Tendo City

ESRB Adversary and Lawyer Targets Killer 7
Jack Thompson says Capcom's psycho-thriller deserves an Adults Only rating and that if the ESRB won't do it, it should be dismantled.
by Matt Casamassina

August 5, 2005 - Outspoken Florida attorney Jack Thompson, whose legal crusades against violent and sexually explicit videogames and the organization that regulates them has garnered more and more media attention, is back in the public eye. This time Thompson is petitioning the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) to change its M (Mature) rating to an AO (Adults Only) rating for Capcom's Killer 7, a stylized psycho-thriller for Nintendo GameCube and Sony PlayStation 2.

The ESRB evaluates and assigns videogames ratings based on their content. A game suitable for all ages will likely receive an E for Everyone while titles with stronger themes and violence will probably fall under the M umbrella, which caters to the 17 years-old and up crowd. The AO rating was created to recognize games developed specifically for gamers 18 years-old and up. Games not rated by the ESRB go ignored by major retail chains across the United States, which is why most publishers work with the organization.

Thompson recently sent an e-mail to Patricia Vance, president of the ESRB, explaining his position. He also forwarded the e-mail to media and various government officials, including Senator Hilary Clinton and Senator Joseph Lieberman, both of whom have been outspoken critics of sex and violence in videogames.

Killer 7, released by Capcom on July 7, challenges players to become seven deadly assassins. The game, which was developed in Japan, features stylized cel-shaded graphics and a story drowned in adult themes, spoken profanity, violence, and sexual situations. The game was rated M by the ESRB for "blood and gore, intense violence, sexual themes and strong language."

In the e-mail, Thompson cites IGN.com's review of Killer 7 and its description of "full-blown sex sequences" as a primary reason why the game should receive an AO rating. Major retailers including Wal-Mart do not sell AO-rated games, which would mean that such a rating might have an adverse impact on sales of Killer 7.

"There is no question in my mind that a videogame containing 'full-blown sex sequences' cannot be rated anything other than 'AO' rather than 'M,'" Thompson writes in the e-mail. "The [IGN.com review] says that this game's 'M' actually means something, and [it] says it twice for emphasis."

Thompson has for years campaigned against the ESRB's rating system, which he believes is ineffective. In fact, he has publicly called for the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which governs over the ESRB, to upend its president Doug Lowenstein, describing the executive as a "thug" who "...never met a pixelated prostitute he didn't like." These comments came in response to the ESRB's initial M-rating for the notoriously violent and profane action series, Grand Theft Auto. Thompson's side has gained high-up supporters ever since the ESRB failed to catch the "Hot Coffee" hack in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas which unlocks inappropriate sexual content.

Elaborating in his e-mail to Ms. Vance, Thompson writes: "There are those who would say that people such as I are 'prudes' who have no problem with violence but get uptight about sexual content in games. That is a disingenuous charge, and you know why. I have been on national television programs, as early as the week before Columbine, complaining about 13-year-olds being enabled by the ESRB to violent 'M' games. But it is your sister organization, the Entertainment Software Association, that is in court right this second in Illinois trying to prevent the extension of the 'sex' argument to the 'violence' argument. It is your industry, then, that thinks violence is okay for kids but that sex, given state laws already on the books, is not okay.

"Well, the Killer 7 game underscores the fact that your organization and the industry it fronts for appear to try to get away with anything that is harmful to kids, whether already illegal or not. What it also means is that if jurors in a criminal prosecution were asked whether Killer 7 contains 'sexual material harmful to minors' in violation of statutory standards, then, based upon the above enthusiastic review at IGN.com, the answer to that question would probably be 'yes.'

"That answer would put the Entertainment Software Rating Board, in my opinion, in the middle of a criminal conspiracy to distribute sexual material harmful to minors in violation of criminal statutes. This is not a situation in which the ESRB has been blind-sided by hidden or embedded content, Ms. Vance. You all have known that the 'full-blown sex sequences' are patently present in the game, yet you chose to put an 'M' rather than an 'AO' rating on it. Big mistake.

"If I were you, Ms. Vance, I would immediately ask the makers of this game, and all retailers, to pull it from store shelves. If you don't, expect for others to use this latest scandal, which I am hereby officially kicking off, to call for a dismantling of the ESRB. The fox has guarded the chickens long enough. Killer 7 seems to prove it."

Thompson's campaign seems based solely on the description of Killer 7 in the IGN.com review -- a description that is open to interpretation. In fact, Killer 7's so-called "full-blown sex sequences" could appear tame when compared to those in some of today's movies. The sexual scenes in question showcase a fully clothed wheelchair-bound man pleasuring a straddling woman, who is also fully clothed. Although she moans, indicating a sexual orgasm, neither nudity nor intercourse is illustrated in the cut-scene. The same scene in a movie today might warrant only a PG-13 or, worst, R-rating.

Which raises another issue: are videogames and movies being judged by the same standards or is explicit content in software being scrutinized simply for being so drastically different from the days when Pac-Man reigned supreme?

The ESRB argues that its rating system has established laws and guidelines to regulate the sale of suitable software to consumers, and Senator Joseph Lieberman agrees. He has called the ESRB the most comprehensive of any entertainment ratings system.

IGN contacted Capcom Entertainment for further comment, but the company had none.

E-mails to the ESRB were not answered before publish time.

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There's no actual sex in the game but that's besides the point. As far as 17+ I think that's fine but I see alot of people buying M games in alot of age ranges. If it said "AO" it would make sure that only adults would get the game since most stores want your ID when purchasing anything that says adults only.

But here's the thing, GTA has been pulled from shelves, you cant find it at Blockbuster because they dont carry it anymore and it probably wont be re-released until it gets the AO rating. I fear the same fate for Killer 7 so, who here has the game? I dont have it yet but it's been on my list. I've been debating between Killer 7 or Geistbut I definitely want to nab 'Ver. 1' before it's butchered.

I think we're about to see the ESRB go kaplooey or reform their structure. Film ratings would work great for video games but unfortunately there are strict copyrights that someone would have to pay for in order to use the ratings.

At any rate, Killer7 just got the distinguished collectible-ism so lets make sure we have the 'real' versions!

Once again people who have never played the game are trying to act like they know what they're talking about. Idiots.

All it took was for the ESRB to cave ONCE to the goverment pressure and now this idiot has gone insane with power. Maybe, Mr. Thompson, you should, as the ESRB did, PLAY Killer 7 and THEN decide what it should be rated instead of pulling sentences out of an IGN review and acting like your an expert on Killer 7's content.

Quote:complaining about 13-year-olds being enabled by the ESRB to violent 'M' games.

What the heck does that even MEAN?

Quote:"Well, the Killer 7 game underscores the fact that your organization and the industry it fronts for appear to try to get away with anything that is harmful to kids, whether already illegal or not. What it also means is that if jurors in a criminal prosecution were asked whether Killer 7 contains 'sexual material harmful to minors' in violation of statutory standards, then, based upon the above enthusiastic review at IGN.com, the answer to that question would probably be 'yes.'

I suppose that based SOLELY on an IGN review the answer might very well be "yes", but maybe you should use the actual GAME as a basis instead?

One final thought: Why do they act like an "M" rating means that it's being marketted for kids? Last time I checked most placed ask for your ID when you buy an "M" rated game, meaning you pretty much have to be 17 to get. That same 17 year-old can get into a "R" rated movie that has just as much violence and sexual content as an "M" rated game, if not more.

Jack Thompson is an idiot, end of story... see his letter about The Sims for more proof. Let's just hope that his positions don't build up any momentum...

Quote:How do you like your hot coffee? If you're Jack Thompson, you like it scalding game publisher's laps. The Miami attorney and antigaming activist has done his share to see that games don't fall into the wrong hands. And lately, those hands have belonged to almost everyone.

Thompson was among those who spearheaded the recent effort to slap an "Adults Only" rating on Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and he's often been on the forefront of many other gaming issues, several of which have targeted the crime-spree-based GTA franchise. In the past, he's represented defendants who have been the victims of GTA-inspired crimes, including the triple homicide of three police officers by an 18-year-old boy in Alabama.

His beef with San Andreas? Unused code in the game that depicts sexual acts. These minigames can be unlocked by using game-cheat devices or patches available on the Internet.

Thompson is on a roll...and he's not done yet. His latest goat is a game that doesn't involve guns, carjacking, or prostitutes: He's going after Electronic Arts' The Sims 2.

In a manifesto sent today to press outlets, Thompson focuses on dismantling the Entertainment Software Ratings Board and exposing what he calls the industry's "latest dirty little secret." The secret's out now, and it involves nude sims.

In the statement, Thompson says, "Sims 2, the latest version of the Sims video game franchise ... contains, according to video game news sites, full frontal nudity, including nipples, penises, labia, and pubic hair."

The Sims 2 is a "life simulator." In the game, players steer their digital beings around their cyberlives. Actions include everything from the spectacular (getting married, having children, receiving promotions at work) to the mundane (cooking microwaved meals, going to the bathroom, mopping the floor). Such activities, as in real life, sometimes require nudity. EA circumvents inappropriateness by "blurring" out the nether regions, almost to a comical sense.

Knowing that the game is popular among all ages, EA has even taken steps to ensure that Sims fans aren't exposed to indecent depictions. In the recent expansion pack, The Sims 2 University, gamers can send their teenage sims off to college. However, instead of packing the expansion with "keggers" and "reefer," EA chose to use juice and bubble blowers.

Thompson doesn't seem to care. He cites a cheat code that can remove the blur that covers the nether regions. "The nudity placed there by the publisher/maker, Electronic Arts, is accessed by the use of a simple code that removes what is called 'the blur' which obscures the genital areas. In other words, the game was released to the public by the manufacturer knowing that the full frontal nudity was resident on the game and would be accessed by use of a simple code widely provided on the Internet."

It's not just the adults that are liberated from their wardrobes. Sims kids can also be nudified, "much to the delight, one can be sure, of pedophiles around the globe who can rehearse, in virtual reality, for their abuse."

Were this to be true, Thompson would have his smoking gun, and EA would be forced to recall all copies of The Sims 2. However, it's what's under the blur that Thompson's after. And what happens when the blur is lifted? A simple mannequin-esque smooth body, according to EA.

Jeff Brown, vice president of corporate communications at EA, in response to the accusations, told GameSpot, "This is nonsense. We've reviewed 100 percent of the content. There is no content inappropriate for a teen audience. Players never see a nude sim. If someone with an extreme amount of expertise and time were to remove the pixels, they would see that the sims have no genitals. They appear like Ken and Barbie."

Thompson doesn't buy it. "The sex and the nudity are in the game. That's the point. The blur is an admission that even the 'Ken and Barbie' features should not be displayed. The blur can be disarmed. This is no different than what is in San Andreas, although worse."

[UPDATE] Thompson this afternoon updated his earlier statement, saying he is aware certain mods only remove "the blur," but adds that "Electronic Arts has done nothing about this." Thompson's new conclusion: EA is "cooperating, gleefully, with the mod community to turn Sims 2 into a porn offering."

The last time we checked, The Sims 2 was rated T for Teen by the ESRB, which means that anyone 13 years of age, with $50 to spend, can purchase the game.

This guy is insane.

If he understood programming, he might understand that, for example, they really pretty much had to go with making a model and then applying a filter to it. It's not like they actually expected someone to remove the filter in a mod. They didn't actually model all those details, that would be a LOT of extra modelling work that they would know right from the START was never going to be in the final product. Programmers don't DO that.

This guy doesn't do his research. It's not a "code", it's a mod. A mod that allows you to see a barbie doll. His argument? That not even that level of detail is allowed. Well, not really. I don't think he's saying barbie dolls should be banned because someone can take off the dolls' clothes. I think what he is attempting to say is that EA wouldn't have blurred it if EA thought it was acceptible, and that this action proves they think it's not. Not true. It's a shortcut really. It's EASIER to model barbie features, just the curves but nothing else, than to model the details. On the other hand, they actually wanted a life simulator. By using a blur, people can think all they want that there's something detailed under the blur. Not using it? They end up realizing the models aren't complete, breaking the illusion more than the blur would.

I think this guy really would sue a company because their game had the potential to not only have something unlocked, but something outright added by a creative modder.

However, there is one important thing about this letter that was left out. Allow me to play devil's advocate here because misrepresenting their argument is never justifiable. No straw men here, okay?

I get this text from VGcats actually (linked by a friend). If it is not legitimate, then that will come to light, but the text mostly corroborates with the above story. This was apparently sent to the cats crew. http://www.vgcats.com/jack.php

At any rate, that whole issue aside, I will use one particular quote for Jack here.

Quote:As you may or may not know, more than forty states have “sexual material harmful to minors” statutes which prohibit the sale of sexually explicit material to anyone under 18 years of age. This hiatus between the “M” (age 17) rating and the statutory criminal standard (age 18) has always posed significant peril to the industry through games that contain sexual material, and it appears that those pigeons may come home to roost in Killer 7. “Hot Coffee” is a fairly recent example of the peril. As to Killer 7, please note:

From there it goes on into the text quoted above. The point is, despite existing 17+ ratings, many states prohibit the sales of "sexual material harmful to minors" to anyone under 18 (which I suppose is very hard to really define, well I guess a scene of a rapist yelling at the camera that he's coming for the kids playing the game next would count...). So in other words, he has an actual good reason to force them to adopt a higher rating than M. However, he has to show that the game contains "sexual material harmful to minors". In this case, all he's done is read some reviews. Well, let's be fair. In the case of books or movies, all you really have to do is just passively read or watch the material. With a game, you have to actually do stuff. In this case, the man would have to get far enough into Killer 7 to actually see said material. It's possible he just isn't very good at video games (possible, slandering him with insults about his gaming skills is hardly relevant to the issue here). However, he can go far enough to, if he doesn't want to soil his own hands, have an adult play the game while he watches. So, is a scene of two clothed people having sex the sort of thing that should only be sold to 18 year olds? I suppose in the end that'll be decided in court. I could of course site that movies have that sort of material all the time available to those below 18, but in the end the guy may very well be one to say that he's going after the movie industry next for that very thing. In the end, maybe it will end up with an AO rating. However, I must say that it can hardly be neglegence in these particular cases.

Anyway, yeah the laws DO exist that prohibit certain things and that article removed his mention of that completely.

Still, in the end this guy has not done the proper research. Going on hearsay is NOT sufficient evidence.

Also, yeah the ESRB probably should be disbanded :D.

I leave you with this:

<img src="http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/images/comics/20050808.jpg">

What about R-rated movies though? A lot of them have "full-blown sex scenes" that reveal a lot more than what Killer 7 apparently does. So should all those movies be rated NC-17? Oh wait, that wouldn't work either, better slap an X on it!!

Ugh, this lunatic again?

Oh come on. The Sims 2 in the same vein as San Andreas? How absurd. I haven't bothered to find the blur-removal code for the Sims 2, but if it's anything like the original Sims one, Sim bodies could not look any more innocuous. The only difference between the male and female bodies are a bit of extra polygons in the chest of the latter, but there is nothing to be seen. As for the sex, all you see is the Sims jump under the covers of a bed, you hear them hooting and hollering while the blankets move around, then they emerge again and go to sleep.

I can't believe this moron. He's obviously done all of his hard-hitting research in his ass.

He also read an IGN review!

Dear Jack Thompson;

My name is Ryan Usher. I am also a psychology student, and I feel forced to postulate a theory in regards to your self-styled 'crusade' against video games:

You are a fucking idiot. You seriously need to get laid with something, anything. You can freaking have sex with me if it will ease your mind. I don't swing that way but I'm willing to sacrifice my ironclad heterosexuality in the interests of preserving the rights of gamers, the rights of free speech, and to sate the bloodlust you seem to have for anything even remotely fun.

And I don't even like Grand Theft Auto.

So, in closing, get fucked, you sorry sad-ass sack of buzzard fuck.

Love,
Ryan Usher

The thing is, he gets those e-mails all the time it would seem. Such an e-mail would have no effect on him. While he may not respond to logic, I feel our best bet is to simply use logical arguments. He may actually respond to us, possibly disagreeing but at least there would be a dialog.

I got the idea from people on another board that were sending him nice, calm emails. He responded in an asshole way. So I won't waste courtesy on him.

I see. However, I doubt such a response really does anything. Hey! Let's all just ignore him and maybe he'll go away?

It relieves my stress. It's worth it just for that.

Perhaps...

In other news, it's like EVERY gaming comic strip in the US of Earth is pointing out the exact SAME logical flaws. Don't get me wrong here, you only really need one logical flaw at the root of an argument to show it's wrong. Um... I got nothing else...

So anyway, yeah http://www.nuklearpower.com is currently pointing out the same old flaw again.

That is to say, the obvious fact that LOTS of kids play video games. The percentage is very high. More than above half at this point. The odds of any single individual who goes on a murder spree owning a console by sheer chance are pretty good. The corrolation is nonexistant until you have evidence! You see, just because A occured before B (A = playing video games, B = murdered people), does not mean A caused B! Now, humans have a nice quick and dirty method (well okay, all creatures with a brain) of hashing out cause and effect, and that's it right there. It DOES do the trick as far as not having ANY method means you will die for not realizing that bear = pain and not noticing the corrolation there. However, it is logically flawed, and as humans we can overcome the instinct (useful at times) with something that takes longer (and thus isn't really a possibility in an emergency, to an extent) but yields a much greater probability of getting a correct corrolation.

So, if a rooster crows and the sun soon rises, we know that the rooster doesn't really actually CAUSE the sun to rise. The sun itself may not cause the rooster to crow, it may just be it's biological clock (which, well indirectly was set by the sun via evolution... but you get what I'm saying). A coincidence like that, knowing that the odds are pretty high of it happening without a corrolation, needs other evidence before it is reasonable to believe it. I think this guy must know that, but might be blinded. Some sites say it's greed. It may be something else, I don't know. In the end, it doesn't matter. Fact is, there are things this guy needs to provide some evidence for and he's not going the rounds to gather it. From what I've seen at randi.org, that's generally a sign that he either knows or is afraid of finding out what the truth may be, and is thus afraid of actually seeking evidence (evidence by definition is SELF evident, and thus interpretation is irrelevent, that's the thing that these people fear about it). This guy hasn't climbed under a rock yet, but he certainly seems safe in his tower.

So, I'll say it now. Show me your evidence! And, don't point me to IGN! That place isn't a respectable journal of opinion! It's barely a respectable journal of news!

Oh yeah, I just remembered the most famous case of dummied out content before the Hot Coffee stuff came up. Remember Final Fantasy 4, or as it was first called in the US, Final Fantasy 2 on the SNES? They dummied out a LOT of stuff there, but the main thing was a porno magazine. Now it really wasn't anything, but the fact that NOA said it had to go said Nintendo thought that even refering to porn was too lewd. It was "removed" but not deleted in all forms. Using the right Game Genie code or just hacking the hex, one could easily gain access to the porn book, as well as a room full of programmers. No one even heard about this outside dork kingdom, so not a single lawyer said a word. Guess what? Not a single kid became "the 16 bit rapist" as a result of finding out that secret.

Well, I decided to e-mail the poor guy. I know he already has roughly 50billion e-mails to sort through, invited upon him by himself. However, I thought I really had to make my argument clear to him DIRECTLY. I at least made the attempt. I include MOST of what I typed here.

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I fear that my e-mail may be deleted or viewed with disdain, no thanks to my “peers” contacting you in somewhat rude context.

I am contacting you neither to hurl childish insults nor to “defend the honor” of my hobby. I want to know what sort of evidence you have to show that the ESRB is being criminally negligent. I also would like to see what evidence you present regarding the lewd content in The Sims 2 as well as Killer 7.

I only ask because I have recently read the text of a well publicized e-mail which, if the contents are true, shows a lack of understanding or proper research of the material. The first specific question I have is: how much of The Sims 2 and/or Killer 7 have you yourself either played or watched another play? I feel that either playing it yourself or watching another adult play the game (the latter being used in the case that you yourself are unable to actually play it) is the best way to accurately gather all the right facts for the case. As this is not an expensive thing to do and is the most accurate way to gather the information, I can only say that it would be expected of you to go about this as opposed to simply reading a review from a web site.

The site IGN refers to the sexual content of the game Killer 7 as “full blown sex scenes”. From what I have seen of said content, this description may be a bit premature. The scenes depict two fully clothed people. One is sitting in a chair and the other is “straddling” (excuse my description as this is the most polite way to describe it) the first and is moaning as though she enjoys it. No nudity is involved, though it is very clear what is happening in the scene. This may or may not be appropriate, but such scenes happen often enough in movies rated “R” or “PG-13” that it would seem to be a double standard. However, the only real point here is that IGN is not the most accurate source of information you could have obtained. IGN is, in fact, more of an entertainment service than accurate unbiased news. They advertise the very games they review more often than not, as well as being ones to say more what they think the viewer wants to hear than anything else.

Regarding The Sims 2, you have stated in another quote from a press release that: "Sims 2, the latest version of the Sims video game franchise ... contains, according to video game news sites, full frontal nudity, including nipples, penises, labia, and pubic hair." You have specifically indicated your source of information here as well. Your source was “video game news sites”. Which sites? How reputable is their data? Once again, I must ask if it would not have been much more productive and accurate to play the game yourself and test out the code (which is easily obtainable online as you yourself claim) to ascertain exactly how much detail is shown. The reality is, The Sims 2 does not show such detail. In fact, they only modeled the most basic outline of the human form. For adult females, this includes the basic shape of breasts. To say that the detail is akin to that of a Barbie doll with its clothes off is an understatement.

It is claimed that you responded to this information yourself by saying “"The sex and the nudity are in the game. That's the point. The blur is an admission that even the 'Ken and Barbie' features should not be displayed. The blur can be disarmed. This is no different than what is in San Andreas, although worse." This may or may not be an accurate response. However, I will respond to this anyway. The problem with this argument is that you are drawing from the blurring that this proves the makers of the game thought it was crude content, and thus if they included a way to see it, that is evidence they were skirting their perception of what was decent intentionally. However, this is a basic misunderstanding of two things. First of all, to actually detail out what a human looks like naked takes a lot more effort than just a basic shape underneath the clothes. A programmer on a tight schedule can barely afford to use up time on a feature that eventually is scrapped. They will not even consider doing extra work for something they know right from the start can never be included in the final product. It would be an unproductive waste of time in an industry where unpaid overtime hours are the norm. The second misconception is that the blur means that, even if they did not have time to detail the anatomy, they still felt it wasn’t proper to show it. The blur only means they added a blur. You must provide evidence that it is an admission of anything else. To do that, you must rule out equally valid explanations. For example, this may very well have been an artistic decision. The game is designed to be a “life simulator”. As such, realism is expected, even with a comedic twist. As such, they may have felt that when a character goes nude, seeing an incomplete model (it may not have been seen as even Barbie doll quality, but rather just a poorly rendered CG model) may have killed the look of the game. Instead, they went for a blur filter. Until you can rule out this explanation, which is VERY plausible, you have no evidence of anything such as that.

Now then, the last issue is an old case. This is just about Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and the Hot Coffee scandal. You may recall that in this case, Rockstar was sued because they had some content on the disk that, although it was not accessible, it could be made so by modifying the game’s code. The issue here is this. To what extent is a company responsible for potential lewd content that must be actively hacked in order to unlock? The game was in fact not used in an authorized fashion when it was modified. This didn’t matter in the end though. It was still on the disk, even if in a broken form. However, I must point out another aspect of programming. Some code actively depends on existing code. Removal of code, as a result of this and just as a result of it taking time anyway, will take up as much time as inserting it to begin with. On a very tight schedule, the decision often has to be made that the content just has to be “dummied out”. “Dummying” involves simply making the content inaccessible. For all intents and purposes, it really is gone. It takes work to get any old code that may not have been deleted to come out. Some of it is already fairly deleted already so whatever may be recovered is “garbage”. This is a very old practice. I will cite some famous, in the gaming community at least, examples of this. In a first person shooter game for the Nintendo 64 video game console titled “Perfect Dark”, they were actually coding using a previous title’s code, a game called “Goldeneye: 007”. As a result, a lot of stuff from the old game was in that code. They deleted a lot of stuff because they simply had to in making the new game. However, a lot of the old content, including copyrighted material, made it into the game only as dummied, unused, or outright ruined data. Using game modifying devices like the “Game Shark”, various hackers managed to unlock this hidden data. Included were such things as copyrighted James Bond gadgets, copyrighted names from the Goldeneye movie, and other such things. Not once did the creators of James Bond decide to sue the maker of Perfect Dark for this “legacy” code that, while locked away so none would ever see it without hacking, still included copyrighted material that the game makers no longer had legal permission to use. It may be ignorance on their part, or it may be they agree that the programmers really did reasonably remove the content and it was really effectively added in by the hackers.

In the same game, the programmers actually wanted to add a camera feature. Using this feature, one could take a picture of themselves and “skin” it onto a head in the game. Basically, you could actually be you in the game while shooting people. If you are currently appalled at the idea of someone effectively “shooting” at people they knew well enough to get a snapshot of, then you see why the programmers decided to dummy the feature out. They decided that, while they didn’t actually think it would do any real harm, they didn’t want the media making a big deal out of it. (In the end, that same feature exists in ALL computer games. All one need do is mod a game enough to replace all the “textures” of the models with images they may have taken on a digital camera, and the only way for a programmer to stop that is by not making a game at all.) However, most of the remnants of this feature were still in the code. Not enough though. Despite most hackers’ attempts, it is unusable. This has happened in other cases, but eventually a hacker is clever enough to “fix” the outright broken feature into a workable form very likely to resemble what the programmers originally had in mind.

That data remained because it was much more time efficient and it did not affect the final product. The thinking was very direct. If the data is inaccessible, the data, for all intents and purposes, does not exist. This is actually a pretty skeptical attitude in general, and logical.

Another example of this is an even older game. In the game “Final Fantasy 2” for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (do not confuse with the game Final Fantasy 2 included in Final Fantasy Origins or Final Fantasy Dawn of Souls for the Playstation or the Gameboy Advance, respectively), there is a lot more “dummied” content. Japan too can be “lazy” in this regard. Among the dummied content, there was a pornography book. In the original Japanese game, this was actually accessible. The content was actually just an item called “pornography”, which didn’t actually show anything. In the US game, Nintendo of America felt this was still too much. They felt even referring to pornography crossed the line. As opposed to considering EA innocent above, I will say here that yes, the only plausible explanation really is that Nintendo of America felt that the game was too crude with a pornography book accessible. The pornography book was not deleted, as deleting the item outright would risk damaging a lot of code. If they did that, they would need to remove the reference to the item in the location where it is obtained. The easiest way to do that would be to remove the room altogether. Well, why bother even deleting all that when access to the room can be prohibited altogether? They simply added a single block closing off access to the room with the pornography book, and since it could never be reached, it pretty much did not exist. Case closed, except eventually some hackers edited the code and found everything in it, including the book. The secret was out. Out, but only in the gaming community. This never made any headlines, and no one ever bothered to sue the makers of that game.

There are other examples of hidden data that isn’t so amazing to the hackers. Locked up game modes that were locked away simply because the programmers decided that the mode was not fun or was otherwise below the quality they wanted. When these are found, generally the things are laughed at by the hackers. However, at no time has a hacker said “they should not have put that in the game because it sucked”. Rather, they say “I can see why they didn’t put that in the game”. By the logic of the case against Rockstar, the content was in there; however a reviewer or hacker will never actually see it that way. The content is inaccessible unless hacked in an unauthorized manner. What if the remnants of the feature are broken and have to be fixed by the hacker, not just “unlocked”, in order to work again? What if there is nothing but a small bit in there and the hacker goes wild taking that to a level inspired by that code scrap? What if the hackers just use the existing game play “engine” in order to make their own unique content full of nudity that was in no way at all in the original game? What if what if what if? At what level does it stop being the responsibility of the programmer and start being the responsibility of the hacker? Here is what I see as the least arbitrary method for determining blame. If, when the game is used in an authorized fashion, the content can be unlocked, even by a glitch the programmers could not or did not repair, you have a case. If the content can’t be accessed when the game is used in authorized means, then the programmers should not be blamed for anything. My argument here is simple. If the content is not accessible in the game except via means which are unauthorized and directly modify the game’s code, then whatever you get from that is the fault of the hackers.

Allow me to paint this picture. Imagine that a company has sworn that no data they gather about their clients will be released to the public. They do not. They have the data securely locked up on their servers to the best of their ability. The only thing they can do to make it more secure is deleting the data. They only keep it because it helps them better manage individual clients if they can pull up old records of them should they be contacted by them again. However, a hacker (the bad malicious kind) decides to subvert their systems. However the hacker manages to do it, the hacker hacks into the system and then downloads all this private data. This data is then published online, sold, etc. Not a pretty picture. Who is to blame? Should the company be sued because had they deleted the data, the hackers would not be able to get it? Or, should the hacker be blamed because the data really was inaccessible unless the system was subverted or altered by someone? I myself believe the latter to be the case. You may not see it that way after all. This may be in line with your thinking, but I felt it important to really show exactly what such lines of thinking lead to. Now, to point out how well this analogy does work, I will say that yes, keeping that old code in a game does serve a purpose to that company. That purpose is saving a lot of money time and energy in the project by preventing the need to seriously recode major portions of the game in order to allow full deletion of the data.

What I have done here is point out the problems I see in your arguments. In the case of Killer 7, I have pointed out that movies have in fact done the same thing in media rated for 17-. You may however feel that movies have gone out of control too. In that case, I have nothing else to say. If you feel that way, then yes I suppose BOTH should be rated for 18+ if said content is HARMFUL sexual content. So long as there is consistency, I offer no other objections regarding Killer 7.

In the case of The Sims 2, I have pointed out that there is no evidence at all to support the notion that EA actually did anything wrong, much less that they thought what they were doing was wrong. The artistic explanation for the filter’s presence is very plausible.

In the case of the older case of GTA: SA, I have basically pointed out the nature of dummying code, and that by suing the game makers for what hackers may do, you enter a slippery slope of where culpability lies until you end up at the ridiculous. Basically, I make an argument of the absurd. I also make the analogy of other programs unrelated to video games but with similar potential for existing data to be hacked in such a way as to be illegally made available to the public.

I can only conclude by saying I hope this letter finds you well and that I am open to any new evidence you may have. I am always willing to eat crow. I may enjoy video games but I do acknowledge when game makers have made legitimate mistakes, and I am also capable of changing my opinions to fit the evidence, as logic demands, not visa versa. Thank you for your time.

The following is the text from the alleged e-mail as I read it at the site http://www.vgcats.com/jack.php . If any of this text, or the e-mail itself, is in error or is simply a forgery, then I apologize for asking about it.
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At this point I included the entire e-mail that vgcats peoples got, so that's why I didn't quote my entire e-mail because this post is long enough already.