LBA vs GTA IV

[Kobold]

Originally Posted by Dino-Fly

The original C&C Red Alert(I think it's this title) had all the soldiers made into robots in Germany, because the original game the people dying was seen as too much violence.

I always found that funny, beats me why.

They did the same to Contra III, renamed it "Super Probotector".

Originally Posted by OutOfTimer

Kobold: on Double-J's picture we see Niko with a prostitute. I played GTA 1 as a child and the violence is not the point here. Don't you think handjob/blowjob in a car or inviting prostitutes to your house to have sex with is a step a little further in comparison with shooting? I played Wolfenstein 3D as a 7-y-o and it had a minimal impact on my psyche... how about getting to know that a handjob in a car goes for 30$?

In addition, Kobold, GTA IV has nothing to do with GTA II... Why? Well, the foremost reason is the living, breathing city that you can freely explore. The way they show the American Dream or the Statue Of Liberty... er... Happiness. Or that what really is 'Liberty' in the game's world (look at the map)... is the ocean - everything BUT that city.

I don't have an American Dream, and if it envolves stealing cars and killing people than I don't want to have it either.

[Necdilzor]

Originally Posted by Kobold

I wasn't talking about Mature, I was talking about 18+. Like this:

I don't like that rating system, I prefer ESRB.

[Kobold]

I'm not talking about what I prefer, but what legally applies in my country.

[Armageddon]

i think Lba is better (Especially because it was my childhood game) and people say LBA1 was the game that started 3d gameplay. (well i dont know about that, but i hope its true )

[Darkflame]

I think Alone in the Dark did that more.
(first game with 3d polygons and a perspective view, anyway...even if the perspective was fixed).

[Double-J]

Originally Posted by CiB

Thats... utterly bizarre. You really think a sexual act for money is worse than an act of murder or severe violence?

Depends. How drunk were we when it happened? :P

[Darkflame]

Its pretty standard in the US for Sex/Nudity to give films a higher rating then violence.
Ditto for games. A single nipple in a game will cause the press to flame it like mad, but blowing peoples heads of is just fine.

[ChaosFish]

Well excuuuuuse me,
But prostitutes and hand jobs for money is A. not just "sexual content", and B. yes a lot worse for kids than playing games where you kill people.

[Dino-Fly]

Neither should be in the hands of children.

[Streg]

Originally Posted by OutOfTimer

I played Wolfenstein 3D as a 7-y-o and it had a minimal impact on my psyche...

really?you started watching nazis everywhere and shooting them with a revolver?
c'mon

Originally Posted by OutOfTimer

how about getting to know that a handjob in a car goes for 30$?

it costs much less

[Darkflame]

Originally Posted by ChaosFish

Well excuuuuuse me,
But prostitutes and hand jobs for money is A. not just "sexual content", and B. yes a lot worse for kids than playing games where you kill people.

why?

[ChaosFish]

Originally Posted by Darkflame

why?

Good question, the answer is maybe a little abstract but it's obvious to me.

Let me try...
For starts, there is something innocent about killing people. Maybe sounds stupid but it's true. Killing is a simple basic concept. Paying a woman for sex however, is a lot more harmful to innocence...
Or maybe it just disgusts me and just my hunch. I don't know, you decide.

[ChaosFish]

I don't know and I don't feel like arguing about that... anyway, whatever.

[ChaosFish]

You ppl misunderstood me a little I think. Of course it's worse, and I'm the first person who'll get creeped out when the media treats sexual felonies worse than murder. It's just, what I had in mind is young children playing games, and I dunno, 'handjobs' just seem more inappropriate than killing.

[Darkflame]

Prostitution is, on average, much more likely to be agreed by both sides then murder is

Thats how it fits into my universal morality really. If someone wants to get paid for someone to use their body, as disgusting as we find it, thats still just two people agreeing to do something. The prostitute has decided that, for them, this is the cause of action they have to do.
If anything is morally wrong from the situation, its not the action itself, but rather the events that pushed the prostitute towards this lifestyle.

A person being murdered, on the other hand, isn't nearly so likely to be seeking it out, or be willing to let it happen. That are an unwilling participant.

As far as video games go, obviously both the context and the level of abstraction involved alter how "bad" or "unsuitable" the sequence is for minors.
For equal levels of realism though, I do think murder is worse for the reasons stated above. Obviously though, an explicate handjob is worse then "killing" a Gomba by jumping on it.

To be honest, I find it quite disturbing that, as a society, we seem to think it the other way around.
Maybe its because dead people tend not to complain about their life?

[ChaosFish]

Yeah yeah, that's true and all. I don't know. If you had a 6 year old kid and you had to censor one game from them, either Half-Life or Face Fuck Adventures, what would you choose?

[Darkflame]

Depends how abstract Face Fuck Adventures was.
(there is no way I'm googleing that!)

[ChaosFish]

It's not released to the mass yet so you probably won't find anything. (I've still got some bugs to fix.)

Face Fuck Adventures is about as abstract as Half-Life, actually.

[Darkflame]

Then it comes down to context.

Does Face Fuck Adventures give a well motivated characters realistic reasons to do what they do? Is what they are doing for the good of mankind? A nessceity?

[Kobold]

Originally Posted by Darkflame

To be honest, I find it quite disturbing that, as a society, we seem to think it the other way around.
Maybe its because dead people tend not to complain about their life?

As I tried to point out, this is mainly the American way of thinking. Here in Germany he had lots and lots of dicussions on how harmful first-person-shooter games are and whether they should all be banned(!). Games with sex in them might get a 16+ rating, 18+, blacklisting and banning are reserved for violence.

[ChaosFish]

Originally Posted by Darkflame

Then it comes down to context.

Does Face Fuck Adventures give a well motivated characters realistic reasons to do what they do? Is what they are doing for the good of mankind? A nessceity?

Actually since you ask, in the Face Fuck Adventures universe, they have to do it in order for mankind to survive. (don't want to be posting spoilers, but it actually makes a lot of sense once you play the game)

So, what would you take off your children's shelf? That, or Half-Life? Be honest!

[Darkflame]

Face Fuck Adventures is probably much better then Halo, however.

Originally Posted by ChaosFish

Actually since you ask, in the Face Fuck Adventures universe, they have to do it in order for mankind to survive. (don't want to be posting spoilers, but it actually makes a lot of sense once you play the game)

So, what would you take off your children's shelf? That, or Half-Life? Be honest!

honestly, if there was a game as you described, I would campaign strongly to keep it on the shelf's

Seriously, I think if it was possible for a game to "need" such a sexual act in the same way games "need" violence, I wouldnt rate it higher then half life. Half life's violence isnt gratuitous, and is somewhat of necessity for the story/gameplay. If a sexual act was simela not gratuitous, then it should be treated the same, if not more liberally.
Of course though, most sex scenes are gratuitous.

[ChaosFish]

Ditto about fighting to keep it on the shelf, but I was talking about your kid's personal shelf in particular (one has to go, HL or FFA)

The point I'm struggling to make is that MAYBE (in terms of building children moral viewpoint) murder in games is better than whores in games.

For example. I really really don't like it when parents dress their babies according to their sex (pink/blue), I think promoting the bad kind of stereotypes that early in the development is a crime. Violence isn't something that is learnt, it's part of our nature, humans are part carnivores. Violence exists since age 0 (more or less).

[Kitarii]

Blue and pink are bad stereotypes?

[OutOfTimer]

Rating video games is not a contest of crimes - it's a question of what is appropriate from a child's point of view. Sexuality is not something you're born with - it's something you gain during puberty.

Murder IS the worst possible crime. There's nothing more that can be done then kill somebody. E.g.: one can rape or torture people but still - that's not the worst. That's because a murder - loosing one's life - is the absolute end of everything.

BUT... murder (or killing) is not the worst possible concept for a little child. That's becuase killing is a very basic concept, which is understood in nature even by a lion cub, which learns how to kill by playing.

When you play Wolfenstein as a 7-y-o (I did), you shoot the Nazis because you're afraid of them and because they shoot at you. Is it responsible to let a child shoot the Nazis when they're 7? No... Is there much damage done to the child's brain? No...

Sexuality is NOT a concept understood by a little child. It takes at least a 10-y-o to actually understand basic male-female dynamics. It takes a 15-y-o to be able to have a sexual intercourse. It takes a 18-y-o to be able to decide for themselves.

CiB: Most people (for example ChaosFish) understand it naturally even if they can't put it in words and that's the very reason why sexual content gives a game a much higher rating. And by the way - Germany is not very representative when it comes to rating and the reason is because many things are a federal offence there. The simple reason being their violent history.