Quote:Original post by Konfusius
Ok, I'll explain. I hope this is just some case of "lost in translation".

I said "ban Manhunt, because it's sick and exploitative". The fact that Manhunt is an adult game doesn't make that mean "ban adult games, because they are sick and exploitative".

Oh no not all adult games, just the ones you find sick and exploitative.

So, even though we are grown adults who can choose if we want to watch Hostel, watch a porno, go drink beer and shoot guns, you think choice to play Manhunt should not be up to us and should be banned? I should not even have any say in the matter then? Even if I am perfectly capable of playing that game you believe that choice should be taken from my hands and made by the government?

People are grown adults, they can make choices for themselves. They don’t need the government to protect their little minds by banning games which have been given the ok by the ESRB. You might not like “Back door bangers 15”, but if it’s legal content you have no right to ban it from the people who do.

it's about kids mostly, not grown-ups.

I'd like to have a violent-game license similar to a driving license or a weapon license in real-life for people. With car driving, government also tells us when we are allowed to do that, i.e. above the age of 18, and that's for a reason, good reasons, multiple good reasons to be exact though smart kids exist that could drive at 15 already. They simply have to wait for the greater good of traffic security since nobody really can control in detail if a 15-year old is ready to drive a car or not. That's why a certain age-limit is set and police is checking this. Do we have internet police checking when a 6-year old plays whatever stupid FPS game all day long in the internet? No, we don't. Bad side is that those kids are spoiled to the max for mostly even the rest of their lives. Playing those games at that extense also creates suckers as a side product, we need not forget that. Of course, there are the shiny exceptions. I have nothing against those games but they should have online-playtime restrictions built-in (IP range based) at least, and should not be handed out to the parents of minor-aged customers aka kids without passport control and signing a document about understand parental advisory duties involved with buying the product. Just to make sure at least the parents understand 1) what's going on and 2) what they need to do to ensure things don't get out of control.

I think, more cannot be done. Prohibition like in the 30's with alcohol and stuff has not led to something attainable either so these would be my practical suggestions. I don't wanna kill the industry but the makers have to be aware that round the clock playing by their customers is a no-go and should be prevented from the start. Just something well-coded inside the game that tells the 24/7 gamer that he's doing the wrong thing. I think those massively-addicted kids are the real problem here being the ones most affected by the violence shown in-game getting exposed the most.

@vildninja: sure. games as well as all kinds of services and products commonly reflects the current overall state of society so in football, violence is shown, in TV, violence is shown. Some say more than before, some say not when taking into account that overall media presence has risen with all the new channels that came to TV with satellite and cable TV too, so the percentage of violence happening there and in real-life has just stayed the same or only slightly changed within statistical borders.

anyway, it's more of a practical problem. You can't change society at once but you can change regulations towards video games and other things. I think doing nothing is even worse but you have to do sensible things that actually have an effect other than heart-attacks at employers and employees working in the respective industry ;).

@Konfusius: could be, but I think when they are not addicted, they have the chance to be "distracted" from what they had seen on TV by their other every-day life so chances for them being sucked-in into violent and aggressive behaviour is considerably less than for those who have no life and later-on get no life. Those are in multiple ways easily prone to getting criminal and worse since they never will make a decent living with leading a regular life when not changing their addictive behaviour early in life and stay away from those computer games playing all day long. Of course you can also get addicted from other things and become a sucker falling off into the crime scene in the end and a lot of factors play into this equation too but it won't be such an obvious choice then after having played only those violent games in life and got the training btw..

it does not necessarily mean that but the assumption is quite strong it does.

To the other thing, well, the storekeeper wants to make money and if he has not to relay those written documents for each copy he sells to the local administration office, then I'm sure, nothing will change. Just telling them to be more careful won't get you any far I fear. Careful storekeepers are already careful enough, no need to tell them twice.

The point with downloading stuff from the internet is a tricky one. First of all, most cracked games lack multiplayer capabilities (you know, the CD key thing for connecting to online servers). So what happens in reality is that kids download their stuff illegally, play it for a while, recognize that they'd like to play it online and need to buy a copy et voilà heading over to the store. So if you make that final store buying a little harder like I proposed, you effectively tackle the problem while not hurting the industry since the online market is the growing one and such cracked copies are worthless there. Also, the industry can harden their cd key algorithms to improve security there at online connecting with cd key generator created keys so no problem here.

Atm. though the chain is running perfect: Kid downloading stuff illegally, gets excited about it, also gets bored at playing against bots only, needs cd key, buys game and plays indefinitely (in some worse cases). Exactly there is where the cure needs to apply, at that end of the chain where the industry is out of the loop of the whole thing having sold their product and withdrawing mostly from the problems arising there because it does not need to take responsibility. In fact, those 24/7 gamers are even wanted since they populate the servers causing good rates and fun for the others.

Maybe there are better alternatives to the license model but to answer question 4 of the original post, my conviction is that the problem can only be tackled when controlling the over-use of the product. How that is achieved is a different thing. But it needs combined effort of the whole industry regarding the cd-key chain thing to do something against it. For me, the problem would be solved when it has gotten considerably harder for everyone to play a violent game 24/7 over years.

@people down-rating me: These are my opinions and they are neither unfriendly nor unhelpful since they feed a reasonable discussion. Please bear that in mind when you do so and actually take part in the discussion voicing your disagreement rather than take the easy way of disrating the guy who is talking.

[Edited by - M4lV on April 14, 2008 11:20:14 AM]

Quote:Original post by Konfusius
You're missing my point. I never said "ban adult stuff", I said "ban sick stuff". Sick in the sense of snuff (even "simulated" snuff), exploitation movies etc.
Doesn't that make sense?

Who decides what comes under the classification of "sick stuff"? One person's "sick filth", is another person's harmless entertainment. Personally, I'm of the opinion that with very few exceptions, no one has the right to decide what another adult can see/play.

Obviously this doesn't apply to snuff films, or child pornography, or other things where someone had to be harmed, and an illegal act performed, in order to create the content.

Allowing the government to decide what content is suitable for people, is a very slippery and dangerous slope, as far as I am concerned. I think the Americans have got things right, when it comes to the whole freedom of speech thing.

In the UK, we're lucky enough to have the BBFC, to decide what we're allowed to play and watch. Luckily the people that review content for the BBFC are part of the establishment, and invincible to the influence of this so called "harmful content". I fear for the fate of the nation, now that more, shall we say "working class" people can have access to Manhunt 2. ;)

Quote:Original post by Konfusius
Manhunt on the contrary has you killing people as brutally as possible for the sheer sake of it. You actually need to enjoy the brutality to play through it. That's why I call it sick.

Killing someone in a computer game, no matter how brutally, is not comparable to performing the actual act itself.

Computer game characters do not have lives, they don't have thoughts, they don't have families. The same cannot be said for human beings.