"hot coffee" scandal?
Aug. 24th, 2005 11:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
orangerfulSo I attempted to watch the G4 special yesterday on 'sex in videogames'. Nothing very new was said, mostly the same stories you hear anytime anything controversial happens in any form of entertainment. Regular people defend their media because they don't think censorship will help. Conservative/Government types freak out and want to take control. It's that lovely little dance of "you do it or we'll do it for you".
The big deal is that Rockstar LIED. And that needs to be punished. And not by changing the rating of their already controversial game from Mature to Adults Only. Especially since retailers like Target and Wal-Mart refuse to carry AO titles (instead of pulling the current M marked boxes from the shelf right away, most Target stores just had sales on the game...so now little Timmy who shouldn't be playing GTA anyway can get it for only $20!). The ESRB should fine Rockstar or do something to take the wind out of their sails/sales. Perhaps force them to recall the GTA:SA titles and not re-release anything for 6 months or something like that.
Cuz really, I have no problem with the whole 'sex in the game' thing. I had no desire to play GTA anyway. But I'm sure the person who enjoys shooting cops and beating up prostitutes probably would enjoy a extra sex game. Plus, it's not like it's easy to access. You have to know how to hack or mod your game to get to it, so that's a bit of work, more power to you. (honestly, the graphics aren't even that good)
I'm pretty much anti-censorship. And after trying to argue one way or another about it, once you're anti-censorship, you can't sit there and make exceptions. BUT I am pro-ratings. I think the ESRB and the MPAA both are valueable tools. Yes, TOOLS! Parents need to use these tools and stop blaming the ESRB and MPAA for their children's problems. GTA is Mature, that's ages 17+ only. It says it right on the front of the box. If little 8 year old Timmy asks for it, YOU the parent must say no. Wal-Mart employees are paid crap, they have bigger worries than what YOUR kid is playing. Plus, where does an 8 year old get $50 from! It's not like with cigarettes and alcohol, where it's relatively inexpensive bought a pack at a time, so you could see some nicotine addicted teen saving up his pennies for some camels. But a videogame is $50, that's a good hunk of cash to give your kid.
Of course, I'm not a parent, and parents in this day and age...yadda yadda yadda. Actually, they still have no excuses. They have a kid, it's their problem. If they spent the money to buy the kid the Xbox or PS2 or CPU with enough whatever to run a videogame, then they can take the time to moniter their children.
Perhaps if we all didn't jump up and down like monkeys everytime we hear the word "SEX!", kids wouldn't be so interested. You make it taboo, you make it more interesting. Is it any wonder that GTA:SA is now back on the Amazon.com best sellers list? Suddenly, it's a collectible.
I have to say GTA:SA upset me. I wasn't really sure what to think of it. It's one thing to have a mafia-style white guy killing people, it's almost funny in a twisted way. But when they put GTA in the ghetto, with an african-american as the main "gangsta"? Part of me was really upset at the promoting of this stereotype, especially when you get the feeling that the group playing the game is upper-middle class WHITE males. But then I saw letters in Game Informer from african-american gamers, saying how cool it was to finally have a black character they could play as. And then I related, because I loved the Tomb Raider and Buffy video games. Especially Buffy, since she looked a a bit like me. But then again, the whole mafialand set up was easier to swallow because the mafia-culture has become almost it's own genre of fantasy fiction. But the ghettos in california are very real. It made me uncomfortable to think that someone out there might be playing that game and being desensitized. Not to the violence, but to the existence of that world. Making it seem cool to live like that.
As you can tell, the "hot coffee" scandal doesn't bother me as some other bits in video games.
What do you all think about this supposed "scandal" or the state of video games in general?
The big deal is that Rockstar LIED. And that needs to be punished. And not by changing the rating of their already controversial game from Mature to Adults Only. Especially since retailers like Target and Wal-Mart refuse to carry AO titles (instead of pulling the current M marked boxes from the shelf right away, most Target stores just had sales on the game...so now little Timmy who shouldn't be playing GTA anyway can get it for only $20!). The ESRB should fine Rockstar or do something to take the wind out of their sails/sales. Perhaps force them to recall the GTA:SA titles and not re-release anything for 6 months or something like that.
Cuz really, I have no problem with the whole 'sex in the game' thing. I had no desire to play GTA anyway. But I'm sure the person who enjoys shooting cops and beating up prostitutes probably would enjoy a extra sex game. Plus, it's not like it's easy to access. You have to know how to hack or mod your game to get to it, so that's a bit of work, more power to you. (honestly, the graphics aren't even that good)
I'm pretty much anti-censorship. And after trying to argue one way or another about it, once you're anti-censorship, you can't sit there and make exceptions. BUT I am pro-ratings. I think the ESRB and the MPAA both are valueable tools. Yes, TOOLS! Parents need to use these tools and stop blaming the ESRB and MPAA for their children's problems. GTA is Mature, that's ages 17+ only. It says it right on the front of the box. If little 8 year old Timmy asks for it, YOU the parent must say no. Wal-Mart employees are paid crap, they have bigger worries than what YOUR kid is playing. Plus, where does an 8 year old get $50 from! It's not like with cigarettes and alcohol, where it's relatively inexpensive bought a pack at a time, so you could see some nicotine addicted teen saving up his pennies for some camels. But a videogame is $50, that's a good hunk of cash to give your kid.
Of course, I'm not a parent, and parents in this day and age...yadda yadda yadda. Actually, they still have no excuses. They have a kid, it's their problem. If they spent the money to buy the kid the Xbox or PS2 or CPU with enough whatever to run a videogame, then they can take the time to moniter their children.
Perhaps if we all didn't jump up and down like monkeys everytime we hear the word "SEX!", kids wouldn't be so interested. You make it taboo, you make it more interesting. Is it any wonder that GTA:SA is now back on the Amazon.com best sellers list? Suddenly, it's a collectible.
I have to say GTA:SA upset me. I wasn't really sure what to think of it. It's one thing to have a mafia-style white guy killing people, it's almost funny in a twisted way. But when they put GTA in the ghetto, with an african-american as the main "gangsta"? Part of me was really upset at the promoting of this stereotype, especially when you get the feeling that the group playing the game is upper-middle class WHITE males. But then I saw letters in Game Informer from african-american gamers, saying how cool it was to finally have a black character they could play as. And then I related, because I loved the Tomb Raider and Buffy video games. Especially Buffy, since she looked a a bit like me. But then again, the whole mafialand set up was easier to swallow because the mafia-culture has become almost it's own genre of fantasy fiction. But the ghettos in california are very real. It made me uncomfortable to think that someone out there might be playing that game and being desensitized. Not to the violence, but to the existence of that world. Making it seem cool to live like that.
As you can tell, the "hot coffee" scandal doesn't bother me as some other bits in video games.
What do you all think about this supposed "scandal" or the state of video games in general?
