what is acceptable in a game?

[propertyofcobra]

At the moment it seems like you can kill as many cops, smoke as many joints, and kick as many puppies as you want in a videogame. But as soon as theres a flash of nudity, government sleazmongers go nuts. I'm not saying i want nudity in games, i don't think its necessary. But it seems like society's principles are a little out of place, don't it?

Apparently its the other way round in eroupe. Sex is okay buy violence is really bad.

Dont quote me on that I think I heard it somewhere

Not really. Some nations of europe are more open about sex, some aren't. Some are more open on drugs, some really aren't.
(Sweden for example is slightly more open than the US on sex, but way more closed on drugs. Germany is infamous world-wide for its hatred of violence, though.)


Anyway, as for my personal opinion... Anything should be go, in videogames, more or less.
We have books where the protagonist is a man soliciting child prostitutes, and even a few Ayn Rand books where the main character walks around waiting for a man to rape her so she can be happy (I don't get it either, but whatever). Both these, and the first (Lolita) in particular are famous and critically acclaimed as great reads. But the very notion of videogames having these things is way beyond sick?
Of course I'm not saying we should have interactive child-rape scenes in games, that is just tasteless (it should be allowed, but so should making pictures of The Prophet Muhammed, or pictures of Satan holding baby jesus up to snort coke from the buttcrack of a prostitute for that matter. Just cause it's absolutely tasteless and disgusting doesn't mean it should be completely disallowed to exist), still, having a character have such a background shouldn't be out of the reach of possibility because of people who find it easier to get angry than to actually be parents to their children.

As for gore...if anything games today are less violent than ever. The last time I saw anywhere near realistic injuries in a videogame, it was Soldier of Fortune, a quite old game. Nowadays, you shoot the mans with gun and they falls down, end of story.
Where's the implications of what you did? The gut-wrenching gore? It died around the exact same microsecond the ESRB really got into the swing of its cute little art censorship campaign. (I realize that they mean well, I truly do, but games existed without children becoming evil mass-murderers left and right before the ESRB, and I truly believe games will continue to exist without children becoming mass-murderers left and right AFTER the ESRB too.)

 

[werepossum]

At the moment it seems like you can kill as many cops, smoke as many joints, and kick as many puppies as you want in a videogame. But as soon as theres a flash of nudity, government sleazmongers go nuts. I'm not saying i want nudity in games, i don't think its necessary. But it seems like society's principles are a little out of place, don't it?

I think that's America; most other Western countries seem more concerned with the violence than with nudity. I've probably posted this on these forums before, but I had a friend ask me if I had seen one of the Saw movies. She was considering letting her teenager see it but wanted to make sure it didn't have any nudity in it. That pretty much left me speechless. I still catch myself looking at her as if she's an alien from time to time.

I very much disagree that children be allowed to see or experience whatever adults are allowed. Children's brains are still developing, and like any other part of your body develops according to how it is used. Children exposed to violence tend to be more violence prone; children exposed to sexuality tend to be more sexualized. Sex already consumes enough of our waking time and energy without giving a kid a porn fixation.

Other than that I think anything not specifically advocating felonius actions should be allowable, with age-appropriate restrictions on distribution. I don't LIKE games where you kill cops or prostitutes or bystanders, but freedom and liberty require us to sometimes tolerate things we don't like.

 

[Skooba Stevos]

Might be off topic a little, but what the hell, Im going for it.

Im still at a loss to why people keep blaming games for what youths do.

1: Don't they realize that video games are not just played by 7 years olds who got scared by Finding Nemo? Heres some interesting facts: http://www.theesa.com/facts/top_10_facts.php

2: What about movies? Does a game, which is still trying to achieve near realistic graphics, affect people as much as movies. How come movies are allowed to put whatever content they feel free? If we put all the "naughty" stuff into unplayable cutscenes, would it get past the watch dog?

3: There is no link between violence among youths and video games. It was stated in an independent research that: "In a time when video games became a major part of many young people's lives and were enjoyed in record numbers, homicide arrest rates fell by 77 percent among juveniles, school shootings remained extremely rare, and students had less than a 7 in 10 million chance of being killed at school." (http://www.videogamevoters.org/learnmore/gamesandviolence/)

So, trying to keep on some sort of topic, for the above reasons, video games should be allowed to have whatever content pleases them. The vast majority are not played by children, there is worse things than video games out there, and it, in the majority, does not lead to violence among youths. So why restrict it?

Skooba Stevos

 

[nightmare_gorilla]

i think everything is acceptable when it comes to games, gimme a game where you're a baby killing serial rapest and i'd probably play it and laugh like hell about it, as much sex/violence/lewd acts/etc. as people are comfortable playing because hey guess what, they aren't real, they are just games, i know i know i was shocked when i first heard this but the more you look at it the more sence it makes

 

[000Ronald]

The problem is that no matter how hard one tries, somebody is going to ***** about everything you do. As a business, the video game industry does what it can to survive. If you like it, then buy it, but if I don't like it, I won't. It's as simple as that.

Apologies to anyone taken aback by my frankness.

 

[Syrio Forel]

You can kill children in Neverwinter Nights but not Postal 2. (I dont support killing children, it just struck me as odd.)

 

[Nerdfury]

bollocks to it!
ignore this hole thread i was not thinking straight when i posted it so just forget i ever wrote about it.(although go look at my "most kick ass hero ever" thread)

Then perhaps since you seem a little 'post happy,' you should slow down and consider making your posts worth our time and ensure they make sense as to what you want from us. I believe the FAQs or rules or something stickied in most forums here ask "Will your post contribute?"