Lieberman & Friends give the Videogame Industry an "F"

Hmmm, so I guess if I'm playing Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter and I'm fighting against Sonya or Chun-Li I'm contributing to violence against women?

Lieberman is a liberal democrat, is he not? He should be looking out for our right to enjoy these games. I would more expect a Republican to make a storm about the violence.

Yeah, but Lieberman knows where his bread is buttered.

Lieberman. What is it now, voting day again? I hope someone slits his throat with a rusty bayonet.

Lieberman can stick his buttered bread right up his arse, and so can any other cunt who tries to interfere with my gaming pleasure.

What we need is a lobby like what the gun people have. NGA, the National Gaming Association. Fuckers will have to pry Vice City from my cold dead hands.

I know, literally FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS. I won't give up my games for all the gold in your fort knox.

The only problem with that is that if some dumbass kills himself after playing Everquest for a month straight we'd have to go rally a couple days after eek!

if anything, this is all just free advertising for the games in question.

Where's the public out cry for Metroid...blowing the shit out of a bee with a charged plasma/wave beam should be concern too for the parents and politicians. Think of all the bees.

And really, if anything, there should be a law banning EA from publishing another Sims related title on any platform. Just think of the consequences; that one too many tickles and hugs will ruin a healthy vibrant marriage...and the fact that physically assaulting another via slapping isn't met with swift legal retrubution as it is in the real world...ask Ms. Gabore.

It's laughable that any of our political leaders cannot see the folly in their ways. The onus on making these mature themed games doesn't lie with the makers/designers/publishers...but the parents who permit their kids to buy these products, and the retailers who don't abide by the ESRB rating system.

I think Lieberman's extreme, but I have to ask, do you think the 12 and under set should be playing Grand Theft Auto?

Well, to help our cause we'd need to get a games playing celebrity to be the head
of the NGA. Someone as famous as Chuck Heston only not as senile. Those rappers always have games consoles lying around when they show their houses on MTV...

no.

Neither would I hand any 12 year old a bottle of Jack Daniels with a pack of cigarettes.

Just as retailers are policed to prevent sale of of the two mentioned products to little punk kids...there should be the same treatment given to retailers who sell mature rated video games and movies.

I'd choose that route over censorship.

FUCK LIEBERMAN AND ALL HIS FRIENDS!!

VIDEOGAMES RULE!!

No, certainly not. Which is why there are age restrictions. That, of course is not stopping many folks though.

When I worked in Blockbuster, it used to piss me off to no end to see 5-year olds sent in to rent mature games or R-rated films for their parents.

I work in an elementary school where many of the children come from government housing or unusual family situations. I can tell you that it is not just games like GTA that are affecting kids at an early age, but music and lack of parenting. Some of these kids have absolutely no respect for authority, as their parents haven't amounted to much and are just letting their kids do whatever they want.

My girlfirend caught an episode of Dateline not long ago in which kids under 17(like 12-15 year olds) were allowed to buy pretty much any mature game anyplace they tried, even when the cashiers were prompted by their till to check for ID.

I have no problem with kids under 17 being prohibited from purchasing GTA3.

Me either. It's a mature game. There's a system just like R-rated movies. Parents need to moniter what games their kids are playing just like they watch over what movies they see.

But, on this whole "I give it an F! Look at my ballsack!" crap from Lieberman, I bet Rockstar is blushing from pride right now.

And, oh, as we all know... Video Games are the cause for all violence and evil in the world. I mean, really... we all know Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Kahn played 'em.

This has nothing to do with censorship. If you look at it closely its all about the lack of enforcement of the ratings. All these places have to do is educate themselves about the ratings and then enforce them plain and simple. I agree do not mess with mature titles they are for mature players and not for a 9 year old boy or girl to play.

I watched at least 5 commercials of Vice City from 1pm to 2pm on the same station. Why can't they show these ads later on at night and not during the day when kids are home or off from school?

So, parents are so fucking clueless they can't see the big M FOR MATURE and realize maybe little Jimmy shouldn't be playing it? And that's our fault how?

Take the blame for your fucking actions, you idiotic parents. It's not the game developers fault if you can't fucking read and make judegments as to what your kids watch, read, or play.

Bunch of governmental bullshit.

Well its not exactly BIG. Its in the lower left corner, it could be hard to miss. Maybe they could just put a bigger sticker on the packaging that said M For Mature or something.

How small is the R rating on a DVD case? Fact is, parents should be aware of what their kids are buying and playing and watching and listening to. They should look at the case, read the back, look at the screenshots and realise that this isn't a game for children. But, of course, that would require thought.

As for the shops that sell these things - it's just symptomatic of the cut-throat nature of high street retail. Nobody wants to turn a customer away - especially for a title like Vice City - as they'll just head to the next shop and get it there.

"do you think the 12 and under set should be playing Grand Theft Auto?"

"no.

Neither would I hand any 12 year old a bottle of Jack Daniels with a pack of cigarettes."

I have to question the insanity of that statement. There's a world of difference between letting a kid play a GAME, then by physically endangering them.

How many of the people that commented in this thread watched violent movies when they were kids? I'm sure pretty much all....I know I was sneaking into rated R movies before I was 17, and getting older friends to rent horror movies when I was much, much younger.

I've got a cousin that's around 10 that's beat GTA3 (well, i helped him on the bomb the base mission...). At first it was kind of suprising to see that he was allowed to play it at all, but it's obvious that he understands that "it's just a game" and he doesn't give it any more importance than that. It's up to the parents to decide whether or not their kid is ready to be exposed to violence in games and movies- as some kids wouldn't be able to handle it, but i'm also sure that some would be fine with it.

With all the real life violence and horrors going on...you'd think people would have stopped using video games, music and movies as scapegoats...

is "misogynism" too big a word, that they need to use the term "anti-female"? that's sad.

wasn't the who game rating system voluntary on the part of the game industry? how can you regulate and enforce something that's voluntary?

and how can you expect some miserable cashier making six bucks an hour to give a damn what some kid with enough cheddar in his pocket is buying?

this whole argument is just head-spinning. videogames probably contribute less than a percent to violence among teens (and adults). there are problems in the world that are a whole lot bigger

You can't get votes for looking like a hardass by denouncing poor bad parenting. Can't make the constituents look like the bad guys. Better to pick a boogeyman to string up... hence, videogame censorship.

Good call by DD on misogyny... although "lady-hating" or "girl-bashing" would also have been acceptable answers.

Videogames are rated by the ESRB, but it's on a voluntary basis per videogame company. However, mass retailers like Walmart will not stock games that aren't rated or are rated beyond Mature. So there you go.

/willko.

Nail, head, hit.

Lieberman gets on my nerves every time he goes and talks about shit he knows nothing about. I wonder who shut this guy's game of Contra off when he was on the last level, to make him hate games so much? Instead of attacking the industry why doesn't he attack the parents who give these kids the money to purchase these games? Oh yeah I forgot the parents are the voters, and you can't tell the voters that they have issues to deal with themselves.

There's somethign going on in America, perhaps because there's too many lawyers, where the whole country is getting idiot proofed. And there's something to this that it seems has lowered the bar. I guess if you treat people like idiots long enough they actually become them. It makes me fear for the future and not want to reproduce.

[quote]The Terror Formerly Known As Mike:
Really, who hasn't done this though?

This is "Seduction of the Innocent" all over again, except with games instead of comics. What worries me is that Fox and NBC Nightly News and all the other monkeys have now got hold of the ball and are running with it.

We'll see how far the politicians push it. I was being flip before, but in all seriousness if there's one thing that would make me swing my vote, it's not taxes and it's not T.W.A.T. (The War Against Terror)... It's videogame freedom. Yeah I know, my priorities are fucked up.

I wonder what Bush's stance is on this. I've heard he's well into his Gameboy.

I don't like the idea of having any sort of rating body for the industry, so I don't know how to deal with the voluntary nature of the ratings themselves.

As for miserable retail employees, I don't expect them to give a damn, I only expect them to do their job, if it comes to that. Until the ratings are actually enforced, they are meaningless - that's what Mr. Lieberman and his 'interest group' thrive on and frankly I'd take the opportunity to shut-down the Tipper Gore of video games if a simple excercising of retail control to under-age buyers would do it.

I'm an old person and don't mind if kids under 17 can't play M-rated games. Of course I'd prefer it if parents were there when the purchasing happens so that some content-control based on their judgement, rather than a simplified and probably not-always-fair ratings system, was at play. Obviously that's not happening right now because many parents are clueless or don't care.

Of course, it's typical that GTA is the game they choose to beat the industry with - because that's the game about running over civilians and murdering women, right?

Except, of course, it's not. It's not about those things at all.

I'm of the opinion that GTA is one of the few games to give the player a moral choice. Yes, you can run people over, you can shoot innocent people, go nuts with a machete in a shopping mall and kill prostitutes to steal their money.

But you don't have to.

I can't think of a single mission that forces you to kill innocent civilians. Yes, crime plays a huge part in the game, but all the things they criticise it for are things you can do, not things you need to do. For possibly the first time, it's a game where just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should.

It's perfectly possible to play GTA and steer around pedestrians. There are other ways to get cash and health than killing or screwing whores. You, as the player, have to make the choice to commit those most terrible acts.

The fact that many of us do go ahead and do those things says more about society in general than it does about the effects of playing videogames.

GTA doesn't force you to kill civilians but it does ask you to commit some pretty fucking heinous crimes. Blowing up cars/buildings, making sure drug shipments get where they need to go, escorting scumbags to safety etcetc. I can't see the moral dividing line myself.

It is just so goddamn fun to ride a scooter into the mall, hop off, and open up with the mini-gun though.

Cuzz it's die muthufucker die muthufuckers kill!

What about the kids who are underprivileged and have no parental supervision? Do they matter should we try to protect them?

Pixels are people too, you know.

Dan, I completely agree that you are given the choice of whom to hurt usually, and I appreciate that sort of freedom when I'm mowing down a crowd. I also think the game would be nearly impossible, or at least massively time-consuming to complete without waxing some innocent bystanders here or there; I imagine that sort of random violence without much repercussion has got to be expected by the designers.

I still don't see any moral distinction with regards to the stuff you do in GTA. Way I see it, in real life there's very little difference between killing innocent civilians and all the other "mandatory" GTA crimes. They're ALL equally bad things to do. But the point is, because it's just a GAME any kind of behavior is allowed, and nothing is off limits no matter how deplorable or abhorrent that same behavior might be in real life. In the game, we're granted the luxury of doing whatever we want because none of it is real to begin with. If I choose to take my frustrations out on some random person in Liberty City, that's not a sad reflection on society; that's just me taking advantage of the programmers' wild imagination and sense of humor.

I think you're kidding yourself if you believe that GTA is some great experiment in public moral standards or whatever. Rockstar are out to make a buck, and they know full well how bloodthirsty us gamers are. Take Vice City for example- there's a meat cleaver lying there in the alleyway waiting to be picked up by you, meanwhile just a few yards away on the street there are 15 or so dopey pedestrians wandering about like sheep, with deliberately comic body language. I think it's blatantly obvious that the game designers want you to kill innocents.

Fair enough, they might have made it possible to get through the whole game without killing innocents. But I strongly suspect it's just for the added challenge, and very much doubt there's any moral component to it. It's like those tricky Resident Evil mini-missions that are unlocked when you complete the main game (you run through loads of corridors avoiding all the zombies, because you haven't been given enough time/ammo/health to kill them)

Not to be cruel, but I doubt they have the money to buy video games.
And in any case, they have bigger problems to worry (and for society to solve) than mature rated video games.

Although, I have to agree with Lieberman. Just the other day, I played Halo for six hours straight and then started throwing grenades out of my window.

Has anyone ever noticed the remarkable resemblance in looks between Lieberman and Senator Palpatine?
<img src="http://www.cnn.com/2001/SHOWBIZ/News/04/24/ftcreport/story.lieberman.jpg" alt="" />
<img src="http://www.theforce.net/episode1/oldPreq/characters/pics/ssfig-palpatine.jpg" alt="" />

Actually, I always thought Lieberman resembled a melting, antiquated Kevin Spacey...

<img src="http://www.drivingmrspacey.com/Spacey_Valentine_3.jpg" alt="" />

<img src="http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/images/lieberman.jpg" alt="" />

<img src="http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/news/79364.jpg" alt="" />

<img src="http://www.jewsweek.com/images/lieb0904.jpg" alt="" />

<img src="http://www.digitalhit.com/globes/57/ksnom.jpg" alt="" />

<img src="http://www.hillnews.com/120501/visuals/Lieberman%20Joe%204%2026%2001.jpg" alt="" />



The stupid old duffer.

Am I the only one who finds tremendous irony in the fact that the man railing against fantasy violence in video games is one of the same guys who is actively leading the charge to launch a full-scale, first-strike war against a third world nation? Surely I am not the only one who finds that to be the height of hypocricy.

Kevin Spacey? Lieberman looks like a fucking clown with his makeup off! Look at those dimples on Bozo.

This is true.

yes, but that's merely violence perpetrated against a country of living humans and other sentient creatures, the effect of which is apparently much less signifant than that of texture-mapped polygons. gotta have your priorities.

By the way, the blood-curdling screams of bystanders in GTA3 are really neat in dts.

Especially the gang member's quotes.
"I GOING TO KEEEEL YOU!"

"BURRITO!"

"It's no trouble to kill you, mang!"