cobra: Snuff games? You mean games in which fictional polygonal characters die? Like most games?
Calling Manhunt a "snuff game" is like calling any crap horror movie a "snuff movie". Nobody died to make Manhunt, nobody dies when you play it, it has never been demonstrated that playing the game makes you significantly more likely to harm someone.
A snuff movie is a movie of someone being killed for entertainment purposes... the reasons such a thing would be illegal are obvious, and they're not our vague ideas of what is up to "standards".
Similarly we don't simply abhor child porn because of "standards", it's banned because it's part of an industry that exploits and abuses children, and because having child pornography is seen as a good indicator that you're a danger to children. Simulated child porn, like Voh mentioned, is illegal many places, clearly the first reason doesn't apply to that, but it seems to be based on the second.
Owning Manhunt is a terrible indicator of if you'll commit murder, or if you think it's fun to hurt people. It's a PS2 game with some OTT 3d gore animations. It's predominantly an average quality sneaking game. I enjoyed the first game for about an hour, but then got tired of the gameplay - I'm not a sadistic killer, and I didn't feel like I was becoming one in the game. It might become worrying if the game seemed realistic, and encouraged me to really take part in "sadism" but it doesn't. Manhunt is obviously not a game for people that want a torture simulator, the options are too limited. They've even taken out the snuff movie theme in the second game, if for some reason that was the most offensive part.
As for it being banned, Rockstar definitely did not want that... sure it might make it seem cooler among some, but for overall sales it'll be a disaster - unless they can get a rerated version out as soon as possible.
ProgZ:
"Sensible human beings have to collectively draw lines in the sand somewhere to prevent things from getting out of hand" Absolutely. I'd hope most people would draw them at the point things are actually causing trouble for other people though, and not when they don't like the look of someone else's choice of entertainment. Coming from a horror movie fan, this seems a strange comment. Manhunt is way tamer than you guys are making out...
Calling Manhunt a "snuff game" is like calling any crap horror movie a "snuff movie". Nobody died to make Manhunt, nobody dies when you play it, it has never been demonstrated that playing the game makes you significantly more likely to harm someone.
A snuff movie is a movie of someone being killed for entertainment purposes... the reasons such a thing would be illegal are obvious, and they're not our vague ideas of what is up to "standards".
Similarly we don't simply abhor child porn because of "standards", it's banned because it's part of an industry that exploits and abuses children, and because having child pornography is seen as a good indicator that you're a danger to children. Simulated child porn, like Voh mentioned, is illegal many places, clearly the first reason doesn't apply to that, but it seems to be based on the second.
Owning Manhunt is a terrible indicator of if you'll commit murder, or if you think it's fun to hurt people. It's a PS2 game with some OTT 3d gore animations. It's predominantly an average quality sneaking game. I enjoyed the first game for about an hour, but then got tired of the gameplay - I'm not a sadistic killer, and I didn't feel like I was becoming one in the game. It might become worrying if the game seemed realistic, and encouraged me to really take part in "sadism" but it doesn't. Manhunt is obviously not a game for people that want a torture simulator, the options are too limited. They've even taken out the snuff movie theme in the second game, if for some reason that was the most offensive part.
As for it being banned, Rockstar definitely did not want that... sure it might make it seem cooler among some, but for overall sales it'll be a disaster - unless they can get a rerated version out as soon as possible.
ProgZ:
"Sensible human beings have to collectively draw lines in the sand somewhere to prevent things from getting out of hand" Absolutely. I'd hope most people would draw them at the point things are actually causing trouble for other people though, and not when they don't like the look of someone else's choice of entertainment. Coming from a horror movie fan, this seems a strange comment. Manhunt is way tamer than you guys are making out...