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Classic Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Nolan Bushnell Condemns Grand Theft Auto 103

Posted by simoniker from the who's-chuck-e-cheese's-daddy? dept.
Thanks to Newsweek for their extremely short, but somewhat illuminating mini-interview with Nolan Bushnell, timed to coincide with this weekend's Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas. The founder of Atari and creator of the RoboCat briefly summarizes Atari's glory days: "Since we were so limited with graphics then, we had to focus on gameplay", but is dismissive of today's violent titles, saying: "I don't like the ones that glorify antisocial behavior, like Grand Theft Auto and Vice City. We actually had a rule at Atari, which seems kind of quaint now, that you could blow up a tank, a plane, a car - but you couldn't do violence against a human." There are more complete interviews with Bushnell archived at the San Jose Tech Museum site and at Joystick101.org.
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Nolan Bushnell Condemns Grand Theft Auto More

Nolan Bushnell Condemns Grand Theft Auto

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  • A human in the vehicle (Score:3, Interesting)

    by henrik ( 98 ) on Monday August 11, 2003 @05:39AM (#6664038)
    There is usually a human in the tank, plane and car. So I do not see the reason for this double standards. In a free society you should be able to manufacture and play whatever games you like. Anything else is a serious limitation of the basic human rights.

    • Re:A human in the vehicle (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MORTAR_COMBAT! ( 589963 ) on Monday August 11, 2003 @07:50AM (#6664625)
      In a free society you should be able to manufacture and play whatever games you like.

      Unless I'm missing something, he's not saying anything contrary to this. He's saying that Atari had a particular guideline, not that the government had a law. Also he's pointing out (correctly) that we can point at these violent games and say that they are harmful and should be shunned -- after all he is just excercising his freedom of speech here.

      A lot of laws don't make sense, but a little social reproach can go a long way toward affecting positive change. If drug addicts were shunned like lepers (instead of being glorified through film and books), it would probably go further to reduce drug usage that the stack of penal code we currently have written.
      • Damn straight.

      • Re:A human in the vehicle (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Drey ( 1420 )
        Mr. Bushnell has a selective memory [atariage.com]. Outlaw (the Sears version was Gunslinger) featured a pair of gunfighters trying to shoot each other. They looked human [atariage.com], as much so as anything could on an Atari 2600.
        • Note to self: read all posts before posting duplicate information.
        • If you don't think that there is a difference between (a) a pair of gunfighters trying to shoot each other in a blocky recreation of an "Old West Shootout" and (b) driving through the streets of a realistic 2000-era city, running people over, killing cops and prostitutes and homeless people...
          • He didn't say that, dumbass. He said that Bushnell was trying to take the high road while ignoring products turned out by his own company. Bushnell's quote is that humans weren't to be killed. Gunslinger clearly showed that this guideline wasn't set in stone.

            • The parent in the thread says:
              In a free society you should be able to manufacture and play whatever games you like. Anything else is a serious limitation of the basic human rights.


              He didn't mention any "high road", he mentioned "human rights" and "free society".
          • From the article:

            I don't like the ones that glorify antisocial behavior, like Grand Theft Auto and Vice City. We actually had a rule at Atari, which seems kind of quaint now, that you could blow up a tank, a plane, a car--but you couldn't do violence against a human.

            Outlaw most certainly glorified anti-social behavior and depicted violence against humans.

            The vividness of the violence shown in current games is not at issue - Bushnell said he didn't allow any depiction of violence against humans, and y

    • Sorry man, but we happen to be human beings, not some Tabula Rasa in a liberal wet dream. Us humans, especially the little ones we tend to call children, react differently when watching violence enacted upon images of human beings, than we react when watching violence enacted against machines which would technically contain a human being. Double standard? Yeah. Smart double standard? You better believe it.

      Surprisingly to you no doubt, a free society allows individuals to choose to impose their own s
      • What does money have to do with it? Perhaps some of us "free individuals" simply ENJOY games such as GTA.

        If you believe, as you say, "a free society allows individuals to choose", why do you seem so down on the choices some of us make?
        • Though you might not know it, the designers of GTA created the game not out of selfless love, but out of the desire to make money selling it. Their choices about content were made with the idea of selling more games.

          Why am I down on the choices some people make in a free society? Now there is a loaded question. I do agree with freedom, and I do agree that political systems need to guarantee freedom to their citizens. That does not mean that I would like to live in a society where people are not limite
          • That does not mean that I would like to live in a society where people are not limited by tradition and morality.

            Insert "my" in front morality, right? You don't want to live in a society that is not limited by _your_ morality.

            The West has stopped having children.

            This is pure BS. I am 26. Of my friend group, I know of easily half a dozen people who have had kids in the last year. The American fertility rate is 2.08. That's slightly above replacement level. (It may be less in Europe, but I don't pretend

            • Re:A human in the vehicle (Score:4, Interesting)

              by Henry V .009 ( 518000 ) on Monday August 11, 2003 @11:05AM (#6666280) Journal
              No, not my morality, actually. Any morality at all would be kind of nice. I am a great fan of Asian culture. Judaism possesses an admirable morality. I find Islamic politics disgusting and evil, but I love the warmth and basic hospitality that they have as a people. Christianity is the morality of the culture I was born in, however, and that's the one I'll fight for here. I'd expect other cultures to fight for their own as well.

              The American fertility rate is 2.08. The non-Hispanic white American fertility rate is 1.84 (in 1998, I believe from the same CDC study that found the total 2.08 figure). That's far better than the European rate of 1.4. Japan has a worse rate than either.

              Now, in Japan, population decline will probably stop well before population hits zero. And because Japan is not importing vast numbers of immigrants to solve its population problem, it will probably maintain its culture. The problems it will face because of population decline will be primarily economic.

              In the U.S., it is the Hispanic birth rate that almost entirely makes up for the sub-replacement white birthrate. By 2050, the majority white American population will be a minority and still shrinking. I don't have a problem with Hispanic culture. But I'm not eager to see it replace my own. (Utah is the big exception to the American demographic trend with a fertility rate of 2.71 -- Mormons, you know. Without Mormons, the white trend would be far bleaker.) Moreover, immigration not only increases population, but immigrants currently bring with them a far higher birth rate than our current one. The comparative immigration to native birth rate ratio is far higher than it has ever been in America (since Columbus, that is). And we all know how much fun the natives had after Columbus.

              In Europe, of course, the demographic picture is far worse. And Europe is importing the difference from the Islamic world. There is no word for it but replacement. And it's a demographic event that is completely unprecedented.

              If you want a better discussion of the figures than I have provided (and with a bibliography and all the fun stuff), check out Buchanan's The Death of the West. You may not agree with his politics, but he does lay out the demographic picture rather well.
              • The American fertility rate is 2.08.

                So how does that jibe with your comment that 'the west has stopped having babies'? Again, that's replacement level.

                Japan has a worse rate than either.

                Japan is the West all of the sudden? A minute ago you were talking about the west...

                I don't have a problem with Hispanic culture. But I'm not eager to see it replace my own.

                Why? Hispanic culture is more strongly rooted in devout Christianity than the average European culture.

                The comparative immigration to native
                • So how does that jibe with your comment that 'the west has stopped having babies'? Again, that's replacement level.

                  Re-read the comment, please. If you miss what I wrote on that a second time, I'll respond.

                  Japan is the West all of the sudden? A minute ago you were talking about the west...

                  Point out where I said Japan was the West, please.

                  Why? Hispanic culture is more strongly rooted in devout Christianity than the average European culture.

                  Why should that make me eager to have Hispanic culture r
                  • Point out where I said Japan was the West, please.

                    I originally responded to your comment about the West's birth rate, disputing it's veracity. I even further commented that I was only knowledgable (and interested in discussing) the US specifically.

                    Then you responded with unrelated facts - like the birth rate in Japan.

                    Are we talking about the West, or are we talking about Japan?

                    It's impossible to coherently discuss a topic with someone who brings in unrelated facts, or has "topic creep", where the one i
                    • We were talking about replacement because of population decline. I brought up Japan because it was an example of a population that will not be replaced despite declining birth rate. And I also pointed out the reason that it will not be replaced: no immigration. I fail to see why I need to explain this in detail to you, it's obvious from reading the post.

                      You claim that we "were not talking about 'cultural pressure'. We were talking about birth rate."

                      Yet in the quote that started this discussion:
                    • Again, topic creep, and little to no responses to my points.

                      We were talking about replacement because of population decline. I brought up Japan because it was an example of a population that will not be replaced despite declining birth rate.

                      Why did you bring it up? America has a birth rate that is higher than replacement level. If we are talking about America (which is, as I said, is all I'm talking about), what does this have to do with the topic at hand?

                      You claim that we "were not talking about 'cul
                    • Why did you bring it up? America has a birth rate that is higher than replacement level. If we are talking about America (which is, as I said, is all I'm talking about), what does this have to do with the topic at hand?

                      Let me try to do this simply:

                      Thrasymachus: "The West has stopped having children. In a hundred years, our current free society will have been completely replaced in a way far more thorough than the Roman Empire was replaced."

                      Indead: "Why? Give me facts, not hyperbole."

                      Thrasymachus:
                    • You've proven yourself wrong with that quote.

                      Quote 1 of yours :

                      "The West has stopped having children."

                      Quote 2 of yours :

                      "The American fertility rate is 2.08."

                      Obviously, if the American fertility rate is 2.08, then America has NOT stopped having children.

                      (Again, I've stated multiple times that I'm only talking about America.)

                      What does immigration and birth rates have to do with the "death of freedom"?

                      Once our civilization replaced by Hispanics is America, and Muslims in Europe, it will have many of
                    • Where did I ever claim that America had stopped having children? You may only be talking about America, but my posts were talking about the West, and I made that quite clear from the start. I could care less how you would have personally liked to limit my discourse, especially since I brought up the subject in the first place.

                      The West has a civilization much more favorable to liberty than the other civilizations of the world. It is not an 18th century invention by a few Americans. Instead, the evolut
                    • America is part of the West, is it not? I stated somewhere above that while what you stated may be true about Europe, it's NOT true about America. And if it's not true about America, your statement was either incorrect or too broad.

                      Since I specifically stated that I was talking about America, if you agree that I'm correct about America's place in your theory, then why didn't you say so instead of stretching this out over several posts.

                      My point is this : in regards to America at least, you have made severa
                    • So you are saying that the United States and its majority Western culture and population will not be mostly replaced by a non-Western culture and a non-Western population over the next century? What exactly will convince Hispanics to ditch their culture or stop reproducing and immigrating at a faster rate than other American populations?

                      Culture could never be something that is hard-coded. It partakes in our higher functions of language and reason far more than it does in our temperamental inclinations w
                    • People in labor unions also tend to vote democrat. This indicates there is a "labor union culture", sure, but it doesn't mean that those in labor unions don't also partake in American culture, and believe in the American way of life. This is why the term "subculture" was coined. I would say that black America is a subculture of America, just as there are countless other subcultures.

                      In fact, I am no big expert on Black culture, but I would assume there were lots of different subcultures within black America
                    • I did not coin the term "the West." If I had been forced to make up my own word, you can be sure that I would not have picked a compass direction. I am sure that you have heard of Samuel Huntington, whose book "The Clash of Civilizations" has been rather popular in foreign policy discussion for the past couple of years. He discusses the civilizations as cultural entities in the second chapter of his book, and after reviewing the historical lists of modern civilizations, he formulates this one: Sinic, Ja
                    • How would it invalidate any of my previous points about the U.S. taking on the characteristics of Hispanic civilization as it becomes majority Hispanic?

                      I never said it would not take on characteristics of other cultures (in fact I said that it would) - what I DID dispute was your assertion that this would result in "the death of freedom", and also your idea that these people would not simply take on the primary aspects of American culture - just as African-Americans and all other immigrants have. America
                    • It is quite disingenuous to state that Hispanic immigration is the same as Italian or Irish immigration. There are the cultural factors that I have already mentioned, as well as the simple fact that neither Italians nor Irish came in numbers large enough to become a majority in the country. This is a new thing. What makes you so hopeful that American freedom can survive the replacement of the current culture? This sort of great migration is unique in our history.

                      Further, your holistic statements about
                  • "I'm an atheist for God's sake" Please tell me you said this in jest. I may even use it as my sig.
                    • First off, you actually read this discussion? I thought that I was just trolling back a troll here.

                      And yeah, it was partly a joke. But it really is just a figure of speech. The 1960's attitude of changing the roots of language to root out evil thoughts of the white, male dominated, theist culture that developed it (he --> he/she type stuff) was stupid then and it's just silly now. Meaning trumps form, you see.
                    • I am an atheist and I say similar things all the time. Just part of the general vocabulary.
                    • First off, you actually read this discussion? I thought that I was just trolling back a troll here.

                      So, you _are_ trolling? I thought maybe you were. I'm not.

  • it had to be said... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 11, 2003 @05:42AM (#6664046)
    Entertainment is often controversial. Whether one is speaking of stage productions, film, television, novels, or computer games, one often runs the risk that certain individuals will leap to the conclusion that the existence of negative behavior, self-destructive actions, and antisocial characters proves the approval of such behavior or characters. If there is to be conflict in a story, film, or game, there have to be bad guys. Bad guys make the art forms more interesting and the victory more satisfying.

    In computer games, the gamer wants to experience and cause the results, not merely watch or hear. The easiest way to allow the gamer to cause the results is to build in cause and effect contingencies. Unfortunately, portraying violence and its reprehensible aftermath is the easiest and most commonly used means to give the gamer this opportunity to directly cause something to happen on the screen.

  • Bushnell's an idiot. (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How long before we can see skins for Vice City with his face?
  • I remember playing a game where 2 cowboys tried to shoot each other. So much for the no humans rule?
    Or was it some sort of unauthorized game?
    It was so long ago, might even ne confusing it with another console. But I definitely remember the blocky look being exactly like the 2600's graphics.
    • If you're on about the Atari 2600 game, which I think was called Outlaw, the cowboys simply sat down when shot. Lets face it, with those lo-res graphics, they could be firing bean bags at each other for all we know...

    • Probably not a lie (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Sangloth ( 664575 ) <MaxPandeNO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Monday August 11, 2003 @06:09AM (#6664127)
      I worked for Nolan Bushnell at uWink, very quickly I heard his complaints about the excessive violence of first person shooters. His opinion never strayed. He praised non-violent games, and was disgusted with violent ones.

      A quick look at the games uWink has should show his outlook. All the games uWink has are non-violent. The only games which could be an exception was Scarab and Baloon Popper, and they were:
      A) Not in the least bit bloody.
      B) Part of the Software aquired from Playnet. While Playnet technically had Nolan's name on it, it didn't have his active involvment like uWink.

      All the games created by uWink don't even have a hint of meanness in them. They are all like Pong in spirit, in that they deal with falling blocks, cards, or mental puzzles. These are the types of games that Nolan wanted to create. If there was a bloody Atari game, it was probably created after the point where Nolan lost control.

      Sangloth
      I'd appreciate any comment with a logical basis...it doesn't even have to agree with me.

      • Re:Probably not a lie (Score:3, Informative)

        by pmz ( 462998 )
        If there was a bloody Atari game, it was probably created after the point where Nolan lost control.

        I remember Doom being a flagship game for the Jaguar, at least in the marketing. Although I never had a Jaguar, my Lynx games were generally pretty clean (actaully the Lynx was a pretty darn good hand-held).

    • Re:Lies! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by robbway ( 200983 ) on Monday August 11, 2003 @06:17AM (#6664166) Journal
      That was the game of Outlaw [atariage.com]. It was manufactured by Atari and mimicked arcade games of the same theme. I had to make sure there was nothing in the manual [atariage.com] about robot gunslingers, and there isn't. It's definitely human murdering human.

      Various other people-killing games were not by Atari. It's commented further down about Custer's Revenge and such. They don't count. However, the Circus Atari [atariage.com] and Sky Diver [atariage.com] games had the people go splat if they hit the ground.

      I guess violence against people is a sliding scale, after all. However, in a game where human peril is part of the action, isn't it appropriate to show the consequences? If not, you get the Tom & Jerry effect (spoofed on Simpsons by Itchy and Scratchy) where people complain about examples of violence with no consequences. I think all this proves is that people will complain about games for the sake of complaining.

      Lemonade? Please!

      • at was the game of Outlaw. It was manufactured by Atari and mimicked arcade games of the same theme. I had to make sure there was nothing in the manual about robot gunslingers, and there isn't. It's definitely human murdering human.

        There is even a ride that Atari made for Chuckie Cheese type places where you sit on a horse and have a cowboy gun (real looking..) and play outlaw. Bushnell has always talked about being against violence in video games, but the policy at atari wasn't very well enforced.

      • Bushnell's own personal sliding scale varies with how much money he can make, it seems.
    • Don't forget that ghost of custards' last stand game. rape, murder, and dead people all in one game.
  • Bushnell-" Violence against humans is something we never would have tolerated in our games.. but violence against Dots that was openly supported.
    Every day we had a new way to torment that dot from being smacked around by other dots or being eat by a big yellow duck."

  • No, not against a human... (Score:4, Funny)

    by tgrotvedt ( 542393 ) on Monday August 11, 2003 @05:48AM (#6664066) Journal
    But what about all those aliens coming to Earth that only wanted to share their knowledge and love of flying in formation with us? Huh? Insensitive bastard...

    • But what about all those aliens coming to Earth that only wanted to share their knowledge and love of flying in formation with us? Huh? Insensitive bastard...

      Man, that takes me back. One of my projects for Assembly class was to write a Space Invaders clone. My partner and I decided to make the "invaders" friendly, ASCII smileys that dropped ASCII hearts. The player's job was to obliterate the peaceniks.

  • Custer's Revenge (Score:2, Informative)

    by slothman32 ( 629113 )
    What about Custer's Revenge? Doesn't that inflict pain on people. I haven't played it but it seems to be against the "but you couldn't do violence against a human" rule. That rule doesn't seem to apply to aliens and monsters as well. Does Atari have some bias against them? I do agree that modern games have less gameplay and more graphics especially violence than earlier in games' life.
    • That game wasn't published by Atari, so I don't think it applies to them. Besides, I've played the game (found it in a rom package). The woman didn't look in pain; in fact, she had what appears to be a big toothless grin on her face.

    • Re:Custer's Revenge (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bigbigbison ( 104532 ) * on Monday August 11, 2003 @09:35AM (#6665369) Homepage
      Atari didn't have a licencing program or any lock-out chips like nintendo, therefore anyone coupld make atari games without asking permission. atari did not make custer's revenge. i'm sure that bushnell was talking about games the he or his companies made, not games that were made for his company's hardware.

  • Exceptions (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Craig Maloney ( 1104 ) * on Monday August 11, 2003 @05:49AM (#6664069) Homepage
    I guess Gunfighter was an exception to that rule, then (A game where two cowboys try to shoot at each other). And don't get me started on the violence of Human Cannonball. :)
    • I know I had more fun creatively killing the cannonballer than I did getting him into the water tank. Past a certain point, getting him into the tank wasn't much of a challenge.

      However,
      "ou
      ch" never failed to delight.
  • After all the Degenatron [degenatron.com] is way cooler than any old Atari piece of junk. :-)

  • Wait a sec (Score:2, Insightful)

    by darkmayo ( 251580 )
    The Atari.. right the system that has a texas chainsaw massacre game(where you where you play leatherface) Custers Revenge (where you raped a indian woman who was tied up) and E.T. (where your childhood memories of the Spielberg classic where turned into a neverending nightmare of open pits.)

    • Your examples:
      Texax Chainsaw Massacre [atariage.com]

      Custer's Revenge [atariage.com]

      ... neither was made by Atari. You can't exactly blame Atari for 3rd party games, can you.

      • The was it the console itself he was referring to to having the strict rules or just the games Atari developed.

        Wouldn't have Atari been able to stop the production of these "questionable" third party games (pretty much the entire Mistique library)they own the rights to the console.. shouldn't they have say over who made games for it.

        We can still blame them for E.T. (strangely enough I didn't complete the game twice in a row before turning it off for good when I was a kid.)

        • they own the rights to the console.. shouldn't they have say over who made games for it.

          They wanted those rights ... and lost the court battle. That's what opened the door for 3rd party developers to form.

  • Blowing Up Tanks (Score:3, Funny)

    by patch-rustem ( 641321 ) on Monday August 11, 2003 @06:01AM (#6664098) Homepage Journal
    We actually had a rule at Atari, which seems kind of quaint now, that you could blow up a tank, a plane, a car - but you couldn't do violence against a human.

    That's seems like some really relaxed rules you had. Where I work in the UK, the health and safety guy has banned us from blowing up anything.

  • Can't do violence against a human? My freshly swallowed arrow-wielding squarebody surrenders.

  • Cheese (Score:2, Funny)

    by bjb ( 3050 )
    "All under the watchful eye of a 7 foot robotic rat."

    Makes ME feel safe leaving my kids there.

  • Published by Atari, not only are you hacking up wandering monsters but you slaughter Humans (and demi-humans) too. Your character also has the choice to be good or murdereously evil, so I suppose that renders his (don't harm humans) a rather moot point.

    • Ah, but he's talking of old Atari. (The modern atari is Infogrames, which got the name around the time the actual game development company was sold to Midway - and they quitted recently. Or something like that.) Infogrames, on the other hand, has done many many bloody games through their history. =/ (Can't remember any others right now, but my earliest Infogrames memory was North & South, which was a war game, admittedly one with comedic edge...) We'll yet see how well they bring honor the old trademark

  • It seems a little odd for the inventor of a game where you manipulate breasts so that you can catch somone and "score" to be condemning anything. Not that rape is what is implied, but the lack of taste certainly is pretty evident. Yes, GTA is a violent game, and yes you are required to do some pretty nasty things to win. Technology limitations of the time notwithstanding, however, I find Gotcha to be more tasteless, especially when stopping to consider what the game if made with modern technology might look
  • Ok, sure, GTA3 is not filled with animated care bears.....but if you ever watch the shooting someone animation it truly is over to top, meaning to me that it falls past the point of being serious and to the point of being funny. I just got back into playing this game and I still love it. Now, I know he was refering to old atari games but lets look at a recent title by Atari "Enter the Matrix." I mean, you do nothing other then shoot people in that game. Well, I'll keep playing GTA3 and games like it as
    • Ok, sure, GTA3 is not filled with animated care bears.....


      but it sure would be fun if it was! Hmm, carebear meet mr chainsaw...
      • In all technicality the chainsaw didn't appear until Vice City.

        But it would be funny to shoot one of their heads off with the sniper rifle...
        • n all technicality the chainsaw didn't appear until Vice City. But it would be funny to shoot one of their heads off with the sniper rifle...


          hahaha you didn't know the chainsaw code for gta3!
    • That's a good point...plus, I've been enjoying GTA3 for over a year now, while I played Enter the Matrix just long enough to see all the FMV before returning it. He laments over game developers letting gameplay slip while Atari hasn't put out a ground-breaking (or even entertaining) title in probably a decade.

      IMO, GTA3 broke ground with its ability to give you an open world to explore while still presenting meaningful and challanging goals. Enter the Matrix, on the other hand, made me want to vomit.
      • Nolan Bushnel hasn't been directly associated with Atari for something going on ten (or more, 15?) years now...

        He also lost control of the company prior to that... (Which is what allowed the creation of the Gunslinger/Outlaw Game.)

        Perhaps 10 years back is before your time though...
        • It was actually more like 25 years ago...Warner bought Atari towards the end of the 70s, I believe.

          Your point is moot, though. I wasn't blaming Bushnell for Atari's crap...I was reinforcing the parent's statement that violence isn't necessarily a substitute for gameplay. Bushnell is a bit more removed from industry than I thought if he actually believes that.
  • It should be noted that Rockstars games do one thing he should be proud of: Focus on gameplay. Is there a more replayable game on the market to rival the GTA's? I doubt it...
  • One question... How is Atari doing now? How is Rockstar doing now?

  • I had nightmares from Atari (Score:3, Funny)

    by chia_monkey ( 593501 ) on Monday August 11, 2003 @10:51AM (#6666138) Journal
    Suuuuure...no violence against humans. But criminy...how many of you had nightmares of being eaten by a blocky aligator like in "Pitfall"? I shudder to rehash those memories!

    Or of being a frog and trying to hop across the street. I'm afraid to cross highways now for fear of being squashed. Wait...now that I think about it...there were scary aligators in that too.
  • We actually had a rule at Atari, which seems kind of quaint now, that you could blow up a tank, a plane, a car - but you couldn't do violence against a human."

    THis coming from the company that paid their programers slave wages and gave no written credit for games authored. Yeah, Atari was a great comapny "back in the day"

  • Rule (Score:1)

    by n0wak ( 631202 )
    We actually had a rule at Atari, which seems kind of quaint now, that you could blow up a tank, a plane, a car - but you couldn't do violence against a human.

    So, in other words:

    We actually had a rule at Atari, which seems kind of quaint now, that you could blow up three pixels, three pixels, three pixels -- but you couldn't do violence against three pixels.
  • I'm sick and tired of GTA getting this flack because of its subject matter. It's a gangster game. It's also a simulation. Most of the violence the game is condemned for is the choice of the player, not the goal of the game. You can beat both GTA3 and Vice City without "beating a granny to death".

    Let me tell you all something. I played a game on the Playstation once that was a racing game. You could race through cities. (I'm sorry, the name escapes me.) There are bystanders in the street. What happ

  • Some people don't like violent "R"-rated movies... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AvantLegion ( 595806 ) on Monday August 11, 2003 @10:10PM (#6672120) Journal
    ... and we just accept their feelings and let them hold that opinion, and go about watching them if we so wish.

    Why can't the same standard be held for games? Someone doesn't like violent games... well OK. Let them develop non-violent ones like they enjoy. I can still play Silent Hill and Splinter Cell if I want to.

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