message by inviting him for drinks and she'd probably have a husband who'd object. However, if men and women are in relatively equal numbers in higher positions in any field then the employees of both genders can find mentors they can bond with without sexual harrasment lawsuits, ruined marriages, etc.
Having never been in a women's service station bathroom, particularly not one in Sweden, I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Can you elaborate?
Men's bathrooms are notoriously much messier/less nice to be in compared to women's, appearently the world over. Ir's not uncommon for a women's bathroom to have couches and flowers, while the men's bathroom is a closet with a urine-covered walls. Most of the time, the difference isn't always that bad, but almost always men's bathrooms are smaller, messier, and lack the ammenities that the women's does. Why is that? Women of course like to say it's because we're smarter, but it's a part of a larger sociological phenomenom Dilbert calls "The Power of Low Standands". Basically, people with higher standards of cleaniness (usually women) will always be cleaning up after people with lower standards of cleaniness (usually men). I'm assuming this feminist was arguing that women tending to have higher standards is because of biology, but I see socialization. The image of women as clean freaks is all over (from bathrooms to commercials comparing woman's way of freshening up (shower) to men's (flip shirt inside out)) and that image gets into our subconscious. This all goes back into the nature vs nurture debate, which we can never really prove one way or the other.
Could it be that engineering has yet to really take a day, stop, and think about what kind of job will work for women? There actually happens to be one civil engineering firm in my area that has thought about this. Women with infants automatically get their own, large office. Part of the office is then set up to look like a nursery. Your hours, once your kid is in school, let you drop them off at the bus stop and pick them up from it afterwards. The company doesn't try to change women's attitudes. It recognizes that family comes first and they come second, and they work with it!
Do they give the same benefits to men who have infants? My best friend's dad is a stay at home father, and he gotten so many weird responses to that, even now with his youngest in high school. Teachers have told him that it's so great that he's taking care of his daughters after his wife's death, and then he has to explain that she's at work, not dead. We all talk about how women don't get ahead because we have to take care of the children, but why don't we split the childcare with men? Wouldn't it make more sense to fix the gender gap by encouraging men to take more of a role in their kids' lives and even be stay at hom dads as opposed to expecting women to do most of the childcare and magically manage to have the same career success as men who are expected to have little to no childcare obligations? I'm not against companies having parental benefits, far from it, but I want them to be parental benefits, not women's benefits. I just don't think you can make things equal in one area unless you make them equal in all.
I don't get why some people get up in arms about someone dying their hair a non-standard color but have no problem with other people dying theirs red or bleaching it blonde. It's no less fake. Besides, non-standard hair colors can be fun. =]
I have many fond memories of people with hair of pink, purple, green, or blue heh
My best friend recently died her hair white with shocks of purple, pink, and blue. She looks better with it like that.
Possibly. There are added monitary benefits for the kids if you do this.
Kids at age 11 aren't innocent anymore, don't be naive.
While the innocence of 11 year olds is debatable and varies from kid to kid, I don't think wanting to pimp yourself out to pedophiles is a common desire for 11 year old. I find it offensive and horrifying that you would assume that a kid who may or may not have been molested wanted to be. What, when you hear of rapes do you automatically assume that she wanted it, too?
I haven't read all the way through the comments but... Why hasn't anyone concidered the fact that maybe, just maybe, the kid's gay? Maybe he ran away from home to be with this guy (which is still wrong, just posing a theory). 'Cause hey... He might of been having the time of his life.
Y'know, call me crazy, but... Does anyone else find this entire situation somewhat unbelievable as a "kidnapping"?
The guy was probably molesting the kid. Why else would you keep some random pre-teen in your house for four years without ever sending him home or calling child services? He was only 11 at the time, so the guy probably bribed him with games and threatened him with force until the kid got used to it and thought it was "normal". I imagine the parents would much rather the world think that he spent four years playing video games (even if they do "blame the victim") than tell the world their kid was molested for four years, so they're not talking. That makes the most sense, I think.
Y'know, call me crazy, but... Does anyone else find this entire situation somewhat unbelievable as a "kidnapping"?
The guy was probably molesting the kid. Why else would you keep some random pre-teen in your house for four years without ever sending him home or calling child services? He was only 11 at the time, so the guy probably bribed him with games and threatened him with force until the kid got used to it and thought it was "normal". I imagine the parents would much rather the world think that he spent four years playing video games (even if they do "blame the victim") than tell the world their kid was molested for four years, so they're not talking. That's what I think makes the most sense, anyways.
You forgot to mention the autolevelling enemies that make it easier to beat the game at level 1 than level 99.
Actually, I found that a plus, since I hated leveling so much that I managed to wonder into the final dungeon at level 20. If I had to level up like I do in most FFs I wouldn't have gotten past Disc 1. Of course, I'm really not sure if getting through that game is a plus. Being able to debate fanboys wasn't worth that.
I alwasy hear that FFVIII has such good charactorization, but I just don't remember any of it. I guess that's because my favorite charactor was Selphie (cuz she looks like me) and they kinda forgot to develop her after the beginning. I prefer games/stories with better developed ensemble casts than FFVIII had.
I meet many many people who hate the game, but I find that most of them have only played a couple of games in the series, and almost always, FFVII is their favorite. There are many exceptions, no doubt, but a surprising number of the older FF fans (college and up) I run into put FF8 at the top of their list.
Well, I can be an exception for you. I'm out of college, have played every Final Fantasy (except XI. and Mystic Quest.), wasn't all that impressed with VII, and I hate VIII. I don't think love stories are gay (unless they are, which is fine by me) I just can't stand how they mutilated the gameplay. I hate drawing, I hate the junction system, I hate the odd equipment upgrade system, and I hate what they did to the limitbreak/trance/overdrive(what did they call it in 8?) system, and that made it an total bitch to get through. And it wasn't even that rewarding when you did get through. I won't harp on the plot since you basically said that wasn't its strong point, but the charactors weren't that interesting. They were at first, but about halfway though the game asshole Squall just decides he's in love with Rinoa, and all other development just ceases (except for the part where they find out they all have amnesia and grew up in the same orphanage, yeah that wasn't contrived). It's not that I don't like love stories. I love Tidus and Yuna, but in X they didn't suspend all development (plot-wise and charactor-wise) to focus on their undying love. Also, X's gameplay was not physically painful. I probably wouldn't complain so much about VIII's story if it had decent gameplay like the other FFs.
The people I know who played Pac-Man despise modern games for lack of gameplay. They see graphics as a secondary feature.
I wasn't talking about people who liked Pac-Man. I was talking about people who saw other people play it, tried it and got eaten by ghosts without realizing what the point was and that has been their lasting impression of games. You know. Nongamers.
And FF8 as the worst of post-SNES Final Fantasies? That implies that the NES and SNES Final Fantasies were bad, when in reality the worst of them kicks the shit out of FF8 and then hides in shame for sharing a name with that flaming pile of dung. Sorry. You brought it up.
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Yes. I imagine they care about as much as when the MPAA fines them for selling R rated DVDs to minors. But I never hear anyone bitching that the lazy clerks (or automated checkouts) don't card for DVDs.
What? Every major game store has a policy against selling M games to children, and almost every independent store (name one that doesn't). If they aren't enforcing it, it's because we leave the enforcement to lazy high schoolers making minimum wage. Which is the same problem DVDs have. How come we aren't bitching about DVD sales?
There are laws restricting pornography. There are no laws restricting R rated movies. I've never seen a pornographic game. I imagine the laws applying to pornography would apply to them.
I'm not familar with Canada's and Europe's laws. I know in America, movies and games are treated the same, but I guess some people don't understand games, so they want to ban them. Same thing happened with comic books in the 60's, and who knows what else in the previous generations. In 30 years, games will be all mainstream and no one will be calling for special laws for them. But we'll have something else that's new that we'll all freak out over...
The part where they card you if you look under 30. Calm down. No one's taking away your games.
I don't know why treating games like movies isn't good enough, and we have to get special legislation to treat them like cigarrettes. It's not like games cause cancer.
Vegan sausage, whole wheat bagel, and tea. Except on Sundays, then it's a chocolate chocolate chip muffin (not a typo, it's chocolate, and it has chocolate chips) and a mocha.
I'm sure the parents are asking questions, they just don't want the answers all over the media.
Goddamit I hate it that you can't edit posts.
I alwasy hear that FFVIII has such good charactorization, but I just don't remember any of it. I guess that's because my favorite charactor was Selphie (cuz she looks like me) and they kinda forgot to develop her after the beginning. I prefer games/stories with better developed ensemble casts than FFVIII had.
And FF8 as the worst of post-SNES Final Fantasies? That implies that the NES and SNES Final Fantasies were bad, when in reality the worst of them kicks the shit out of FF8 and then hides in shame for sharing a name with that flaming pile of dung. Sorry. You brought it up.