I think that it is not really needed. I mean it's just a game. Anyone that says video games make serial killers. Really need's to get there heads examined. If you have violent tendencies before you play an M rated game. Chances are your going to be like that anyway. Violent video games do not show you how. To be a violent killer. It's lame how they get blamed for things like that anymore. People need to be responsible for themselves.
Censorship in games.
- Thread starter DethFan666
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Games aren't really censored that much, the game makers just take out certain examples of content willingly so they can get a lower ESRB rating because if the rating is AO, big retailers like Wal-Mart and Target won't sell them. Nobody is forcing them to do anything.
(There is exception with games such as Manhunt 2, which was banned in several countries excluding the US, where it is unconstitutional--therefore illegal--to impede ones right to release their product as long as it is regulated correctly, i.e. the ESRB)
(There is exception with games such as Manhunt 2, which was banned in several countries excluding the US, where it is unconstitutional--therefore illegal--to impede ones right to release their product as long as it is regulated correctly, i.e. the ESRB)
Eh... Censorship in games is rampant, a7 (you mind if I call you that?). Sure, there are games that try to have mature content, but look at Postal 2 and the reaction, it's banned in MANY countries, look at Mass effect and the response it got because of one scene.
It might be the developers and publishers themselves that censor the games, but make no mistake, games are very much censored, far more than they should be. With a movie you can get away with being daring, even if you have to change something because it's too much, it's not that big a deal. It's easy to do, it doesn't cost much. With many games you don't have that option, either it's a game that has a meaning, with a story, far, far longer than the story of the regular movie, where every scene is needed. A lot of the game would have to be remade in that case. The other possibility is that whatever's censored out is the main attraction of the game, as in the case of Manhunt or Postal, or whatever.
Writing a mature story for a game, with this always in mind, is hard. To make a compelling story, that truly shows that violence is violent, and bad, you have to have a violent game, but whatever your intentions are, you will be accused of glorifying violence in your game, and you will get a stricter rating than a movie would. You have to compromise. Sexual content is even worse. Both, and you're just begging to have your game outlawed.
Despite the threadmakers... Crudeness, I can't help but disagree with the judgement, if not the reasons behind it. The argument that a game is just a game and doesn't teach you how to be a violent killer is flawed. Several militaries use video games, or similar simulations, to desentize their troops from violence, to teach combat situations.
However a game, like any other medium, movies, books, music, even though it may be interactive, can and should be a work of, if not art, then at least something akin to it. A game should be able to take up the same subjects, and treat them the same way, for whatever reasons. There are horribly violent movies with meaning, American history X, documentaries, whatever. But there are also horribly violeny, even more violent movies that lack a meaning. That is JUST for entertainment purposes. The same should be true for video games. While some of us may not agree that it's good entertainment, it should be avaviable for those who do.
It might be the developers and publishers themselves that censor the games, but make no mistake, games are very much censored, far more than they should be. With a movie you can get away with being daring, even if you have to change something because it's too much, it's not that big a deal. It's easy to do, it doesn't cost much. With many games you don't have that option, either it's a game that has a meaning, with a story, far, far longer than the story of the regular movie, where every scene is needed. A lot of the game would have to be remade in that case. The other possibility is that whatever's censored out is the main attraction of the game, as in the case of Manhunt or Postal, or whatever.
Writing a mature story for a game, with this always in mind, is hard. To make a compelling story, that truly shows that violence is violent, and bad, you have to have a violent game, but whatever your intentions are, you will be accused of glorifying violence in your game, and you will get a stricter rating than a movie would. You have to compromise. Sexual content is even worse. Both, and you're just begging to have your game outlawed.
Despite the threadmakers... Crudeness, I can't help but disagree with the judgement, if not the reasons behind it. The argument that a game is just a game and doesn't teach you how to be a violent killer is flawed. Several militaries use video games, or similar simulations, to desentize their troops from violence, to teach combat situations.
However a game, like any other medium, movies, books, music, even though it may be interactive, can and should be a work of, if not art, then at least something akin to it. A game should be able to take up the same subjects, and treat them the same way, for whatever reasons. There are horribly violent movies with meaning, American history X, documentaries, whatever. But there are also horribly violeny, even more violent movies that lack a meaning. That is JUST for entertainment purposes. The same should be true for video games. While some of us may not agree that it's good entertainment, it should be avaviable for those who do.
Francois Truffaut argued that it's impossible to make an anti-war film because a war film needs to be exciting, and in making war exciting, you are necessarily glorifying it. This is a statement that applies to video games even more accurately, since the player is invariably an especially heroic participant in the excitement. I would, however, argue that movies like Saving Private Ryan have shown us that Truffaut's assertion isn't true in all cases - that it is possible to show exciting violence, and also make it clear that such violence is horrific and detestable. It should be possible to do this in video games, too. The problem is that nobody's really made a good attempt. The only game I can think of that even tried this is Brother in Arms, and that game's message was ruined by the ridiculous pro-military revisionist narrative that dominates war games and the saccharine, terribly delivered dramatic scenes.
Sex is a similar beast; it's a fundamental aspect of the human experience, and I have played very few games with any sort of sexual content beyond skimpily-clad female characters and juvenile titillation. Some people might argue that this is because of the ESRB's draconian rules, but they got away with a tasteful sex scene in Mass Effect and Mafia, why can't they do it in other games?
Yeah, there's some censorship there, and national bans are ridiculous, but I think video games have plenty of room to maneuver, and they've just universally failed to move beyond ridiculous glorification of violence and misogynistic titillation. Censorship is sort of a problem, but it's not nearly as big as the failings of developers to make games with some actual social and cultural worth.
Sex is a similar beast; it's a fundamental aspect of the human experience, and I have played very few games with any sort of sexual content beyond skimpily-clad female characters and juvenile titillation. Some people might argue that this is because of the ESRB's draconian rules, but they got away with a tasteful sex scene in Mass Effect and Mafia, why can't they do it in other games?
Yeah, there's some censorship there, and national bans are ridiculous, but I think video games have plenty of room to maneuver, and they've just universally failed to move beyond ridiculous glorification of violence and misogynistic titillation. Censorship is sort of a problem, but it's not nearly as big as the failings of developers to make games with some actual social and cultural worth.
I'm going to go a little over the top here, so don't go and tell me I'm being a little extreme here -I'm actually the kind of person that's associated with the words 'tranquil' and 'responsible'. Okay? Good, here it comes:
I think censorship is ridiculous. The same kind of ridiculous as ideas like 'all jews must be deported'. Yeah, that kind of ridiculous.
Of course, you can't say such things without a good motivation, and unlike a certain dictator's motivation, mine makes at least a little sense.
First off, I have some faith in humanity. I think people don't do stupid things, and if they do, it usually results in their removal from the gene pool. I have no problem with that.
Now censorship -they want to remove everything that does not agree with...whose opinion was this again?
Now there's this thing called 'rating', telling people what kind of game they're buying. And there are people who occasionally need to blow someone's brains out to make them happy. So they go to the store, and buy a game with big guns and the promise of removing some brains from some skulls. Right here is where the rating should stop people from buying this game if they're likely too young to handle flying brains. If you are older, and presumably more responsible, you can go home and play surgeon with a shotgun.
And this is where the poop hits the paddle. It's replaced with flying rainbows, and carebears. Wheeeee!
And now here's Johnny -twenty years old, has friends, likes to do random weird stuff with them, has had some problems, but is okay now. He just bought such a game, and really needs to relieve some tension from his crappy job at the grocery store.
But he can't! So he's got to go somewhere else to unwind. He can't get a game, because those are censored. Dvd's ditto.
Let's just hope his dad doesn't have a shotgun...
Told you I went a little over the top.
I think censorship is ridiculous. The same kind of ridiculous as ideas like 'all jews must be deported'. Yeah, that kind of ridiculous.
Of course, you can't say such things without a good motivation, and unlike a certain dictator's motivation, mine makes at least a little sense.
First off, I have some faith in humanity. I think people don't do stupid things, and if they do, it usually results in their removal from the gene pool. I have no problem with that.
Now censorship -they want to remove everything that does not agree with...whose opinion was this again?
Now there's this thing called 'rating', telling people what kind of game they're buying. And there are people who occasionally need to blow someone's brains out to make them happy. So they go to the store, and buy a game with big guns and the promise of removing some brains from some skulls. Right here is where the rating should stop people from buying this game if they're likely too young to handle flying brains. If you are older, and presumably more responsible, you can go home and play surgeon with a shotgun.
And this is where the poop hits the paddle. It's replaced with flying rainbows, and carebears. Wheeeee!
And now here's Johnny -twenty years old, has friends, likes to do random weird stuff with them, has had some problems, but is okay now. He just bought such a game, and really needs to relieve some tension from his crappy job at the grocery store.
But he can't! So he's got to go somewhere else to unwind. He can't get a game, because those are censored. Dvd's ditto.
Let's just hope his dad doesn't have a shotgun...
Told you I went a little over the top.
One person once said, "I'd rather show my kids a film about two people making love instead of two people killing each other."
Ironically, this seems to be the opposite here in America. A film with any death scene, if not gory and just a gun shot or something, even a martial art fight scene, will get a PG or PG-13 rating. Yet if one nipple on the female body (male nipples are considered okay for some reason), it gets the R rating.
It also seems to be extremely unbalanced to video games compared to movies. Look at the DVD cover of a R rated movie on the front sleeve--is there anything on the front that tells you what rating it is? Now look at the front cover for a game and you can see it pretty obvious there, in a black and white box that stands out from the design art for the game. Flip the movie case over along with the game and look back at the movie case. Anything there about describing what rating it is? Look closely, it's there, it's just written in some font coloring that could be hardly visible to the movie art on the back. Now look at the game box on the back and just like the front, there's a familiar black and white box that is easy to see and tell the viewer what things to be "cautious" on.
Really, I understand that censorship is meant to help make parents or "anti-violent" individuals choose the film/game they think is suitable for them, but it seems like there is too much "provided information for your protection" on video games compared to movies. Yeah the movies do give a better description of what things to "watch out" on--after you buy the movie, put it in your DVD/blu-ray and see this blue background scene *SECONDS* before the movie starts.
And where does censorship end? Censorship is designed to protect people from offensive things in the media...well what is offensive? Apparently sex is out, any gory violent scenes is out, even stories with mature content is stopped...but where does it end? People are offended by "Cooking Mama" games; or some people don't like the "drug message" the Mario games give to youngsters saying that eating mushrooms help you grow (there might be some truth to that, I'm no health expert); there's probably people who don't like the lego star wars series because your using a blaster or lightsaber to beat up on a poor, innocent burn victim that has been amputated not once, not twice, but four times (Darth Vader if anyone hasn't figured that out).
Of course it is a bit depressing to hear that the artists with these things are actually censoring themselves so they can make a buck, that is, selling them in big name stores where people line up like zombies at, but it does hang the question on what will be the next "offensive" thing.
Ironically, this seems to be the opposite here in America. A film with any death scene, if not gory and just a gun shot or something, even a martial art fight scene, will get a PG or PG-13 rating. Yet if one nipple on the female body (male nipples are considered okay for some reason), it gets the R rating.
It also seems to be extremely unbalanced to video games compared to movies. Look at the DVD cover of a R rated movie on the front sleeve--is there anything on the front that tells you what rating it is? Now look at the front cover for a game and you can see it pretty obvious there, in a black and white box that stands out from the design art for the game. Flip the movie case over along with the game and look back at the movie case. Anything there about describing what rating it is? Look closely, it's there, it's just written in some font coloring that could be hardly visible to the movie art on the back. Now look at the game box on the back and just like the front, there's a familiar black and white box that is easy to see and tell the viewer what things to be "cautious" on.
Really, I understand that censorship is meant to help make parents or "anti-violent" individuals choose the film/game they think is suitable for them, but it seems like there is too much "provided information for your protection" on video games compared to movies. Yeah the movies do give a better description of what things to "watch out" on--after you buy the movie, put it in your DVD/blu-ray and see this blue background scene *SECONDS* before the movie starts.
And where does censorship end? Censorship is designed to protect people from offensive things in the media...well what is offensive? Apparently sex is out, any gory violent scenes is out, even stories with mature content is stopped...but where does it end? People are offended by "Cooking Mama" games; or some people don't like the "drug message" the Mario games give to youngsters saying that eating mushrooms help you grow (there might be some truth to that, I'm no health expert); there's probably people who don't like the lego star wars series because your using a blaster or lightsaber to beat up on a poor, innocent burn victim that has been amputated not once, not twice, but four times (Darth Vader if anyone hasn't figured that out).
Of course it is a bit depressing to hear that the artists with these things are actually censoring themselves so they can make a buck, that is, selling them in big name stores where people line up like zombies at, but it does hang the question on what will be the next "offensive" thing.
That's better. Also, I think with time, we will see uncensored games. But, what is it that you actually want them to put in? There's enough violence to go around, heads exploding and whatnot. Bad language, drug use, it's already in games, so what exactly do you want?DethFan666 said:
Well, first I'd point out that the idea that not playing violent video games will turn people into killers is even more ridiculous than the idea that playing violent video games will turn people into killers. Beyond that, I think we need to step back and take a look at our ratings system. The ESRB ratings aren't as terrible, ideologically driven, and useless as the MPAA ratings, but they still do carry with them a pretty ridiculous double standard when it comes to sex and violence. Additionally, the threat of an AO rating is more than enough to stop almost any developers from including any sort of sexual content beyond puerile titillation. Graphic, bloody, obscene, celebrated violence is A-OK, however.Rochnan said:
I don't know if Rochnan would say this, but I certainly would. If it was hate speech, no, they shouldn't be allowed to make these games; if it was not, it should be encouraged, because media and culture is how we, as a society, examine and come to understand disasters such as these.HuCast said:
German video games can't include any nazi symbols, so examination of that part of Germany's past is pretty much impossible.harhol said:
One of the Hitman games had a scene in which you pass a woman who's taking a shower. Due to ESRB threats of an AO rating, the scene was modified so that she was wearing a bathing suit while taking a shower. Even if you think this scene was pure titillation, which I don't think something like that necessarily is, it definitely undermines the serious tone of the game.
Those are the two specific examples that popped into my head as soon as I read your comment. There are doubtlessly hundreds more, most of which we'll never even hear about.
I was playing Mercenaries 2, and when I heard the one bleeped out word, I thought "What the fuck? Why would they actually bleep out a line? Just make it crap instead of shit! Censorship is annoying.
The only form of media that really requires censorship is TV, since it would be unethical to air something horribly violent at 3 in the afternoon. As for games, they have a rating system. If the game is violent, then it will have an M rating. Though there is a problem with this system, since way too many underage people can get access to these games.
I do agree on your point though that games do not make people more violent. The only thing they can do is to create a scenario which these people think is cool to re-enact.
I do agree on your point though that games do not make people more violent. The only thing they can do is to create a scenario which these people think is cool to re-enact.
Given how much the imagery and sound in a game defines the game design, censorship with video games needs a little bit of extra care. Take something like Manhunt 2. After the censoring, the game was pretty much worthless. The entire function of the reward structure is to give you a gory kill for pulling off a challenging attack. Without that, the game was just button mashing.
Other stuff isn't that central. God of War would be okay without the tits. It would be ruined without the violence though.
It's just a game by game basis problem.
Other stuff isn't that central. God of War would be okay without the tits. It would be ruined without the violence though.
It's just a game by game basis problem.
Uhm.. While I disagree with certain censorship, it is required. Otherwise we'd have toddlers playing Hitman and GTA, and at that age I think they should definitely not be playing such games.
However, the current levels of censorship are ridiculous. Personally I find it weird that while violence is left uncensored, consensual sex between adults is apparently worse than anything else.
However, the current levels of censorship are ridiculous. Personally I find it weird that while violence is left uncensored, consensual sex between adults is apparently worse than anything else.
censorship is bad, ignorant people say "oh it will make my child a killer!" " its destroying the youth of (insert nation here)!!" this i don't get games are given ratings to show what content is contained in the game, i still don't get it when parents get angry when there kids play gta when THEY BOUGHT THE GAME!!! i have read stories of mothers buying there kids gta without giving and attention to what they where buying. just stupid