Game Politics ([info]gamepolitics) wrote,
@ 2005-07-22 07:32:00
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Hillary Praises ESRB Investigation, Criticizes Rockstar, Take-Two


It's hardly a ringing endorsement of the game rating system, but Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) praises the ESRB's decision to assign an "AO" (adults only) rating to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

In a press release posted on her website, she also scolds Rockstar and Take-Two, although not by name, for "gaming" the ratings system and enabling "pornographic material to get into the hands of children."

The full text of Senator Clinton's release follows (emphasis added by GP):

"I am glad that the Entertainment Software Rating Board's investigation has gotten to the bottom of this very troubling issue and has taken the much needed action of changing the rating of this game from M to AO. But the fact remains that the company gamed the ratings system and enabled pornographic material to get into the hands of children."

So many parents already feel like they are fighting a battle against violence and sexually explicit material with their hands tied behind their backs. We need companies to be responsible and we need rating systems that work.

While I applaud the ESRB for its quick and thorough investigation, I urge the ESRB to redouble its efforts to make sure something like this doesn't happen again and that games already reviewed do not have the same vulnerabilities. And I hope the company will follow through on its pledge to urge retailers to pull this game off the shelves until proper labels are put in place. I also hope it allows parents to return the game for a refund."


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(Anonymous)
2005-07-22 12:21 pm UTC (link)
"But the fact remains that the company gamed the ratings system and enabled pornographic material to get into the hands of children."

Where to I even start! What a load of crap. These kind of statements put me over the top. I have to go calm down now.

-- Walkin'

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(Anonymous)
2005-07-22 01:52 pm UTC (link)
Yep. That's certainly not a fact. It's wild speculation with no facts to even suggest it...



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(Anonymous)
2005-07-22 01:02 pm UTC (link)
It isn't the ESRB's job to enforce the EULA. The code may have been in the game, but the game was modified to allow that code to surface. Should game ratings be changed because modders change the content as intended by Rockstar? It's true that the content was already there, but Rockstar put blocks on that content so that it's inaccessible unless you modify the code or use mechanisms to unlock it, which violate the EULA. Rockstar failed to effectively enforce their EULA, and they got burned.

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(Anonymous)
2005-07-23 06:13 am UTC (link)
He didn't change the content. He unlocked the content. Big difference. Should game companies not be responsible for the cheat codes they put in games? Cuz this is no different.

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(Anonymous)
2005-07-22 01:38 pm UTC (link)
"But the fact remains that the company gamed the ratings system and enabled pornographic material to get into the hands of children."

Lets not forget the PARENTS!!!

Now that I got that off my chest.

Its not like everyone didnt know that sex was in the game, granted this is much more graphic, but it is also not intended content. It still shouldn't be in there, Rockstar has screwed themselves. But everyone is still pretending that this is a kids game. Its not! I hate how as soon as someone hears videogame they think children. If parents are trying to combat sex and violence "with their hands tied behind their back" as Hillary says, and they have GTA in their house they are just dumb. News stories about GTA have been around for a long time. I don't think parents are trying very hard, they tied their own damn hands.



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(Anonymous)
2005-07-22 01:44 pm UTC (link)
hahaha I was just going to make a post similar to this. I'm confused. Everyone's creating a huge fuss over this game and their kids seeing this when the fact is.. this was in a game where you can hire hookers to refill your health, pay them, then after they're done treating you to a good shag you can beat them up, shoot them, then take your money back. It all seems kind of hypocritical.

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(Anonymous)
2005-07-22 01:53 pm UTC (link)
Any child who was is a position to be exposed to this content has already been abandoned by their parents.

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[info]baldynomad
2005-07-22 02:33 pm UTC (link)
So true. Someone needs to tell Ms Clinton that a game that is rated Mature is never supposed to get into the hands of children, and would be the parents fault. People need to be more aware as to what 'M' Means. I have always believed that we should have gone with the PG, PG-13, & R rating, because there are a lot of stupid people in this world that require decades to get used to new, simple systems of ratings like these.

Being aware of things around you is a responsibility that Ms Clinton isn't too good at, and I would hate for her to come into power. After all, her husband had a grand ol' time right under her nose.

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(Anonymous)
2005-07-22 02:36 pm UTC (link)
I think those ratings are copyright of the group that is responsible for dishing out movie ratings, so that's why the ESRB couldn't use them.

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[info]baldynomad
2005-07-22 03:25 pm UTC (link)
Very true about the copyright. I knew the ESRB couldn't use them, just a statement that I should have re-worded a little better.

I recall reading that when the MPAA 'enforced' the rating for movies back in the late 60's, early 70's. Back in the 60's The MPAA had an 'M' rating that was for mature viewers, but it was really a 'pg' rating. Parents thought that the 'M' was more then an 'R' rating. This was confusing, and was simply replaced with PG.

I think that there is a confusion with the 'M' rating in video games, too.

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(Anonymous)
2005-07-22 02:35 pm UTC (link)
I fail to see how an AO rating will "protect" children from games that their parents are buying for them anyway.

Anyone who works at a video game store will tell you that countless parents have bought GTA: SA for children.

The label on this game explicitly states that there are scenes of violence and sex contained therein. If parents choose to ignore the warning label, then it's their own fault for putting the game into the hands of their kids.

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[info]tzzzh
2005-07-22 02:42 pm UTC (link)
Hahaha I work at a Hollywood Video and I rented to GTA:SA to plenty of parents renting it for their kiddos (Before we had to pull it off our shelves due to the AO Rating). One even said that she allows her son to play it who is 5 years old, but she makes him play it with the sound off. Plus, a good thing we have at our store is a system that if a kid attempts to rent an M game and he/she is under 17 years of age it blocks access to renting it automatically.

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(Anonymous)
2005-07-22 03:06 pm UTC (link)
Thank god you can't see violence.

-- Walkin'

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clintons praise
(Anonymous)
2005-07-22 03:16 pm UTC (link)
i think the game should not be in the hands of children who are not mature enough to play that game. i am mature enough to view and play a game like this . but its the parents fault. im 18 i wuz 17 when i bought it. that same day i saw a young man im guessing the age of maybe 11-13 buying the game by himself not a parent by his side . so it is also some of the stores faults ESRB got caught w/ their pants down

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Sadly I doubt it's over...
(Anonymous)
2005-07-22 03:53 pm UTC (link)
Boy I am glad to be reading this. I've been waiting for something interesting to come up regarding this game. Props to GP for putting a lot of stuff out there in one place and linked so folks can RTFA if they want to and stuff. Also props for putting up with the negative and bashing you get for stating your opinions on stuff (and for all the bashing you get about comments that you clearly quote).

For the record, I don't really have a side on this, or most of these issues, because I'm a coward that doesn't like to argue, and anyway I'm going to do as I damn well please whether 'they' like it or not.

Oh yeah, if the ESRB has already doubled their efforts to protect against this type of thing, how are they supposed to double them again without going bankrupt hiring more people?
::a not very smart cowardly guy::

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Re: Sadly I doubt it's over...
[info]gamepolitics
2005-07-22 04:32 pm UTC (link)
Hey, thx for the props....mom.

;-)

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Re: Sadly I doubt it's over...
(Anonymous)
2005-07-22 06:27 pm UTC (link)
This whole debacle is ridiculous.

Maybe Hillary is affraid that kids exposed to sex and violence to early will grow up to become neoconservatives.

Weird how the Democrats fingerprints are all over this. I think Hillary is just trying to bolster her conservative creds for her 2008 presidential run.

Either way, being an American is really starting to suck these days. They should just rename us "Puritanica".

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NIMF
(Anonymous)
2005-07-22 05:17 pm UTC (link)
Dr. David Walsh, on the far right in the pic above, still looks like a stupid-ass. Is he looking at Hillary's ass or something?

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(Deleted post)

(Anonymous)
2005-07-23 01:10 am UTC (link)
Jacky boy can kiss my ass. I bet he would consider Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet child porn.

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(Anonymous)
2005-07-23 01:54 am UTC (link)
Hillary still guaranteed her defeat, whether for her Senate seat next year or for the White House in 2008.

Came here late, GP, so what's the deleted post about?

== BearDogg-X ==

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[info]blackmanta
2005-07-23 02:36 am UTC (link)
A lot of people here are missing the point. It has nothing to do with the quotient of the sex and violence that's already in the game versus the sex and violence that's hidden. The point is that there was hidden sexual content that would have affected the rating and Rockstar lied about it. Had they been up front with the ESRB from day one when they first submitted the game, everything probably would have been fine.

Of course, Rockstar being a business knew that if they admitted the existence of the sex game, the ESRB would have given them the AO rating and could have potentially lost sales. But personally, I think that's BS, as the GTA series is popular enough that I think it'll sell regardless of what rating it has. We'll see when the new AO-rated version hits the shelves.

As for Hillary, well, I'm personally glad she came to her senses and realized that the ESRB had done their job well and is now focusing her attention on Rockstar where it belongs.

I'm more concerned about the news regarding Jackie boy's latest target.. I swear, once the man tastes blood, he wants more.

Is there any way we can petition the American Bar Association and get them to revoke or at least suspend his license? It's pretty clear by now that this guy's deluded and is putting his own ambition ahead of any concern for his clients, whose grief, anger and fear he is taking advantage of for said ambition.

I predict that his attack on The Sims 2 will be what ultimately undoes his credibility. Not everyone may like GTA, but everyone pretty much likes The Sims, it's like throwing rocks at Mickey Mouse.

I'm just waiting for the day when someone will say to him just like Joseph Welch said to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

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McCarthyism and the Big Lie
(Anonymous)
2005-07-23 02:54 am UTC (link)
I'm just waiting for the day when someone will say to him just like Joseph Welch said to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

Before that, it was Edward R. Murrow who exposed McCarthy for the fraud that he was on Murrow's nationally televised See It Now.

I can see the similiarities between McCarthy and Jack Thompson. Think about it: Both men's careers were floundering until they started playing on people's fears.

Thompson, like the PTC's Brent Bozell(whose father wrote McCarthy's speeches for him after McCarthy's career was ruined by his own ego), employs McCarthyism and The Big Lie.

McCarthyism- "A smear campaign of groundless accusations from which the accused cannot escape, because professions of innocence become admissions of guilt and confessions are accepted."- Don't Know Much About History, Kenneth C. Davis

The Big Lie- "If you tell a lie that's big enougb, and you tell it often enough, people will believe you are telling the truth, even when what you are saying is total crap."- UFOs, JFK, and Elvis, Richard Belzer

All is taken from Foley Is Good and the Real World Is Faker Than Wrestling by Mick Foley.

== BearDogg-X ==

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Was not rockstars fault!!!!
(Anonymous)
2005-07-23 11:55 pm UTC (link)
This issue is very simple the fact that there is "pornographic" images in the mod should not effect the rating for u cannot see it without downloading this mod. So i ask you why must it be changed because of this idiot who exploted it. No I say Rockstar cannot be responsible for people making the mod therefore it should not be changed to AO. I do think it should be regulated but do not change it from the way it was in the past it isnt on the game unless you download this so i say if blameing anyone blame the kid who exploited it!!!

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Re: Was not rockstars fault!!!!
(Anonymous)
2005-07-24 08:41 pm UTC (link)
I agree. At last someone who is talking some sense on this site.

R* have done nothing wrong! How can you get all worked up about this rubbish and then disagree with Jack Thompsons latest crusade. Do you realize the people making this "Hot Coffee" a big deal have only helped to fuel the insane rants of Jack and the other crackpots out there who want a complete ban on video games.

Thanks to all who helped make a mountain out of a molehill.

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Stupid Americans
(Anonymous)
2005-07-26 11:05 am UTC (link)
So it's ok to have violence, mutilation, drug dealing, etc... in a game for seventeen year old "children" but not an animated, hardly very graphic, sex scene?

What kind of country do you live in where the good things in life are prohibited, but the bad things are fine?

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Re: Stupid Americans
(Anonymous)
2005-07-26 01:06 pm UTC (link)
Perhaps we can have one version for countries that can handle nude animations, and one for the States where everything naughty is removed except the graphic violence, prostitution and drug dealing of course.

What does this Jack Thompson cretin do when he looks in the mirror in his bathroom? Does he have a little (emphasis on the word) censored sign covering his todger?

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