Condemned 2 Trying to Avoid Manhunt 2's Fate 108
CVG is reporting that Monolith, makers of the upcoming Condemned 2, are working with the ESRB to avoid an AO rating. As we've discussed previously, an AO ban in the states is effectively a ban on retail sales. From the article: "When asked for examples of what we might now never see in a game again, we were told, 'An example of what we cut would be putting someone's head in a vice. That was too much, you know. There are also some decapitations we've lost. But this is more Sin City than it is real world and we want people to know that this is not a real world.'"
Bah (Score:5, Insightful)
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Swi
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It's not exactly homebrew (Score:2)
If I recall didn't Nintendo recently announce they would be opening up a SDK for homebrew development of virtual console games?
Wii Ware is not exactly homebrew in the sense of "go buy a DS and a Games 'n' Music card at Wal-Mart, download devkitARM, read through a tutorial, and you're set". You still have to have demonstrated your ability on some other platform (read "Windows or Mac" because all other platforms are lockout chipped). You still have to lease office space separate from a dwelling. You still have to present detailed plans for a specific title to Nintendo. And you still have to submit the final product to ESRB ($3000) a
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and that is the stupidest thing I have ever seen as a money making decision.
I havent checked the 360 or PS3 but the Wii has parental locking available, problem solved IMO.
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i still think mortal kombat was more violent than today's games. "bang, bang, you're dead" big deal. now scorpion breathing fire and incinerating his opponenents alive, that's action!
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Yes but stores don't have to be consistent, there's no rule that says you either have to ban AO completely or carry all of it. Though I'm really not sure if an interactive donkey sex simulator would be worse than an interactive snuff movie simulator.
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The problem is Sony, MS and Nintendo will not allow AO games on their consoles. Gotta blame the ESRB and hardware companies for this crap.
I don't blame the ESRB. Their job is to rate games, and if they feel a game is worth an AO then they should rate it AO. As for the hardware companies, I can understand why they don't want to approve of an AO game, but there should be a way for games they don't like to be playable on the systems. It's not like Sony can prevent Pokémon DVDs from playing in Sony DVD players (though it is amusing that I have to play my Gamecube demo DVD in my PS2), so why should they prevent people from making games th
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The ESRB was created as a stopgap by the industry to pull the rug out from those who saught government intervention in ratings and permissions. It's very much a "see? We can self-regulate so you don't have to!" Much like the PMRC did with the parental advisory stickers. The same thing was done by the MPAA a about 50 years ago due to movie content concerns, and comic book organizations, too. V-Chip? Yup. All
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I understand the history behind the ESRB and why it exists, I just feel it's wrong for retailers to make blanket decisions to not stock a product based on its rating. I also think selling two versions of the product, one censored and the other not might be workable, so long as the censored version is clearly marked. I refuse to purchase any CDs at WalMart because they censor all their CDs, and it really ticks me off that they don't even put any warning stickers telling you they're censored.
As for the MPAA,
"EDITED" sticker in Wal-Mart (Score:1)
I also think selling two versions of the product, one censored and the other not might be workable, so long as the censored version is clearly marked.
The ESRB fee for a censored version and an uncensored version of the same title is no less than for two separate titles. And watch bugs get introduced between the uncensored version and the censored version.
I refuse to purchase any CDs at WalMart because they censor all their CDs, and it really ticks me off that they don't even put any warning stickers telling you they're censored.
Which Wal-Mart store do you shop at? In the Wal-Mart stores in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the price sticker on an edited music CD says "EDITED".
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Ditto, but I'm in Columbus, IN. Both Mal-Warts have the EDITED stickers...
Though I havent bought any new CD's in about 5 years. Thank goodness for Half-Price Books (medium small cheap book/cd/dvd store) in Indy and Greenwood. They even have LP's at the Greenwood store (on 31 south of county line).
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Things like term limits and the electing of politicians that actually care about freedoms and liberties instead of their next campaigns' talking points is what's going to fix that problem. When personal freedoms are no longer trumped by the nanny state then dependance on broken political influence mechanism will no longer be req
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From Wikipedia's highlights:
* Crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal, to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice, or to inspire others with a desire to imitate criminals.
* If crime is depicted it shall be as a sordid and unpleasant activity.
* Criminals shall not be presented so as to be rendered glamorous or to occupy a
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If the numbers show that the prudes are correct and these AO games are an evil that no moral person would subject themselves to, then no harm done and you've still made a profit on your game while still satisfying those hardcore gamers that want the AO version and are willing to pay for an expensive computer to run it.
If, as I suspect, there is a significant market for AO games, you've again made a
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Because nobody ever uses a PC for pornography currently.
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Retailers don't have to tell the ESRB to shove off in order to carry AO games. An ESRB rating of AO does not mean "cannot be sold because we at the ERSB say so". It means "contains content intended for adults only". It is 100% up to the retailer to decide whether or not they want to carry such product. Most major retailers have decided that they do not want to carry AO games as a matter o
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Retailers won't sell you an AO rated game, but yet they line their shelves with "unrated" DVDs, and sell anime porn [consumerist.com]
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Maybe the retailers have grown balls and decided they don't want to service a torture porn market in video gaming.
Maybe it is time you grew up and began asking what real adults want to see in gaming. You might just discover that disembowelment isn't the answer.
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they don't want to service a torture porn market in video gaming.
What's torture porn?
Maybe it is time you grew up and began asking what real adults want to see in gaming. You might just discover that disembowelment isn't the answer.
It's not the job of the stores to determine what I want to see in my games. Personally, I wouldn't buy Manhunt 2 no matter what they rated it, it's just not my type of game, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't carry it for people who do want to buy it. I don't care if retailers don't carry a particular game, that's their choice, what I get mad at is when they make blanket rules about games with a particular rating. Each game should be evaluated by the store based on how well they t
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The chains are free to decide what they want to sell. Don't like it. Build your own.
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Personally, I think "torture porn" is a really really scary trend in today's culture. It's basically snuff, but with the ability to justify it to yourself becau
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I don't think so. While I find stuff like Saw and Hostel pretty disgusting, there's a world of difference between watching a special effect of someone having his eye cut off, and watching someone really having his eye cut off. I think stuff like Hostel is more on the lines of all those gore/slasher movies. Even movies like Braindead or Bad Taste or Evil Dead have horribly brutal scenes, but you really couldn't compare them to snuff. If it's not
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I don't know if they count as snuff though people laughing and cheering as someone gets mushed by a train is to me more disturbung than the same for someones toe getting cut off for pretend.
I can't recall any movies that were like that when I was in high-school, but everyone had seen part of a faces of death.
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Well, of course. Public executions, by disembowelment or the far nastier methods human imagination has come up over the centuries, used to be public spectacles. We aren't genetically different from ancient romans who got their kicks watching people getting torn apart by lions and getting nailed to crosses, so why are you
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As much as I hate Wal-Mart and the like, I think it took some guts to stand up to popular demand like that, and try to reverse the ever-increasing trend of "torture-porn" (as you call it... love the name, btw) in our culture. Probably the first and last time I'll ever agree with them on anything.
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1) Unless I really misunderstand the entire system, it's not the ESRB telling retailers they can't stock the game, it's retailers deciding not to stock AO games. The ESRB system is (at the moment) voluntary; there's no legal requirements connected with it. (And no, it doesn't need to be legislated; the MPAA rating system is also voluntary and it's worked fine for decades.)
2) It's a lot harder to license the game for the console if it receives an AO rating. I doubt Nintendo would allow it.
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Summary mis-type (Score:1)
Unbelievable.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Nonetheless, I'm extremely pissed that game makers have to worry about ratings now in order to get their games on the shelves. In the past it was, "Oh, look.. That conservative group is trying to nag at our game. Ha! We're number one on the selling charts!" And then finally, those "conservative groups" get a couple of lawmakers to enforce this type of law because of some group of idiot developers who decide to put an extremely well hidden sex scene in their game.
Just great. So while we're censoring every form of art, how about Michelangelo's statue? Someone needs to put some leaves there. Oh, is that a breast on that artwork? Better get the censor bars out.
No matter what it is, there's always some group that complains enough that, "This shouldn't be shown, because it's just.. shouldn't." Of course, I'll also assume that their kids will group up and be smiling adults that always do the right thing, help old ladies cross the streets, turn their head away from those XXX nightclubs, and of course, never ever get angry.
Beautiful, just beautiful. I suppose if people have a bad enough psychosis that they can't tell that Condemned has a world in which demons exist and physically manifest to cause riots apart from the real world, well.. My opinion on humanity is at a loss for words.
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A game vendor shaving their game to get a M rating isn't that different from film makers shaving scenes to get back from a NC-17 (or worse) rating. Theater chains won't carry it, major retailers won't carry it.
You're right, it's no different, and I don't approve of either one. A game or movies rating should have absolutely zero impact on where or who sells it. The rating is there for the consumers information, not the retailers. Makes me wonder how much capital you would need to start your own movie chain that carries any movie regardless of rating.
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"And then finally, those "conservative groups" get a couple of lawmakers to enforce this type of law because of some group of idiot developers who decide to put an extremely well hidden sex scene in their game."
Rather than blaming the "conservative groups" boogeyman, you might want to check which side of the aisle these lawmakers are on. Hint - there's a "D" next to most of their names.
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From the Google [nobeliefs.com]:
"In 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft objected to photographers taking pictures of him in front two statues, one of which has an exposed aluminum breast (the female statue goes by the name, Spirit of Justice and also colloquially referred to as Minnie Lou) in the Justice Department building's
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The stateside market for AO games on the PC is insignificant. The number of PC games released stateside under an AO rating is insignificant. List of AO-rated products [wikipedia.org]
How many set-top PCs? (Score:1)
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You would prefer the game company be punished like they are now?
I'm not sure why you would say that. In fact, I would prefer quite the opposite. If the rating of games, and the sale of games were controlled more clearly, game companies should have a lot less problems because they could show that their games would not be sold to kids too young to play them.
People have a freedom to sue others, which is good and bad. Her ratings laws helps protect the game makers by putting the responsibility in the seller's lap, which is where it should be.
Okay, now I'm not entirely sure why you are arguing with me. I think we agree on this. I wrote "I see no reason why shops should (...) not punished for selling AO games to 10-year-olds."
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Just Make It as Violent as You Please, OK?! (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm getting really sick of all this pussy-footing around. Personally, I have a strong aversion to graphic, unnecessary violence, but if you are so unhinged that you can't tell the difference between reality and a game you are ALREADY off your rocker.
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Who will wise up... (Score:5, Insightful)
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All lack of seriousness aside, you're right about there being a potential market for an AO console. This being said, however, the game are still banned from being sold at retailers in several states. That presents a problem, other than having to order them off of some internet site. (Even then I'm sure lawmakers will have this "loophole" in their hands and strangling it, in a strange twist o
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Re:Who will wise up... (Score:4, Informative)
The Wii, Xbox360 and PS3 already have systems where you can lock out any ESRB rating if you don't know the passcode to play.
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Why does the entire industry push forward this notion that video games are played primarily by children?
Pornography in all its forms is fundamentally an adolescent obsession. Nintendo has proven that you don't need buckets of blood to draw adults - of all ages - into video gaming.
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Pornograhy
Main Entry: pornography
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek pornographos, adjective, writing about prostitutes, from pornE prostitute + graphein to write; akin to Greek pernanai to sell, poros journey -- more at FARE, CARVE
1 : the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
2 : material (as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is inten
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Uh, yeah. They already do, way ahead of you there. But much like the V-Chip required in every TV, it does nothing to prevent busy-bodies from trying to censor everything they don't like.
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It is called a PC.
::choke:: (Score:2)
Hold on, my friends. With each passing day, games are being more and more scrutinized. It's only a matter of time until it's a criminal offense to make a violent game.
And you know what the absolute worst part about all this is? The original video game generation is the generation calling the shots on this one.
How big of a pile of bullshit is that?
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I think this whole controversy is dumb. Just like the organizations that tried to "protect" youth from slasher and nudie moves they are trying to do the same with video games.
It has nothing to do with the "original video game generation." Some people want to control other people. Some don't. These folks obviously do, and I don't support them.
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And you know what the absolute worst part about all this is? The original video game generation is the generation calling the shots on this one.
How big of a pile of bullshit is that?
About the same as the children of the 60s now leading the War on Drug Users.
Open source game platform? (Score:2)
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oes anyone know if there is any sort of work being done on an open source hardware platform kind of thing
Consoles are an interesting problem. People are hesitant to spend money on a potentially expensive device that won't have many games available for it, so you really need to have a big company behind you in order to produce a successful new console. Even with a big name backing you, the battle is still up hill, because people tend to buy only 1 or 2 consoles, so your really having to compete hard in an entrenched market. There are open source portable consoles out there (that run Linux no less), but they'r
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Windows, Mac, Linux, GP2X, take your pick :-)
Would we have doom? (Score:3, Interesting)
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It's all good (Score:2, Funny)
But it;s a rating like NC-17 or X (Score:1)
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That is where the AO rated PC games are now and always have been.
Just go online! (Score:2)
It seems like a downloadable, DVD/CD burnable version is feasible these days, given the bandwidth available to much of their target audience. Give each downloaded image a unique key to be emailed to the purchaser and entered on the console to run.
(I'm assuming that it's possible to make recordable DVD/CDs that will run on un-modified consoles)
Sure, the keygens will happen pretty soon, but it's not really any more problem th