JB0

Agreed. But I don't necessarily think that a decent parent should have to be aware of hidden content in a game that his or her child might know about. Said parent should be able to tell what is and is not in a game by what's advertised or noted on the box, by a few mainstream reviews, and by watching or playing a little bit of the game with their child. The end-user PoV of the technique used to unlock the sex in GTA(downloading and running a hack) can also add sex and nudity to any of a great # of PC games. So really, it's no diffrent except that the media made everyone in the world aware of it. I'm sure they do exist. But, to use your earlier choice of words, a decent parent really shouldn't be buying games like GTA for their 10-year old kids, reguardless. It's lazy, irresponsible parenting to say that it's okay for a child to play a game where he buys time with a prostitute, then beats said prostitute to death, but not okay to play a game where you hump a girl with all your clothes on. In other words, as far as I'm concerned, the "odd parent" you described isn't a good one. I'd agree if they were parents of 10-year olds. But what about those of 14, 15 and 16 year olds, who might be a little bit more relaxed about their kids being exposed to certain levels of violence and sexual content but still uncomfortable with actual interactive virtual sex? Obviously there is a difference between buying time with a prostitute, with most of the action merely implied, and showing the actual sex act, even with clothes on. If there was no difference, and there's no line between the two, then the sex minigame would have been left in game as is instead of being tucked and hidden away. Rockstar for one seems to have thought that there was a difference, and that the difference would affect their rating. Or thought a diffrence would be interpolated. IMO, the minigame is MORE wholesome than the prostitute, simply because it ISN'T a prostitute, even if it's more graphic(and I use the term loosely) . Why are we then so shocked that the game is receiving the rating that Rockstar anticipated receiving had the sex minigame been made available, now that it's been exposed and is being made available, requiring only a simple patch to activate it? Because it's not actual game content? There is a fundamental diffrence between an abandoned idea with half-completed code and malicious subversion of the ESRB and parental oversight. And regardless of what we think of said "odd parent", what they deem appropriate or not is their call. It doesn't really follow that we shouldn't label media for what is actually on the disk (readily available or not), and let them make the final call, just because we disagree with their ideas about what's right or isn't right for the child, and where they draw the line. I strongly feel that games should be rated on the ACTUAL game content, not on leftover vestiges of the development cycle that are NOT accessable through any normal game mechanism. How about the kid whose parents actually monitor their internet usage and for whom downloading gigs of porn isn't quite as easy to get away with as a simple patch for a game? Or the kid who doesn't have an internet connection but who can get the patch slipped to him easily from a friend? They can make any PC game pornographic, including such utterly wholesome games as Sims 2 and such senseless bloodbaths as Doom 3(Hell, Duke Nukem 3D contained strippers in-game... and yes, I realize I'm dating myself). Or grab a nice copy of MAME and Gals Panic S. If y're gonna grab a porn game, it may as well be a fun one. SO... any kid that's staring at fully clothed*, jagged, pixellated sex in GTA quite likely ALSO staring at high-res hardcore lesbian midget bondage porn on their PC. And no one's flipped out about that. Er, I imagine many parents are flipped about that sort of thing. I'm not hearing any media frenzies. A. Most people don't use them. B. They're legendary for their ineffectiveness. And they have kids that are quite adept at sneaking things in behind their backs. Because rating on potential content means every game is AO. Depends on which version you bought. The retail version was M-rated, but there was also an uncensored AO version that could be bought direct from the publisher. I suspect, due to the existence of the censor bit in both versions of the game, that Rockstar was originally planning a similar dual release of GTA:SA, then decided it wasn't worth the effort and dropped work on the still-incomplete minigame(I believe I mentioned already that there ARE nude models on the disk, but no code to load them). Also possible they ran into license conflicts with SCEA. Even SCEJapan is pretty vocal about no porn in games, I imagine SCEA simply won't license AO games. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that they won't license an M-rated version of an AO game either. Attention board quote tag parser! --^-. .-^--

Action-ADVENTURE. It's got as much RPG in it as Metroid or Megaman X. Which is to say, not one byte. 313528[/snapback] Unless you mean Command Mission. 313531[/snapback] Bah.

Stroke of genius. But I think the punishment should be more than a pissy fine. I think child endangerment charges should be filed against anyone who buys M-rated games for anyone under 15. 313534[/snapback] And I think it's a parent's responsibilty to judge what is appropriate for their children, not the ESRB's, and certainly not Congress's. If a parent believes that Parasite Eve, Metroid Prime, or Metal Gear Solid 3 is appropriate for their child, then they should be able to buy it for them. PARTICULARLY as the average M-rated video game is far less offensive than the average R-rated movie, which has no such restrictions.

Action-ADVENTURE. It's got as much RPG in it as Metroid or Megaman X. Which is to say, not one byte.

Ah, Breath of Fire. Such a legendary localization effort. *insert rant about the diffrence between action-adventure and RPG*

The argument is that any kid that's downloading the GTA sex patch is clearly interested in sex. And clearly has an internet connection. And as somoene once put it, "If all the porn sites on the internet were closed down, there would only be one site left. That one would be www.bringbacktheporn.com." SO... any kid that's staring at fully clothed*, jagged, pixellated sex in GTA quite likely ALSO staring at high-res hardcore lesbian midget bondage porn on their PC. And no one's flipped out about that. *Only other place I've seen fully-clothed people "having sex" is prime-time broadcast television, for the record.

Maybe some of them were. I can't recall, because I was in middle school at the time. They could have been $20 and been out of my price range. I do definitavily remember Final Fantasy III retailing for $60, though. 313499[/snapback] Thought FF3 was 70$. Either way, it was exceptional. The RPGs commanded a higher price than the normal games, likely due to the extra ROM needed and smaller market(while not exactly a slacker, FF3 was no Super Metroid, and Nintendo knew it). Let's see... A '94 release would've put me... I think I'd just entered Jr. High. I was young enough that I was still closely tracking things I couldn't afford(ironically, the money I spent on game magazines would have bought me several ACTUAL games...).

True... and false. While it is true that optical discs cost nearly nothing it the way of materials, development costs are on the rise. The more advanced the hardware, the more staff is needed to crank out your average game for said hardware to release the game in a timely fashion. Likewise, while I didn't own a Sega CD or a Saturn and can't really comment much on the prices of those games, PlayStation games WERE cheaper. $50 for a PlayStation CD-ROM was less than the $60 SNES and $75 N64 cartridges that were competing for shelf space. 313346[/snapback] If I recall, the usual SNES game was 50, though. Saturn prices were about even with PS prices on the software side, as I recall. I'm PRETTY sure SegaCD games were similar, though I was a Nintendo fanboy at the time. And the N64 prices I've always chalked up to Nintendo trying to get something approaching the profit margins their CD-based competitors were getting. As I recall they gave it up and went back to 50$ games fairly fast. 313385[/snapback] Sega CD Games were in the $50 range. Ah, Sega CD...mine still works and it had some of the coolest games surrounded by some of the crappiest fmv titles around. Final Fight CD is a gem...though the upcoming capcom collection will have it so maybe I can finally get rid of it. 313492[/snapback] SegaCD was what snuck the Genesis into my house. Lunar and Lunar 2 were the "ONLY good games" the Genesis had, but even a Nintendo fanboy had to respect them. LUCIAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!

That's probably the case, because except for a few select games, the N64 drowned pretty quickly in the sea made by it's competitors (the Saturn and the Playstation). The system certainly held on (how I don't know), but I think they lost some of their spark somewhere in there. Wasn't Nintendo sorta going through an identity crisis at that point anyway? I really don't recall (Nintendo lost me after the SNES), but I seem to remember that they pretty much decided their target audience was the younger kids and released games accordingly (I know games for older crowds were released, but not to the frequency the other systems were). Anyone recall this better? 313400[/snapback] It wasn't that they actively targetted younger children as much as the people that owned N64s tended to be younger children. Mom and dad remembered Nintendo as being kid-friendly, so they got N64s. Older kids specifically asked for PlayStations or Saturns, because they remembered Nintendo as the thing they played when they were younger kids.

IIRC, it was another SA gunboat-type. But you may wish to search the forum as we have discussed this. 313452[/snapback] Yup. It was another booby-trapped SA vessel, just like the Macross itself was. ... Well, we assume it was booby-trapped.

True... and false. While it is true that optical discs cost nearly nothing it the way of materials, development costs are on the rise. The more advanced the hardware, the more staff is needed to crank out your average game for said hardware to release the game in a timely fashion. Likewise, while I didn't own a Sega CD or a Saturn and can't really comment much on the prices of those games, PlayStation games WERE cheaper. $50 for a PlayStation CD-ROM was less than the $60 SNES and $75 N64 cartridges that were competing for shelf space. 313346[/snapback] If I recall, the usual SNES game was 50, though. Saturn prices were about even with PS prices on the software side, as I recall. I'm PRETTY sure SegaCD games were similar, though I was a Nintendo fanboy at the time. And the N64 prices I've always chalked up to Nintendo trying to get something approaching the profit margins their CD-based competitors were getting. As I recall they gave it up and went back to 50$ games fairly fast.

It's got nothing to do with space. Star Ocean 3 isn't running any more than FF10, even though one's got twice as much space(and twice as much media costs, for that matter). Disk games are almost pure profit. The cheap games we were promised with the SegaCD, PlayStation, and Saturn never materialized. The companies rapidly realized that they could charge the same as for a ROM cartridge, and pocket massively more profit than they could by reducing prices and selling more units. ... Well, this isn't totally true. They DO reduce the price once sales start dropping off. But we were always lead to believe that games would be 20-30$ BEFORE they were dropped to the bargin bin, not that they'd be re-released after their first run had been finished.

ESRB works quite well, as a matter of fact. A recent congressional review of the media industry found that of the MPAA, RIAA, and ESA, the ESA was by far the best at self-policing. Only fault they could find on the ESA was that it ran ads for M-rated games in publications with a signifigant child readership. Game magazines, specifically. By contrast, the RIAA has no real policing to speak of, just an "explicit content" sticker that's used primarily as an advertising feature, and the MPAA ratings are actively circumvented, with PG-13 and even R movies actively marketed to children on a regular basis.

When will Rockstar admit that they forgot to remove the Hot Coffee minigames... Again, they didn't forget. Leaving unused content on the media is a standard practice.

Yeah but are we going to be paying more than $50 per game? 313283[/snapback] Quite likely not. I'm sure Sony heard everyone's hissy fit when they started talking abotu bumping prices. If we are, it'll only be on the guaranteed sale stuff. You know, sports titles, FF, and GTA.

Hypothetically, it means more diversity on the shelves, as more companies can afford to make games. As we learned with the move to disks, any promise that game costs will be reduced is, ultimately, bullshit.

Indeed. Nothing like a sexual harassment lawsuit against the president to make the media forget about everything else.

Relatively speaking, it IS harmless. Remember, we're talking about GTA here. Given all the rest of the content in the game, having sex with your girlfriend ranks pretty darn low on the list of evils of the world. 313101[/snapback] Ironically, the sex minigame is one of the most wholesome activities you do in the game.. Killing crack dealers, blowing the heads clean off of cops, carjacking, turf wars, drive-by's, acting as a damned federal agent on black-ops, working for and against the mafia, the triads, etc.. Even the tamer competiitions (racings, low-rider, etc) could be argued to be gambling or the ever-ambigious 'organized crime' due to competing for cash. =P Don't forget banging hookers! Or was that not in this installation? And if God of War had been entitled Grand Theft Auto 68 BC, they'd've been all over it. Hacking and modding are NOT illegal. And Rockstar WAS caught in a lie, as they said the hackers created the scenes, models, animations, audio clips, etc, as opposed to flipping one bit to unlock them. It's more like you modify your vehicle to disable the air bag, and the news blames the auto manufacturer. And then the dealerships issue recall notices on ALL cars of your make. And the NHTSA gives it a lower crash safety rating because it CAN not have a working airbag.

Relatively speaking, it IS harmless. Remember, we're talking about GTA here. Given all the rest of the content in the game, having sex with your girlfriend ranks pretty darn low on the list of evils of the world.

Bah. I'm waiting for one with electroluminescent material and liquid crystal in the case, so you can adjust the color and brightness from within the BIOS. 312989[/snapback] Whoa, that sounds like a whole other ballgame than a simple case color 313002[/snapback] Indeed. ... Too bad no one's gonna do it. Variable case colors would be awesome.

Bah. I'm waiting for one with electroluminescent material and liquid crystal in the case, so you can adjust the color and brightness from within the BIOS.

Sulu is Georce Takei. Chekov is... I dunno. 312763[/snapback] Walter Keonig, and you call yourself a fan, hmmm. where have I read that one from? 312943[/snapback] But I knew Takei! Besides, I'm through stabbing myself with plastic swords. Dun even have a Star Wars figure around to try it with.

Sulu is Georce Takei. Chekov is... I dunno.

Actually, they're usually sold at a slight profit. PS2 launched at a loss, but started making profit as Sony got the production streamlined and chip yields up. XBox has sold at a loss its entire life, but MS doesn't care. They can and do subsidize it with their PC OS profits. MS isn't here for profit, they're here to expand market share. Modern business logic says that if a company isn't expanding, it is dying. With the PC boom having died down MS lacks room to expand their primary business. With WebTV and UltimateTV being dismal failures, they HAVE to subsidize the XBox. Saturn fell INTO selling at a loss while trying to keep up with the PS1 price.

Ironically today is the 36th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing too. Strange coincidence...