On M-Rated Legislations and Such

The debate of M-Rated and AO policing has escalated in the last month or so (the 'Hot Coffee Mod')--it started small on the internet and slowly seeped into media coverage. Now of course, every politician wants to jump on the free-votes bandwagon by saying they are against such games--and, of course, the ludicrious "truths" and "studies" come up from all over.

Now, unless I'm mistaken, there's some lack of representation on the other side of things. It looks good if politicians everywhere shout about protecting your children, but, fuck, this is a democracy. But we don't live in the ideal government, so it's not exactly expected. Common sense should say "but aren't games sophisticated enough not to simply be lumped together under the banner of 'kiddy'?" Are games not as evolved as motion pictures in many respects, in that with an objective view they can be scrutinized and divided into age categories? It is silly and ridiculous that game developers must be blamed so much when, since the days of earlier violent games (post-ESRB), it is almost always the parents' fault. If you can't tell the difference between "Barbie's Horse Adventure" and "God of War", yet you can tell the difference between "Poo's Heffalump Movie" and "The Devil's Rejects" simply because of a blind cold-shoulder to something you "can't understand", there's really something wrong there.

Also copyright laws immediately spring to mind when thinking of hot coffee mod, which in itself can be illegal. Many fail to recognize that the code was blocked off, and though it may have been "irresponsible" to not remove it, doing so may have interfered directly with many parts of the game (and thus proven too much of a hassle when a simple block of that section of the game would have done). And yet the game is blindly criticized as "pornographic".

Here's something to think about. A movie like "The Godfather" or "Scarface" is brought into theatres. These very movies contain many things that are considered inappropriate to children, yet are respected, enjoyed, and highly praised. People aren't seeing these movies because they need to fufill sexual needs or violent thoughts, but they seen them because they want some entertainment. The story, the plot, the characters--all are shaped to make a compelling and enjoyable film. The film isn't labeled as porn, and isn't taken by the public this way. Seriously, if you were watching a movie and a sex scene started, would you truly turn it off in disgust? Not really, because in most good movies, it's there to help the plot along.

Now we enter a medium were cartoons, movies, and books have already filled the public with the impression that video games are entirely made for children. And while the video game industry has a self-regulating department called the ESRB, most political lunatics and guilt-filled parents ignore this and blantantly call out the developers themselves as the problem. They ignore the box that says "Resident Evil: 4, Rated Mature (17+)", and simply think "Super Mario Bros." They think of idiotic 80s sitcoms that display gaming as a childish distraction. And then when little Robbie's mother walks into the room to tell him dinner's ready, she see's a head exploding after her son unloads a shotgun round to a zombie's skull.

Which brings me to the point of media coverage and the blame of video games in this respect. You'll always have the few cases that state that a child stabbed someone to death, and usually a video game is linked to the case. Yet in reality, most of these cases are the result of previous mental instability. Think about something else--is the news going to report the millions of other children that didn't go about killing anyone because of games? No, of course not. But people only take in what's broadcasted, not the whole picture.

This situation is horrendous. The game has been out for quite a while yet, not including previous installments. And while talk and debate has grown over the extreme violence of Grand Theft Auto, there hasn't been most commotion as this new case. And yet we bring something so vile and evil to the general public, that it causes a general gasp of terrified exclamation...dare I say it.....sex!? Yes. in this society, it's quite normal to have tons of violence appear, yet when heterosexual intercourse takes place, it's suddenly too much. Do we really in such a sea of bullshit? Why are some people so afraid of sex? Can they not see that in many respects, violence can be more affecting then coitus?

And yet, really, shielding children from some of these things is more disastrous than actually letting them see it (imagine seeing a loved one spread out, dead on the street after years of being 'protected' from such images--you would freak out on a hundred different levels). The parent must display a good sense of judgement and responsibility, and be the main force in correcting their child of what is right and wrong. You cannot truly believe that the Television will dominate your child's conscience unless you give way and let it. If you do your job right than nothing can truly 'perverse' or 'desensitize' your child. After a few good years of mental development, the kid should be able to realize what fantasy is (a failure to do so is a sign of trouble), and what reality's limits are. That's why the video games are given the moniker "game".

Chess is there to test your wits without having to actually go to war, and that's the same premise of a real-time strategy rame. Games like Dungeons and Dragons allow to the player to take on a different life without the risks involved, just like RPG and MMORPGs do. First Person Shooters obviously bring the gritty involvement of war, and a game such a paintball can do much the same thing. The list can go on for quite a while. It's just a different form of visual entertainment, and often much more realistic, but entertainment nonetheless.

Overall, video games are simply the scapegoat society has been waiting for. Why blame real-time reality shows, mind-numbing game shows, pornography sitcoms, violent movies, popular culture magazines, musical influences, and all the other forms of entertainment that we now take so lightly, and push their effects and focus onto something else? That what video games are being used for, and truthfully, I am really disgusted. No one is really pushing for the other side, the other view of things, and that's really depressing.

And with easily thrown-together shit balls like this: http://www.protectmichiganschildren.com/, it's only getting worse.

Voices of reason, however, are hard to find, such as this man: http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolutio...pact/myths.html

And the last thing I have to say is: video games, like any other form of entertainment, have bad effects, that's true, but to ignore the bad effects of other mediums is just wrong.

So....Discuss.

Sex should not be lumped into the same category as violence when imposing censorship restrictions and/or punishment. (whether it be on movies, TV, video games, etc.) It is absolutely absurd to do this because it's implying that there's something inherently wrong in both of them.

I have yet to learn of any harmful effects of exposing children to sex. Of course, as with violence, it all depends on how the child was brought up to regard sex, and his/her personality and maturity. Things like pornography, in and of itself - a magazine with nude women - is not harmful. Even the different "perversions" of sex aren't harmful. It's sex. It's a bodily function that humans have hyped up over the centuries. I believe protecting children from it has a way more adverse effect than exposing them to it.

I strongly recommend Judith Levine's "Harmful to Minors" for a better understanding of why exposing kids to sex is so feared in American society, and really all over the world.

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If you can't tell the difference between \"Barbie's Horse Adventure\" and \"God of War\", yet you can tell the difference between \"Poo's Heffalump Movie\" and \"The Devil's Rejects\" simply because of a blind cold-shoulder to something you \"can't understand\", there's really something wrong there. [/b]

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Well said! :goodjob2:

Love your rant, seriously. About time someone ranted about it, PROPERLY.

First off, if a kid gets a video game that's rated M, then it's his parents' fault for letting him have it. They can't give him the game and then take it away because of some Bullshit MOD that some other kid put together.

Second, that Online E-Petition thing is even more Bullshit. For all we know, someone could have generated some sort of bot to generate hundreds of fake signatures. Petitions never work, ever. They are just like chain letters, fun to spread, give though-provoking ideas, a lot of people like them, but they are just (in reality) plain bullshit.

Quotes from that second web site that I really really like and will harvest and will keep in my black hole of a harddrive:

1. According to a 2001 U.S. Surgeon General's report, the strongest risk factors for school shootings centered on mental stability and the quality of home life, not media exposure.

School shootings isn't based on 'training' from a video game. So, what the media is saying, is that I can go to a local gun shop, buy 5000 rounds ofAK47 ammo, and shoot down helicopters? I can apparently also take around 3 shots to the head and live.

If you don't have quality home life, I.E. Your mother abuses drugs and your father collects guns... what is this telling the child? And if you're a wacko, then you might just kill people, ya think?

2. Scientific evidence links violent game play with youth aggression.

I know this is a myth, but I'm going to take it and show it to you anyway. If I sit in my house all day with my anger all bottled up, and just getting angrier and angrier without anything to take it out on, it's just going to get worse and worse until it explodes. Many people play video games to relieve this anger; I.E. take it out on the little 3D people that run into your taxi and just anger you more... that's right, hop out, jack them, and cap them. Anger relieved, no harm done. Only a lunatic would try something that bizarre in real life.

3. ....... 4. Almost no girls play computer games.
Historically, the video game market has been predominantly male. However, the percentage of women playing games has steadily increased over the past decade. Women now slightly outnumber men playing Web-based games. Spurred by the belief that games were an important gateway into other kinds of digital literacy, efforts were made in the mid-90s to build games that appealed to girls. More recent games such as The Sims were huge crossover successes that attracted many women who had never played games before. Given the historic imbalance in the game market (and among people working inside the game industry), the presence of sexist stereotyping in games is hardly surprising. Yet it's also important to note that female game characters are often portrayed as powerful and independent. In his book Killing Monsters, Gerard Jones argues that young girls often build upon these representations of strong women warriors as a means of building up their self confidence in confronting challenges in their everyday lives.

If almost no girls play video games, I will eat my shoe. Sure, it IS mostly males that play video games. Sure, most of the people you see in online video games are male, but that doesn't mean that no females play video games. Because if no females play video games, then what am I? Some lonely old man that lives in his parents' basement that is a sicko and pretends to be a little girl? Whatever gave you that idea...

4. Video game play is socially isolating.
Another myth, but I still want to point it out.

Whoever thinks that playing video games is socially isolating needs to actually TRY playing video games... because if they were socially isolating, the earth would be a very lonely planet indeed.



Anyone who has not read that yet, needs to do so immediately before bunnies and/or snails conquer this planet.

k? k.


EDIT: Oh and one more thing; If video games promote violence, then we should destroy all video games and give everyone "Barney's House of Hugs". BUT WAIT! This promotes SEXUAL HARRASMENT! INAPPROPRIATE HUGGING! THE WORLD IS GOING TO END! FLEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!11111oneone

I think these links will speak for themselves. The idiocy Miami Asshole Jack Thompson displays is extremely alarming.

http://www.stopkill.com/ - The Asshole's Site, which has such gems like,

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In this game you have sex with a prostitute and then kill her grotesquely to get your money back and win the game faster.[/b]

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Win the game faster?! Whaa? Do most people even play Grand Theft Auto to, \"win the game\"? It's a freeroaming game, you fucktard. This inciddent is an occurance that might happen again randomly a thousand other times.

And here's the best one,

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A recent Gallup Poll found that any American teen who has played this one game is twice as likely to be engaged in an act of violence than those who have not played this one game.[/b]

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So, a poll, no doubt targeted at conservative mothers, was given as a form of evidence. Right. Nevermind what the poll's options were, or whoever took it, but a poll? What?! Does that even make sense? Since when do opinions constitute as facts?

Another links:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/24/...ain676446.shtml

An interview with Mr. Thompson. The same interview was given to Tim Buckley of the webcomic Ctrl-Alt-Del: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/24/...ain676446.shtml, as well as others.

he's protective, well-meaning,....anal, and naive.

I don't know if his slight miscalculation about the purpose of playing Grant Theft Auto is any justification to invalidate his point.....but in my experience, the most violent games have not influenced me to violence, I have never struck a person in my life, neither did I require to. In any case, the game violence provides me with creative self-defense, if not nothing.

If the game's too disturbing, I turn it off...it's kinda like a movie. it just depends how much one's sense of reality is from games....

I remember reading this thread a while back and agreeing with every word. I've since come upon some new information that have changed my views slightly, though I still agree for the most part.

Violence in media is a factor in causing violent behaviour in children.

Robert Liebert and Robert Baron (1972) showed young boys and girls a violent excerpt from a gangster television show or an excerpt from an exciting track race (both picked to illicit excitation, one violent, one not).

The children who viewed the violence were subsequently most likely to press vigorously a special red button that supposedly would heat a rod, causing pain to another child (there wasn't actually another child).

This experiment indicates that television can be one cause of children's aggresive behaviour.

There's certain points I agree with in this, while some I do not. I think that, if treated properly, video games provide a simulation of what you can't do in real life, not a "training" of any sorts. If the child (or adult) views it as a "preview" of what you can really do in real life, then of course it is not being treated responsibly.

Although, there are some aspects of video games that is habitual and probably not a good thing. For instance, after a pretty wealthy session of any driving sim games (gta, gt, bumout are my favs), I find myself thinking on the road (passenger, of course... Im barely 14) like I do in the game, i.e. "Hrm in about 3 seconds the passageway between those lanes will clear up and I can speed through the gap and ram the opponent off the road" (well not exactly, I find myself starting, but catch myself.) Or "the roads clear!!! I should be speeding way ahead". These short thoughts are like residue coming from the game. I have seen evidence that this does not only apply to video games. There's this one girl in my school, that if you look at her hand when she talks, sometimes her pinky twitches at the end of a sentence or phrase. She is somewhat known for her habit, and most people agree that it is because of a reflex most of us are acquiring nowadays -- the reflex of pressing the "enter" button after a message while in an IM chat.

I am arguably on both sides of the debate here, as I say that giving everybody video games is insane, yet completely taking them off the shelves is ludacris. I once read an article about the whole MMORPG fad taking over the world. It was a pretty believable article, yet of course you can't predict the future.

Probably everyone will have sex at some point of their lives (maybe not the people who are debating this, but mostly everyone), not a lot of people will kill at some point. Violence should be regulated not sex.

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Originally posted by CatLover
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3. ....... 4. Almost no girls play computer games.

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Not true! I am a crazy VG player(hence earning my username), & when I was younger, I would challenge boys my age to a VG, & beat them. I even won a SSB Tourney at U of U when I was only in 6th grade.
So, girls actually rock at VGs!! Rock on, CatLover!

If playing video games has no effect on thought & behavior, then why has the military time and time again commissioned game developers to create games for them to be used as part of some training?

It mostly just for strategy and planning experience. We can't effective train soldiers through video games just yet. However, it might have a bit of the dehumanization effect on persons.

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Originally posted by Joseph_Stalin
It mostly just for strategy and planning experience. We can't effective train soldiers through video games just yet. However, it might have a bit of the dehumanization effect on persons.

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Right, there is no way complete training can be obtained through one thing alone. At the same time, the idea that you can passively experience something without it having any effect on you is equally foolish, which was basically my point.

So.....basically we've just affirmed what was to be understood?

My fault for dragging that out though. I received a call as I was reading the new posts, but really wanted to get out what I had to "say", but, oh well. Sorry for that.