Group Cites Video Games for Violence, Sex

[orangemage]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=562&ncid=738&e=3&u=/ap/20041124/ap_on_hi_te/video_game_violence
Lieberman's at it again :angry: how hard is it to understand the rating system

[Dahne]

Dahne sighs, bangs head on wall.

[Promophile]

WEEEee Its time for another episode of bitch about something you have no understanding of / make everything as bad as possible. Lets start

"Video games that have players shoot rival gang members, watch bare-breasted women and recreate the assassination of President Kennedy were criticized Tuesday by advocacy groups that said, at the least, they should be kept away from children."

Hrm ok. Lets see. Yes the rival gang member part is logical. "watch bare-breasted women? You have TWO games there, yes two out of the hundreds and hundreds of games released in the last 5 years. BMX XXX and "The Man Game" which isn't really a game but is more of a video on a video game system. And finnaly the President Kennedy game. Man that is SUCH a widespread problem! It seems like every game released today is about assasinating Kennedy! No wait, there is only one game where you do that, and it's NOT EVEN AVALIABLE IN STORES.

" "This segment of games keeps getting more realistic, and they keep pushing the envelope," David Walsh, the institute's president, said at a news conference. "The problem is that these games are the ones that are particularly popular with kids, particularly teenagers." "

Those damn game companies, forcing their immoral games on these children! They should be making games about worshipping Jesus and going to church! That would be real popular with the kids, I'm sure of it!

"Among those listed as the worst games of the year was "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," a game in which the hero vows to avenge his mother's murder and restore glory to his neighborhood gang. Players rack up points by gunning down police, committing carjackings, burglarizing homes and dealing in other underworld activities."

YAY I shot a police officer, +2 points! Maybe I can beat my high score! Then we can go to the soda shop and order up some bannana splits and learn to do the twist. Seriously, have these people played a game in the last 10 years?

[christianscott27]

this is like the crusades against TV shows, its as if those people have no control over their TV sets and filth just ambushes them.

when i was under the age of 16 i had

a) no means of getting to the mall without an adult driving me

b) no means of income to afford a $40 dollar game like GTA:SA

c) a mom who was more or less aware of what i did with my free time around the house

who are these parents who are concerned enough to form a lobbying group but lazy enough not to police their own households? its fairly obvious whats going on here, when you cant pass the intelligence reform bill, when you cant reign in excessive spending - go after a straw man.

[JJNova]

who are these parents who are concerned enough to form a lobbying group but lazy enough not to police their own households? its fairly obvious whats going on here, when you cant pass the intelligence reform bill, when you cant reign in excessive spending - go after a straw man.

Or its a Geoup of parents that are extremely overprotective of their children, and don't think that you are doing a good job of protecting your children......so they'll do it for you.

Let's get the Gov. invovled in everything....
I need someone to wipe me ass.

[Algol]

Meh. I'm just tired of parents blaming games or TV for everything that kids do now. If parents really LOOKED AT THAT LITTLE LETTER ON THE CORNER OF THE BOX they would probably know it was inappropriate for little Timmy. And even if a child did get the game, most should know that what happens in the game is unacceptable.

[Lady Jaye]

Know what? This is the good part about Al Gore "losing" the Presidency in 2000: had he gone in office, the V-P would have been Lieberman! With him as V-P (and with a First Lady known for being involved in the parental advisory for explicit lyrics project), ya can be sure that it wouldn't have been all that rosy for gamers...

I agree with the ESA rep that, in the end, the responsibility of game rating control should be in the hands of the parents regarding their own children. A parent buying GTA: San Andreas for his 10-year-old: 1. doesn't read the game's box; 2. doesn't check out the esrb rating; 3. just follows the best-selling list without any further verification. It's not that different from a grandmother getting her 15-year-old granddaughter Mary-Kate & Ashley's Sweet Sixteen when the girl asked for, say, Final Fantasy X-2.

[Cauterize]

Its time for another episode of bitch about something you have no understanding of

That line just sums it up

[jetsetradio4ever]

OK, this is the kinf of person that I'm ALWAYS bitching about. OK, here we go: STFU YOU LAZY BIT***S WHO KNOW NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you. Now, proceeding:

1) That was NOT Kennedy in XIII. And, even if it was, why are they complaining about a history lesson?

2) These frickin' SOBs have already pushed the ESRB to making M rated games not available to 'minors' (Man, I hate that word!) What do they want more?!? They should just merge AO rated with M rated. They've pushed M to be just as bad (in their eyes) as AO.

3) If you don't want kids to see this crap, tell them not to teach us about the holocaust in school! Heck, leave the decision to the parents!!!!! The govt. can't control everything!!! (But they think that they can!)

Thanks for your time........and, if they get their way, say hello to Barney in his rendition of Laugher Kombat! Or, for the only MMO to be Toontown.

[Gapporin]

Video games that have players shoot rival gang members, watch bare-breasted women and recreate the assassination of President Kennedy were criticized Tuesday by advocacy groups that said, at the least, they should be kept away from children.

How about we make a game that allows you to look at bare-breasted women while shooting a rival gang member that looks like JFK? It'd sell like hotcakes!

[ddockery]

While I agree that these groups have a skewed view on gaming as a whole, what I don't understad is why everyone here always gets all worked up about these types of statements. The GTA and like games make hundreds of millions. The controversy around them only serves to help them sell more. Nobody in these groups is proposing we all have a big game burning ceremony. Nobody is going to come take your games away. I just don't see what the big damn deal is. If ratings got a little more strict, and stores actually enforced the ratings, where is the negative effect I'm supposed to care about?

[tritium]

Democracy.

If you don't like it, don't buy it. Vote with your $$$ its not right to cencor anyone else.

If its not safe for minors, card people, ie: Gambling, smoking, Liquor.

Adults need to take responsibility for their actions. I'm really sick and tired of people expecting Big Brother to be a surrogate parent.

-Tritium.

[ddockery]

jetsetradio4ever - where was XIII mentioned in that article?

[Lady Jaye]

Yeah, I don't see any reference to XIII in there. Besides, they probably don't even know that the Kennedy assassination IS the backdrop to the main plot in XIII the game AND the graphic novels.

[tritium]

Added note: I dont buy GTA 3 and clones, because I don't like them (but the first two were funny).

I do play violent or scary games, but not for long, I"m a coward.

I don't buy from companies with policies or products that contradict with my views. Hence this is how I vote. Why dont people understand this?
Who gives them a right to decide what I can and cannot read or write? Damned censors.

-Tritium

[ddockery]

I agree that censorship is a bad thing, but I'd hardly call carding kids to buy games censorship. I also don't think it would really help the so-called problem anyway. Games like GTA take up hours and hours of a kid's time. If a parent honestly doesn't know that's being played, they need to pay more attention. If they do know and don't care - I don't see a problem with that. I think most parents think, and are right, that their kids know the difference. Spending a few minutes to talk about it probably wouldn't hurt.

[Graham Mitchell]

I don't understand why people don't see the analogy between Video Games and Hollywood movies. The movies are violent, depcit despicable acts, and make money off sex and JFK...and those are ALWAYS the movies more popular with kids (anybody remember when Terminator 2 came out?).

Why aren't they going after movies, then? What makes games susceptible to this criticism and not movies? Music often takes a lot of shit as well, but I've never really heard about anyone truly chewing out a movie for political gain, unless it's porn.

[Aswald]

I don't suppose the fact that a real war is going on might be a bit more of a factor than a video game, even if it is violent trash?

Pathetic. They're just trying to make it LOOK like they're "doing something."

[Sotenga]

GRARGH!!! SOTENGA SMASH LIEBERMAN!!!!

*transforms back into normal*

I can't emphazise enough how flagrantly braindead certain individuals or associations of humans can be, and constantly, might I add. Allow me to pull a quote here...


Sen. Joe Lieberman (news - web sites), D-Conn., credited the industry for creating many good games but said the small percentage of games with extremely violent or pornographic content is "worse than ever."

Oh ho ho... and what specific example can Lieberman cite as a good game, huh? Dr. Seuss' The Cat In The Hat for the Game Boy Advance??? Oh burn.

I apologize if my grudge against the Senator seems a bit egregious, but my emphasis on his refusal to find any iota of entertainment in titles with dubious influences is owed simply to absolute idiocy. Hey, if Lieberman has played any game from the Grand Theft Auto series and dislikes them for gameplay that he thinks is difficult, I can accept that opinion. That's just it, he hasn't played these types of games enough to formulate valid critiques based on nigglings of graphics or play control. He hates them because KIDS BECOME MURDERERS AFTER PLAYING THESE VILE GAMES. x_x

I will now stop this rant. We've all heard this before, it's the same old song. Lieberman sucks, it's the parent's fault, games are meant to be fantasy, and so on. It's tired, people, it really is. We can fight this eternal battle, or we can just play the fucking games and not become hardened criminals afterwards. Cheezus H. Rice. :shameful:

[pixelsnpolygons]

I'm off to get "the high score in Grand theft Auto".


If ratings got a little more strict, and stores actually enforced the ratings, where is the negative effect I'm supposed to care about?

The system is fine as it is, if ratings were more strict it would have to lead to some sort of censorship. As it is, GTA is M rated and you have to be 17 or older to buy it. What do you suggest? Raise the limit to 21? 60? This isn't about restrictions, they want the games gone for good. I get worked up because this is going to be a never ending cycle. This guy wants a hook for his political career and he has made it video games - there's nothing the industry can do to please him accept stop making games with violence in them. The ESRB was adopted and it has done everything the movie industry has done - the only thing that hasn't happened is the public is still clueless as to the fact that it exists. Perhaps Lieberman should focus his efforts on educating the public on the rating system so that they can make up their own damned decisions.

[YoshiM]

While I agree that these groups have a skewed view on gaming as a whole, what I don't understad is why everyone here always gets all worked up about these types of statements. The GTA and like games make hundreds of millions. The controversy around them only serves to help them sell more. Nobody in these groups is proposing we all have a big game burning ceremony. Nobody is going to come take your games away. I just don't see what the big damn deal is. If ratings got a little more strict, and stores actually enforced the ratings, where is the negative effect I'm supposed to care about?

No, they aren't SAYING they want a big game burning, but behind closed doors they'd love it if games like GTA never saw the light of day again. The problem is these people still think video games are for kids and not an evolving form of entertainment media. These groups hope, with enough pressure, that this "filth" will never be made again or be able to limit the sales to anyone. Of course, the negative publicity makes these games all the more desirable (except BMX XXX).

Don't think groups like this could pressure a store from not carrying a legitimately "mature" (as in not just about blood/gore/nudity)? It's happened before back in the 80's when rock music was the target du jour where group/government pressure caused a bunch of changes: like Wal-Mart caving to pressure and not selling magazines like Rolling Stone, Hard Rock, Spin and Tiger Beat.

Here's a scenario, a bit extreme but possible: let's say these groups start to pressure Wal-Mart again (as they claim to be a "family oriented" store). Wal-Mart already carries edit CDs from edgy bands (which, if I'm not mistaken, still rake in a pretty hefty amount of bank even with the "motherf___" or "b___ch" and will rake in more if Wal-Mart get's their $10 a CD price) and won't carry CDs that don't get edited. Who's to say, thanks to pressure, that they won't carry a future Resident Evil or GTA? If Wal-Mart, the #1 retailer in the universe doesn't carry M rated games, that's a HUGE chunk of change out of publisher's pockets. So in turn the publishers go to developers and say "we really want games that don't have any mature themes." What that could translate into is no more gratuitous violence, perhaps no "life like" violence (ie rag doll physics, targets responding to where they were shot, etc.), "war games", and probably more I can't think of at the moment.

Will it happen? Hard to say, depends on who's pockets gets lined with money.

[Lady Jaye]

The problem is that it could also end up englobing less controversial M-rated games, like Eternal Darkness...

[Promophile]

Know what? This is the good part about Al Gore "losing" the Presidency in 2000: had he gone in office, the V-P would have been Lieberman! With him as V-P (and with a First Lady known for being involved in the parental advisory for explicit lyrics project), ya can be sure that it wouldn't have been all that rosy for gamers...

I agree with the ESA rep that, in the end, the responsibility of game rating control should be in the hands of the parents regarding their own children. A parent buying GTA: San Andreas for his 10-year-old: 1. doesn't read the game's box; 2. doesn't check out the esrb rating; 3. just follows the best-selling list without any further verification. It's not that different from a grandmother getting her 15-year-old granddaughter Mary-Kate & Ashley's Sweet Sixteen when the girl asked for, say, Final Fantasy X-2.

YES you have a point, but you have to remeber, the Bush Administration has done more to harm free speech than any administration in US history, especially in TV and Radio.

[thegreatescape]

So where were these people when the racial/ethnic purification game was released (and is still available for order) online by a neo nazi group ?
And how come our friend Jack Thompson hasnt come out with his usual bs? Is he working on something big? Anti-game terrorism? Global Domination?

If you dont mind Dahne, i think ill join you at that wall :/

[jetsetradio4ever]

Oh! Ya, sorry! There was no mention of XIII. It's just, I didn't know about 'Reloaded.' Woops!

[evildead2099]

"Video games that have players ... watch bare-breasted women ... should be kept away from children."

Right. Condition children to reinforce double-standards against women. Say nothing about the fact that men can be portrayed bare-breasted without consequence.