Bethesda Responds To Oblivion Re-Rating

Gamespot has details on Bethesda's response to the ESRB for their (some would argue) knee-jerk reaction to fan-added elements of Oblivion. From the article: "There is no nudity in Oblivion without a third party modification. In the PC version of the game only - this doesn't apply to the Xbox 360 version - some modders have used a third party tool to hack into and modify an art archive file to make it possible to create a mesh for a partially nude (topless) female that they add into the game. Bethesda didn't create a game with nudity and does not intend that nudity appear in Oblivion." They go on to state they submitted a 60-page document detailing the violence in the game. If anyone is at fault here, I think it's the ESRB.

Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st cent

You know one day we'll look back on the pre-Bush era in America as a golden age of freedom, where we acted more out of the desire to maintain our freedom than out of fear, paranoia, and ludicrous overreaction. We are now approaching the point where even the POSSIBILITY of an product's use is grounds for censorship or federal legislation, no matter how many might use that product legitimately.

Don't want the NSA monitoring your phone calls? Sorry, there is the POTENTIAL that terrorists could use it to call other terrorists.

Want to use myspace to talk with your friends? Sorry, there is the POTENTIAL that a pedophile might use it to harm you.

Want to mod your videogame? Sorry, there is the POTENTIAL someone could modify it to show more nudity or violence.

Want freedom of the press? Sorry, there is the POTENTIAL that something the press reveals could compromise our security.

Don't want the government to secretly demand all your Google search records, library book records, video store rentals, etc.? Sorry, there is the POTENTIAL that one of these could have been used by a terrorist to learn how to make a bomb.

-Eric

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

2 points:

1) I'm pretty sure you're referencing the DMCA. This was a product not of the Bush administration, but the Clinton administration.

2) Considering how most people seem to enjoy the concept of a nanny-state where their government will protect its citizens from "the bad people" (which may be Communists, terrorists, Socialists, homosexuals, hippies, pedophiles, athiests, intellectuals, liberals, etc), I'm pretty sure many people would enjoy living in a totalitarian regime that protects everone from being offended or shocked. Those who would not enjoy such a fate would likely be branded one of "the bad people".

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

But usually not until it's some of their friends and family, or even themselves, that are being sent to the prisons or dying. As long as it's the people they don't like being persecuted and killed they are fat, dumb, and happy.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

I have met my fair share of bad people in my life, but I have yet to meet anyone who considered themselves 'bad' or 'evil'. We have an amazing capacity to rationalize our behaviour. Most serial killers, dictators and child molestors consider themselves good people. Aside from a small group of mentally unbalanced, no one considers themselves 'evil'.

In the end, the _only_ good meassure I've seen of an individual is what they _do_. In other words, it does not matter if a practicing pedophile says he loves children and thinks that what he does is good for the children, it only matters that he molests children and by doing so scars them for life. That makes him a _bad_ person. Even if he thinks that he does what he does to make children happy.

A pedophile who does _not_ molest children but has the urge to do so is not a bad person. He is a sich person in need of help and with my sympathy.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

At this point, not much. However, there have been attempts at legally enforcing ESRB ratings. To my knowledge, most of them have been unsucessful (at least in the US). There is at least one law that I know for sure is an attempt to legally enforce the ESRB ratings, but it's in Canada. Bill 30 [legassembly.sk.ca] is the province of Saskatchewan's attempt to make it illegal to even advertise or display a game where someone under the ERSB rated age could see it. It doesn't have much opposition at the moment, as the government is playing the lame-assed "you want our children to see PORNOGRAPHIC VIDEO GAMES?!?" card to anyone who speaks up against it. While it isn't shutting me up, it kills almost any support I manage to cull.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

As much as I agree, and many of those statements are true, the "going after video games" trend is a bi-partistan thing. One of the heads of the inquest recently over Hot Coffee was Hillary Clinton. Both sides want to be seen as "making the world safe for our children" and moreover, don't want to be labeled as "wanting to make the world unsafe for our children" in political ads.

It's sad, but in the end the uninformed, uncaring voters are to blame.

-Kelt

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

As much as I agree, and many of those statements are true, the "going after video games" trend is a bi-partistan thing.

No, no, no. All crazy government interference started with GWB. Al Gore wasn't a huge supporter of the V-Chip and internet "controls" to "protect the kids". Tipper didn't go after explicit lyrics to "protect the kids". Joe Lieberman didn't start the first major congressional inquiry into violent video Games "for the kids".

None of this actually occured until Bush. He is destorying the country.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

You know one day we'll look back on the pre-Bush era in America as a golden age of freedom

Kinda like I already look back on the pre-Bush era of Slashdot... where we didn't blame every single thing we could irrationally connect to the President on him, and get modded up for it.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

That's called "responsibility." When you're in charge of the country, yes, you have to answer for everything that goes on.

That is so irrational. I got lost my virginity during the Clinton administration and I'll be god dammed if you are going to give him credit for it.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

where we didn't blame every single thing we could irrationally connect to the President on him, and get modded up for it

Exactly! That's what Microsoft was for, and we loved it!

Kids these days...

Mod Parent Down

The "security culture" that the parent speaks of isn't a purely Bush-administration thing. Clinton was just as bad (he passed the DMCA, for example, and helped work toward several "think of the children" measures.) Before that, the justification for anti-freedom laws was the threat of Communism. Before that, National Socialism. Before that, thwarting the Great Depression. And so on.

There has been an anti-freedom faction in American politics ever since the Alien and Sedition Acts. Blindly blaming everything on Bush, despite his horrid presidency, will get you nowhere.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

This "golden age of freedom" you reference never existed. Every president for the past 50 years has took away precious rights.

Clinton had a habit of pandering with the ever-so-popular "think of the children" in order to pass gun legislation in the wake of Columbine.

Even in the 1970's, Jimmy Carter first authorized the wiretapping many pan Bush (not to mention the countless other presidents who have used it) for employing.

Face it, the interests of those in power is to gain more power. It's not a left vs right thing.

The Good Old Days

I agree with parent. Remember the good old days of freedom? Can you recall how pleasant this world was when women stayed in the kitchen cooking a man his supper instead of going off to college and getting a job? Remember back when anarchists were jailed during World War I? Remember during the great depression when the federal government sweeped up a massive amount of power? Recall the good old days of World War II when the entire economy was turned to war and everyone of age was drafted? Recall how much more pleasant things were when we rounded up every single Japanese American on the west coast and put them in internment camps? Remember the pleasant days before the civil rights movement when them negros stayed with their own? Remember when we had nice clean segregated schools, buses, and water fountains? Remember the good old days of McCarthy when we hunted down those evil communist? How about the pleasant days of the Korean War where we drafted and killed Americans (to say nothing of Koreans) in the tens of thousands? Or how about the wonderful days of the Vietnam war where we drafted an entire generation and left our soldiers so fucked up that they would line up men, women, and children on the side of a road and shoot them all.

Get a grip. I'll take today over pretty much any time in 20th century. I am not saying today is a utopia either. I am saying that all eras had their problems. In fact, I would say that this era is far less fucked up, even with Bush drunk at the wheel, then most of the 20th century. 50 years ago I wouldn't have been able to merry my current girlfriend in the south because she isn't white. Up until 30 years ago since the 1900, I would have stood the risk of being drafted and sent off into a meat grinder of a war.

I am not saying you shouldn't be pissed at how things are, but don't hold up the past like it was some magical fairyland utopia because in a word or four, the past fucking sucked.

Re:Why I'm ashamed to be an American in the 21st c

Want video game developers to be free to work in their craft without the fear of government interference? Well, I hope you don't plan on voting for Hillary [senate.gov] in 2008.

This is insane.

People could paste a picture of "a partialy nude female" on their monitor while playing any game?

All games sould be rated M?

Hackers could possibly hack the ESRB website and add a picture of "a partialy nude female" on the site.

Sould the ESRB website be rated M?

Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

One could apply the same thinking to the original Hot Coffee debacle, that the content was only accessible via a third party hack. They got rerated, but somehow Bethesda wants to be treated differently?

I'm not saying I'm agreeing with this kind of crap, but it's nobody's fault but their own for including the content inside the game in some capacity and not cleaning it out after GTA suffered the same fate. They should just suck it up, and enjoy the free publicity.

Re:Hot Coffee 2: More Cream Please

Oblivion, on the other hand, does not have that content shipped with the game. It cannot be unlocked because it doesn't exist. What Bethesda did do, was make a tool set available so that players could make their own content for the game. There are dozens of player created mods available with new content that you can add to the PC VERSION ONLY. One of these player created mods happens to be a naked woman model.

Actually, that's not entirely true, at least in the PC version of the game.

In the packed BSA files there is a nude female mesh torso with a nude female texture associated to it. This mesh is meant to be used with armor and clothing to allow skin to show (arms, neck, upper chest, stomach, etc). The first nude mod released for Morrowind was simply this nude mesh and texture extraced from the BSA archive, renamed and placed in the proper directory.

As proof of this, Bethesda has not released a .nif exporter for Oblivion and only recently have people been able to create models for the game purely through the efforts of a few people reverse engineering the format (it's hardly complete and the support for models is limited at the moment).

Of course, I don't think it will be possible to use this mesh on the 360 version and Bethesda's 1.1 beta patch removes the nipples on the texture. Also, the nude mesh is horribly deformed to make it fit to clothing necklines better.

Just wanted to point out what the reality of the situation is... I think Bethesda is in the right on this matter (and Rockstar as well, btw).

-MD

everyone loves analogies.

let's say i go out and buy the lateset harry potter book. very nice. i find it in the children's section. then i decide to draw naughty pictures in the margins. uh oh! the book is now pornography! pull them all off the shelves and burn them!

Obviously an over reaction

The ERSB is obviously over reacting to this 'hack'. This isnt blatant nudity, this is a form that has textures applied over it to give the appearance of wearing clothing. If you actualy SAW the 'naked' image, all you see are wierd looking psudo breasts, that are not even complete. There is no nipple, there is no obvious sexuality. And there is certanly no minigame where you get to boink anywhere ALA hot coffee.

the ERSB is just rying to show they "putting their foot down" against nudity in games. Unfortunately they are doing it the wrong way, but that does not really matter to them. Walmart mom and k-mart dad don't really understand layered modeling and don't really care.

Why stop there ESRB

Why doesn't the ESRB just go ahead and label every PC game as mature since the same thing can be done to every other game. The ESRB has officially failed at doing their job.

AHHH !!! A TIT !!!! IN A MOD !!!

Won't somebody think of the children !?!?!

I believe they should also ban US children from travelling to the French Riviera since they'll get to see many more corrupting (and real-live) tits over there.

So...

Why isn't FFXI M? Hackers did the same with the mesh.

Yeah, it's rediculous

I'm gonna hack Super Mario Brothers DS. I'm gonna make it so that the princess will be topless, and Mario will be running around with his tallywacker swinging all over the place.

I'm gonna put it on the internet so that people can download it and install it.

ESRB is going to change the rating of Super Mario Brothers DS to "M" for mature.

Just you watch.

Y

if this keeps up Games will have to be sumited for

If this keeps up games may have to be submited for review by ESRB when they go gold and then given a rating after a review period.

america-where boobs are a bigger threat than guns.

I swear, we have more in common with the Islamic fundamentalists we're at war with than we have differences.

I can snap necks all goddamn day as Sam Fisher, but if there might be a possibility that a child might see OH CHRIST A BREAST HOLY SWEET JESUS FORFEND, everyone immediately jumps up their own butts.

How long until....

someone realizes people have been able to have households full of naked sims, and rerates The Sims to AO+?

Different Ratings?

So based on the details and the platform difference shouldn't tne ESRB technically let the the Xbox version stay at "Teen" and the PC version be upped to "Mature"?

Now that's something that would be interesting to explain to parents. =P

Re:Different Ratings?

Isn't Counter-Strike rated teen?

I recall there being a lot of custom sprays depecting explicit...err...content.

How about a standard ESRB warning:

"ESRB ratings do not reflect potential changes to content by online or modified play."

way to buckle under pressure

To the folks at the ESRB, way to buckle under pressure. Now you're (almost) useless as a ratings board. You can't ever please the people who are using you as a scapegoat, it isn't only futile to try, it's also damaging.

Fucking figures though... This kind of shit can be really scary in America. Go up against a jury of freedom-hating prudes, and you could be wiped out. But this sort of thing won't help.

Entertainment

What we really need to do is capture the hot coffee mod to video, then start releasing patches for games like SimCity, Railroad Tycoon, Bejeweled, etc... It wouldn't be that hard, simple dialog box and then play the video file.

Then sit back and watch the ESRB implode.

Windows?

Please, someone make a nudity hack to Solitaire...

On a completely unrelated note

Am I the only one who's getting a broken USAF flash ad that "leaks" over a part of the article due to borked transparency?

Well, if it wasn't for the ESRB....

We'd have just that many more welfare recipients running around.

I mean, where else can incompetant, lazy, worthless individuals rise to power to think they get to determine what content I or my children should or should not see.

That's a decision for me alone. If I determine that my 12 year old is mature enough to handle gore/violence/nudity whatever, that's my choice - not some dork pulling a god trip trying to force feed the nation their *opinion*.

ESRB is the symptom, not the cause

See, grasshopper, the ESRB isn't the enemy. The ESRB is a sort of reaction of the industry against an external attack. Because, make no mistake, the industry is under attack.

See, there's a lot of political capital in bravely fighting off a bogus but very visible threat. So there are a lot of demagogue politicians (think not only of top level figures like Lieberman, but also at local levels, lobby levels, and "non-political" organizations), two-bit media hacks, and parasitic lawyers jumping on any such target like sharks on a bloody piece of meat. And there are some trained sharks out there. They can smell the blood in the water even in homoeopathic quantities.

It's been so for a while. For example, long before video games even _existed_, politicians were savaging comics and presenting them as the great Satan that turns innocent kids into savage mass-murderers, rapists, etc. And then it was, in no particular order, tabletop games, music, movies, etc. And now it's video games. There's a lot of political capital in attacking video games.

And the main thrust of attack is invariably: "think of the children!!!" It's invariably been that somehow children are deceived into buying something inapropriate. Invariably the "villain" (be it a cartoonist, a rock musician or an overworked game developper) is presented as lurking sinister in the shadows, luring unsuspecting children into his spider web. Invariably it's painted as if little Billy thinks he's buying a Mickey Mouse comic or Barbie video game, but *WHAM* those dastardly villains gave him something that'll mind-control him into sacrificing all his classmates to Satan.

And games make a particularly good target there, because despite the statistics saying stuff like "the average gamer is 30", it's easy to present them as something that's by definition for kids. Once you've hand-waved that in, the rest is much easier. After that, by definition any game containing any kind of nudity, violence, etc, is obviously a devious attempt to peddle that kind of thing to the children.

The ESRB isn't the enemy, it's the industry's _defense_ to that attack. (As incompetent a defense as it may be at times.) The ESRB is the industry's way of being able to retort "well, fuck off. We wrote right on the box that it's a bloody gory game and it's not for pre-schoolers. We even told people where to look for that label. What more do you want? Blood?"

And for that to work, the ESRB _must_ basically overshoot. The sharks would _love_ to have even one single game that was labelled lower than its content warrants. Look at the media circus that happened about the GTA mod. (Even there, the ESRB were _not_ the ones that started it. They just reacted to the attack.) And make no mistake, that was a mod too. Now imagine what those scumbag politicians would do with a game where inapropriate content is available in the game as bought.

So again, the ESRB _must_ overshoot. If there's as little as two characters slapping each other, the ESRB _must_ have "Violence" written on the box. If two characters as little as kiss each other (and I don't even mean some particularly hot tongue-sucking two-hands-under-her-blouse kinda kiss), the ESRB _must_ have "Sexual Themes" written on the box. (Point in case, "The Sims" had both written on the box, and before the expansion packs slapping or occasionally kissing were _all_ a sim could do in both aspects.) Because, again, otherwise the consequences could be a lot worse.

So, no, if there's someone I'm disgusted with, it's the hypocrites that are the cause of it all, not with ESRB.

Potential Nudity Aside...

If you've played the game, there's more than enough violence and gore to earn a mature rating. I'm thinking in particular of the final Dark Brotherhood quest, and that daedra quest with the mad wizard...it was pretty "Resident Evil"-esque. Personally, I like the violence and gore. I don't really care that it's rated M, but I'm pretty sure the M rating is appropriate. The real question is how did the ESRB miss all of that gore? Maybe their just making a big deal about the topless mod to smokescreen the fact that the game should never have gotten a Teen rating.

Support Bethesda in the Cause!

I am sick of people hopping onboard the ethical bandwagon when something obscure, like nipples, could possibly be exposed to our once "breast fed" children. What the ESRB did was wrong. They should have done their homework on the nudity mod before making a re-rating of the game. I have placed a complaint to the ESRB concerning this problem and I ask that anyone else who loves this game do the same.

You can submit a comment/complaint here [esrb.org].

Nudity vs. Violence

Included in Oblivion without 3rd party plug-ins / add-ons:
Dismembered corpses; human skulls split apart by an axe; a person with his face crushed and his entrails hanging around; skeletons of babies trapped inside the catacombs of their own mother; and lots of other (very graphical) forms of violence .... Rated TEEN.

And now we have (through a 3rd party modification of a mesh already in game):
Nipples ... Rated M. Oh my god! Teh Horror! N I P P L E S . Ban it! O_o

Nudity vs. Sex

Why do people have such a hard time separating sex and nudity? A topless female figure? That's "Mature"? That makes no sense, even if it was part of the game and not a 3rd party modification.

ESRB responds to America's cultural climate

As I understand it, the ESRB exists to warn consumers of potentially offensive material and allow them to make a more informed purchase. This rating is based on the content of said purchase. I assert that this content includes multimedia assets and game code/instructions. I do not believe you can separate the two and rate the game based on one or the other, but instead must judge the product as a whole, as it is available to the end consumer.

Through modification of the code, nudity is available. This is a modification of the content, and must be downloaded after market, or explicitly written by the user. I don't believe the ESRB has the right to change the rating of a product based on what people in the market can do after the product's release, but should stick to rating what the product actual does do. Otherwise, they are no longer of use to anyone.

The only way I can see a justification for the action they have taken (and this is a slim chance) is if they are including the construction kit in the rating evaluation. Because with that, any user can modify the game's content, using software (more content) that shipped with the product. But this still would not justify the rating change on the xbox 360 version. I see no reason for that change other than fear of Hilary Clinton and her political agenda. I don't own Oblivion, so I am not aware if the construction set is a separate download or not on the PC version.

According to http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid= 16600 [gamesindustry.biz], the BBFC sees it this way as well.

doesn't make sense

how come american culture so affended about a pixelated boob, when USA has the biggest porn industry in the world ?

Damned if they do...

As absurd as the decision may initially seem, the ESRB is certainly in an unenviable position here. They're doing their level best to try and apply some sort of consistent standard to a medium that by its nature doesn't lend itself to consistency. AND they have to do this in light of the lessons learned from Hot Coffee controversy, with all the bad press (to say nothing of the litigation) it engendered. Can you really blame them for altering a rating? Free speech activists and anxious parents have this to distinguish them: anxious (not to say opportunistic) parents are much more likely to sue (and win) over something as apparently trivial as a content indicator. You can complain loud and long about ridiculous double standards, but at the end of the day, the ESRB is sort of a compromise between free speech and the (oft-understandable) parental desire to have at least some pre-purchase indication of what goes on inside a game. This isn't censorship; no one's access to Oblivion is being cut off. As many have pointed out, there was enough violent content to make at least an arguable case for an 'M' rating to begin with.

The real problem here is the ESRB apparently shifting positions every time there's a complaint. If the ratings on the box aren't trustworthy AS OF THE DATE OF RELEASE, and are constantly subject to some sort of bizarre democratic revision every time someone's curious tot downloads a shady mod, then both free speech and parental information are frustrated. The ensuing vicious cycle will lead to more debate, more lawsuits, and less trust than ever in an industry already struggling for legitimacy. If the ESRB doesn't work, then legislators will step in, and we all know where that leads.

I find it far more offensive...

...that they put breasts on reptiles. Dear god, think of all those kids who play Oblivion and end up looking for tits on a snake.

Someone needs a girlfriend

"some modders have used a third party tool to hack into and modify an art archive file to make it possible to create a mesh for a partially nude (topless) female that they add into the game."

Someone out there really needs a girlfriend.. BAD.

When Ratings Cease to Rate

1. ESRB rates games that have slightly questionable content accessed via modding up to M.

2. Half the games on the market become M. When Little Johnny shows off some M games to mom and dad they learn the ratings don't mean much.

3. ???

4. Pro... err, The Coalition of Nipple strikes another blow at the moral underpinnings of American society. President finally has rallied enough support to officially declare his War on Boobies.

Shouldn't Bethesda be filing a lawsuit?

If the ESRB flat out lied and implied that the topless skin was already in the game, whereas this response seems to indicate that the skin was added by 3rd party modders, shouldn't they be filing a lawsuit? I mean, this is pretty much the definition of libel and it's going to hurt Bethesda's sales.

Pictures=dirty

So, essentially, as far as the ESRB is concerned, any game capable of taking an image and mapping it onto a surface should be rated mature, since, well, you could always hack it to display something obscene.

My thought?

Every game maker should add a disclaimer similar to the one used for online play:

"Game experience may vary when used in conjunction with third-party products which alter game functionality. Third-party content and experience resulting from modification are not rated by the ESRB."

(Of course, if parents really cared to control what their children were experiencing, they would install the games for them, using privileged accounts to which their children didn't have passwords, on an operating system whose security features weren't easily evaded, and their children wouldn't have the permissions to alter any of the game files in the first place. But since repeated surveys (and not just in the US) show consistently that parents don't actually pay much attention to what their children are playing, and don't effectively limit what they purchase or play by rating anyway, that probably doesn't matter. The ratings and videogame makers are, largely, just something else to blame for the effects of parental neglect.)

How about WoW?

I'm using since some months a mod for WoW that makes females and males from the eight races, plus succubus, show everything (and I mean it) when unequipped. It's very fun to walk around the main game cities with this installed, since there's always one or more people running or dancing around without equipment. Should the ESRB then rate WoW "mature"? What a nonsense...

The rating system should be changed. Instead of a single "Teens", "Children", "Mature" etc. rating, this should be multi-layered system. The box should have something like this:

- Violence: Extreme
- Sex: Low (may increase)
- Language: Explicit

"Enter code XXXXXX at
www.esrb.org for details."

Puting into the parents hands the burden of deciding what is and isn't appropriate for their children.

In short: any kind of measurement must be somewhat precise. There's no precision at all in compressing these different dimensions into a generic "this is okay for teens, that isn't".

ESRB Urges "M" Rating for Photoshop and IExplorer

Oblivion was the tip of the iceberg - next on their list are tools and viewers of the fruits of those tools.

In some ways it makes sense

Doesn't it make sence in some ways that a game that could possibly be modified outside the parents control should be labled as such? Maybe this labeling organisation (ESRB) should make themselves a new category scheme that says the experience could change over time, but the game itself is basically ok.

However, as many other Europeans, I still don't get how swearing and sex in a game makes it more dangerous than the voilence it's gameplay is based on. I remember a girl I know teling me about her Syrian father's opinion that "sex is more dangerous than voilence". Some people just need to adjust their compass...

Well, time to go out and beat up some hoockers! Oh yea...

Let's just get this straight once and for all.

Bethesda CREATED the material. The nude textures and the nude meshes using said textures. It takes a third party mod to unlock them. The third parties did not create the material and, as far as I know, it's impossible for them to do so considering that a mesh exporter has yet to be released (nor any news pertaining to actual work being done on one last time I looked.) And for those of you thinking bad thoughts, a NIF exporter would allow us to do a lot of legitimate things such as new weapons, new armors, even better looking creatures or performance enhancing things such as the removal of the mind numbingly massive number of polygons dedicated to creatures that don't need them like the bear.

So, for the record, a third party mod is required to unlock the material, but, Bethesda created the material and then later renamed the model file so they could put in a different version with underwear welded to the people's skin without overwriting the original. They then placed this in the final game rather than removing it (along with a lot of other crap that doesn't belong, but, this is the only thing that's doing more than taking up extra space.) Third parties did not create the material. Please stop saying over and over that they did.

Tonight On the News

Camera sales to minors (including in cell phones) is banned because some censorship ghit realizes that you can use them to make porn.

Video and image display software (including web browsers) fight against similar restrictionx.

A request.

Can someone make a disgusting MOD for this- http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/action/americasarmyopera tions/index.html [gamespot.com] game.
I just love the idea of the US Army product getting a newer harsher rating because of a third party 'gay unclefucker gimp soldier' skin.

This really sets a dangerous precedent, to punish a company for an extension to a product that they have not made. It is exactly as stupid as Marvel (I think it was) suing the makers of 'City Of Heroes' because the users could create characters of their choice. You might as well censor school textbook publishers because of all the penis cartoons 'third-parties' have added.

barbie and ken should be rated 18+, too...

at least, with some minor modifications (stripping) you can get them both NAKED! With nipples!

I even saw them in PR0N on the internet. No really there was this YouTube flick where... ah, anyway.

We Europeans have some problems of our own, but this whole "no-nudity-concept" seems even more flawed (and older, obviously) than the DMCA.

Oblivion will get a 'Nudity' descriptor.

Check out these two PDF's from http://www.esrb.org/about/news.jsp [esrb.org]

1: http://www.esrb.org/about/news/downloads/oblivion_ parent_advisory.5.3.06.pdf [esrb.org]
2: http://www.esrb.org/about/news/downloads/oblivion_ release_5.3.06.pdf [esrb.org]

You will actually see that Oblivion will now require a 'Nudity' descriptor to be placed on the box.

This is unbelievable! I've finished the game and am through my second time and not once have i EVER seen nudity!

Although... seeing 'Nudity' on the box would make me more likely to buy it. :)

Clarification...

Okay, someone clarify here.

I got into an argument with a friend over this. He says that the nude art files were "included on the disc, but never accesible in the game" and that's why the ESRB changed the rating. I thought he just hadn't seen this gamespot article and didn't know, but is the statement here just cleverly worded to make it SOUND like someone added in the nude mod? For example:

FTFA:
"...modders have used a third party tool to hack into and modify an art archive file to make it possible to create a mesh for a partially nude (topless) female that they add into the game."

Does this mean they assemble the nude mesh from art files Bethesda created and then add that mesh to the game?

Or does that mean that they added a nude mesh that was made from a graphically altered art file by a third-party modder to appear nude?

My question is, is there a nude file on the disc that was never used, or did someone take an art file that normally applies to female characters and add their own bared mammaries?

show them how it's done

Someone really needs to release a 'patch' for a simple, harmless, and very kiddie-rated game to make it a hardcore porno. The same principles are being tested that get games like GTA and this game more extreme ratings, and I doubt they'll red-flag something intended to be so 'innocent'.

Re:False?

Mod the AC up!!!! Finally, somebody else that actually has a clue about what's being talked about here instead of all the "it's all added content created by third party" bullshit.

Re:Why is That the Issue?

An excellent, obvious, unanswerable point. It's okay to deal death by blade, poison or flashy spell (heck, for a small fee all is NPC-forgiven...even after depopulating an entire town). But throw in a lil titty and you've just gone too damn far. :)