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Hillary Clinton/Grand Theft Auto case
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besson3c
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Jul 27, 2005, 08:33 PM
 
What do you think? This article is by new media theorist Steven Johnson (very well known dude, appeared on the Daily Show not too long ago. One of the courses I took at University was based on his book "Interface Culture").


Hillary vs. the Xbox: Game over
Senator, would your probe of video games also take a look at the substantial benefits they can provide?

By Steven Johnson, Steven Johnson's "Everything Bad Is Good For You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter" was published by Riverhead Books in May.



Dear Sen. Clinton:

I'm writing to commend you for calling for a $90-million study on the effects of video games on children, and in particular the courageous stand you have taken in recent weeks against the notorious "Grand Theft Auto" series.

I'd like to draw your attention to another game whose nonstop violence and hostility has captured the attention of millions of kids — a game that instills aggressive thoughts in the minds of its players, some of whom have gone on to commit real-world acts of violence and sexual assault after playing.

I'm talking, of course, about high school football.

I know a congressional investigation into football won't play so well with those crucial swing voters, but it makes about as much sense as an investigation into the pressing issue that is Xbox and PlayStation 2.

Your current concern is over explicit sex in "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas." Yet there's not much to investigate, is there? It should get rated appropriately, and that's that. But there's more to your proposed study: You want to examine how video games shape children's values and cognitive development.

Kids have always played games. A hundred years ago they were playing stickball and kick the can; now they're playing "World of Warcraft," "Halo 2" and "Madden 2005." And parents have to drag their kids away from the games to get them to do their algebra homework, but parents have been dragging kids away from whatever the kids were into since the dawn of civilization.

So any sensible investigation into video games must ask the "compared to what" question. If the alternative to playing "Halo 2" is reading "The Portrait of a Lady," then of course "The Portrait of a Lady" is better for you. But it's not as though kids have been reading Henry James for 100 years and then suddenly dropped him for Pokemon.

Another key question: Of all the games that kids play, which ones require the most mental exertion? Parents can play this at home: Try a few rounds of Monopoly or Go Fish with your kids, and see who wins. I suspect most families will find that it's a relatively even match. Then sit down and try to play "Halo 2" with the kids. You'll be lucky if you survive 10 minutes.

The great secret of today's video games that has been lost in the moral panic over "Grand Theft Auto" is how difficult the games have become. That difficulty is not merely a question of hand-eye coordination; most of today's games force kids to learn complex rule systems, master challenging new interfaces, follow dozens of shifting variables in real time and prioritize between multiple objectives.

In short, precisely the sorts of skills that they're going to need in the digital workplace of tomorrow.

Consider this one fascinating trend among teenagers: They're spending less time watching professional sports and more time simulating those sports on Xbox or PlayStation. Now, which activity challenges the mind more — sitting around rooting for the Packers, or managing an entire football franchise through a season of "Madden 2005": calling plays, setting lineups, trading players and negotiating contracts? Which challenges the mind more — zoning out to the lives of fictional characters on a televised soap opera, or actively managing the lives of dozens of virtual characters in a game such as "The Sims"?

On to the issue of aggression, and what causes it in kids, especially teenage boys. Congress should be interested in the facts: The last 10 years have seen the release of many popular violent games, including "Quake" and "Grand Theft Auto"; that period has also seen the most dramatic drop in violent crime in recent memory. According to Duke University's Child Well-Being Index, today's kids are less violent than kids have been at any time since the study began in 1975. Perhaps, Sen. Clinton, your investigation should explore the theory that violent games function as a safety valve, letting children explore their natural aggression without acting it out in the real world.

Many juvenile crimes — such as the carjacking that is so central to "Grand Theft Auto" — are conventionally described as "thrill-seeking" crimes. Isn't it possible that kids no longer need real-world environments to get those thrills, now that the games simulate them so vividly? The national carjacking rate has dropped substantially since "Grand Theft Auto" came out. Isn't it conceivable that the would-be carjackers are now getting their thrills on the screen instead of the street?

Crime statistics are not the only sign that today's gaming generation is doing much better than the generation raised during the last cultural panic — over rock 'n' roll. Math SAT scores have never been higher; verbal scores have been climbing steadily for the last five years; nearly every indicator in the Department of Education study known as the Nation's Report Card is higher now than when the study was implemented in 1971.

By almost every measure, the kids are all right.

Of course, I admit that there's one charge against video games that is a slam dunk. Kids don't get physical exercise when they play a video game, and indeed the rise in obesity among younger people is a serious issue. But, of course, you don't get exercise from doing homework either.
     
suvsr4terrorists
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Jul 27, 2005, 08:47 PM
 
hHAhAHAHahHahahahh

     
exca1ibur
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Jul 27, 2005, 09:03 PM
 
Nice article.

Funniest thing is playing GTA... The violence isn't the concern, yet the sex is. Talk about a backwards country. Its okay to blow someones brains out with a gun, but not okay to get your brains blown out from the local hooker on the street. Priorities I tell you...
     
SVass
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Jul 27, 2005, 09:21 PM
 
Senators always have stupid investigations. Pat Roberts is now investigating the Fitzgerald grand jury probe into Rove/Novak/Bush in order to harass it and protect Bush cronies. McCain investigated dirty movies before he acted in one. I am sure that you are all aware of many others. sam
     
besson3c  (op)
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Jul 27, 2005, 10:11 PM
 
Originally Posted by SVass
Senators always have stupid investigations. Pat Roberts is now investigating the Fitzgerald grand jury probe into Rove/Novak/Bush in order to harass it and protect Bush cronies. McCain investigated dirty movies before he acted in one. I am sure that you are all aware of many others. sam
Maybe governors do too? I'm thinking about the Jeb Bush investigation into whether Michael Shiavo responded quickly enough 15 years ago (or whenever it was) to his wife's accident. This was after the autopsy revealed no foul play AND after asking for privacy and sensitivity while his daughter was arrested for something. Basically, don't meddle with my life, but I'll go ahead and meddle with the Shiavo family even further and kick this dead horse until it becomes horseradish. I made up that last expression myself!

Jeb is governor of Florida, right? Is Jeb short for Jebidiha? That guy has a big head (literally). Good thing I'm pretty.
     
besson3c  (op)
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Jul 27, 2005, 10:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by suvsr4terrorists
hHAhAHAHahHahahahh

How is this article funny? I don't get it...
     
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Jul 28, 2005, 12:48 AM
 
Originally Posted by SVass
dirty movies before he acted in one.
McCain acted in a dirty movie
     
suvsr4terrorists
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Jul 28, 2005, 01:58 AM
 
It's funny because it's right. Videogames are fine, in moderation. The AVERAGE AGE of a video game player is over 25, HENCE, the average game is going to appeal to 25 year olds, NOT 13 YEAR OLDS! Hillary Clinton is a dumb bitch for even doing this crap.
     
budster101
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Jul 28, 2005, 02:08 AM
 
Wrong forum...

I guess you won't be voting for her in 2008 then?
     
Chuckit
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Jul 28, 2005, 02:11 AM
 
Hillary won't even be the nominee in 2008 unless the Democrats are just starting to enjoy getting ass-raped by the GOP.
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besson3c  (op)
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Jul 28, 2005, 02:21 AM
 
Originally Posted by suvsr4terrorists
It's funny because it's right. Videogames are fine, in moderation. The AVERAGE AGE of a video game player is over 25, HENCE, the average game is going to appeal to 25 year olds, NOT 13 YEAR OLDS! Hillary Clinton is a dumb bitch for even doing this crap.
Just to play Devil's advocate a little: do you realize that there have been cases of people committing suicide relating to games? What about their potential addictive quality? You say they are fine in moderation, which is fine, but many parents do not moderate, and this potentially affects us all. It is somewhat easy to see that Grand Theft Auto is not intended for kids, but the Sims is extremely addictive too (it also has many fine qualities, which Johnson will point out).

<SuperChicken>
That said...
</SuperChicken>

I'm just playing Devil's advocate here to illustrate here the point that there are some nuanced ideas which might warrant a study of the causal relationships between games and the development of kids - maybe not $90 million worth of a study, but...

The strongest argument here, one that I won't just play Devil's advocate with, is that we truly have not come to terms with the sociological implications of New Media and its impact on society. New Media, of course, in addition to games includes other interactive media forms such as websites, computer software, virtual reality, Flash-driven interactive stuff, as well as digitally produced cinematic sequences which do not have an analog equivalent (e.g. MTV-style videos, the green fading 0's and 1's in the Matrix, etc.). As Johnson points out, unlike yesteryear these New Media forms are often active rather than passive, and immersive. If you've never heard the term "New Media" before, hopefully this somewhat accurately defines it. The point is that games are really leading the charge more than just about anything else in presenting new and innovative interfaces, advances in human computer interaction, and digital expression.

In many movies, computers are used to represent the digital likeness of something in our analog world. For instance, in the latest Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie, there is an absolutely brilliantly realistic bit with squirrels. New Media pieces can be expressive, or they can present new interfaces to things already familiar to us in our analog world. They can also accompany older media styles, such as the dinosaurs added to the scenes with people in Jurassic Park.

The point here is that in addition to highly immersive environments, this new medium often consists of incredible computer-generated realism. Surely, incredible realism is a mixed bag of positive and negative to us all?

If you want to look at this point in a more simplistic and perhaps more concise way, perhaps it can be said this new medium is leading us towards immersive, Star Trek Holodeck-like experiences. Hypothetically, if we ever arrive at anything near the Holodeck, will you still simply be saying "ah, moderation.. that'll do the trick", or do you think there is stuff here that we ought to figure out?

I'm not defending Clinton here, I suspect she may have an agenda to try to ban these sexy/violent games, put them in their place, or somehow demonize the content creators (this would probably make many voters happy). However, what Johnson is saying in his article really needs to be discussed more openly, I think. Just what are the affects of video games and New Media on us? How does it impact culture? Is there anything we need to do about this or learn about this?
( Last edited by besson3c; Jul 28, 2005 at 02:35 AM. )
     
Chuckit
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Jul 28, 2005, 02:39 AM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c
Just to play Devil's advocate a little: do you realize that there have been cases of people committing suicide relating to games? What about these games addictive quality? You say they are fine in moderation, which is fine, but many parents do not moderate, and this potentially affects us all.
Bad parenting has nothing to do with video games. That's not even an issue.

Originally Posted by besson3c
The strongest argument here, one that I won't just play Devil's advocate with, is that we truly have not come to terms with the sociological implications of New Media and its impact on society. New Media, of course, in addition to games includes other interactive media forms such as websites, computer software, virtual reality, Flash-driven interactive stuff, as well as digitally produced cinematic sequences which do not have an analog equivalent (e.g. MTV-style videos, the green fading 0's and 1's in the Matrix, etc.). As Johnson points out, unlike yesteryear these New Media forms are often active rather than passive, and immersive. If you've never heard the term "New Media" before, hopefully this somewhat accurately defines it. The point is that games are really leading the charge more than just about anything else in presenting new and innovative interfaces, advances in human computer interaction, and digital expression.
I don't see how that's the "strongest argument here." It's not even an argument. It's a question, and not one that necessarily has much bearing on whether or not a sex scene in an otherwise morally bankrupt video game deserves a huge-ass investigation.

There's no reason to panic over this. There is still nothing new under the sun, just new ways of doing the same old things. The "new media" (and the surrounding debate) is a buzzword created by communications professors who don't want to acknowledge that human nature has remained constant for millennia and is not likely to change anytime soon.
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suvsr4terrorists
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Jul 28, 2005, 02:40 AM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c
Just to play Devil's advocate a little: do you realize that there have been cases of people committing suicide relating to games? What about their potential addictive quality? You say they are fine in moderation, which is fine, but many parents do not moderate, and this potentially affects us all. It is somewhat easy to see that Grand Theft Auto is not intended for kids, but the Sims is extremely addictive too (it also has many fine qualities, which Johnson will point out).
Holy ****! Really?! Heck! Ban them! And while we're at it, we might as well ban sports, alcohol, and ..gasp... EVEN EDUCATION! I've known about plenty of students who've commited suicide based on a bad test score. But most of all.... WOMEN! BAN THEM! More suicides from them than anything! And they're addictive! In fact, I'd say most men would do damn near anything for women! It's atrocious! We should ban them all!
     
Chuckit
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Jul 28, 2005, 02:43 AM
 
Originally Posted by suvsr4terrorists
But most of all.... WOMEN! BAN THEM!
You're venturing dangerously close to a good point.
Chuck
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Jul 28, 2005, 04:55 AM
 
This GTA debacle amazes me. Here is a game where the point is to commit as many illegal acts as possible; steal, kill, distribute drugs, whatever, and mostly everyone is fine with that (Mature audiences only). Then it's revealed if you mod the game there is some sex-related minigame and all of these tards are up in arms seemingly ignoring the fact that sex is perhaps the one legal thing in the game. The distinction in the ratings (Mature is 17+, Adults Only is 18+) is so minor it's pointless (except to Walmart, et al). Ironically, there are hardly any 17 year olds out there who do not know about sex, thanks in part to Hillary's husband and his Whitehouse exploits.

No one is up in arms when a rated R movie (17+) contains minutes of nudity and sexually suggestive content so why should a video game with less content of the same nature (locked nonetheless) be rated Adults Only (18+)? Another pointless double standard and growing pain of the industry, I guess.

GTA is a title that should have been rated Adult-Only for its criminal nature from the start, not just because some stupid locked content pertaining to sex was found.
Genius. You know who.
     
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Jul 28, 2005, 05:52 AM
 
Originally Posted by suvsr4terrorists
But most of all.... WOMEN! BAN THEM! More suicides from them than anything! And they're addictive! In fact, I'd say most men would do damn near anything for women! It's atrocious! We should ban them all!

Finally, someone talking some sense...

Although this is going to make Friday nights suck
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Jul 28, 2005, 06:16 AM
 
I'm just waiting for someone to mod the PC version of GTA:SA and skin a hooker with a Hilary photo.
     
Millennium
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Jul 28, 2005, 08:42 AM
 
Originally Posted by exca1ibur
Nice article.

Funniest thing is playing GTA... The violence isn't the concern, yet the sex is. Talk about a backwards country. Its okay to blow someones brains out with a gun, but not okay to get your brains blown out from the local hooker on the street. Priorities I tell you...
See, what I don't get is how many people don't understand that when you make distinctions between two ratings (say, M versus AO), then you have to define a line between them; without that, there is no point in the distinction. When you define such a line, you imply that the line can be crossed, and that there is a point on one side of the line when any further action would cross over to the other side. This is what happened here; nothing more. It's not a matter of priorities, just a matter of false information being passed to the ESRB which put it very close to the line instead of over it. When the truth was revealed, it was enough to put it over the line. It's as simple as that.
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sanity assassin
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Jul 28, 2005, 08:54 AM
 
Originally Posted by Millennium
See, what I don't get is how many people don't understand that when you make distinctions between two ratings (say, M versus AO), then you have to define a line between them; without that, there is no point in the distinction. When you define such a line, you imply that the line can be crossed, and that there is a point on one side of the line when any further action would cross over to the other side. This is what happened here; nothing more. It's not a matter of priorities, just a matter of false information being passed to the ESRB which put it very close to the line instead of over it. When the truth was revealed, it was enough to put it over the line. It's as simple as that.

We did nothing of the sort in regards to information being passed. It's reactionary crap from the ESRB in regards to political pressure.

The US can be a really dumb place at times.
Rockstar Games - better than reality.
     
Luca Rescigno
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Jul 28, 2005, 10:29 AM
 

"That's Mama Luigi to you, Mario!" *wheeze*
     
budster101
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Jul 28, 2005, 10:38 AM
 
Here is his statment: Well said.

I just wanted a video game, not eternal damnation in hell.

So I was sitting around the other day, playing "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," when suddenly I received an email with an attachment called "hot coffee mod." So I did what I always do when I get programs from strangers in my email: I ran it.

Then I went back to playing the game and didn't notice anything different, except for when I took my in-game girlfriend back home, she now asks "how about a little coffee?" Naturally I got excited, because I was expecting to see a scene with the protagonist, Carl, and his girlfriend, Denise, sipping a tall cup of joe and discussing the finer points of globalization and how cultural distinction will shape future generations. Instead, I was shocked to learn that Denise wasn't talking about a delicious beverage made from roasted beans, but what she was really talking about was SEXUAL INTERCOURSE.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I thought there was some mistake, this couldn't be the family-friendly carjacking game I thought I knew. Maybe Denise changed into an outfit that just happened to look like the bust of a naked woman. I watched the scene over and over again, carefully analyzing every pixel, but the conclusion was inescapable: Denise was in fact nude. Or at least had a skin colored texture applied to the surface area primitive of her character's model. To prove it, I took a screen capture of the right nipple texture, and enlarged it to show that the game does in fact contain nudity:


You are gazing into the pixels of moral decay.



The creator of the game, Rockstar Games, has stated that it will offer a downloadable patch to fix the sex issue in the PC versions, and is working on a new version of the game that will prevent this content from being unlocked in the future.

Thank God. I'll be the first person to download and patch my PC version of "Grand Theft Auto." I want to shoot people in the face, bang prostitutes, traffic drugs, steal cars, and terrorize police officers without this filthy smut in my game. Frankly, I'm appalled that Rockstar would allow such wholesale corruption of our youth. Years from now when America has become a withered husk of the morality it once stood for, historians will look back at what triggered it all and point to one event: a boolean variable that unlocked a simulated sex scene in a video game.

The game is now being taken off the shelves all over the country and re-labeled with an "AO" rating. This is much stricter than the "M" rating the game originally received. According to the ESRB website:

Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons of age 17 and older.

As opposed to the stricter AO rating:

Titles rated AO (Adults Only) have content that should only be played by persons 18 years and older.

What pisses me off more than anything is that I paid for a game rated for 17 year olds, or possibly 17 and 1/2 year olds, tops. What I got was a game rated for 18 year olds instead. I must warn you that if you're easily offended, please shield your eyes from what I'm about to unveil to you:



A woman clearly in a heightened state of arousal.

I think it's only fitting for Rockstar Games to go out of business, and all the programmers lose their jobs over this. God bless Hillary Clinton for allocating tax money to have federal regulators investigate "the source of this content," because if she hadn't, consumers might have to go through the trouble of reading the label on the cover of the box.
     
suvsr4terrorists
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Jul 28, 2005, 11:02 AM
 
What really pisses me off is the redundancy and pointlessness of all this crap. YES, it was in the game...but could you get to it?

NO!!!!!!!

The only way to get to it was:
1. Finding the right info.
2. Hacking your game


NOW, if someone is capable of doing those two things, they're OBVIOUSLY capable of finding midget porn, horse porn, gay porn, orgies, and regular porn on the internet with NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER.

HENCE, if they already have the ability to look at REAL porn, why the HELL is it even worth mentioning that they could see pixelated porn!?!?!??!?! ITS JUST TOTALLY ****ING RETARDED!
     
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Jul 28, 2005, 11:08 AM
 
Speaking of midget p0rn. Oh, wait...nevermind

I got some good stuff too!
     
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Jul 28, 2005, 11:08 AM
 


This thread needs a NSFW warning
     
besson3c  (op)
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Jul 28, 2005, 11:43 AM
 
Originally Posted by Chuckit
Bad parenting has nothing to do with video games. That's not even an issue.


I don't see how that's the "strongest argument here." It's not even an argument. It's a question, and not one that necessarily has much bearing on whether or not a sex scene in an otherwise morally bankrupt video game deserves a huge-ass investigation.
I was being broader and extending the argument from the affect of a sex scene in a game on kids to the affect of games as a whole on kids, to the affect of New Media on us all.

There's no reason to panic over this. There is still nothing new under the sun, just new ways of doing the same old things. The "new media" (and the surrounding debate) is a buzzword created by communications professors who don't want to acknowledge that human nature has remained constant for millennia and is not likely to change anytime soon.
Well, New Media was not a buzzword used to examine morality, but I get your point...
     
besson3c  (op)
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Jul 28, 2005, 11:47 AM
 
Originally Posted by suvsr4terrorists
Holy ****! Really?! Heck! Ban them! And while we're at it, we might as well ban sports, alcohol, and ..gasp... EVEN EDUCATION! I've known about plenty of students who've commited suicide based on a bad test score. But most of all.... WOMEN! BAN THEM! More suicides from them than anything! And they're addictive! In fact, I'd say most men would do damn near anything for women! It's atrocious! We should ban them all!
Right, and again, this wasn't my argument.

However, the argument of whether games function as an escape valve, or desensitizer is still worth having, and coming to terms with.

Johnson says crime is down partially because people can use video games to act out their crimes/frustrations without having to do it in real life, others say that games encourage this behavior and desensitize us to reality. One could make a strong argument either way, although conventional wisdom seems to point at the latter.
     
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Jul 28, 2005, 11:55 AM
 
What I find funny here is the apparent role reversal. Isn't it usually republicans arguing that children are easily influenced by tv and video games and democrats claiming that's nonsense?
     
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Jul 28, 2005, 11:55 AM
 
Originally Posted by sanity assassin
We did nothing of the sort in regards to information being passed. It's reactionary crap from the ESRB in regards to political pressure.

The US can be a really dumb place at times.
If you're saying "we", then I will assume you're in some sort of position at Rockstar.

Yes, you did pass false information. When someone says that a feature has been disabled, I expect for there to be no way to get at it, and the only way to ensure that is for the code to be removed. Despite "disabling" the code, you left it in: something that you just don't do unless you expect it to be found and exploited. Any software QA engineer could tell you that, as could many game developers of the past who found that people would use GameSharks or similar devices to get into their "debug rooms" and other developer-only code. You had every reason to expect that this would happen. Whether this whole farce came about out of monumental ignorance or a deliberate attempt to sneak past the ESRB, I don't claim to know. I'd hope it was the former, but you might want to look into your security procedures and make sure that someone didn't leak this.

Next time, if you say a feature has been disabled, make sure it has actually been disabled, i.e. that the code for it has been removed. Either that, or tell the truth: that the code is still there, but you can't get to it by ordinary means. Of course, you could also just bite the bullet, not do anything to the code, and accept the higher rating; you'd have more artistic integrity that way, and it could even be turned into a marketing pitch. This sneaky crap, though, isn't excusable.
( Last edited by Millennium; Jul 28, 2005 at 12:05 PM. )
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Jul 28, 2005, 12:01 PM
 
There should be no reason to act out one's agression by imitating violent behavior where one attacks another doing virtual physical harm or commits a crime or acts out sexual behavior in a game. Their are healthy outlets for frustration and anger issues, such that also coudl reverse these in the long run.

- Exercise
- Sports
- Hobbies (Not violent games)
- Paying more attention to one's friends and family instead of wasting time in a game world...

These all serve to be healthier outlets than any game portraying violence and criminal behvior.
     
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Jul 28, 2005, 12:54 PM
 
Originally Posted by budster101
- Sports
Yeah, because running around knocking the **** out of your friends makes you so much less violent and aggressive than playing a video game.

Seriously, of the people I've known, people who played video games more than sports have generally been much less prone to bullying and other such jackass behavior than people who mostly played sports.

Originally Posted by budster101
- Paying more attention to one's friends and family instead of wasting time in a game world...
1. These are not mutually exclusive options. When I was younger and we were all at home, I used to play video games all the time with my family and we'd often have friends over to play too.

2. I don't think there's anything wrong with having hobbies you enjoy on your own, like reading or playing video games. (Are you equally against reading for this reason, by the way? Why waste time in a book world when you could be with your friends and family?)

Originally Posted by budster101
These all serve to be healthier outlets than any game portraying violence and criminal behvior.
Is there any reason I should take the opinion of someone who clearly hasn't played a video game in his life over, say, my own informed opinion as someone who has done all of these things over the course of his life? Not to mention the even more informed opinion of Stephen Johnson, who actually has statistical and logical evidence for his case?
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budster101
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Jul 28, 2005, 01:03 PM
 
Who says I never played a video game in my life?

I said before I was not a gamer... as in now since I've grown up. I also used to be active in sports etc. as well as gaming. I was playing Doom, etc. back in the day of the Dual 33mhz chips running Windows 3.11....

It bored me.

There is evidence as well to the contrary, regarding violent behavior and video games as well as violent movies, and music.

The ultimate answer resides with the parent, but if they game is not labeled correctly... then maybe they are not getting the oportunity to be the best guardian...
     
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Jul 28, 2005, 01:23 PM
 
Yeah, you're right, that wasn't a fair assumption. But I mean, most people who have played video games much at all will agree that video games do not cause antisocial tendencies because they know from firsthand experience. It's a pastime like any other.
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budster101
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Jul 28, 2005, 01:41 PM
 
I'm not directing my point towards all games, just the idiotic mindless violent ones like this one...

What's the point? Kill the pimps? What? Carjacking? Killing people? Spray painting over tags?
It's lame and uselessly violent.

THAT SAID..

I like the iD games. Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein.

As well I really used to enjoy networking Unreal Tournament with my entire team of designers.. we really had a great deal of fun with that. It was a competition and it was interactive. There is a plus to gaming as a pastime/hobby... it's one of the things on my list.
     
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Jul 28, 2005, 01:49 PM
 
Honestly, I don't like Grand Theft Auto that much. I played it a little, it wasn't very interesting. But I remember back in the '90s when everybody was up in arms much the same way about Mortal Kombat, which I loved. They thought watching Subzero rip people's heads off would turn all the kids into some kind of sociopath. In fact, it was just fun.
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strictlyplaid
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Jul 28, 2005, 02:35 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c
What do you think? This article is by new media theorist Steven Johnson (very well known dude, appeared on the Daily Show not too long ago. One of the courses I took at University was based on his book "Interface Culture").
Nice article, I enjoyed it.
     
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Jul 28, 2005, 02:44 PM
 
GTA is a blast. Combine the ability to drive TONS of different vehicles, a huge map to explore with all sorts of little mini games, easter eggs, and different goals to achieve, throw in some nice music and the ability to do anything you really want to do... it's just freakin' awesome. I don't know how anybody can DISLIKE this game.
     
besson3c  (op)
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Jul 28, 2005, 02:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by budster101
I'm not directing my point towards all games, just the idiotic mindless violent ones like this one...

What's the point? Kill the pimps? What? Carjacking? Killing people? Spray painting over tags?
It's lame and uselessly violent.

THAT SAID..

I like the iD games. Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein.

As well I really used to enjoy networking Unreal Tournament with my entire team of designers.. we really had a great deal of fun with that. It was a competition and it was interactive. There is a plus to gaming as a pastime/hobby... it's one of the things on my list.
Gamespot did rate the game a 9.5/10. Regardless of whether you like the game, it seems to be extremely popular.
     
budster101
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Jul 28, 2005, 02:54 PM
 
Sure, popular with whom? Just because something is popular doesn't make it good....
The actual score was 9.0/10.0 btw, not 9.5/10.0

George Bush Won the popular vote and many in these forums think that's bad.
     
besson3c  (op)
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Jul 28, 2005, 02:56 PM
 
Originally Posted by budster101
Sure, popular with whom? Just because something is popular doesn't make it good....

George Bush Won the popular vote and many in these forums think that's bad.
My point was simply that it is difficult to just shrug off GTA for many reasons, chief among these reasons has been the success of the game.
     
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Jul 28, 2005, 02:57 PM
 
Originally Posted by Wiskedjak
What I find funny here is the apparent role reversal. Isn't it usually republicans arguing that children are easily influenced by tv and video games and democrats claiming that's nonsense?
I thought that was a myth. Link.
Genius. You know who.
     
budster101
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Jul 28, 2005, 02:59 PM
 
You are joking right? Young people eat that crap up, that doesn't make it good.
     
exca1ibur
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Jul 28, 2005, 03:00 PM
 
I think the series of the games are great. Due to this crap, hell I'm gonna go buy San Andreas sooner than I planned. If you decide to act it out. YOU are the wack job, nothing to do with the game. Man up and accept your own problems, dont try to play the blame game. Its labelled for Mature. Obviously these 'kids' weren't mature when they bought the game. Label or not the problem is the enforcing of the ratings. You think a company is gonna pass on a sale because you are under 17? We have underage drinking, smoking drugs etc. Again... Whats the priority here? Why aren't movies under this same microscope then. This hypocritical stuff is whats stupid to me mostly, to me. If you are gonna go after someone, dont nit pick.

One more thing... Aren't the terms of software violated when they hack the code to access these features and distribute them as a 'patch'?
     
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Jul 28, 2005, 03:24 PM
 
I think the draw of many video games is that they let you do things virtually that you can't do in real life very easily (or legally). I can't build a bustling metropolis only to dash it to pieces with a hurricane in real life, so I play SimCity 2000 instead. Nor can I, at the age of 25 with entry-level income, custom build a house and furnish it with a grand piano and 50" TV and control the lives of up to eight people, so I play The Sims (and you can become a doctor in a matter of hours and days, compared to years in real life). If The Sims truly were just "playing a virtual life instead of living a real one" as so many Sims-bashers claim, it wouldn't be so popular.

-birdman
     
besson3c  (op)
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Jul 29, 2005, 08:38 PM
 
Originally Posted by exca1ibur
I think the series of the games are great. Due to this crap, hell I'm gonna go buy San Andreas sooner than I planned. If you decide to act it out. YOU are the wack job, nothing to do with the game. Man up and accept your own problems, dont try to play the blame game. Its labelled for Mature. Obviously these 'kids' weren't mature when they bought the game. Label or not the problem is the enforcing of the ratings. You think a company is gonna pass on a sale because you are under 17? We have underage drinking, smoking drugs etc. Again... Whats the priority here? Why aren't movies under this same microscope then. This hypocritical stuff is whats stupid to me mostly, to me. If you are gonna go after someone, dont nit pick.

One more thing... Aren't the terms of software violated when they hack the code to access these features and distribute them as a 'patch'?
I haven't followed this case well enough to know exactly what they intend to put under a microscope, but there is a big difference between video games and movies.

Video games are immersive experiences, and we know much less about immersive, realistic gaming experiences and their effects on gamers and society than we do movies. I'm sure countless studies have been made about movies.

I'm not advocating a whopping $90 million dollars for this study, but I think it is definitely time to be asking these probing questions, rather than brushing this off.
     
besson3c  (op)
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Jul 29, 2005, 08:41 PM
 
Originally Posted by birdman
I think the draw of many video games is that they let you do things virtually that you can't do in real life very easily (or legally). I can't build a bustling metropolis only to dash it to pieces with a hurricane in real life, so I play SimCity 2000 instead. Nor can I, at the age of 25 with entry-level income, custom build a house and furnish it with a grand piano and 50" TV and control the lives of up to eight people, so I play The Sims (and you can become a doctor in a matter of hours and days, compared to years in real life). If The Sims truly were just "playing a virtual life instead of living a real one" as so many Sims-bashers claim, it wouldn't be so popular.

-birdman
Exactly.. so do you personally buy into the theory that these games act as a safety valve, allowing players to act out scenes they wouldn't in real life, or do you think these games encourage this sort of behavior, and desensitize players to this behavior and its ramifications?
     
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Jul 30, 2005, 07:54 AM
 
I still dont buy it. If you are a wack job, you are a wack job. Dont blame something or someone else for it. If you go out and kill someone because you saw it in a game, c'mon now... you obviously had some loose pluming in the first place. Bottom line... I don't blame the game, I blame the person.
     
besson3c  (op)
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Jul 30, 2005, 01:58 PM
 
Originally Posted by exca1ibur
I still dont buy it. If you are a wack job, you are a wack job. Dont blame something or someone else for it. If you go out and kill someone because you saw it in a game, c'mon now... you obviously had some loose pluming in the first place. Bottom line... I don't blame the game, I blame the person.
So do I, but legislation and our approach to this as a society can't easily be made on a case-by-case basis depending on whether a person is a wack job or not. Ditto for drugs, porn, alcohol, etc.

I don't agree with how our society has approached all of these substances (pot and alcohol, for instance), but it at does seem to serve as a starting place for parenting, setting morals, etc. I'd prefer it if wack jobs weren't out there committing heinous acts (which could potentially affect me and those I love) simply because we weren't prepared to deal with the ramifications of something new.
     
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Jul 30, 2005, 02:40 PM
 
For whatever reason, the Democratic Party believes it is losing ground in the 'integrity war.' Because of her past, Hillary is particuarlly vunerable and is trying to get some quick street cred as being a 'moralist.'

The video game industry is a likely target because it will score points in the Bible Belt without stepping on the toes of any potential high-dollar contributors.
     
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Jul 30, 2005, 04:13 PM
 
Gonna have to call ******** on that one. Nothing personal.

Conservative 'moralist' tend to have issues with tiiiiitaaaaaaays, poon, fanny, thigh, hip, shoulder and excessive neck exposure. Children's minds are incapable of dealing with such imagery and should be protected at all costs. And don't smear poop on Christian icons and call it art. It pisses them off and they never shutup about it.

Conservative 'moralist' are usually also the ones that take their children to college football games (faces painted to match the team mascot.. HOW CUTE!) before they're able to speak. Yes, nothing more wholesome than watching a group of young men attempt to severe the spinal cords of their opponents. "Can we get a slow motion replay on that?"

Liberal 'moralist' tend to have issues with guns, violence of any kind, disrespect of women, and expecting oral sex after paying for dinner. I suspect Hillary's main beef with the game is the fact that the male character is not depicted as more understanding to the female character's needs, aspirations and dreams for the future. I think if maybe Rockstar's programmers had inserted a bit of cuddle time into the ending sequence, perhaps with a bit of dialogue between the male and female character.. a discussion perhaps about the possibility of having childern.. and how'd they raise then not to be bigots and to be more understanding of peoples differences and culture..

Well, if they'd done that, I doubt we'd be hearing a peep out of anyone.

New, Improved and Legal in 50 States
     
besson3c  (op)
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Jul 30, 2005, 04:17 PM
 
Originally Posted by pooka
Gonna have to call ******** on that one. Nothing personal.

Conservative 'moralist' tend to have issues with tiiiiitaaaaaaays, poon, fanny, thigh, hip, shoulder and excessive neck exposure. Children's minds are incapable of dealing with such imagery and should be protected at all costs. And don't smear poop on Christian icons and call it art. It pisses them off and they never shutup about it.

Conservative 'moralist' are usually also the ones that take their children to college football games (faces painted to match the team mascot.. HOW CUTE!) before they're able to speak. Yes, nothing more wholesome than watching a group of young men attempt to severe the spinal cords of their opponents. "Can we get a slow motion replay on that?"

Liberal 'moralist' tend to have issues with guns, violence of any kind, disrespect of women, and expecting oral sex after paying for dinner. I suspect Hillary's main beef with the game is the fact that the male character is not depicted as more understanding to the female character's needs, aspirations and dreams for the future. I think if maybe Rockstar's programmers had inserted a bit of cuddle time into the ending sequence, perhaps with a bit of dialogue between the male and female character.. a discussion perhaps about the possibility of having childern.. and how'd they raise then not to be bigots and to be more understanding of peoples differences and culture..

Well, if they'd done that, I doubt we'd be hearing a peep out of anyone.
Good point!
     
 
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