Take Two Vows To Publish Manhunt 2 116
Despite Manhunt 2's bad reception in both UK and US, Take Two has publicly announced that it will publish the game at some point. Backing the title as art, once again, the company vowed to see the game released in some capacity or another. "The chairman added that Take-Two subsidiary Rockstar Games, which publishes Manhunt and the Grand Theft Auto series, sees itself as a producer of games rated M for Mature. However, Zelman did say Take-Two would stand by its game, even if it bore the dreaded AO for Adults Only rating. 'We don't see ourselves in the Adults Only business,' he told analysts listening to the call. 'Having said that, if we find ourselves in the Adults Only business, it would be because we have a title that we consider art and entertainment, that we consider if appropriately labeled AO, and that we would like to bring to market.'"
In some capacity or another. (Score:5, Funny)
Good for them (Score:1)
Anyway, I'll probably pick it up just to say hey, there is a market for this!
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Re:Good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to see whoever it was that ran a sting operation and saw 69% of kids under 17 could buy M rated games do the same for R rated films like Hostel, Saving Private Ryan and Pulp Fiction. (Yes, I picked those films on purpose as examples)
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(And if anyone else out there is going, huh? at my picks, Hostel for gratuitous violence, SPR for historical violence)
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Honestly I don't see this as a problem. So what if Walmart won't sell your game? The people who want to play Manhunt 2 are going to play Manhunt 2 regardless if they can get it at Walmart or not. Properly marketed (so far so good), Manhunt 2 will sell even if Walmart doesn't carry it. There's always Amazon or any number of other online stores, plus all the retail est
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How is that a profit loss? AO rated games are not released on any platform except computers. AO games won't even play on Nintendo and Sony consoles. Not sure if they will on the Xboxes or not.
I'm sure there is a market. (Score:1)
It kind of already exists in the form of Hentai games, except that I have never tried one. Perhaps if there were a way to find an english translated one...
hmmm
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What the ESRB should be is headed by the big gaming publishers. If the movie studios can regulate themselves and put out Hostel, et. al., then game companies should be able to do the same.
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Damn you Wiki! I used to go straight to the sites! Need a 12 step recovery program...
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No, it was created in response to a threat of an act of Congress, by the industry itself.
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It was created by the industry; if the industry did not create a rating system then the government would have intervened and rated/censored games itself.
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Uh, How Will This Work? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Fuck them, if it is a game, another type of game
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take it to Steam (Score:2)
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Which makes me wonder, can you sell games direct for a game console and avoid the licencing fees? I remember that whole Licenced For Nintendo fiasco a while back in the NES days but not sure how much would apply.
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Then again, manufacturers of cheat devices (game shark, action replay, etc) are unlicensed so... how are they getting away with it?
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However, I've learned that in recent years console makers have been using digital signatures in order to validate their licensed games. The game won't run without the signature, and forging the signature is a violation of the DMCA. That leaves unlicensed developers without any real options for releasing their game.
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Legally or technically? I have no idea about the legal aspect.
As for the technical aspect, the original NES used a special manufactured-by-Nintendo chip in the cartridge to verify that the game was licensed. Various non-approved game publishers would cannibalize those chips from unpopular games and stick them in their own. Presto! Instant authorized cartridge! I remember hearing about one game manufacturer where
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Stop the presses! (Score:5, Insightful)
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So yeah, this kind of is news. I'd like to play it, but who the hell knows when I will be able to or how toned down it will be. I'm actually curious if it's even that bad, if anyone has
Could be the best thing (Score:5, Insightful)
I think I speak for a lot of people that would _love_ to see the AO rating go from "the dreaded" to the "hells yeah!" rating. I mean we all want these kinds of titles - we are growing up but dammit as much as I love nintendo I want my games to grow up with me. Honestly I cant figure out where the real problem is. Distributors refuse to carry it - why? I know the fact that Wal-Mart wont carry it is a real problem when you are looking at your bottom line - but thankfully they looked at a bottom line of zero and are deciding to go ahead.
What I could see this as doing for the future is this being remembered as that first title that said 'the hell with it' and went through with the AO rating and made the Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft's realize that there is a market here and it is worth expanding our definition of games. Take Two is an utter mess at this point - but that desperation is great for doing something crazy that just might work. Dont tone down the game - throw in those few bits you were scared would originally garner an AO rating and just sell the damn thing.
Re:Could be the best thing (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not saying they shouldn't publish the game at all... Publish away, I don't have to buy it. I just don't think the majority of adults even really care about AO games.
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Wow really, so you still watch the CareBears too? You don't think it was violent to dump a living being (deemed "evil", by the book that came with the game) into a pool of lava? Hmm.
I'm not saying they shouldn't publish the game at all... Publish away, I don't have to buy it. I just don't think the majority of adults even really care about AO game
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No I don't watch the Care Bears. But that wasn't my point. My point was that growing older does not equal an increased need for violence. I'm not sure what you're talking about with the lava and such as I don't think I've ever played a Care Bears game and I don't remember the cartoon much.
There is a difference between a carto
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I see the ultra-violent games as being the LEAST mature, actually. Because a lot of the simple, innocent games appeal to older gamers who grew up with Mario and Tetris... games started out innocent and simple, it's called nostolgia.
For the most part, I know very few people outside of
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For the record, Microsoft has not said it won't publish AO games, or Manhunt 2 in particular.
Microsoft: No AO. (Score:2)
Yes, they have.
Though Manhunt 2 isn't slated for any of Microsoft's systems, the company has also confirmed that it does not allow AO-rated titles on the Xbox or Xbox 360.
gamespot.com [gamespot.com]
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Let me guess, you're 15 years old and desperately trying to pretend to be an adult.
It's not working, by the way.
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Currently, titles need to be overwhelmingly violent before they are labelled AO.
Maybe if an AO rating doesn't turn out to be the kiss of death, companies will stop trying to market games that barely qualify for M.
Maybe they would make games aimed squarely at the AO demographic.
Which in turn could result in less violent M games.
Meaning that there may be a clear line for determining the severity of the content.
Besides, I don't shop at Walmart, and I don't
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Right now because being rated AO makes selling a game so difficult the only ones that bother are 'shock' games that do nothing but focus on sex or super-bloody-violent. There is no point in making a game that _touches_ on sex for instance.
If there was a good channel for distributing AO games and a console allowed them, I could easily see attractive games being produced that integrated topics such as sexually in a mild way rather th
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Personally, I couldn't care less what the game is rated, I just care that it looks like something I'd enjoy. My daughter has a DS, and I love Super Princess Peach. I also love games like Oblivion, and actually thought that Postal 2 was really good fun. Same with films - the certificate is the last thing I look at when deciding what to watch (in fact, I only look at it when deciding what to watch with my 7 year old daughter)
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It's not like Take Two is making a game like Requiem for a Dream, Bad Lieutenant or American Psycho (all originally NC-17).
All signs point to them making another snuff game, that just happens to be more offensive than the last. I mean, I played Manhunt. There's not alot going on there. Tissue-thin story, characterization and themes. Worst of all, the gameplay was a fairly uninspi
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Re:Could be the best thing (Score:4, Insightful)
What if all the major record labels decided they would no longer publish songs with profanity in them? Or even CD players refused to play certain CDs based on their content?
How about the DVDCCA deciding to amend their license to require DVD players to refuse to play anything above R?
Yeah, I disagree that the makers of a game console can restrict what types of games I can play based on their content. That console is in the privacy of my own home; I should get to decide what gets played on it. Once I buy it, it isn't their console anymore; it's mine! If they want control, they should lease the console, not sell it.
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But if they did: sure. Why not? It's their platform and they already have all sorts of qualifications in their licensing terms.
That's one of the things consumers need to be aware of and consider when they buy into a closed platform.
And then they can vote with their dollars on platforms that don't allow the content they want.
E.g. no porn on betamax, laserdisc, divx(the bad one)
Hobson's choice (Score:2)
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If the "Games for Windows" campaign (which won't accept AO games) takes off, you'll see exactly that.
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Please, let them. The more they alienate customers, the sooner they'll lose power.
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It did.
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Take God of War 2 for instance. Pretty graphic, definitely mature. Every review brought this up. But how many reviewers gave it a great score because within 5 minutes of starting you were gouging out a someo
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When you do grow up, you may discover that the real "adult" game play is to be found in Planescape:Torment while Manhunt 2 remains adolescent high-tech "torture porn."
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Imagine how things would be if that whole "OMG WAL*MART WON'T SELL IT" thing applied to porn! Well we'd have no porn!
I mean yeah, nobody cares. My point is, it's as if you considered that films are made for families to view, that porn movies cannot be watched in family (please if you have an anecdote to prove it can I don't wanna hear it), so that therefore porn movies shouldn't be made/distributed. It should go the same way for adult video games, let's assume this category the way we assume porn.
Two vows? What's wrong with the first one? (Score:3, Funny)
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just my two vows
Release it (Score:1)
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I wish they could release an AO and a M version and see let the market determine the outcome - rather than Sony and Nintendo stepping and making that choice for the customers.
Of course, that's the problem with closed systems like the consoles...
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Recoup the cash (Score:2)
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What do you think?
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You must not be familiar with Manhunt. If they removed the ultra-violence, you'd have nothing left but the loading and options screen. Here's a gameplay trailer if you're not familiar with the original Manhunt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG06AVnla5c [youtube.com] Supposedly Manhunt 2 was supposed to have even more violent "kill animations".
RWS (Score:1)
Gore Sells But Who's Buying (Score:2, Insightful)
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So yes it's brutal, but you could not have made the game if it was based on jumping on koopa troopa's (not that there's nothing wrong with Mario games either).
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Many works of art have included graphic killing. The classic Goya painting Tres de Mayo [google.com] is incredibly graphic. You can argue if this is murder or mere killing depending on your point of view. The same can be said of the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, which was intensely graphic and disturbing to many people.
Of course, I'm going for the easy points here because these two works dealt with war, or "justified killing". How about we take a look at a
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"Banned" no, but effectively banned. Just because there's a technicality involved doesn't really mean the game isn't banned. Now, I'm no expert, but I'd wager a few dollar that the ESRB knows and understands that AO titles will not play on any consoles. The only way Manhunt 2 hasn't been
Release it on PC (Score:1)
Sell an edited version to the Wii and PS2 crowd and be done with it.
I want my murder simulator, yes I said it. I want to brutally murder people for fun in a video game.
Someone quick call the cops! I'm a pixel splatter junkie!
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I know two people off the top of my head that have what you describe. One is a contractor with far more money than sense and the other has no girlfriend. The cdontractor friend also owns and original Star Wars vector game console. And a Ferrari.
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On top of his tv? big ass tv then
If Big Box stores refuse to carry it... (Score:1)
Download Release (Score:2)
Replace blood with rainbows for a T rating (Score:2)
What is art (Score:1)
What i dont get... (Score:2)
anarsist (Score:1)
Just "Hide" The Gore (Score:1)
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I wonder if there are any laws about "hiding" content in games...
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