IC Forum Archive

BalbanesBeoulve · Posts: 2126

So what do you guys think about this? This was the big mainstream video game story of the past few weeks. If amazingly you're not aware of it, go read a few articles. http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=hot+coffee

There's a lot of stupidity from all sides on this issue. Rockstar is moronic for leaving the sex minigames on the disc. If you don't want people to access something, you don't leave it on the god damn disc. People WILL find it. This should be obvious. It's so amazingly easy to access on the PC. Leaving in on the PS2 wasn't that big a deal. It's been a year, and people didn't find it until the PC version came out. If they had been smart and removed it from the PC version, or had the pc version never come out, they might have never found it. Though odds are they would have eventually regardless.

The politicians and media are idiotic because they're making a big deal out of this. People have to go out of their way to access this, especially on the PS2 version. If you have the internet connection and the time to get the mod, or to go through all the steps to access it. It takes a fair amount of effort to get it working on the ps2 version. http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/07/15/news_6129301.html
So yeah, if you have access to the internet to download or find out the codes to get the sex minigames working, you have access to internet porn. it takes me 5 seconds to find porn on the internet. I couldn't get hot coffee working on my ps2 in that amount of time. But they totally ignore God of War. God of War has naked chicks. And they look way better than the naked chicks in GTA. And easily accessible. No codes or mods needed. And its right after the first level. Do people get upset over that? Did fucking HIllary Clinton bitch about God of War? No. Nobody even gave a rat's ass. Damn hypocrites. God of War doesn't have the name recognition that GTA has. It can't make headlines.

LegatoB · Posts: 1546

I'm still shocked there's been no moral outrage about Fable. I mean, you can marry a different woman in every town, and screw them when you feel like it. And then you can marry other men and fuck them up the asshole. Why hasn't there been an outrage from the fundies yet? The sex, I believe, is off-camera, but still, you can marry and fuck other men! Perfect target!

It is sad, however, that of all the content in the GTA games, the most "outragous" thing the media has latched onto about the game is that you can have consensual sex with your girlfriend. Can't we just go back to whining about the violence and all the illegal acts you can perform?

Mr. Mechanical · Posts: 1890

Right now the biggest scandal of it is that Rockstar didn't take actions to remove it and instead opted to lie about its existence to the press. It's kind of like the whole Clinton thing from '98, except blown almost as out of proportion as that was. Besides, at least the Clinton detractors had a point in the whole "you shouldn't be allowed to lie under oath, ever" side of it. Though Rockstar wasn't under oath or anything like that, but videogames are still an easy enough target that the whole industry is now facing government regulation of some sort and Rockstar probably should get the heat for that, seeing as how this could all been avoided and instead they seem to be opting to make a few sales off of controversy like they always do.

It's all kind of sad though, because I can walk into any Wal-Mart and buy DVD movies with more explicit content than this Hot Coffee nonsense. Oh well, at least you don't have to worry about answering for cleaning up this Iraq mess and things like that when you've got videogames you can take a real stance on.

Judge Ito · Posts: 284

Part of me says Rockstar left it in on purpose. Anything to grab even more attention and, as a result, sales.

But yeah, as far as God of War goes, I was surprised that everyone I had talked to and all the reviews I read really downplayed the whole sexuality issue. So much so that it really surprised me when I started playing the game in front of my incredibly churchy roommate and after killing the Hydra (which was okay with his little porcelain Jesus) was treated to a fully-rendered eyefull (which was not okay). Maybe SCEA has knows better...?

aderack · Posts: 5018

This topic bores me!

Let's post pictures of Bridget.

Scratchmonkey · Posts: 2229

legatob wrote:

I'm still shocked there's been no moral outrage about Fable.

1. This is explicit, or at least as explicit as you can get with all your clothes still on. In Fable, you hear some dialogue and sound effects that lead you to believe that your character is having sex; nothing else.

2. GTA sold really well. Fable, less so. There's less impact in going after a game that hasn't penetrated the social conciousness. This is why Mortal Kombat got singled out and Chiller did not.

3. Generally, politicians and other morals-mongers are a year behind, if not more, when these games actually come out. I think the speed of the GTA furor is mainly due to people already aware of the series in general.

BalbanesBeoulve · Posts: 2126

Judge Ito wrote:

Part of me says Rockstar left it in on purpose. Anything to grab even more attention and, as a result, sales.

See, that could easily backfire. Say the political pressure is so great, the ESRB goes back and changes the rating to AO. The game gets pulled from Walmart and most other retailers. They'd be fucked then.

Scratchmonkey · Posts: 2229

The more I learn about the videogames industry, the more I learn about how scary Walmart is.

Judge Ito · Posts: 284

Did the plethora of casinos teach you nothing? THEY LIKE TO GAMBLE.

(or not, BS on my part; good retort on yours)

Swimmy · Posts: 147

legatob wrote:

Why hasn't there been an outrage from the fundies yet?

It isn't generally "the fundies" who are attacking videogames.

Can our pictures of Bridget have explicit content like GTA?

BalbanesBeoulve · Posts: 2126

For Bridget go here: http://burichan.pyoko.org/b/ NSFW!

Mr. Mechanical · Posts: 1890

What are "fundies"? Funktory workers? Fungineers? All politicians look the same to me, does that mean I'm prejudiced?

Swimmy · Posts: 147

Mr. Mechanical wrote:

What are "fundies"? Funktory workers? Fungineers? All politicians look the same to me, does that mean I'm prejudiced?

Slang for fundamentalist, which Hillary Clinton is not.

(If you were being sarcastic I just missed it.)

aderack · Posts: 5018

Scratchmonkey wrote:

This is explicit

So could be bridget!

Hey, Vince! Where's our Bridget forum?

Mr. Mechanical · Posts: 1890

Swimmy wrote:

(If you were being sarcastic I just missed it.)

Yeah, you did. Don't worry though, it's cool.

DarkTetsuya · Posts: 152

BalbanesBeoulve wrote:

But they totally ignore God of War. God of War has naked chicks. And they look way better than the naked chicks in GTA. And easily accessible. No codes or mods needed. And its right after the first level. Do people get upset over that? Did fucking HIllary Clinton bitch about God of War? No. Nobody even gave a rat's ass. Damn hypocrites. God of War doesn't have the name recognition that GTA has. It can't make headlines.

You know I thought the exact same thing... GoW had both nudity and sex and nobody complained about that!!

DT

sklathill · Posts: 184

aderack wrote:

Hey, Vince!

NO.

dessgeega · Posts: 3317

i want to be a funktory worker. wow.

aderack · Posts: 5018

sklathill wrote:

aderack wrote:

Hey, Vince!

NO.

I'll ask Brandon for a second opinion.

Scratchmonkey · Posts: 2229

DarkTetsuya wrote:

BalbanesBeoulve wrote:

But they totally ignore God of War. God of War has naked chicks. And they look way better than the naked chicks in GTA. And easily accessible. No codes or mods needed. And its right after the first level. Do people get upset over that? Did fucking HIllary Clinton bitch about God of War? No. Nobody even gave a rat's ass. Damn hypocrites. God of War doesn't have the name recognition that GTA has. It can't make headlines.

You know I thought the exact same thing... GoW had both nudity and sex and nobody complained about that!!

GoW has been reasonably popular though, I would suspect it's because of the last reason that I mentioned earlier -- people who don't play videogames haven't heard of it yet. Give it time.

Mister Toups · Posts: 4943

It's not the idea of sex that we can't handle as a culture; it's the overt explicit presentation of it that freaks us out.

You know. Overt penis.

dessgeega · Posts: 3317

you can have sex in nethack. and no one seems to be up in arms about that!

luvcraft · Posts: 693

I must be getting old.

I started to write a scathing email to Senator Clinton about the Hot Coffee controversy, but the more I wrote and researched it, the more I felt that she was doing the right thing. Well, half the right thing, at least.

Basically, she has two points (here is her original letter):

1. Whoever is responsible for "sneaking" the sex into GTA:SA should be punished, and the game should be reclassified with an AO rating, even though the sex is not accessible "out of the box", and requires additional software to unlock (a downloaded mod for the PC version, and an Action Replay / Gameshark for the PS2 version).

2. The ratings system for video games should be enforced on the same level as the MPAA ratings system for movies; i.e. no sales/rentals of "Mature"-rated games to minors.

I'll get to #1 in a minute, but I agree with her on #2. Game publishers know that, without any laws dictating otherwise, children and teens are more likely to buy "Mature"-rated games than "Teen"-rated games. As a result, they owe it to their share-holders to make sure their games get "Mature" ratings, even if the original concept for the game would've been squarely "teen friendly". A perfect example is Prince of Persia; the first game had a "Teen" rating, the hero was clever and dashing and rakish, the monsters turned into sand when you killed them, and the focus was on solving puzzles with a combination of brains and dexterity. It was like playing a Douglas Fairbanks movie, and critics and players loved it. However, someone pointed out to Ubisoft that "Mature" games sell better, so for the second Prince of Persia they made the hero "dark" and "angsty" and had him say "bitch" all the time, threw out all the ingenious puzzles, and added lots and lots of blood and a woman in a tinfoil thong and pasties. Critics hated it. Fans of the first game hated it. Did it sell better than the first one, even though it was a worse game, specifically because it had a "Mature" rating? Probably. Would Ubisoft have made those game-ruining changes if minors were prevented from buying "Mature"-rated games? Definitely not.

Because minors aren't admitted to R-rated movies, the exact opposite is true in the film industry; if you want to market your movie to teens and make the most money (which, again, you owe it to your share-holders to do), then you make every concession possible to get a PG-13 rating. Of course the majority of teens would rather see an R-rated Batman Begins, where "Batman all busts peoples' heads open and rips out peoples' guts and has sex with hot naked chicks in the guts and brains", and if they could then that's exactly the kind of Batman Begins that would be made, but they can't, so it isn't.

The only hitch with applying the same limitations to video games is that "under 17 not admitted without parent or legal guardian" is actually voluntary, and it took a hell of a lot of work by Joe Lieberman, everyone's favorite Nazi-Republican-who's-really-a-Jewish-De<wbr />mocrat to get it even to that point. The reason that it works is because the people who are doing it voluntarily are the National Association of Theater Owners, to which practically every movie theater belongs. Nothing prevents stores from selling R-rated DVDs to minors beyond store policy, so at that point the system falls apart, but the theaters are where it really matters because that's where movies make the most money (or at least the most immediate return on their investment), and thus it's important to get the largest possible audience there. Video games, on the other hand, don't have theaters (and arcades, the closest equivalent, have all dried up and blown away), and always go "straight to video", making retailers the only gatekeepers between the producer and the consumer, and if Walmart is voluntarily refusing to sell "Mature" games to minors you can bet that the mom'n'pop game store next door isn't.

The solution is legislation, but it's going to be an incredibly difficult and expensive battle, many orders of magnitude greater than the work Lieberman did to win a voluntary concession from the National Association of Theater Owners.

OK, now that #2 is covered, #1 is where I have a problem with Senator Clinton's agenda, for the very simple and oft-uttered reason that "in a game centered on car-jacking and murder, the controversy is that there's also hidden consensual sex?" This issue is larger than Senator Clinton, however, and simply boils down to towing America's unofficial national motto: "sex is worse than violence". It would've been nice if she had chosen an issue that was harder to derail away from "preventing minors from buying M-rated games" and into "sex versus violence", but it was the most readily-available hot topic, and I find it a lot more palatable than the "video games brainwash innnocent babies into school shooters" argument that's usually the basis for video game legislation.

Ataru · Posts: 295

I strongly believe that the pressure is somewhat in the wrong direction.

the politicians should be pressuring Wal-Mart to sell Adults Only games.

The AO rating should be available for mainstream games, not a rating that exists in theory but is never used.

It is absolutely ludicrous that Shinobi (ps2) and Manhunt have the same rating. That games like GTA:SA and Manhunt are in the same catagory as a game like Shinobi makes the M rating meaningless. If I was a parent, I'd have no problem with even a 10 year old playing Shinobi, but I wouldn't want them playing GTA:SA or Manhunt until they were at least 13, if not 15. Now, since I'm a gamer I know that shinobi is relatively innocuous and Manhunt isn't, but if I wasn't a gamer, I'd have to restrict all M rated games, even though I wouldn't really object to more than half of them.

There needs to be a comercially viable rating that means "No really, we mean it, this game is for Mature audiences only, really!"

because otherwise, it makes a mockery of the entire system.

(Just like NC-17 vs R. It's fucked that High Tension was R-rated, but it's a sad fact that NC-17 would have been comercial suicide.)

(also, I'm no prude, Ichi The Killer is one of my 5 favorite movies of all time, I just think rating systems should be meaningful and not diluted by artificial comercial pressures.)

ryan · Posts: 297

Have you ever wished something was a nonissue, not so that a situation would end with your way working out, but just because you didn't care? I'm so tired of hearing about this thing. That is all I had to contribute to this. Good day.

Baron Patsy · Posts: 573

BalbanesBeoulve wrote:

For Bridget go here: http://burichan.pyoko.org/b/ NSFW!

That's the best part of this entire thread.

HioMrSan · Posts: 3

The solution isn't legislation, its enforcement. If parents were actually parents and did their job, people wouldn't care about some baddly done minigame that was hacked open by some guys who reverse engineered the game. Really if you are bitching that your 10 year old has a sex minigame, could it be that you shouldn't have bought it for them in the first place? How is Rockstar irresponsible for leaving it in the game? Companies do this with games all the time. Wasn't there that Goldeneye Templete level that was just opened a little while ago? They probably didn't expect anyone to ever find it.

If the ESRB actually started using the AO rating, life would be better. Walmart and all the other retailers would drop the game. Companies would try to tone down their game to get a M rating. Even if they did just go with the AO rating people really couldn't complain about it since it can't be sold to minors. (I believe this is the case but since theres only been what 1 AO game ever, I don't know) GTA:SA should get the AO rating, not because of the hacked in minigame, but because the overall content is deserving of an "Adults Only" rating.

P.S. - Fuck Hilliary

LegatoB · Posts: 1546

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/breaking/breaking-esrb-recalls-san-andreas-113506.php
This battle is about to explode.

Sub · Posts: 696

So you run in, right? And the dude is all like NAH MAN I'M GONNA RUN IN FIRST AND HIT YO ASS. But he's wrong, because you're going to do STARSHIP and that'll go straight through him and then FRC combo right? That's all I remember about Bridget outside of knocking dudes down and doing the super.

aderack · Posts: 5018

I just checked Gamestop's website. They've removed the game. You can't order it anymore. You can buy strategy guides, though!

GcDiaz · Posts: 1057

So what if the rating gets changed to AO? It's only one year's difference in the allowed purchasing age, and parents will still buy it for their pre-teens. Let the sheeple sell off stock; then we can snatch it up.

dark steve · Posts: 3002

NOT EVEN SIMPLE 2500 IS SACRED (sort of possibly NSFW!)

BalbanesBeoulve · Posts: 2126

OH SHIT!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050721/ap_en_ot/video_game_sex;_ylt=AnFvOUGdvGEyYWfUvfSlqdZxFb8C;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

st1nky187 · Posts: 181

I just passed driving school. Then I put on new pants.

aderack · Posts: 5018

Yeah, Hillary's just acting like a Democrat. See: Tipper Gore.

Guardian FINAL · Posts: 1137

There are smart takes on the situation written here; you guys need to write to or call the involved parties -- senators, esrb, etc. Make an effort to change attitudes. This could be a bad precedent.

winkerwanker · Posts: 2414

Removed content is the new backwards LP message!

Mr. Mechanical · Posts: 1890

Maddox finally weighs in on the issue. The Internet rejoices.

RJExcal · Posts: 62

So how high do you think un-opened copies of San Andreas will go for on EBay with the M label. People are stupid as all hell, so I'll start the bidding at $80.

Dark Age Iron Savior · Posts: 3148

Mr. Mechanical wrote:

Maddox finally weighs in on the issue. The Internet rejoices.

If there were internet controversy bingo, the free square would read "Maddox".

Anonymous · Posts: 0

I just think its ironic that this news coincides with the Xbox release of GTA..

hmmm GTA back in the news and any press is good press after all....

Scratchmonkey · Posts: 2229

There's been plenty of speculation that this was an intentional move on the part of Rockstar, giving the series some free publicity and cementing the title as the market leader in terms of violence and sex (even if there are plenty of other games that are more violent/disturbing or more 'sexual').

It conincides nicely with the upcoming release on GTA on PSP as well.

Anonymous · Posts: 0

yep. exaactly.

RJExcal · Posts: 62

Actually I was thinking more along the lines of stealing the attention away from 25 to Life. Sen. Schumer was banging pots and pans and voila, this hits and suddently 25 to Life is Postal 2.

aderack · Posts: 5018

RJExcal wrote:

So how high do you think un-opened copies of San Andreas will go for on EBay with the M label. People are stupid as all hell, so I'll start the bidding at $80.

Yeah, I tried twice to get a copy. They're ending at about eighty, all right.

So -- no.

BalbanesBeoulve · Posts: 2126

Half.com doesn't even have it listed anymore.

burnsro · Posts: 50

This gets me thinking. Why aren't hentai games that get released in America rated AO? They have no rating..

dark steve · Posts: 3002

Well they don't have 'em in EB either.

BalbanesBeoulve · Posts: 2126

Getting a game rating is voluntary. Just like getting a movie rating, or getting the explicit lyrics sticker on cds. hentai games aren't sold through mass market channels, mainly online like at J list, so they don't need to get rated.

Amakusa · Posts: 28

GcDiaz wrote:

So what if the rating gets changed to AO? It's only one year's difference in the allowed purchasing age,

That's not the point. Many retailers just plain won't carry an AO title; that's why the rating is important.

BalbanesBeoulve wrote:

Getting a game rating is voluntary. Just like getting a movie rating, or getting the explicit lyrics sticker on cds. hentai games aren't sold through mass market channels, mainly online like at J list, so they don't need to get rated.

The problem is, most major retailers require the rating before they will sell the game. Now, if you are satisfied with a black market setup, then the rating is quite useless, but if you want to make your product acessable in a Wal-Mart, you need to get one.