Video games, censorship, ESRB, and banning
ngon master
Video games, censorship, ESRB, and banning (and restricting sales to minors)
I originally wrote up a big thread of this, and then fire fox crashed, so now I'm going to be a lazy bastard and point out some things that I think are important topics.
List of banned games by country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_video_games
About video game violence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_controversy
I view video games as a form of art and any country that bans or restricts games are committing a crime against their people and to art (almost as bad as the catholic church knocking peckers off of Greek statues and replacing them with fig leaves).
I originally wrote up a big thread of this, and then fire fox crashed, so now I'm going to be a lazy bastard and point out some things that I think are important topics.
List of banned games by country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_video_games
About video game violence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_controversy
I view video games as a form of art and any country that bans or restricts games are committing a crime against their people and to art (almost as bad as the catholic church knocking peckers off of Greek statues and replacing them with fig leaves).
- "No games have been banned in the US, although several have been refused a rating below Adults Only (AO) by the ESRB. Console makers will not license AO or unrated games and most retailers will not stock them, forcing a sort of self-censoring to obtain a lower rating by omitting content, The Witcher or Indigo Prophecy."
Shortened quote from wiki
- Germany and Australia both ban games based off excessive violence or nudity.
- Video game violence and its effects on kids is also a popular topic, there's a lot of "studies" on both sides of the topic.
Replies
People will just download the banned games, especially the young people they use as an excuse for the bans.
The australian governments stance on R18+ games is so archaic and misinformed that it borders on comedy.
Ironicall they end up acting as a catalyst to games developers losing money to piracy.
Also we are completely fine with psuedo snuff films like Hostel coming into the country and Canberra (our captial) is the porn hub of australia.
So you can get your fix of 18+ ultra depraved sexual acts or excessive violence, just not as a game...
But then this is a country which outlaws the sale of alcohol in certain aborignal areas instead of dealing with the underlying social issues.
Oh and we just got a Chinese style internet censorship approved. Joy!! :P
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/internet-censorship-plan-gets-the-green-light-20091215-ktzc.html
Won't someone think of the children?!!
Oh sorry no I didn't mean you parents.... no you don't need the burden of responsibilty in raising your children and monitoring their interaction with media.
No parents just relax, take some prozac, we'll do the thinking for you, after all you have consuming to do, take a load off.....
I really detest the complete black and white mentailty of the uninformed masses and beuarocrats.
Where is the wisdom in their call to blanket ban violent games? Where is the understanding of the underlying issues of our increasingly apathetic society? It's certainly not games or media in general which are the sole cause for all our failings.
I think the use of negative emotional stimulus such as witnessing acts of extreme violence can actually be used in a really positive manner if handled correctly and has much more impact than when its used poorly.
Just as a personal case study, I watched both Pans Labyrinth vs Rambo 5.
In Pan's Labyrinth the beating the poor farmer gets infront of his son was a terrifyingly real depiction of a sadistic act. However the whole scene was handled so carefully I came away from it even more stead fast in my beliefs against the act of harming others.
On the other hand, the scene where Rambo straddles a jeep and reduces people to chunks of meat was just one of complete titilation. To the level of absurdity.
I got nothing from that film except for an increased heart rate...pretty much makes you think you did something exciting but its just a cheap trick. I learnt nothing, I gained nothing. I lost $12.
The thing is I don't think either of these movies would force a normal brain to commit an act of attrocity, even with repeated exposure. One film shows repurcutions to acts of violence and the other is so far removed from reality the normal mind would never think they could commit the same actions without paying with their life.
An insane mind on the other hand might, but then again an insane mind might do so just because they felt like it or someone cut the off in traffic or they didn't like the colour of the tie the news anchor wore....thats why they are classed as insane.
I do think there is a point to be made for all media developers to have more social responsibilty for their craft.
However not just game developers.
If you ban R18+ games you must start banning film and literature.
If you don't then you are just a hypocrit.
As for sex..... people need to grow up..... we all have the bits, we are born nude, some of us do our best work nude.
Everyone is sexual, even those who attempt to repress it, its the whole point of us, to multiply.
As long as the sex is contextually valid to growing some form of plot and/or character arc and doesn't harm anyone then leave it alone.
Oh and stop blurry out mens nipples on TV FFS, WTF is with that? They are just pointless reminders of what we could have been!!
They're children. Society is primarily made of adults, is it not? Adults make the decisions and go to work so they can buy stuff to make them forget about work and then periodically make more children so that there will be more adults to keep going to work and buying things 20-some years later.
So why would there be any sense in filtering and controlling all media to make sure it's harder for children to see it, when society is inhabited and run by adults? Are people really trying to keep violence, sex, and dirty words a secret from everyone until they reach a certain age? What possible purpose would THAT serve? Even if it were possible, it would just make it more difficult for people to handle those things responsibly when they eventually discover them.
Is it supposed to be a contextual thing? Like keeping fantasy sex and violence away from kids because they might not understand that it's not real or not serious? How old does someone really need to be to properly appreciate the subtleties of cock jokes and boobies?
If anything, it seems like it'd be more sensible to get all that stuff out of the way sooner than later so that kids grow up knowing the difference between playing a game/watching a movie/ telling a joke and fucking/murdering eachother. If that's something that they're really supposed to have trouble understanding (which seems to be the implication), then we should work on explaining it to them by showing them as much of each as possible until they get it.
As it is, it's no wonder kids keep growing up with a case of the crazies. Their whole world is a paradox of social norms that somehow don't apply to them, but only to the people they're supposed to grow up to be (and even they can't agree on what's okay and what's not). Makes no sense.
You've probably all heard about our situation here by now. If not, let me once more invoke the name of Michael Atkinson (*throws salt over shoulder*), South Australian governor general, beligerant asshat and the one man standing between the Australian people and a sensible rating system. The rest of the states have given the R-Rating for games the OK, but because it has to be a unanimous vote, we've quite literally got one man holdng up the entire country.
Ass cracks, nipples, even cleavage gets the blur treatment these days.
It just brings attention to it!
Boobies are the devils work son!
Don't look at the boobies...here I'll hid them under this blur for you...there much better, you can't see them now, under this blur, you can't see those...those soft pillows of awesome...like 2 kittens under a blanket.....2 gentle clouds floating in the sky....mamma....