30th November 2004, 12:45 AM
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/11/29/...14067.html
Just the latest of many such occurances in Austrailia and New Zealand, a game banned from sale (in this case Postal 2's expansion). So you say "that'd never happen here!" ... but it could. Listen to what Senator Leiberman is saying, he says that free speech should be curtailed if it's stuff like this that is so bad... scary. Yes, Postal is extreme (and a bad game), but still... it doesn't take games that go that far to get banned there, I'm pretty sure...
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/11/23/...13908.html
On a related note, about a week ago the group Media and the Family released their yearly report card on the gaming industry. It was shown on C-Span last Tuesday night or so. I happened to be watching TV at the time and ran into it right at the beginning and watched the thing (you can watch it too, on the C-Span webcast link I link below)... it was interesting. I found myself disliking Leiberman's (he was there too) position all over again, but what the guy from Media and the Family was saying was much more reasonable (and interesting). He talked a lot about "bad" content for kids, but did not support federal action to make some games illegal. He focused on enforcement of retailers' blocking children from buying games (very interestingly, when they sent clearly underage children to buy games in retail stores while 50% of boys could buy M-rated games only 8% of girls could -- clear sexism on the part of the clerks and a interesting result...). He definitely also talked about the developers themselves and the rating system, but they pretty much support the ESRB rating system, with the exception that they think that a lot more games should be getting AO ratings instead of Ms (since AO is really unused and their opinion is that it should either be actively used on games that are "worst for childeren" or abandoned)... but really my description of their opinions won't do the job of explaining what they are saying all that well. Instead, I recommend that you watch it yourself. What, go wish for it to show up on C-Span? Nope. Just watch it. C-Span webcasts a lot of stuff. But watch it soon, because I don't know how long they keep stuff (after it's been on C-Span)...
Link to the C-Span video segment (realmedia streaming video link -- did anyone else know that C-Span has a full webcast of all three of its channels? And video of past C-Span segments?). 55 minuites.
http://www.c-span.org/search/basic.asp?R...ge1=Submit
Hmm... to attract more people to this post (and to watch that video), at the end they have a video segment they've put together with clips from various "offending" games. The most interesting part is that they've got footage from two ... adult ... games that managed M ratings: The Guy Game and Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude. That is, footage of the worst parts. Including nudity. Yeah. And this was played on national (cable) television... probably in primetime too... kind of goes against their message... :)
NIMF report website (for those who are morally opposed to watching videos or with whose pitiful bandwidth don't want to wait for it to download -- but be aware that the video is a lot more interesting)
http://www.mediafamily.org/research/repo...2004.shtml
Just the latest of many such occurances in Austrailia and New Zealand, a game banned from sale (in this case Postal 2's expansion). So you say "that'd never happen here!" ... but it could. Listen to what Senator Leiberman is saying, he says that free speech should be curtailed if it's stuff like this that is so bad... scary. Yes, Postal is extreme (and a bad game), but still... it doesn't take games that go that far to get banned there, I'm pretty sure...
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/11/23/...13908.html
On a related note, about a week ago the group Media and the Family released their yearly report card on the gaming industry. It was shown on C-Span last Tuesday night or so. I happened to be watching TV at the time and ran into it right at the beginning and watched the thing (you can watch it too, on the C-Span webcast link I link below)... it was interesting. I found myself disliking Leiberman's (he was there too) position all over again, but what the guy from Media and the Family was saying was much more reasonable (and interesting). He talked a lot about "bad" content for kids, but did not support federal action to make some games illegal. He focused on enforcement of retailers' blocking children from buying games (very interestingly, when they sent clearly underage children to buy games in retail stores while 50% of boys could buy M-rated games only 8% of girls could -- clear sexism on the part of the clerks and a interesting result...). He definitely also talked about the developers themselves and the rating system, but they pretty much support the ESRB rating system, with the exception that they think that a lot more games should be getting AO ratings instead of Ms (since AO is really unused and their opinion is that it should either be actively used on games that are "worst for childeren" or abandoned)... but really my description of their opinions won't do the job of explaining what they are saying all that well. Instead, I recommend that you watch it yourself. What, go wish for it to show up on C-Span? Nope. Just watch it. C-Span webcasts a lot of stuff. But watch it soon, because I don't know how long they keep stuff (after it's been on C-Span)...
Link to the C-Span video segment (realmedia streaming video link -- did anyone else know that C-Span has a full webcast of all three of its channels? And video of past C-Span segments?). 55 minuites.
http://www.c-span.org/search/basic.asp?R...ge1=Submit
Hmm... to attract more people to this post (and to watch that video), at the end they have a video segment they've put together with clips from various "offending" games. The most interesting part is that they've got footage from two ... adult ... games that managed M ratings: The Guy Game and Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude. That is, footage of the worst parts. Including nudity. Yeah. And this was played on national (cable) television... probably in primetime too... kind of goes against their message... :)
NIMF report website (for those who are morally opposed to watching videos or with whose pitiful bandwidth don't want to wait for it to download -- but be aware that the video is a lot more interesting)
http://www.mediafamily.org/research/repo...2004.shtml
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