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The War Against Virtual Beer Pong
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Jul 31, 2008 07:03 PM
from the time-on-hands-time-on-hands dept.
from the time-on-hands-time-on-hands dept.
Michelle Shildkret, 360i on behalf of TIME.com writes "JV Games was all set to release 'Beer Pong' for the Nintendo Wii when parents and lawmakers got a whiff, forcibly renaming the game to Pong Toss and filling its pixelated cups with water instead. But the game is still rated 'T' for teen, and anybody who encounters it will be able to draw clear conclusions as to its intended purpose (drink and get drunk)." Lesson: Don't play games that simulate drinking before you play games that simulate driving, or larceny.
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Submission: The War Against Virtual Beer Pong by Anonymous Coward
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Beer Pong Video Game (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF? Just play real beer pong.
Re:Beer Pong Video Game (Score:5, Funny)
I can't wait until they come out with the wii game where you play a drinking game where you drink if your character in the game your character is playing for drinks....erm.
Parent
Re:Beer Pong Video Game (Score:5, Funny)
I can't wait until they come out with the wii game where you play a drinking game where you drink if your character in the game your character is playing for drinks....erm.
Just like been there... World of World of Warcraft! [theonion.com]
Parent
Re:Beer Pong Video Game (Score:4, Informative)
There are actually drinking games in World of Warcraft. See http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/events/brewfest/ [worldofwarcraft.com]
Games include getting drunk in the various capital cities until you see pink elephants and advertising beer in Ironforge.
Free virtual beer is served on New Years Eve as well.
Parent
Re:Beer Pong Video Game (Score:4, Interesting)
My friends and I, when I was living on campus, usually found the only real ping pong table already in use. Then, one of us got a Wii, and we played Wii Sports' Tennis as beer pong :P. Sure, there wasn't a glass to knock the ball into, but that didn't stop us getting more than a little tipsy :P
Parent
Re:Beer Pong Video Game (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, but what if I have no friends or it's like 10 AM and no one wants to start drinking?
If I'm ACTUALLY playing one player beer pong, it's harder to lie to myself and say it's not just alchoholism.
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
Or real golf, or real bowling, or real tennis...
I'm just sayin'...
Re:Beer Pong Video Game (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Drunken Aim (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing wrong with water sports, after all... (Score:5, Funny)
concerned parents began sending angry letters to JV Games and Nintendo... until JV Games agreed to change the title of the game to Pong Toss and fill its pixelated cups with water.
Well then let's just hope that nobody finds excessive urination offensive.
Or stimulating for that matter.
Honestly, when water isn't safe, where do you turn?
Re:Nothing wrong with water sports, after all... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, drinking too much water can be just as dangerous as drinking too much beer. People have died [about.com] from drinking too much water [rense.com].
I think it's extremely irresponsible of the "parents and lawmakers" to encourage behavior that may lead to water intoxication
Parent
Re:Nothing wrong with water sports, after all... (Score:5, Interesting)
From here [wikipedia.org]
That was the case in the first article - the woman had taken part in a "water drinking contest." The second article describes soldiers who died when they drank large amounts of water after long periods of exercise. The key thing is to remember to replace those electrolytes.
Yeah, a little I guess. I have no idea what a beer bong game would involve, other than drinking excessive amounts of beer. My point was that replacing beer with something that can also kill you if you drink it to excess shows someone didn't think this through very thoroughly.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
New Years Eve, 2006, on my wedding night, my guests to the reception after-party played Champagne Pong- 4 bottles, then switched to (homemade ~ 40 Proof) Meade Pong - 5 bottles! It was an awesome night, but a rough New Years Day.
Hypocricy (Score:5, Insightful)
The US has some of the most stringent laws amongst western nations for limiting alcohol access to young adults. You can be taxed, vote, fuck and die for your country, but you can't drink beer until you're 21. Yet, amongst its peers, it ranks close to the top in terms of alcohol abuse and related activities like drink driving.
Similar hypocricy abounds in other spheres of life. The 'most free' nation in the developed world, yet a higher fraction of its population imprisoned than anywhere else. Abstinence only, but the highest rates of teenage pregnancy.
All of these are symptomatic of the US's prohibitionist approach to life -- a trait that can be traced all the way back to the pilgrims, who fled England not to be free from religious persecution, but so that they could themselves persecute without interference.
Re:Hypocricy (Score:4, Insightful)
In God We Trust
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Re:Hypocricy (Score:5, Funny)
Who's god?
The almighty dollar!
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Re:Hypocricy (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
It's not as bad as you think... (Score:5, Informative)
According to Federal law the armed forces can allow drinking [about.com] by service members as young as 18 on bases in or near locations where the legal age limit is lower than 21 - the military enforces the local drinking age laws. The degree to which such leniency is actually applied differs from service to service (if you're in the Air Force, you're out of luck), but the Army and marines have been pretty good about such things.
Parent
Re:Hypocricy (Score:5, Informative)
IAASMUT - I Am A Service Member Under Twenty-one - and I'm tired of hearing this argument. You can, in fact, drink if you're risking your life for your country. When in non-forward-deployed, non-CONUS locations, the legal drinking age is 18. Yes, you heard it right, when under-21 service members are deployed, risking their lives for their country, they are allowed to drink in their downtime.
There ARE restrictions - usually a ration card that allows you three alcoholic beverages a day, and obviously no drinking when you're forward deployed (read: taking fire!)
So all of you 18 year old pricks who whine about not being able to drink but being able to die for your country, well, join up and drink up.
Parent
Re:Hypocricy (Score:5, Interesting)
So, although you are legally considered an adult upon turning 18, you cannot drink unless you sign up with the military and go off shooting people. I don't see how that's a healthy societal attitude.
Oh, and I'm too old to join up. Not that it matters, since I'm old enough to drink. Also, I'm more use to my country in a lab than elsewhere.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Your post reminds me of an experience at work some time back. I work with content for mobile phones. As part of my job at one point I would provide ringtones to AT&T that our company had licensed. These had to go through a somewhat stringent approval process. There was one batch I was submitting which contained the song "Drink in my cup". That song was denied due to references to alcohol. In the same batch was "Gat in my lap". That song was passed. Ridiculous.
Re:Hypocricy (Score:5, Funny)
I can fuck for my country?! Sign me up for three tours!
Parent
Signed up (Score:5, Funny)
Senator Larry Craig will see you now, "Private" Flayer.
Parent
Re:Hypocricy (Score:5, Insightful)
This is precisely why I've never had any respect whatsoever for the law. Now I'm no criminal, I try harder than many to avoid doing things that are wrong. However, if the only argument against something is that it is illegal then I don't consider that to be an argument at all. The tyranny of the majority not a moral principle. It is simply one of the inherent flaws of democratic rule.
What gets me the most is how people my age (35) and a little older will almost have a conniption about their kids doing the very same things that they (and I) did when we were that age. I drank, sometimes to excess but not often. I had sex, as did most of my peers. I didn't mess with drugs but I knew many who did. This is what is known as High School.
Very few of the things I did at that age were wrong, though many were forbidden because of my age. But I'll be damned if I'm going to apologize for any of it. I responded with puzzlement to the bizarre histrionics that older people would emote over the things I and others my age did. If it was ok for them to do it, then as far as I was concerned it was ok for me too. I stand by that to this very day. For the longest time I believed that the antics of the older generations were a put on, an act, a contrivance of melodrama and theatrics intended to fool me and others of that age into believing absurdities through which we could be controlled. In other words, a scam, a con. I didn't believe that the adults in my life actually believed the things they were saying, because grown people couldn't possibly be that stupid...or so I though. As I've grown older I've come to realize that yes, people can be that stupid, a life-long ailment for which there is no cure.
I honestly think that most people simply don't remember their teenage years in sufficient detail to understand what it means to be a teenager. They claim to understand, but their actions and attitudes speak otherwise.
Today the things I endured in high school are now being perpetrated upon college students, who by any sane definition are supposed to be adults. Colleges and Universities are there to provide an education to their students, not to act in loco parentis. If someone isn't grown by the time they reach college, then it means their parents didn't do their job. It doesn't mean that the university should be stuck picking up the slack.
It is sad and sick that grown men and women would be so fearful that their adult (or nearly adult) children might drink beer that they would launch a grass-roots movement against a video game for merely featuring the beverage.
These people have too much time on their hands if this is what they consider to be a pressing concern.
Parent
Re:Hypocricy (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was 18, I used to work with a guy in his 30s, born again. With a solemn face he would tell me about his "sins" and how he had lived a live of debauchery for years but now he had seen the light and was a Christian now, and how I shouldn't make the same mistake he did and repent now. I'm thinking "Nuts to you pal, so you get your 10 years of hedonism 'til your good and done with it and then turn round and try to deny me the same?"
Nothing like saving other people from YOUR temptations.
Parent
Tapper (Score:5, Informative)
This is exactly what happened to the old video game 'Tapper', where you played a bartender serving thirsty customers. Originally licensed by Budweiser. They had to give it a face lift after parents complained (originally targeted for bars, it got into places it probably shouldn't have been in) to Root Beer Tapper.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapper [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Unfortunately, in the end this measure did not end up protecting the children. Root Beer Tapper's promotion of the consumption of massive quantities of high fructose corn syrup was one of the primary causes behind the current epidemic of childhood obesity.
Parents should have insisted on converting the game to "Celery Juice Tapper".
Nanny State (Score:4, Insightful)
We really need to kill off this nanny state we live in before the next generation is too afraid to go outside at all.
Re:Nanny State (Score:5, Funny)
That would surely be the death of /.
Parent
C'mon people (Score:5, Funny)
Fuel up your helicopters parents... (Score:5, Funny)
Because your adult "child" might play this game away from home! Gotta protect the "kids", right? Why is it video games are the new evil that's replaced song lyrics?
Here's a message to the helicopter parents: Let Go.
They forgot to... (Score:5, Funny)
change the pong paddles to flowers, because you could hit someone over the head and hurt them with paddles.
Re:They forgot to... (Score:5, Funny)
I am allergic to flowers you insensitive clod. :-)
Parent
Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
Censorship (Score:5, Interesting)
This issue perfectly illustrates why we need strong laws protecting freedom of speech. Just having the 1st Ammendment isn't enough. If there was a federal law saying you can't sue over video game content, NO MATTER WHAT, this game would have been released as intended. The fact that you can sue somebody because you're "offended" is nonsense.
Write angry letters? (Score:3, Insightful)
Write angry letters (not e-mail, honest to God hand-written letters) to your politician about how this is ridiculous and absurd. use the following hard facts:
1. Drinking is a part of our culture. Hiding a part of culture from someone until they're well over maturity creates a dangerous situation, because people haven't yet learned how to handle these things. Aliens, there's xenophobia (kill the evil dangerous things!); covering up all violence, people lose self-esteem and confidence and crumble under stress (ohgod he's threatening to break my arm give him whatever he wants *cry cry* don't even THINK about helping someone else in trouble either way too dangerous wtf); alcohol, they'll seek out the contraband as kids and get into car accidents, or become alcoholics as adults.
2. Companies can market what they want. Parents need to control their kids; without actually raising kids, you can't control them. Imagine if parents simply didn't bother with keeping their kids off drugs; now imagine schools censored all things about drugs. Oh, what's this magic dust? It'll make me happy? Hmm... :) Even with school lectures, kids only really pay much attention to their parents when making decisions like that.
3. I find it offensive that you can breed without a license. I have to learn all the important points of driving (traffic signs, danger and hazard conditions) to drive; you should need to learn all the important points of parenting to have a kid. You need a license to get married already, but no training; put dick A in pussy B.
Really, what the fuck is so hard about this? "Angry parents whine to congress/nintendo about how they don't want to have to keep something away from their kids or try to teach their kids what that something might deviate them into doing" okay so "Angry parents bitch at congress/nintendo about this gross distortion of responsibility and accountability."
What I don't understand... (Score:4, Funny)
You missed one! (Score:3, Interesting)
Ban this game now before it breeds a generation of sake-drinking hooligans who spend their days drawing circles around plants!
Wow. Beer Pong On Slash Dot? (Score:5, Interesting)
I compete in a lot of beer pong tournaments.
In fact I fly out to vegas every year for the world series (mentioned in article) and even placed top 10 for 2008.
Bizarre to see something like pong make its way onto slash dot.
There is another wii variant called Ping Cup in some type of party games package as well.
Personally I don't see the point to either simulations, since beer pong is ridiculously simple to set up an ACTUAL game in person.
All it takes is cups and ping pong balls! Why are you in front of a television - the game is supposed to be social.
Anyway, I can chime in on one aspect that most slashdotters are probably unaware of.
Beer Pong is extremely competitive. When you go to tournaments, it has nothing to do with getting drunk.
Make that shot and win that money. World series is 50k. Smaller local tournaments are 500-6,000 in prize money for 1st.
These politicians need to leave my game alone, damnit.
Beer Pong is not a crime.
The assholes are making me irked at my own country and envy other places' freedoms.
Probably For The Best (Score:4, Funny)
Faithfully recreating the beer pong experience would involve your Wii giving you a nasty week-long cold that you get from the other players who drink from your virtual cup of beer.
Don't they mean virtual Beirut? (Score:4, Informative)
Phil
Thank God! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm very glad that parents and lawmakers are spending so much time on kids getting virtually drunk, virtually running over old ladies, and virtually killing hookers.
Clearly, with global warming, increasing corporate consolidation in every industry, multiple wars and genocides planet-wide that we are either funding indirectly, directly, or directly a part of, a decline in the middle class that is readily apparent, a national debt that spiraled out of control under Reagan, and is now MUCH worse, species going extinct across almost every ecosystem, increasing levels of obesity, heart-disease, cancer, and genetic disorders, bread inflating in price over seven fold while the dollar deflates into toilet paper, irregular voting results, procedures, and a subsequent media black-out, questions about building seven, huge set-backs in education, a completely broken health care system, bogged down freeways and corporate toll roads, the sub-prime start of a NEW great depression, cameras on every street corner, and astronauts claiming there is higher intelligence in our region, it is refreshing to see that parents and lawmakers care about the important stuff, like virtual beer-pong. Clearly, their priorities are very much in order.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to having a conversation that is being listened to about how my friend was practically raped at the airport by the DHS on my over-priced corporate cell phone that is giving me cancer. Have a nice fucking day.
Re:So does this mean bars don't exist in games? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just wait. Soon bars won't be allowed in games. If there's a bar (or worse, smoking) the game will get rated (AO) adults only.
The new prohibition movement has already gotten smoking banned in bars and the "legally drunk" alcohol level has been changed from "actually drunk" to "imperfectly sober". They've done this even though the lower alcohol levels are not associated with a high risk of crashes. They can seize your car and sell it to fund their agencies though.
The media war has already begun. PG-rated movies can't have smoking in them.
A lot of people want the government to be your mom and make your choices for you. People vote for it because they think they're in the ruling class. When they find out they're actually "little people", it will be too late.
Parent
Re:So does this mean bars don't exist in games? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
They are censoring a beer pong video game (Score:5, Insightful)
No there are no black choppers.
The new prohibitionists and censors are real. That's why this story is on Slashdot. Because they are censoring a beer pong video game.
Parent
Re:So does this mean bars don't exist in games? (Score:5, Insightful)
While his screed does skew a little away into the Lone Gunmen territory, he is essentially correct. MADD et al have made it essentially illegal to do anything but stand in one place and drink, while the rest of the "think of the children" movement is continuing to try and make live as safe and sterile as possible in the US. MADD itself, as an organization, is quite insane and desperate to make itself continually relevant, leading to its metamorphosis into a neo-prohibitionist lobby group.
Remember, just because someone sounds insane, doesn't mean that there isn't some truth there.
Parent
Re:So does this mean bars don't exist in games? (Score:5, Insightful)
The new prohibition movement has already gotten smoking banned in bars and the "legally drunk" alcohol level has been changed from "actually drunk" to "imperfectly sober". They've done this even though the lower alcohol levels are not associated with a high risk of crashes. They can seize your car and sell it to fund their agencies though.
Don't worry kid, by the time you're 25 you'll be partied out and vote for higher cigarette taxes and tougher drunk driving laws, too.
Parent
Re:So does this mean bars don't exist in games? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm over 25, and I vote against EVERY vice law, since I find the very idea absurd. I'm not a libertarian (I'm a nutbag socialist, or moderate), and even I find that the government regulating my leisure activities absurd. If no one gets hurt, then it isn't their business.
While the poster is probably wearing his tin-foil hat, I agree with the general premise, America is becoming more and more neo-Puritanical as time goes on. We've decided to all announce what we think would be good for others, and collectively vote for it, ignoring the fact that the simple answer is just not doing it ourselves (free will, and all that archaic baggage). And these self-righteous idiots don't even play a fair game, they resort to dirty tactics since "they know better" than the rest of us, it has become a game of the ends justifying the means, which is NEVER a good position.
Looking at my home state, Arizona, which just banned all public smoking; some people put a sensable law on the ballots, banning it all non bar or bowling alley establishments (which still stretches things), and to fight this, another group (who I call niconazis) made another bill to ban it everywhere, period. This was not happenstance, it was a genuine political effort at confusion. A bar by my house found a loophole, and ran with it (with a couple million in lawyer fees), so the state decided to throw all their guns at it to make them comply, not just the legal ones. The received daily visits from the health department, and the liquor board, none of this was contained as a consequence of non-compliance with the law, it was just the state "out to get them" for not playing with the popular cause.
As a note: I don't understand how the state can tell businesses how to run themselves. Let places decide if they want smoking (or drinking, even), or not, and let the market decide.
This goes beyond the state level, the WHO frequently bans studies that find the link between second hand smoke and cancer negative or non conclusive, as do most modern Western health institutions. Its like an unpopular mirror of global warming. I, personally, think there is a link, but that still doesn't justify censorship of scientific studies that don't find things your way, and thus aren't allowed to be counted towards policy. (I also believe in global warming, and condemn all censorship that finds the opposite)
As for drinking, we're approaching the same level of insanity. My friend almost got arrested once for WALKING to her car while intoxicated (0.08). She wasn't going to drive, she was getting a camera. The police didn't want to believe her. This was a bar that offered free cab rides home, and to the bar the next morning, so there wasn't even a reason she would have driven, not to mention she didn't even have her purse. The law also ignores that alcohol affects people differently. I can drink all night, have a high blood alcohol percentage, and not be affected, while others can be well under the legal limit and be severely impaired. Biological differences FTW.
And then we bring on our war on boobs. We're an absurdly prudish and puritanical country. My mind boggles at the fact we find overt violence healthy for youth, but not natural biology. I almost got kicked out of college for mentioning the "nipples" on a nude bronze on campus, as it might offend someone. Everyone has them, how can it be offensive? I also almost became a registered sex offender in high school for saying something lewd to girl friend of mine (inside joke) and someone overheard it. If the target of the comment isn't offended, then how can a bystander who doesn't understand the context be?
Its very odd, as we become more politically liberal, we become more culturally conservative. Look at the idiotic gay marriage debate for example... It makes no sense outside of a narrowly bigoted religious context (which most of my religious friends don't agree with, anecdotally), but still we are willing to regulate peoples bedroom life, and their rights based on who they want to practice these rights on. As long as no one is harmed, it isn't societies business.
Sorry for the rant. Getting sick of idiocy today.
Parent
Re:So does this mean bars don't exist in games? (Score:4, Insightful)
Like I said before, don't bother with the crap about something else killing me. So I should go walk on the highway because I'm just as likely to die falling in my bathtub as I am by getting hit by a car? Give me a break. Anything that is clearly proven to unnecessarily and not accidentally kill tens of thousands of people, without even considering how many are sick for years before dying, is totally indefensible. Tobacco kills, it kills people around those who use it, and it's an ugly death no matter how it strikes. Do you think people should be allowed to drive drunk? Speed to their heart's content? Why not? Maybe because they might injure or kill somebody else, and sometimes do?
Spend some time with a relative who is dying of emphysema or cancer. Volunteer at a hospice. Maybe it will give you something to think about.
Parent
Re:Why? (Score:5, Funny)
I think we were drunk at the time.
Parent