the end of gaming as we know it [serious post; read]

[minus1972]

don't know if this was posted already; didn't see it and it seems to be rather important.

<EDIT>: it's not official yet; but I think it indicates a step in the wrong direction for gaming, official or not.

bad news

<EDIT2>:The earlier connection that I made between the new ratings and the regulation of pornography could not be found by myself so I have removed it.



<< Gamecenter has come into the possession of a document that apparently outlines a proposal that the Interactive Digital Software Association is preparing to make to the United States Federal Trade Commission. Titled &quot;Draft Guidelines Addressing Marketing Of Mature Rated Games To Persons Under 17,&quot; the document proposes that game developers institute severe and sweeping changes in the way that M-rated games are marketed. If implemented, these restrictions could have a profound impact on game developers and publishers, game magazines and Web sites, software retailers, and, ultimately, anyone who plays M-rated games >>



the govt. is suck.

 

[konichiwa]

...and next year R-rated movies will be for people 35 and older.

Damn the ESRB, damn the MPAA, damn the RIAA...DAMN CENSORSHIP :|

 

[MajesticMoose]

you know how easy it is to find pr0n on the internet? The same will be true for these games.

Moose

 

[minus1972]

reading through, I think that something that gives this legitimacy [or takes it away (your POV)] is that today was Gamecenter's last day of print. My opion would be that they called in a last-ditch favor to get this document due to the fact that they don't have to face the consequences tomorrow. :frown:

 

[pdiddy]

do you know how angry all those programmers who run this country will be

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

what about 35yr olds!?

Anyway, I'm 19 now, so I don't care.

 

[vi edit]

I'll add my comments in italics

--------------------------------------------
Just how &quot;profoundly significant&quot; is this proposal? Here are some highlights taken directly from the document:

Print (including game publications): Ads for Mature-rated games may not be placed in magazines where 45 percent or more of the readers are under 17.

Analysis: By our count, there are only three magazines in the industry whose audience does not fit this profile.

Under these same principles, there should not be alcohol and cigarette related adds in magazines where more than 45% of the audience is under the age of 21 and 18 respectively. This includes magazines such as Rolling Stone and Maxim.

TV advertising: Ads for Mature-rated games may not be placed on programs where 35 percent or more of the viewers are under 17.

Analysis: By this definition, a game such as Resident Evil could not be advertised on MTV.
Once again, under the same reasoning, you should not be able to market alcohol on programs where 35% of the viewers are under the age of 21. This includes programs such as The Super Bowl, any sunday NFL or NBA game, prime time programming, and any other various program that would have a viewer base of 35% under the age of 21.

Also, you cannot advertise for movies during television slots that have commercials for 'R' rated movies.

Internet ads: Paid ads for M-rated games shall not be placed on Web sites where 45 percent or more of the visitors are under 17.

Analysis: The document states that Media Metrix data will be used to establish the demographic of Web site audiences. Considering how many fan sites are too small for Media Metrix to measure, this could make it impossible for any independent sites to secure advertising revenue.

This is so rediculous I'm not going to even comment on it.

-----------------------------------------------------

I see their point...sort of. But, there is something more important here that needs to be at issue - not what the games are rated, but how the games are rated.

There's also the problem of consistency - Hollywood and the Alcohol companies don't have to meet these requirements. I'm sure that alcohol has some restrictions as to what they can and can't do, but still, the same idea applies here and the same criteria has to be met. If they want this to happen, then they better make the movie studios and beer companies follow the same restrictions. That would never happen. Why? Because movie studios and beer companies have a way of keeping the ball in their court. Why is that? Money.

Video game companies have been put under a microscope ever since id and their game Doom made the word &quot;deathmatch&quot; a household name in any family with a 13 year old geek. The media has been obsessed with violence and graphic imagery in video games since then. It heightened when the media proclaimed that the Columbine shooters played Doom and other violent video games. Video games have been a poster child for the decline of our youth's morality. They claim that it makes our kids violent, unrulely, maladjusted and invincible.

Never mind the fact that we have thousands of kids die each year in alcohol related traffic accidents, never mind the fact that marijuana use is going up and that kids are trying it earlier, never mind the fact that the divorce rate is going up, never mind the fact that they only thing that the 10:00 'o clock news shows is in the murder at the local convienience store, or the raping of some women, or the drug bust at the local high school. Nope, these freedom fighters don't care about those things. They have to go after video games.

Talk about fscked up priorities.

 

[GammaRayX]

I think this move will kill (or serverly hamper) the gaming industry, and the only games left is &quot;Barney's wild adventure&quot;, and other babysitter err.. games deemed safe by &quot;parents&quot;.

On a related industry, I believe that censorship (Comic Code Authority) killed the North American comic industry, just like it will kill the gaming industry by IDSA.

Shorty after the implimentation of these rules, the limits on advertising will limit exposure and public awareness of M-rated games. Limited advertising = limited audience = lower profits. And in short, M-rated games just won't be as profitable to produce. Lower profits mean fewer companies are going to produce M-rated games. With the fewer selection of games, the quality of the games also goes down, because of less competition and just plain fewer games. Then gamers will burn out from the lack of diversity, or lose interest due to the general crappiness of said games. And thus, the gamer fanbase also diminises, and fewer gamers again mean lower profit, which mean less money into developing newer games, which means lower quality games. The cycle will continue until the M-rated gaming industry is near its deathbed or in its coffin. Then the &quot;advocacy&quot; groups will go after the next lower rating and lowr, until the only acceptable rating is the E rating for everybody (hence mainly Disney and Barney type titles).

Replace gaming with comic and you have what will happen to what already happened. Its a case of Deja Vue.

 

[Boogak]

You guys are going a little overboard about this thing &quot;killing&quot; the gaming industry. I think I read somewhere that the majority of gaming mag readers were over 20 years of age (close to 30 if I'm not mistaken). And if you really think about it, how big of a pie do you think under 17 gamers are compared to the 17+ gamers? Think of all the college age gamers, the late 20's gamers, the 30+ gamers, etc. I'm 24 and I know I'll be playing games until they pluck that controller out of my cold dead hands.

With that said, censorship sucks. I feel for ya.

 

[bigbootydaddy]

i totally agree with vi (lord its a dark day)...its easy to push the blame on media when the problem is in the house itself. the &quot;blame everyone but yourself&quot; concept is ridiculous. like in math, its easier to find one example where a theory is incorrect, thant to prove each and every last example it is true. in this case, i think parents and whoever else needs to look at how much influence they have...and if some stupid game has more influence than a parent does, well...thats the root of the problem right there. get away from the office and be with your kids dammit.

 

[Zucchini]

cursed politicians always legislating morality.. especially for things they don't understand. I'm pretty sure almost none of the old bastards actually play games.. all they know is that some games are violent.. it must be bad.

This is all because young ppl don't %#@ vote

 

[Raspewtin]

I think this will benefit the gaming industry a lot. A lot of extremely weak games play-wise depend on sex and violence to sell the game. Most FPS nowadays are the same thing over and over again with just new things to kill and new things to kill them with. Forcing a decrease in the ability of these designers to rely on sex and violence as crutches will force to once again examine gameplay and graphics (which is another crutch IMO) more closely.

Besides, many lazy developers will still be able to easily get around this by having the package itself be neat and clean, and the dirty, violent parts be the downloadable parts. Then what what will they do - put a game in the adult isle b/c adult mods and maps are downloadable?

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

I honestly don't see what the big deal is... This proposal (subject to change) simply recommends restricting marketing practices, which btw, ARE already in place for tobacco and alcohol. The impact of this proposal on the availability of mature games will be very small, probably undetectable. This is simply a bunch of industry leaders wanting to say that they have been responsible in their roles concerning the perceived problem of violent computer games. No big deal IMHO.

 

[vi edit]

I see a very nasty and slippery slope happening.

For example, let's use a fictional game called &quot;Death Arena&quot; Well, it's too &quot;mature&quot; for the masses so the programmers are asked to reduce the blood and gore. Ok fine. We take out the gushing blood, splatter marks on the walls, and various appendages that are left on the ground after a viscious frag. Instead of having blood splatter and chunks fly, we use a paint ball type of impact and marking. Ok, now that we've removed the chunks, we'll drop you too a &quot;Teen&quot; rating instead of mature.

Welp, that wasn't good enough. &quot;Death Arena&quot; was too morbid for a teen rating, so instead of having Death Areana II, we now have Battle Arena II.

Ok, unfortunately BAII had too realistic weapons. We wouldn't want our children to see a game model using a real life AK-47 or M16, or RPG to splatter another computer model in a fictional game. That's TOO REALISTIC!!!! Back up to Mature for you!

So now, instead of having weapons based on real life firearms, we have shrink rays, hyperblasters, BFG's, and shock rifles. Ok fine. Everyone's happy. Back down to Teen rating.

Oh wait a second. We don't like the general principle of the game. The whole object of the game is to shoot the other opponents. Sorry, too bad, since it implies violent principles, we'll have to give it a Mature rating.

See what I'm getting at?

 

[Dean]

gammy ray wrote:





<< I think this move will kill (or serverly hamper) the gaming industry, and the only games left is &quot;Barney's wild adventure&quot;, and other babysitter err.. games deemed safe by &quot;parents&quot;. >>




Does this mean that soon we will be treated with threads saying &quot;Official Come to Neo's Barney's wild adventure server thread&quot;?

 

[minus1972]

vi_edit: that's what I fear...that this will affect the design process in the search for the almighty dollar.

I personally am under 18 and I know that it's easy for anyone over that age to say that it doesn't matter; because you're all set anyways. Think of it this way: if this happens, the games that you buy and I have someone buy for me will either be over the top or impossible to find a decent one. The ones that we can all buy will be greatly toned down versions of what we should've had in the first place. This sucks for everyone.

 

[minus1972]

<< Never mind the fact that we have thousands of kids die each year in alcohol related traffic accidents, never mind the fact that marijuana use is going up and that kids are trying it earlier, never mind the fact that the divorce rate is going up, never mind the fact that they only thing that the 10:00 'o clock news shows is in the murder at the local convienience store, or the raping of some women, or the drug bust at the local high school. Nope, these freedom fighters don't care about those things. They have to go after video games. >>



that's too damn true.

Also, reguarding Columbine...they played Doom, the media cites this as a cause. Doom is a violent game, let's assume for a second that this is a valid cause. However, to link the shootings and the gaming industry is absurd. This may seem superficial/insignificant, but if they were into gaming at all...wouldn't they be playing newer games? Surely they couldn't have been immersed in the gaming scene if all they played was Doom. The mass media needs to do it's fvcking research. These kids were fvcked up from the start...&quot;videogames made me do it&quot; is not a valid excuse. I'm in high school. I see what happened to these kids happen to kids every day. Kids like that are targets for the typical high schooler; and yet, this was hardly ever mentioned as a possible cause for the attacks. Why? Because there isn't a clear antagonist there. The gaming industry is made out to be the &quot;bad guy&quot; because it's an easy target. fvck the media, why doesn't the government regulate them???

 

[bigbootydaddy]

<< why doesn't the government regulate them? >>



amen.

i wish so bad sometimes that like when you see in movies that there are press pees waiting at your house, i wish i was there to beat them bloody with my don mattingly signed baseball bat.

 

[vi edit]

<< fvck the media, why doesn't the government regulate them??? >>



There's this little thing called &quot;Freedom of the Press&quot;

Also, being a few days short of 23, I'm within &quot;marketable&quot; territory for these eeeeeevil games and I still think that it's a crock.

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

I think some of you over reading the intent of the original document. It doesn't try to restrict the development or design of games in any way. It merely says you can't market mature games to immature audiences. AND its merely a recommendation, which is a far cry from being any sort of law.

 

[Recneps]

basically this states that mature rated games would be moved into the same classification as pornography and such.

Cool now I have a valid reason to go to porn stories.

Well talk about BS politics oh we need to protect the kids from ads. Every one should write etheir Republics or Demacetrats and give them a piece of there mind if both are writtin it would be point less.

 

[minus1972]

vi_edit- the government has buckled on every other first amendment right [censorship comes to mind], why has the freedom of press been granted immunity?

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

This document doesn't say crap about regulating mature games as if they were pornography. If you think that is what the document says then you should cite that paragraph. AND if you don't like it, you still have plenty of time to email your representatives, though I would suggest that you write a letter b/c then you will get a reply.

 

[zippy]

People don't take responsibility for their actions any more it seems. The parents who are pushing these reforms are the ones who need to be disciplined. Give me blood, give me gore, give me curse words and I guarantee you it won't make me a bad person or a psycho- why? Because my parents raised me to realize the difference between real and pretend and they also raised me well so I know the difference between right and wrong.

It's time that these parents start taking resposibility for their children and stop blaming it on video games, movies, music, and the internet.

 

[minus1972]

yamahaXS- I will be contacting my rep cause this is bull. However, you were correct...I did not find the connection between the new standards and pornography in the article so I edited my earlier post. I must have picked that up somewhere else, so I appoligize for that.