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The Media Government Entertainment Games Politics

GTA Sex Game Debate Intensifies 189

Posted by Zonk from the where-she-stops-nobody-knows dept.
The ESRB kerfluffle with Rockstar shows no signs of ebbing. Gamespot is reporting that a watchdog group has gotten into the act. From the article: "The Minneapolis-based watchdog group, founded by Dr. David Walsh, previously decried the game for its glorification of cop-killing with an online petition. Now the group is issuing a National Parental Warning for the game, giving concerned mothers and fathers a heads-up that their children could be playing with their joysticks in an inappropriate way. The National Institute on Media and the Family joins an already active debate on the game, its content, and the appropriateness of its current M rating." Additionally, the Dutch hacker who claims to have uncovered the game content has been identified. From the article: "...the mod was authored by 36-year-old Patrick Wildenborg, a Dutch gamer and a member of the modder community...Wildenborg insists that the X-rated code is already in the game and that all his patch does is bypass the game's 'censor flags.'" Among many others, Game Girl Advance has commentary on the story.
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GTA Sex Game Debate Intensifies More

GTA Sex Game Debate Intensifies

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  • Joysticks? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @06:48AM (#13040586)
    "that their children could be playing with their joysticks in an inappropriate way."

    This came out way wayyy wrong.

  • An interesting read. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Gen. Rasputin X ( 716134 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @06:59AM (#13040634) Homepage
    Game Girl Advance provides two solid viewpoints on the issue.

    One is the whole "It was locked out, had to be hacked to access" issue.

    And the other, "It was still on the final master disc when it shipped."

    It's a tough question, should the ESRB have access to all materials on the master disc? or just the materials that are available to anyone who doesn't attempt to hack the game?

    However, GTA : SA is a Mature game, at least in terms of rating, and as far as I've seen, the sex, though more explict than that found in most video games isn't a big deal.

    But then again, I'm one of those whackos who doesn't have a problem with sex.

    And one of those who finds a certain catharsis through violence.

  • BFD (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bimo_Dude ( 178966 ) <[bimoslash] [at] [theness.org]> on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @07:07AM (#13040658) Homepage Journal
    Waaaahhhhhh!!! The game can be modded to show [very unrealistic] sex!!!!

    I could see it if the ESRB was only complaining about the violence (although even that would be debateable, since it is already rated mature), but Sex? If I had children, i would much prefer that they were exposed to sex, and educated about safe sex, rather than having the constant exposure to violence that kids nowadays seem to have.

    Unfortunately, in my lifetime, it seems to have always been this way in the US. The media appears to promote violence and repress sex (unless it's violent sex, like rape - which is arguably not even about sex anyway).

    This has become a country of minority (wealthy) rule over the majority (normal people).

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @08:34AM (#13041102)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I think the real obscenity comes from raising out youth to believe that sex is bad and ugly and dirty. And yet, it is heroic to go spill guts and blood in the most ghastly manner in the name of humanity.

        With all the taboos attached to sex, it's no wonder we have the problems we have. It's no wonder were angry and violent and genocidal. But, ask yourself the question, what is more obscene: sex or war?

        Larry Flynt
    • Hasn't anyone seen Team America? Especially the Unrated DVD version? Don't they sell it at Wal-mart?

      If movies can be released on DVD without such inspection, why can't a computer game?

      I'll answer my own question. It's because 'games' are for 'kids', supposedly. Also, people fear and hate what they do not understand.
    • I agree, however it's not just the US. Controling masses of people has always been made easier by using the secrecy of sex to divide them and the justification of violence to unite and direct them.

      I have two grown kids, a boy and a girl, I am happy they have both found that special someone who will bonk thier brains out rather than blow thier brains out.

  • This is pure STUPID (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fluor2 ( 242824 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @07:11AM (#13040682)
    America, wake up! You should do something about the VIOLENCE, not the SEX! America has FAR MANY PEOPLE KILLED EACH DAY, still organizations seem to care about nudity issues.

    • Re:This is pure STUPID (Score:5, Informative)

      by redwiregmail ( 841822 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @07:27AM (#13040762) Homepage
      FBI Crime Statistics for year ending 2004: Nationaly Reported Violent Crimes: 258,000,968 Department of Justice Statistics: National Reported Criminal "Lewd Acts" 148,011 I think you might be onto something there :p
      • Violent crimes include rape and sexual assault..

        Look people have been complaining about the violence in GTA for a good long while now, and when they did that they were laughed at (believe it or not by people here) for saying that game violence might move kids to do real violence.

        Now they find this and complain... the result is people complaining that they are ignoring the violence..

      • FBI Crime Statistics for year ending 2004: Nationaly Reported Violent Crimes: 258,000,968

        America is a nation of 300,000,000. How is that statistic possible?

    • America, wake up! You should do something about the VIOLENCE, not the SEX! America has FAR MANY PEOPLE KILLED EACH DAY, still organizations seem to care about nudity issues

      The link between this culture's openly permissive sexual attitude is clear. Currently, the national illegitimacy rate is over 30%, and black illegitimacy rate over 65% up from 22% in the early sixties. In the meantime was the "sexual revolution" and Roe vs Wade, which increased conceptions by 30% and dropped birth rate by 6%. Just

      • Treating sex responsibly apparently means going completely out of control apeshit over a single exposed breast or a mini-game in an already extremely graphic game, one that involves people having sex with their clothes on at that.

        This entire country is filled to the brim with morons.

        And how can we win against stupidity? We've got argument, he's got a gun (in the form of police), and isn't capable of listening to argument.
        • Please. There's just a whole lot of loud morons, and unfortunately, the media likes to talk about whoever's the loudest, and the politicians like to talk about whatever the media talks about. And the public eats it all up, because it's generally fun to watch people get all huffy and loud.

          All that being said, I don't personally know too many people who would care enough to make that big of a deal out of this. But in this case, like almost every case, the negative voices are the loudest, the people with com

      • Re:This is pure STUPID (Score:3, Informative)

        by GeckoX ( 259575 )
        If it wasn't TABOO they wouldn't even blink at crap like this.

        It is purely because sex is TABOO in north america that teenagers migrate so much towards sex.

        Teenagers are programmed to do one thing well, break rules. Push the boundaries. What's the biggest boundary presented to teenagers in north america? Yeah, you've got it.

        Ignorance is bliss, until your teenager comes home knocked up.

        Nudity is our natural state, get over it.
        Fucking is why we are here, get over it.
        Trying to change or hide these pure tru

        • Fucking is why we are here, get over it. Trying to change or hide these pure truths does absoltely NOTHING but cause problems.

          This is exactly what modern sex education does - it tries to hide the fundamental fact that sex and procreation and inevitably linked. Somehow, people who say "abstinence is the best way to prevent unintended pregnancy" are derided as being unrealistic - in reality, abstinence is the *only* way to 100% prevent unintended pregnancy, but people can't seem to "get over it" - they

      • Re:This is pure STUPID (Score:2, Informative)

        by kop ( 122772 )
        You are not going to stop teenagers having sex, they are progammed to do that. If you want to lower unwanted pregnancy you should educate children about sex and hand out condoms. To me this is so obvious that i have problems understanding what all the fuzz is about.

        If you want to see the scene you can download a movie here

        http://www.geenstijl.nl/paginas/hotcoffeemovie.htm l [geenstijl.nl]

        The sex is not as abusive as the rest of the gameplay, you are supposed to give her pleasure. It is probably the most female frie
      • "Because in the absence of good parenting, they learn sex about from MTV and Grand Theft Auto."

        If a kid is playing GTA and installing sex "hacks", I am sure that downloading porno is nothing new either.

        "Illegitimacy" does not mean a fucking thing except the parents are not married.

        "Because when teenagers have sex, they are in no position to raise their children properly."

        That should read ..."no financial position"... teenagers have been bearing and rasing children for millenia.

        "The link betwe
      • Wrong. Censorship and prohibition does not work. Particularly given the nature of the internet today, this is an absurd statement. We have more access to sex today then ever; the only solution would be revamping the education system.

        The very unfortante downside is there is an entire generation that for the most part cannot be helped. It's not a pretty picture to say the least and America doesn't seem very interested in dealing with it at the moment we just like to gild the lily and act like we're tryin
    • Agree. It would be quite ironic that one of the most violent games of this moment would be banned from the shelves because of some sex feature that is not even enabled by default. The mere suggestion of sex (it's not more than that) is enough to provoke this kind of reaction, the simulation of city wide riots, gang wars and drug violence is not.

      It's also ironic that the same people who freak out over accidental nipples on tv look the other way when it comes to guns. It's ok and considered normal to handle
    • Actually I think people have sex more often then they are killed :-)

      However I certainly agree with your sentiment!

  • It's a Mature game +18 why warn parents? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by anakin513 ( 653341 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @07:16AM (#13040703) Homepage
    I'm confused. GTA has been a Mature rated game, meaning 18 and older for a long time. How about we educate the parents, to take an interest in what their children are doing, and stop buying inappropriate games for them.

    Sit down and play the games that your kid is playing, who cares if you're not interested, at least you won't be blind sided by your ignorance, when something like this comes out of left field.

    Take an interest in your kids activities, and you won't have 12 year olds, playing games with organized crime, prostitution, assassinations and sex.

    I think it's called parenting.
    • It's much easier to blame others than to actually take responsibility.

      I don't know about kids now but I stopped getting a fixed allowance when I was 10 [and even then it was only a couple bucks a week, basically enough to go out and buy balsa wood planes or pop or something], had to either beg or work for the things I bought when I was a teenager.

      I remember working a few months at Zellers [Canadian version of Walmart] to buy a Cyrix MII computer to call my own...

      If the parents just stopped writing off their children they wouldn't have this shit to worry about.

      It isn't as if GTA is $5 or something. It usually sells for between 40 and 60 dollars. That's a shit load of cash for a 12 yr old kid.

      But furthermore what I hate about these right wing "save the children" groups is

      - Kids can't play video games because they will get violent tendencies

      but

      - War is heroic and patriotic
      - Must fight the war on $NOUN_OR_OFTEN_VERB

      Parents have no problems sending 17, 18, 19 yr old kids off to Iraq to get shot up and permenantly damaged. But if a 15 yr old plays GTA ... well that's the end of the free world as we know it.

      Also I'm tired of this "kid world" we live in. I pay for cable, not 12 yr old kids. Fuck them. I want tits and explosions and hard core shit on tv. Why should it be all power rangers and FCC censored can't say "fuck" bullshit.

      Maybe if all the american teenagers/kids started paying for cable, movies, video games instead of us adults it would be different.

      In short, fuck kids and their hyperactive irresponsible parents too.

      Tom
      • If the parents are letting a child play GTA before they heard of this so called 'sex scandal' then why should they be worried about this game now? They obvously don't give two craps about what the child is doing.

        The only things these so called warnings do are increase sales and informing people that would have never heard about this mod in the first place.

      • Parents have no problems sending 17, 18, 19 yr old kids off to Iraq to get shot up and permenantly damaged.

        I've seen this meme several times, and it always confuses me. Who in this country sends their children off to join the military? Nobody that I know of.

        You cannot be forced to join the army -- not by the government (at the moment), and certainly not by your parents. The military recruits able-bodied adults of their own volition. Simply saying "parents send their kids to war" absolves the soldi

        • You can't force someone into the military (except for military school for minors, but that's not really the military). But you can't deny the social pressures parents can exert on their children to either join or not join the military once they are old enough.

          "My father joined, his father joined, and I joined. You join too, or you're out of this family" is a compelling reason to go for many kids.
          • I'm going to attach this comment here, because it relates to your sig and someone else's, and is very OT as far as military is concerned:

            The first rule of PATRIOT act is do not talk about PATRIOT act

            You're right about that. Someone else's sig is "Labeling something that ISN'T terrorism AS terrorism IS TERRORISM!"

            Therefore, the USA PATRIOT (or "U SAP AT RIOT") act is, itself, terrorism: it creates the fear in all US citizens that, if they say or do the wrong thing, they could wind up in jail on

      • FWIW, cable TV isn't as tightly regulated in terms of content as broadcast television is. Comedy Central, in particular, often has shows with the swearing and whatnot still left in. Although, even though they might legally be able to get away with it, most stations avoid that because it can alienate advertisers.

        The rest of your argument is right on, however. When I was a kid, I only got new video games on my birthday or christmas, and someone else was paying for them, because back then I thought $10 was a

    • Amen. I live in Minneapolis, and I had a conversation about this topic with a guy on the bus the other day (he saw me with my GBA, asked me about gaming, then jumped right to the GTA thing.)

      This guy said that he was upset about "those game guys" (Rockstar) selling a game like that, with sex and stuff in it. He said he was really worried about his 12-yr-old son, who plays the game on his XBox.

      My response: people are trying to get GTA:SA moved up to a "Adult Only" (AO) rating. That means 18 and over.

    • I'm confused. GTA has been a Mature rated game, meaning 18 and older for a long time. How about we educate the parents,

      Here's the problem. Parents who are plenty educated about the ESRB rating system might want their 16 year old to play an M rated game, but not an AO rated game. They've read the labels, they know what the different ratings mean.

      Unfortunately, since Rockstar apparently failed to properly disclose examples representative of the most extreme content on the game disc-- which is required
    • Just a correction, an M rating is for 17 and older. AO (Adults Only) rating is the 18+ rating.

      GTA:SA was rated M. If the hacked material would have been in game from the begining it would have gotten an AO rating (and subsiquently not sold many places). I believe the issues on the table are more about if R* knew this was in the code when they released it, whether they should have told the ERSB about it if they knew and whether the ERSB should even rate something based on material that isn't playable wi
  • In risk a game i do very much enjoy , you partake in domination of the world , wiping out countless thousands of imaginary soldiers in your exploits.
    I also enjoy Chess , a game where you goal is to massacre the opposing army and capture their monarch.
    Or even "the game of life" there is some implied sex in that you know , you can GET MARRIED Have a ..you can be a winner in the game of life(alluding to the old UK TV advertisement )

    Of-course you don't actually see any of those things, they are implied though
    • Sex has never hurt any society , in fact it could be argued that prudent attitudes have generally coincided with the fall of many societies.

      Yep. Take for example the Shakers, who forbade sex among their followers.

      Small wonder they died out!

  • Pathetic (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RasendeRutje ( 829555 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @07:26AM (#13040759)
    The game is rated 18+, and only after installing a patch the 'naughty bits' become available.
    There a thousands of 18+ movies/site with far more explicit sex scenes, and far more easily accessible.
    • No, it is rated Mature 17+ [esrb.com]. It carries the same requisite as an R rated [mpaa.org] movie. You should be 17 or older to play the game unless a parent or guardian allows you to play the game. Just as you should have to be accompanied by an adult to watch an R-rated movie under the age of 17. Really the game contains less than what you would see in an R rated movie. I can understand the social panic, but this game has been out for a year now. Movies don't generate this kind of buzz, because of deleted nude scenes o
      • No, it is rated Mature 17+.

        Right... because when you're 17, you're not prepared to see polygons have sex, but the minute you turn 18, everything changes, right?

        The M (Mature) and AO (Adult-only) rating is the worst I've ever seen... waaaayy too fine-grained. What the hell happens between your 17th and 18th birthday that make you all so much more mature?

        • > What the hell happens between your 17th and 18th birthday that make you all so much more mature?

          Do I need to give you a civics lesson?

          The state laws are also uniform at 18+ as well, none consider 18 or over a minor. Of course we continue to make the whole alcohol thing a titillating illicit thrill until the age of 21, so the patronizing doesn't quite stop, but at least it's legal for 18 year olds to see see polygonal boobies.
        • What the hell happens between your 17th and 18th birthday that make you all so much more mature?

          Nothing, you missed the point. I am just stating a fact, the meaning of the ratings. I am not questioning the maturity difference between 17 and 18 year olds. The point I think we can all agree on is that you wouldn't take a young child to see Pulp Fiction. Why would you let them play a game of an equivalent rating?
    • There a thousands of 18+ movies/site with far more explicit sex scenes, and far more easily accessible.

      But the voters, that politicians are targeting to blame everything on video games, watch movies. If they talked about controling content in movies they would lose support from a good portion of the population. Targeting video games only loses a younger population that doesn't vote anyway. Senetor Liberman doesn't care about losing a vote your not going to cast. Young people should get off their ass
  • How could we effective disapprove of this awfull material if we can't get a look at it? I mean, it's our duty to guard the morality of the gaming world, right? So can we please get a few screenshots?

  • This is ridiculous!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mindaktiviti ( 630001 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @08:01AM (#13040916)

    In Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, gamers can play basketball, play pool, dance, grab some fast food, buy clothes, work out at the gym, base jump, have girlfriends, and race remote-controlled cars--all completely legal activities in the real world. However, the game's main character can also shoot innocent bystanders, stomp the heads of prostitutes into a bloody pulp, and launch rocket-propelled grenades at police helicopters--all decidedly illegal outside the realm of gaming

    There are crimes being committed inside a video game!!! Well gee, who would have thought that crimes could possibly be committed in a video game, why can't we think of the children!?

    I will agree, the actual sex stuff is really unecessary and I don't personally think it adds any real value to the game, but that's as far as they should go. They shouldn't yell about being able to kill prostitutes, or shoot police helicopters with grenade launchers (where's this grenade launcher anyway?). You can do that to pedestrians and villians as well, and it's the open ended gameplay that people love and not the sex mod that gets them hooked on the game.

    • Yup, illegal activities in a game.

      I oughta send them a link to PimpWars.

      Or I could give em a copy of Dopewars for the Palm, if they want to commit crimes in a game on the go.

  • What I think... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mindaktiviti ( 630001 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @08:06AM (#13040938)
    The National Institute on Media and the Family should wake up and smell the (hot) coffee. :P

  • Creators responsible? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kaali ( 671607 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @08:32AM (#13041092)
    How can the creators be resposinble for material that was never supposed to be seen. How about in an online game, for example an MMORPG where people strip their clothes and use the dance emotes to act some really naughty stuff. Is the creators resposible for people "abusing" the system to create something that would be over the original rating of the game? How are the programmers supposed to block from player doing things like this? How about those Video Game porn archives where there are really really naughty scenes involving Pikachu and Yoshi, i guess those games should be banned too.

    As the GamerGirlAdvance article said, this is just works of the anti-GTA crowd. There are no intellectual/logical base for these accusations, they are just flames that are thrown towards their enemy. In court, i doubt that these claims would stand. The only problem is some distributors and store owners that might ban the game from their shelves by these flames. On the other hand, the sales of the game will propably rise anyhow as it gains more free controversial press.
    • There is a large difference between someone who provides a game which can be manipulated into producing something which can be interpreted as porn, and someone who orders porn produced for the video game. We know what the budgets are like for video games nowadays -- this wasn't a rogue programmer, this was in the design document, it was on the white board, somebody actually sat down and animated while somebody else (likely) did the vocal work and a third person the "game logic". Mini-games don't just happ
    • How can the creators be resposinble for material that was never supposed to be seen

      GTA has become a lightning rod, a symbol of trends that are not well-liked or trusted outside the gaming community.

      If you were trying to defend "mature" content in gaming, access to M rated titles, you did not need to hear that Rockstar had embedded sex games within GTA:SA.

      I don't much care about the future of GTA. I do care about losing the next Fallout, Half-Life, System Shock, Deux Ex, etc, because the M rating has be

  • Oh my GOD (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gullevek ( 174152 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @08:58AM (#13041230) Homepage Journal
    millions and millions of young people now see how sex works. They will try it out, have sex and not buy guns and kill or whatever. They will have sex.
    Right now millions of people do have sex. Almost everybody on this globe has, had, will have, has right now sex. Sex is everywhere. We reproduce through this.
    And those american morons have nothing better to do than whine about such a stupid mini-game?
    I think those people have a too god life. They should be sent to some poor areas in the world. Live there for 5 years in shelters, boxes and eat the dirt and trash from the others. I am sure they will never ever complain about such a stupid useless thing again.
    • I think those people have a too god life. They should be sent to some poor areas in the world. Live there for 5 years in shelters, boxes and eat the dirt and trash from the others. I am sure they will never ever complain about such a stupid useless thing again.

      Not to mention that they will be out of our hair for a while. ;)

    • Re:Oh my GOD (Score:2, Funny)

      by myukew ( 823565 )
      Almost everybody on this globe has, had, will have, has right now sex.

      Execpt slashdotters
  • Until someone creates a mod for a game thats rated 14+ that allows kids to have full on hardcore sex and all games end up being rated M or AO because of the potential for adult content. I mean really thats as proposterous as people who try to ban guns on the premis that they may possibly be used to kill someone.

  • Unlock sex games... in Real Life (Score:4, Funny)

    by hoggoth ( 414195 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @10:11AM (#13041822) Journal
    I just tried the unlocking codes on a pretty girl waiting for a bus... you know... just in case it might work.

    She looked at me like I was insane, asked what I just said. When I explained, she slapped me.

    There was no sex.

    Oh well, I didn't think it would work, but I had to try... just in case.

  • I'm going to have to buy this game out of principal. Since I don't have a PC for gaming I'll have to get the XBox version (which doesn't have the sex game hack), but that'll have to do. Anything that causes this kind of sensation is bound to banned sooner or later and I'd like to have it before it finally gets pulled from the shelves.
    • Since I don't have a PC for gaming I'll have to get the XBox version (which doesn't have the sex game hack)

      As a matter of fact, it does [gtagarage.com].

      Personally, I think a lot of people (especially the "I know what's best for you" and the "Do it for the children" crowd) are missing the point. It's a sex scene that is disabled in the retail version. It was not meant to be played. Great. But more importantly, it's part of a *game* (and I can't emphasize that word enough) that requires the player to silently kill a bunc

  • Anyone who's old enough to play GTA is old enough to see whatever sex scenes the hackers can find on it. Though I'ld have to ask anyone who bothers to hack it why they didn't spend that time looking for real porn.

    Maybe GTA should be rated AO. But I really don't think anyone gives enough of a shit about the difference between M and AO (17 and 18). Yeah, some stores say they won't sell AO games, but that's just because there's no AO game as popular as GTA. So all giving GTA an AO rating will do is put AO
    • No, that's not clear enough. Put a "Parental Warning" on the box. Put a "Not for kids" on the box. Put a "Aimed at Men aged 21-46, ya know, what surveys say is the gender and age of the average gamer" on the box. Put a "Not made by nintendo, this game contains graphic sex and violence, not happy italian stereotypes eating mushrooms" on the box. Put a "For fuck suck will you prudish bitches please piss off back to the suburbs and let grown men play the games they want to without having to think about wh

  • This is going to backfire on the prudes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LocalH ( 28506 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @01:39PM (#13044394) Homepage
    Regardless of how many people knew about this beforehand, with this being made such a big deal of (I even saw it featured on fucking ABC News last night), there are millions of people who do know about it now, and went straight to Google and typed in "san andreas hot coffee". Great move, guys! You don't want something available to a large subset of gamers, and now you've told them exactly what to search for to find the actual mod itself! Fucking brilliant!

  • We're the USA! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Rimbo ( 139781 ) <rimbosity@sbcglo[ ].net ['bal' in gap]> on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @02:04PM (#13044688) Homepage Journal
    Shoot as many people as you want! Cuss until your face turns blue! Practice satanic rituals! Invade foreign countries! We don't care! But show one image of consensual adults fucking, and we'll lock you up in jail you SEX CRIMINAL!

  • Seems like nitpicking... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BackInIraq ( 862952 ) on Tuesday July 12, 2005 @02:43PM (#13045116)
    ...to me.

    Considering the amount of inappropriate content already in the game, is this one thing really enough to warrant changing the rating? Especially considering that the game, as shipped, has this portion locked out? It's like complaining that they used the F-bomb one too many times in Pulp Fiction.

    In addition, the M rating already restricts the sale of the game to those 17 and older. The AO rating would make it available to those 18 and older. Seems that one of the other is redundant. The only reason that the MPAA features an R and NC-17 rating (which are considered the equivalent of M and AO) is because in a theater setting, NO minors are allowed to view an NC-17 rating, regardless of parental consent. You cannot even take your own kids in. In a take-home setting (such as video/video games) there is no discernable difference between the two, because either way the parent can just hand it to the kid when they get home.

    The only reason the two distinct ratings were created was to allow stores a black-and-white line to filter out which titles they would refuse to carry. God forbid the management make those decisions on their own.

    Really, I think it was created less to give stores like Target and Wal-Mart an excuse not to carry AO rated games, and more an excuse for chains to explain why they DO carry certain M-rated titles. "I know it's inappropriate for kids, ma'am...but it is only M rated, and we do carry M rated games." That way they can milk the GTA cash cow (along with other "offensive" content) and still act like a family store.

    This is the reason for the 1 year age difference as well...by making it 17 and under, they can claim that since it can be legally sold to minors it's appropriate for a family-oriented store.
  • ..is not that people are outraged. That is there perogative. People can vote with their dollars and not buy the game. What gets me is that groups like this are so well organized that they can effectively move legislation to outlaw games like GTA (which is fun, btw), even while the "silent majority" just doesn't care.

    Would I let my young son or daughter play GTA? Of course not, it is extremely violent. Would they play it behind my back? Probably. But like most rational people, I'd probably talk to my
  • Does anyone have a website or contact information for this watchdog group? As a citizen of the United States I'd like to drop them a little letter suggesting they start addressing the real issues at hand and stop looking for a scapegoat. All they are doing is sensationalizing things in order to force their perspective on people; the real tragedy is that the people they are trying to protect, the children, are being forgotten...anyone else find this somewhat reminiscent of South Park Bigger Longer & Un

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