Its official....

[TiE23]

That's not violence, that's blood and gore.

Oh, you and your fancy vocabulary.

 

Offtopic: GRAW has stuff that blows-up really good.

Clicky!

[Darth Groovy]

Even after I turn 17, my mom uses the generic parent thing, "Not while you're under my house!".

 

I'm still gonna buy it, it's just gonna have to be when I'm not with my family. Like when I got Unreal Championship 2, I was at my friends house. His parents don't give a rats ass, so I was able to buy that no problem.

 

I might be able to convince her to let my buy it with some lies like I did to get Halo. Like say the "violence and gore" is only in a specific string of missions that are side quests. Until I am either alone at a store with 50 bucks, or just there without my family, piracy is the only way. And I hate this fact. I hate that I have to reduce myself to piracy just because the ESRB screwed up, and is using the mod as an excuse to change the rating.

 

And Sabre, I'm one of the persons that cares. As well as damn near everyone here. Am I the only one spotting a trend here?

 

I don't sweat much of anything. I have had women buy "The Guy Game" and "Playboy Mansion" for they're ten year old children. Far as I see, as long as parents are aware of what they're children are playing, ratings be damned. It is too easy for adults to use the video game consoles as an artificial baby sitter. I went through this with HBO and Cinimax when I was a kid. Only my parents screened what I watched BEFORE I watched it. In the case of Halo 2, yeah, it's mostly blood, gore, and language (The Marines like to shout obscenities at each other). With Elder Scrolls....I dunno, this seems pretty tame, and pretty lame by even my standards....

[Nerd_Annhilator]

yea move on, every time they take a little bit of our liberty and dignity, just give up, its only a little bit, and complaining isnt gonna help.

 

p.s. i'm not giving up...

 

I missed the part where they ever actually DID take it away.

 

/slap

[Samuel Dravis]

I just learned that even the mod itself just uses a male chest texture (which has a nipple, OMG! That should be classed as pr0n!) applied to a female body mesh. The texture had to be purposefully switched by the user (renamed and placed in a different folder) for any 'nudity' other than the Barbie doll kind to exist. Technically, it was 'in the shipped game,' but... ESRB == Idiots.

[Samnmax221]

Here's a little secret that some of us have been using since we were yay high, buy it yourself, install it under a different name, hide the disks.

[TegSkywalker]

Here is some commentary from John Romero if you care, hehe: http://rome.ro/2006/05/oblivion-re-rated-bad-news.html

[TiE23]

OH GOD NO!

 

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/rpg/theelderscrollsivoblivion/news.html?sid=6148998

 

 

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion grabbed headlines yesterday when the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) changed the game's rating from T for Teen to M for Mature, citing objectionable content in the game that hadn't been considered in the original rating.

 

The change marks the second time in a year that Take-Two Interactive has seen a game it published rerated after release, with the last time being the infamous Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Hot Coffee scandal. Whether the Oblivion rerating goes down in industry history as "Scalding Skooma" or just a tempest in a tea pot, the incident has already entered the political arena. California Assemblyman Leland Yee today issued a press release calling on Take-Two and the ESRB "to stop deceiving parents."

 

"The ESRB again has failed our parents and clearly has shown they cannot police themselves," said Yee. "Plain and simply, the current rating system is drastically flawed and here is yet another reason why we need legislation to assist parents and protect children."

 

Last year, Yee was among the first politicians to pick up on the Hot Coffee scandal and call for an Adults Only rating on San Andreas. When the scandal surfaced, he was already trying to pass a bill that would impose fines on retailers for selling violent or sexually explicit games to minors. (That bill eventually passed but was blocked by a California judge before it could go into effect.) Within months of Yee's call for a rerating, the game was slapped with an AO for Adults Only, and a group of US senators led by Hillary Clinton proposed federal legislation to restrict sales of violent and sexually explicit games to minors.

 

Atleast it's aimed at ESRB and not really at Oblivion. And for Christ's sake! Bethesda isn't ****ing selling porn!

 

The only reason why this is a problem is because the people don't get what mods are and how kids can only be as vulgar as they can if their parents let them download what ever they want off the internet, it's not Bethesda's fault. And ESRB better not rate this game AO, because if they do they will loose any and all credit they ever had.

 

It's not like little 5 yearold Johnny is playing Oblivion and then downloading nude mods. This is just insane.

[StaffSaberist]

Hey, I feel as if I have a right to speak my mind. I mean, honestly, what I'm saying sounds like a bunch of bull crap, but if your a little youngster and every night you see your father beat the crap out of your mother, are you gonna grow up and beat your wife? I'm pretty sure, since you're influenced by the things around you.

 

and, i'm not a guy.

 

OK, I wanted to speak my mind on this.

 

It is true that the games you play do have an effect on you. Perhaps not a profound one, but there is one nonetheless. The Jedi Knight series stretched our minds to a whole new direction of Star Wars. This is awesome -- and it's affecting your mind. For the worse? Maybe, probably almost certainly not. But it is an effect on your mind.

 

Now, let's say that the JK series was released with full blood and gore -- I'm talking blood squirting, disembowling, the works. This game would have a profound effect on the way gamers view Star Wars. Here's the crux, though: Some people are affected more than others. Some people, such as GTA:SA veterans would have no trouble with this type of thing. Others, such as some 12-year old who had only played E-rated games until then (my exact situation when I installed JK, only JK is mild), would be much more affected by it.

 

Now, what percentage of these people would attempt to become dangerous killers? The thought I can just hear now is "oh yeah, I'm gonna take a lightsaber/blaster and...". However, the context isn't the issue. Take any young Star Wars fanatic. Usually, you can find them clobbering each other with sticks or those Wal-Mart plastic lightsabers. What if these people were exposed to a SW equivalent of Grand Theft Auto? Over time, some may become more violent than others. Now, this is not an absolute. However, it must be established that the human psyche is very malleable, but not undoable. Similar to pewter, in fact.

 

I haven't played Oblivion, but based on what I read in the thread thus far, it seems to me that Oblivion should have gotten a M rating for the violence in the first place. However, the idea that ESRB would jack up the rating of a game for a third-party mod is just stupid.

[acdcfanbill]

I missed the part where they ever actually DID take it away.

 

/slap

ahh the wait til its gone before you miss it mentality. Well hopefully that works out for you, but I will be taking a proactive stance instead

[toms]

I haven't played Oblivion, but based on what I read in the thread thus far, it seems to me that Oblivion should have gotten a M rating for the violence in the first place. However, the idea that ESRB would jack up the rating of a game for a third-party mod is just stupid.

 

And that about sums it up for everyone i think.

 

-----------------------------------------------

 

People react differently. Some people have adictive personalities, some dont. Some have violent tendancies, some don't. Some have obsessive personailites, some don't.

 

But can you bad an entire artform because it might have an adverse effect on a small percentage of the population who are pre-disposed to such a reaction and will probably be triggered by something else anyway? no.

 

I have no problem with restricting things based on age... it seems like common sense to me. But it has to be done sensibly, consistently and within reason. And it isn't the end of the world if one happens to slip through. Constant long term exposure to extreme violence might have a minor desensitising effect... but some kid getting hold of a copy of oblivion is hardly going to corrupt them in one go.

 

Anyway, there are plent of other sources of corruption out there...

[DarkStarMojo]

And a lot of them are worse than the average video game, as well.

 

The simple fact is, parents have to take responsibility for what their children watch/play/do since they're supposed to be raising them - not ESRB or the local politician. Now, ESRB can provide ratings to make it easier for parents to know what's in a game but the parent still has to make an informed decision and, perhaps, do a little research on their own to make sure they're comfortable with what their children are playing. Not all M-rated games after all necessarily deserve their ratings. Halo, IMO, doesn't really deserve an M rating, not compared to the kind of blood, violence, and gore I've seen in other games, so some parents might not find it objectionable even with its rating. What I find really laughable, however, is how much politicians who don't know you or me from adam think they know what's best for us. Personally, when government starts to get this involved in how people raise their families it's a slippery slope toward a facist dictatorship. Now I'm not saying any of these politicians wants that but it's very easy, once you start to tell people what you think is good for them instead of letting them make their own decisions and succeed or fail, you open the door for someone who does what that kind of state and that's a very bad thing.

[TiE23]

People react differently. Some people have adictive personalities, some dont. Some have violent tendancies, some don't. Some have obsessive personailites, some don't.

I laugh when I blow pieces off people in SoF2.

I laugh when I head shot a guy when he's walking from 50ft in GRAW.

I laugh when I slice/paralyze/shoot a baddie to death in Splinter Cell 3.

I laugh when I gib someone in Unreal Tournament '04.

I laugh when I kill someone in one hit in Oblivion.

I laugh when I hit motorcycles head on in my Impala in GTA:SA.

 

I'm ****er'd.

[toms]

What I find really laughable, however, is how much politicians who don't know you or me from adam think they know what's best for us.

 

Well I guess being a politician is all about trying to do what is best for everyone.

What I find laughable is when politicians who obviusly don't know anything about the subject think they know what is best for us.

 

Fine, try and make the world a better place... but you have to do it from a point of well informed knowledge and experience.. not ignorance.

 

I think the latest ESRB change was a mistake on their part... but since they have been formed I only know of 2 or 3 mistakes they have made... out of thousands of games they have rated... so that is a pretty good sucess rate.

(and the worst of those wasn't their fault at all as it was just stupidity, and well hidden stupidiy at that, on rockstar's part).

 

If ANY politician can actually demonstrate that they have comprehensively played GTA or Oblivion THEN i might be willing to give their opinions a chance.. but if all they have done is heard rumours or been shown selected out-of-context clips then they should realise they are ignorant and keep their mouths shut.

 

And if anyone is from San Francisco then they should send a polite email to Mr Yee and tell him so...

[BongoBob]

Like on Oprah one time they had a whole thing on video game violence. And the guy against video game violence was lying his ass off the whole time.

 

"You can find hookers, have explicit on screen sex ( the car rocks...not too explicit to me ), then kill them, take their money, and go rob a grandma, and rape a pregnant woman ( WHAT THE F***? )."

 

Ignorance sucks.

[IG-64]

Like on Oprah one time they had a whole thing on video game violence. And the guy against video game violence was lying his ass off the whole time.

 

"You can find hookers, have explicit on screen sex ( the car rocks...not too explicit to me ), then kill them, take their money, and go rob a grandma, and rape a pregnant woman ( WHAT THE F***? )."

 

Ignorance sucks.

 

Some of those are true, but since GTA is a sandbox game, you actually have to be screwed up enough in the first place to actually chose to do those things. So that argument is self-defeating.

[BongoBob]

Well he was saying some true things, but most of it was sheer bull****. Yes, you can pick up a hooker. But it doesn't show "explicit on-screen sex". It shows the car rocking. Yes, you can kill them and take their money. And AFAIK you can't randomly rob people...unless you kill them first. And "rape a pregnant woman"? WTF? That was what pissed me off the most. Simply because that's a lie about the game.