Honestly, I was quite glad when this whole controversy started up. I think GTA is absolute trash and perhaps poor sales due to an AO rating would cause other developers to stop following suit with their cookie cutter "gangsta" poor-man's shoot-em-ups. This is not to say I've always hated GTA; I absolutely loved the first two, a love that caused me to be GTA3 as my first game this gen over HM: Save the Homeland. I was so excited when I got it home and had a blast with it... for a little while. The novelty wore off pretty quick. And to let out anger, just go blast some plagas in RE4 with much more enjoyment experienced. I was ecstactic that Rockstar, if faced with this ban, might actually have to develop REAL games, not just products centered around sex, drugs, murder, and the controversy that comes with these (if not properly implemented) 'fad' game elements.
But now...
My God! What is wrong with the Clintons? I never thought they would stoop this low. I don't care if they're right or wrong. Hopping onto the political bandwagon is absolute moral filth in my eyes.
But this asks the question: are they right or are they wrong? Really, I don't see anything wrong with making it criminal to sell certain games with questionable content to minors. Doesn't affect me. Doesn't affect the people that actually play the game not for image but for appreciation and mature (hopefully to an extent) enjoyment. It probably won't affect the kiddies, either. They can just have their parents buy the game for them, though I would hope the parents would at least take some interest and discuss the game with their child, feign it for even five minutes like my mother did with me. It made quite a difference, but, that's an after school special for another day.
What is the hooplah? Has the movie industry been affected by R ratings? No... for the most part. Will it be so terrible for developers to dumb down mature content ever so slightly? In games like GTA, it would hurt, but that's because this content is what the game thrives on. For the others? Meh. If it has no serious artistic bearing, I can do without. This brings up something that does infuriate me to a degree: if a publisher forces a developer on a highly artistic, stylized, or morally and socially significant project (take Killer 7 for example) and forces the developers to gut and rip at the game for it to slide into retail under M. This would not be an infringement on the first amendment, though.
This is another matter upsetting me over this big-to-do: free speech. Gamers are crying it from the mountain and it is really beginning to wear on my nerves. No, prohibiting sale to minors of certain content is not a violation of free speech. Censoring and editing that content and then forcing everyone to play the game as is, that is a violation. This is where it gets sticky. If a publishers wants money from a game (and why else do most publishers exist) they will fear an M or AO game would mean poor sales due mainly to Wal-mart and other slippery retailers. Therefore, they will only publish games that fall on T or under. This will lead many developers to alter their game, perhaps even censoring it? No. No, no, no. The developers voluntarily change the product. "They were forced to," you say. Again, no. They could find an alternate publisher or publish it themselves. Publishing it themselves would be incredibly difficult and costly, but it could be done. Finding another publisher these days would likely be as difficult, and even if a publisher was found, it would most likely be small and lacking media and advertising presence like the big guys. But it could still be done. Is is right to pressure artists into changing their works like this? No. Not in the absolute least. But it is not a violation of the first amendment. If the publisher said "We won't publish your game ever because of the content" or simply changed to code after the developers finished with it, but before it went to retail, for the sole purpose of censoring certain content, that is a violation. What would happen if this controversy doesn't die down would just be a massively cruel and unfortunate chain effect. So stop crying wolf, people! I don't want to hear this mumbo jumbo about free speech in this context ever again!
Hmm. What else is there to say? I'll only briefly explain my stance on the content seen on massively mainstream and popular entertainment today and end this little tyrade because it's dinner time and I'm hungry, so there. I think games like this, media, like this is harmful to a small portion of the gaming populace. These are the children and adults that have difficulty discerning reality and learning from entertainment. These people I speak about are not as 'normal' as you and I, but have serious imbalances that should be treated. They are grounded enough to take reality and distinguish it from fiction, if they are not constantly bombarded with said fiction. If they lose that ability, most often catastrophic events will occur, usually on a personal level. And no I'm not talking about Columbine and the media's ironic scapegoats. Oh, and if you don't know why it's ironic for the media to skewer violent and utterly sexed-up movies, games, and music, I suggest you go watch FOX News for 15 minutes. These few will display the apparent, physical, and glaringly intense influence the media had on them.
Sigh... I don't really know where I'm going with all this. I have this immense frustration built up inside of me, but I just can't describe it. I suppose it's because these morals that kids are fed are not the morals I grew up with. I had Aesop. I had (still good) Disney. I had Nintendo in its prime. I also had pretty much every other source of input from the world. I learned in instances that they peers did not.
I carved my surprisingly realistic view of the world and the life it houses from watching television; I picked apart things that had subtle importance or truth and saved them, later to be compounded and built up and up into an accepted and accurate view or a view that is absolutely honest in my eyes and grossly obvious yet so often overlooked or brushed off.
I learned from books, though vastly more difficult to ascertain how life in the world functions and feels, I learned to strengthen my logic and how to connect one thought to another to another infinitely, always coming up with a conclusion or answer.
I learned from games how I want myself to be; how I would like to be seen. I learned wisdom is a fantastic thing to aspire to and that patience truly is a virtue, much to my temperamental chagrin. By the way, I have successfully combated my temper due to this glorious image of self and turn-based patience. I rarely throw controllers on the ground these days.
I also learned from life itself; I watched people, I looked past them into their truths, I listened to my mother and tried desperately to follow her good example, and I watched the world function. I saw its pains and joys and determined my moral and conscious compass appropriately.
I combined all of these sources to form who I am today, a horribly flawed and imperfect being that is trying to make herself better. I do not crave perfection, but only the ability to make all those around me happy. This is what I learned from my childhood: to be good and kind is better to be selfish and mean-spirited. I do not want to be saintly nor inadvertently cause hatred; I just want to help others sometimes at my own sacrifice, sometimes not.
My worry is that children will not have that ability today, due as much to a greed infested entertainment industry as to poor parenting. I have learned through my friends that everyone does not possess the knack for molding information for personal purposes that I do, but I do not know if this is a good or bad thing. This would suggest that either the information would bounce off or be taken wholly as truth, not partially as is most often the best case. These children maturing into adults would hopefully shed these truths as more life was experienced, but if not, in this instance entertainment's influence would be seen subltely. I hope the information bounces off these children, if they cannot adapt it. But what if the children accept it as truth? Would I rather they be playing GTA or an FF game? That id my major twisty-turny beef.
I cannot believe I arrived at his conclusion after an initial entry to preach about the Clintons and whiny gamers. Ah well. I'm not rewriting it, that's for sure! So what you read is what you get. I'm gonna go eat some spaghetti.
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