The Occasional Solipsist

The American body that hands out ratings for videogames in that country, the ESRB, has dealt out a death sentence for the Rockstar game GTA:San Andreas.

They changed the rating for the game from Mature to Adults Only, based on the outcry from family moralists across that country. But the game has been shelved not because of the horrific violence, cop-killing, car-stealing or drug-dealing. It has been all those things since it was released months ago, and nobody said shit. Or not very loudly anyway.

The game got its ass handed to it when some punk exploited a mod that had its code broken by Rockstar before the game's release. This kid created a method of rebuilding the code through a hack, thus making the mod playable. And can you guess what the mod had to do with, if not the afforementioned violence? Yup. You guessed it: Sex.

And the sex scene itself consists only of a naked chick and a fully clothed guy, doing some moaning and dry-humping.

Big fucking deal.

What kind of a country is okay with kids playing out violent images of murder and mayhem over and over, but only becomes concerned when a nipple comes out? Oh yeah, the same country that went apeshit over a nipple popping out during the Superbowl.

Fuck. Am I glad I don't live there.

Personally I don't mind the violence in games one bit. I play violent games all the time, and I believe myself to be no worse for it. In fact, I think they perform the opposite of what all the free-thought-destroyers believe, by providing a safe outlet for gamers to vent. I just think that if you're going to throw a tizzy about videogame content, lets get our priorities straight.

Another great article about the rating change and what it means for gamers everywhere can be found here.

Labels: gaming