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It’s only a game

Here is some interesting commentary on the SA Hot Coffee brouhaha.

Somehow, I don’t think it will convince the people that need convincing. Still, who knew you could do that with Drano?

(Via Kotaku.)

Comments 3

  1. Lee Sheldon wrote:

    http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-sexgame21jul21,0,5279713.story?track=tothtml

    So it’s not a mod, but a deliberate attempt by the developers to bypass the voluntary rating system? Thereby costing the publisher millions of dollars, and bringing us one step closer to a non-voluntary rating system and a government’s sticking its nose even more deeply into fairly important issues like freedom of speech?

    Is calling it “just a video game” (and making a smart ass, specious analogy to bomb construction) any sort of answer at all to “the people who need convincing?”

    For me all this incident does is expose the “naughty little boys” attitude of developers who refuse to acknowledge their products exist in the context of a larger world–and have the potential of impacting that world–and would rather just see what they can get away with. And then they try to weasel out of it by blaming the mod community when it was created in-house after all.

    If the story is true, then all I can say is nice move, Rockstar. All of us who create video games will now have to live with the backlash. Thanks.

    Posted 21 Jul 2005 at 15:16
  2. tuffy doggerson wrote:

    I am a veteran gamer and am always dissapointed by how the game industry cannot even entertain the possibility that there is a potential that an individual playing a violent game may be more apt to consider emulating those actions in real life. I think the industry loses credibility when there is such a fervor around denying that violent games have any negative impacts. We all know that several underage children can play violent games and that is partly due to the lax repercussions to retail stores who sell to minors, but is mostly due to parents not being responsible enough to monitor what their kids are up to. Video games are just another form of entertainment and I think it is naive to blindly defend violent games just as it is naive to defend the impacts of violent movies to underage children – by the way, it makes absolutely no sense why theaters allow a five year old to see a violent movie just as long as their accompanied by an adult. That said, it is constantly dissapointing to see all of the attention GTA is getting now that there was a discovery of the “hot coffee” mode. Our society is still so warped that we continue to view violence in the media as being acceptable, but then when there’s nudity involved, our society gets more worked up than Matt Foley drinking espresso via a beer bong.

    Posted 27 Jul 2005 at 4:31
  3. Jurie Horneman wrote:

    >>I am a veteran gamer and am always dissapointed by how the game industry cannot even entertain the possibility that there is a potential that an individual playing a violent game may be more apt to consider emulating those actions in real life.< < Bzzzt! Wrong. Read tihis: http://www.intelligent-artifice.com/2005/01/game_effects.html

    I didn’t even read the rest of your comment, that’s what you get for using blanket statemements.

    Posted 27 Jul 2005 at 8:34

Trackbacks & Pingbacks 1

  1. From dataleak on 24 Jul 2005 at 19:54

    Hot Coffee is just the beginning!

    Seriously the hype about the unlocked sex mini game in GTA: San Andreas is just not worth it! What do those people think who are trying to ban it?!! Computer games getting more realistic by each…