Games, games, games!
Andrew Cory
For most of us, it's the holiday season (Solstice for me, thank you very much!), and that means presents. If someone on your list has an interest in games, Mighty Pony Girl has a fantastic article on the subject. It's written as a guide for parents, and does a tremendous job covering things like the ESRB and what consoles might or might not be age-appropriate. I highly recommend this article...
People need to realize that the kids of the 80s that played games are adults in the 00s and they want more adult titles. "M" rated games are not being peddled to children.
"AO" games are. ;-P
Though I do think that "adult" to me means "serious exploration of moral themes" (CF: System Shock), rather than gratuitous violence and nudity.
My brother is in Afghanistan and wants some games for his Mac notebook, which is brand spankin' new. He's got WinXP on it, but I'm wondering if there are any good native games for the Mac out that he might not have seen. He likes things like Rome, RTS's, etc. I haven't looked and I admit to being fairly braindead when it comes to PC games.
My Mac snark shall not be contained!
It shouldn't mask the content in any way. It should be truthful and honest about it. But the "wholesale violence is fine, but one boob makes it 'adult'" formulation is not.
So instead of decoding what's in the game from what it says, people have to decode the rating. Just another layer of obfuscation for people to drill through.
OK, thanks. I'll just get him stuff for his WinXP.
I don't get your argument here. What would you put in place of the ratings?
And differentiation between 'retail' and 'wholesale' violence might be good. As in 'people get ripped apart in detail' vs 'tons of zombie killing'.
I realize that it might be more difficult to do these kinds of ratings, but it would definitely help parents deal with pressure from their kids about the games, and help them make informed decisions about the things for their children.
Personally, I also have issues with what I mentioned, that anything 'sexual' is weighted far worse than violence. But that's in a lot of people's minds, so I don't know if that's gonna make any headway.
Ryan
Sexual refrences in the Bible aren't there to titillate. Stories that involve sex serve a specific purpose - to foretell/fulfill a blessing/prophecy, to serve as a moral lesson, indicate bloodline, et al. Sex in video games (in most media for that matter) exists to titillate alone. It serves no purpose other than itself. Sex for the sake of sex.
So, it appears, you are not reading the Bible either if you think there's any comparison at all to be had.
Please, if you would, tell me how the Song of Solomon compares the the sex mini-game in God of War? Or the depiction of sex in most film and television?
I expected a little bit more from you, Dean.
Well, for starters, there's "supposedly equally protected by the 1st Amendment".
What else, what else. . .ah, yes, "potentially titillating, regardless of supposed creative intention, and therefore likewise supposedly posing some kind of 'risk' to certain parties, and thereby likewise subject to evaluation by the rating systems established to assist in 'protecting' said parties from said supposed 'risk'."
So there's a couple of significant ones right there.
Look, at this point, the vast majority of kids can walk into their local library and grab modern chick-lit off the shelves to read -- books which contains passages that are pretty much only a couple of bilabial fricatives away from outright brown-bag porn. That right there basically puts the lie to all this 'to protect the innocent little kiddies' nonsense.
I'm not opposed to rating systems, but let's face it, they're a lot more about easing parental worries OOH and relatively painlessly bleeding off the totalitarian elitist Thought Police tendencies of part of the community OTOH than they're about, OTGH, actually 'protecting' kids from teh horrorz uv TEH SECKS OMFGWTFBBQ!
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.