GTA: San Andreas under scrutiny

[TerranRich]

Good point, Guybrush, I was just about to mention it after I heard it on the news earlier today. Yeah, really, it has a Mature (now Adults Only) rating for a REASON, Granny. Funny how you can break the rules (law? not sure about that) and sue somebody else for something you discovered whilst breaking said rules/laws. Though that happens a lot in the U.S. nowadays.

[SSH]

There has been nearly no fuss about this in the UK becuase it was ALWAYS an 18 game here. And UK game ratings are enforcable, US ones are voluntary...

[Helm]

Oh noes let's ban teh internet!

My guess is that they're working on it.

[HillBilly]

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=158


Anyway, I'm really worried about the politicians. At first, they hated violence. Now, they hate sex. Which is in my opinion the quite opposite of violence. George Carlin once quoted a guy much wiser than himself, who said he much rather have his son watching two people making love than two people trying to kill one and other. But really, I doubt any 17 year old who plays GTA havn't seen someone having sex until they downloaded the Hot Coffee MOD which explains that YOU CAN HAVE INTERACTIVE SEX. No, better leave that to the 18 year olds, even if most countries have a age limit of 16 for having sex.


Personal responsibility is dead.

[Phemar]

I love Maddox with all my heart.

"454,108 children have been irreparably corrupted by the wanton sexuality Rockstar has forced into our homes with the aid of custom software modifications and a handful of access codes that could potentially be used with the purchase of a third party accessory."

[big brother]

The ratings on the box refer to the elements you encounter in the gameplay, not everything that's technically in the game. For instance, a programmer working on a Mario game could put an entire pornographic novel into his code as "comments". The player would only know about this if they somehow decompiled the game.

In the same way, a movie's rating is based on what you see through the camera's viewfinder, not what may be going on off-set.

A few things disturb me about this case. At least where I live, someone under 18 can watch an R-rated movie (as long as they're accompanied by someone over 18) and maybe see non-explicit sex acts performed by real people. As soon as someone turns 18, they can watch pretty much anything they want to. I think it's sad to think a 17 year old would be excited by some pixelated polygons.

Also, it's ironic that GTA is the game where you can pull a grandma-type out of her car and beat her to death with a baseball bat. But throw a few titties into the mix and everyone gets outraged.   

I don't think this lawsuit has any merit, especially since the woman bought the game for an underaged relative. What was she thinking? "I knew he would be able to beat hookers to death after fucking them, but I didn't know there would be....oh, God...exposed body parts in the game!"

Also, there's some sort of clean-hands function of the law. For instance, if someone robbed me during a drug transaction, I can't turn around and sue him because I was committing an illegal act in the first place.

Due to the media shit storm, Rockstar will probably have to settle. It's a pity how misinformed the public is.

[TerranRich]

Rockstar has forced into our homes with the aid of custom software modifications

Anyone else see the utterly disgusting and reproachable contradiction in that one phrase of the quote? Jeez.

[Las Naranjas]

Yes, and thus found it amusing as the writer intended.


Also, I like the way you can have sex at 16, but can't watch it til 18.

[PsychicHeart]

they let the game get a small MA rating when you have the ability to chop someone up with a chainsaw, but the minute a mod comes out with the 'Hot Coffee' mode, they ban it as if it's an XXX film. As several said, one who downloads the mod can just as easily download porno straight off. Bah.

[Las Naranjas]

I just wish the government would let the OFLC give games an R classification...like the OFLC has been asking for for the last 15 years.

[Phemar]

Rockstar has forced into our homes with the aid of custom software modifications

Anyone else see the utterly disgusting and reproachable contradiction in that one phrase of the quote? Jeez.

It's a quote from Maddox. Go read some of his other articles, he purposefully writes like that. It's very sarcastic.

[Ozwalled]

"The ratings on the box refer to the elements you encounter in the gameplay, not everything that's technically in the game."

Though I have no evidence to back it up, I've heard at least a couple of times when people were talking about this case that the ESRB (or whatever they're called) is supposed to be presented with EVERYTHING that is shipped with the game, including any hidden code. I have a feeling that Rockstar knows this all too well, thus why they're not putting up more of a stink over their game getting dropped from pretty much every major store around.

What *I* wonder though, is whether or not they'll succeed with the SIMS. If they do, it's pretty much open season on games. I can't imagine, though: even IF someone in the world think they have a case against the game, EA has some mighty deep pockets. I'm surprised they're going after them at all. To me, it shows not only ignorance of the game's content, but ignorance of who they're actually up against.

[Helm]

Do you mean you present source code to the ESRB and if some programmer for example had left a "//fuck! this routine took a long time" comment OMG EXCPLICIT CONTENT? I'm sure this isn't the case. I'm sure the only content that is judged is that which can be reached without game modification using 3rd party software.

[Ozwalled]

I don't mean that at all (sorry for the confusion). I guess what i was trying to say is that depending on how the ratings board wording of things and how it could be interpreted, then maybe they're caught on a dumb technicality, thus not wanting to press the matter further. As I said though -- this information is hearsay anyway, and may be altogether false.  More than anything I threw it out there to see if anyone else had heard anything of the same ilk.

[Andail]

Sex in some sort of natural, intimiate fashion is perfectly suitable for most audiences, it's another thing when it comes in relation to violence, prostitution and objectifying of women and nudity.
I think this is quite an issue, since it might define the attitude and conception of quite a portion of young boys who have little real experience of these things.

Sure, it was bad enough when it was just a ridiculously violent game. But now adays you're just a puritan and oldfashioned if you claim that all these games have an impact on the youth.

[Helm]

I don't know, Andail. I've seen bad action films which excited me as a kid, and awesome violent video games and and and. Every time I saw a 'tournament fighting' movies like the Best of the Best and the like as a kid, I got all pumped up on being a ninja and did air-kicks in my living room (I identified with the monkey, then tiger, than praying mantis fighter, btw). I was very convinced that I am a robot with buzzsaw hands and laser eyes up to first grade or something. Yet I'm not out there killing people and mistreating women (well, ok, only when they deserve it) right now.

This has an influence on the youth in the sense that everything has an influence on the youth. Violence permeates the cultures of the modern world is many ways.  The attraction to violence is an easily tracable one in the instinctual bias towards safety in power and control. Everybody feels it, and it takes a lot of growing up to not be hopelessly enthralled by it. You have to soak yourself in it, you don't have to play the ostrich "It doesn't exist! It doesn't exist!"  We can't expect that from kids, and we shouldn't shield them from it preemptively because they will grow up to be psychologically and emotionally underequipped in dealing with it inevitably as adults.

I don't believe base-level violent depictions in games are a determining factor, or even a primary one leading to teen violence. I believe that regardless of how many awful movies you watch and how many times you do the Barakka fatality, there are other quite more direct reasons that lead to such things, and it seems more convinient to attack the secondary stuff like videogames than to tackle the real issues that refer to the deficiencies of adults in parenting, all the comfortable lies about morality, passive-agressive ethical indoctorination. I guess being completely alienated from your parents isn't an issue deserving at least as much discussion? Knowing that right now, people are dying from thirst has absolutely no effect on the psyche of a young child either, right? How about the biggest example of all, that an american kid knows it's country is systematically bringing war to other countries for power and control? Let's instead forcus on violent videogames and tasteless nudity.

[passer-by]

You have to soak yourself in it, you don't have to play the ostrich "It doesn't exist! It doesn't exist!"Ã,  We can't expect that from kids, and we shouldn't shield them from it preemptively because they will grow up to be psychologically and emotionally underequipped in dealing with it inevitably as adults.

I agree, children will grow up eventually and they will have to face it without a parent or teacher standing by. The more innocent and ignorant the child the more they will get hurt.
The important thing is to tell the child that what may seem normal in a game/film/book/comic strip is not necessarily a good approach of real life. Although I hapilly shoot NPC in games and I love crime/war films and violent action books with the usual amount of sex scenes in them ,  I hate it when people hurt a child, kick a kitten, abandon a pedestrian they hit with their car , push an old lady at the supermarket to reach the cashiers first or mistreat and disrespect women only because they can .

What computer games taught me, is that in real life we don't have a "quicksave" option...

[Pumaman]

I think this is quite an issue, since it might define the attitude and conception of quite a portion of young boys who have little real experience of these things.

You have a point there, but surely it should apply to the violence and other parts of the game as well. You could just as well argue that young boys who had no experience with the police could be led to believe it's normal to shoot cops and run them over rather than talk to them or run away.

So while I do understand your point, it doesn't make sense that all this fuss is being made over a sex scene and not over the rest of the game's content.

Having said that, as SSH says I haven't heard any fuss about it in this country as the game has an 18 rating, hopefully they won't have to sell the stripped-down version over here.

[RoboPenguin]

I just think it's ridiculous that a game can be banned because of a mod. Not because the content is actually in the game, but because you can mod it so that it is. I mean for christ sakes, you could mod Sam and Max or Day of the Tentacle to include nudity if you changed the sprites. Oh holy Lord! It must be banned! A 10 year old might figure out how to use paint and windows explorer!

[Ishmael]

In the original The Sims you can use a code to remove the shower or bathtub from around the sim (or the sim from the shower or bath tub) and see them naked... The box I got has "ages 3+" on it... And I heard there was a patch that allowed you to get your sims walk around naked with a little trickery like this...