Halo In Church Points Out ESRB Flaws 185
The recent controversy over church groups making use of Halo 3 to attract young men to their services continues to be a subject of debate outside of the fan press. GamePolitics notes that the debate is indicative of flaws in the ESRB's system, and in mainstream culture's understanding of those ratings. "When you look at it like that, it's hard to blame those who criticize bringing Halo into sacred space. For the most part the critics are not gamers and have no concept of the vast difference between Halo and GTA. All they know is that the games share a common M rating, a designation assigned by the game industry itself, theoretically for the protection of impressionable youth. For the uninitiated it's only logical to assume the content must be of a similar character as well. As someone who has played both, I'd argue that there is a world of difference between Halo and GTA."
Rating systems (Score:5, Insightful)
Read the bible lately? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yeah Halo and GTA are different! (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually that's not that all much different from having church sponsored paintball outings...
Suggested this myself (Score:5, Insightful)
And I agree with the summary that it only seems strange to those who don't know about gaming, and while I can understand their initial confusion, I'd hope that after an explanation and (at most) a demonstration, that they'd see that. For the most part, I've run into very little concern about these type of things from anyone (and yes I'm going to stereotype) who was not under 65 or so in our church. But I think it's our part as gamers/geeks/fill-in-your-term-here to explain away the FUD that some people seem to spread.
Re:Read the bible lately? (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in the day, before water purification techniques or even the understanding of what got a person sick and what didn't, wine was safer to drink than water. The wine they drink was also much less alcoholic than the wine we drink today. When Jesus turned water to wine as stated in the bible, think of it more like turning warm tap water to a cold soft drink or something along those lines.
And on the topic, there's a reason that movies give a basic reason for the rating. When I see an R rating for "Violence and adult language" it's different than if I see an R rating for "Nudity and extreme sexual content." The whole concept of a unified 5-slot rating system to classify offensiveness is completely intractable. The specific reasoning is much more useful to me, but nothing will ever trump parental involvement. Play Halo 3 for an hour or play GTA for an hour and you'll get a pretty decent, not complete, opinion of what the games' content is.
Re:Still out of place... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yeah Halo and GTA are different! (Score:3, Insightful)
Not every place in all churches are sacred space. (Score:3, Insightful)
I will be honest I have never played Halo. I have played Quake and Doom, and the later generations of those games. I am more into the Age of Empire type game and yes all of the above should not be played in the chapel.
For the rest of the Church well. I know that this is a radical idea but isn't that really up to the church and or the congregation of the church? My church tends to be more into the basketball and volley ball type of church activities and I don't think that I would be thrilled with video games in church but then that is my church and my opinion. Other churches have different ideas.
Seems sort of strange to even be discussing it since frankly it is none of our business.
What the hell (Score:1, Insightful)
So it's the ESRB's fault that this church decided to attract the young to a church event using a game that is clearly about violence. Even if you don't know what the rating of the game is the cover picture has a person with a gun in a military looking outfit. What did they think the game was about? Baking cookies with Jesus?
How is this different from movies? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's a wide range of stuff that's considered "mature." Some of it is mindlessly gory, some of it seriously handles mature topics.
That's not to say I buy the premise that Halo 3 is a great fit for church life. Maybe it's "Die Hard" instead of "Grindhouse," but that doesn't make it a good fit.
Re:Read the bible lately? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Read the bible lately? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Still out of place... (Score:2, Insightful)
The real problem lies with the retailers (Score:2, Insightful)
When I go to the video store, they have three distinct movie sections. They have the "kids" section with movies made for children of all ages (G movies, comparable to E and E10 games), then there's the "general" section which includes many subsections but range from family films to gruesome horror movies (PG to R, comparable to E10 to M), and the aptly named "adults only" section which is actually behind a closed door.
Now, I am a father of a young son. I know what he can and can't watch and play, and I control it. He is five, and I took him to see Transformers (a PG-13 movie) in the theater last week. The rating system is meant to be a general guideline as to the content of a movie, not a be-all-end-all indicator of all of the bad things that happen in a film. The game rating system is the same way.
What I'm really trying to get at here is that retailers need to get off the AO stigma and just stock those games. Put them in another room or just keep them behind the shelf and sell them only to grown adults. Retailers already are prepared to explain the ratings to kids and whether or not the games they want to buy are appropriate for their children, AO wouldn't really complicate things any. This way, we can give the games that truly deserve it (e.g. GTA, Manhunt, etc) the AO ratings and avoid a lot of confusion.
Am I the only one? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:ID in question... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well
Re:Still out of place... (Score:5, Insightful)
Many of which are morally reprehensible to any modern civilization.
Translating the commandment as "murder" turns it into a really impotent commandment. As long as the people already had a concept of "wrong" killing and "right" killing, then telling them "wrong" killing is wrong is pretty useless. The history of western civilization should prove that some stronger language was warranted.
Isn't Halo in Church Ironic? (Score:3, Insightful)
Am I the only one who sees irony in that *churches* are playing this game?
As an unbeliever, I find the irony both rich and oddly disturbing.