ESRB changes San Andreas rating

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Anyone else a little pissed off about this?
I just read about it, and my initial reaction was :shocked:
I've been following it since it first hit website front pages, but I never thought it would actually come to anything. Surely such unfathomable ignorance can't change a thing right? ****, call me an optimist, but I honestly thought Rockstar would win this. Not sure what will happen to the rating over here, but I hear that most shops refuse to AO games in the US, meaning that San Andreas essentially got the death sentence as far as sales go. I know a lot of people are going to waltz into this thread saying Rockstar shouldn't have left the content in there at all, but while I agree, it's the principle of the matter people should consider. This kind of mod could be made for any game with decent modding capabilites, yet I don't see those games being given an AO rating. How else could this logic be used? A piece of timber bought from a DIY shop could be sharpened and turned into a dangerous weapon, who get's the blame if someone uses it in a murder? The whole concept is entirely ridiculous.

On top of that, you've got to consider the moral priorities of the people complaining. They're fine with giving it an 18 rating, for a game full of taking drugs, racist themes, excessive violence and extreme foul language -- but hell, put sex in a game - ya know, the most natural thing in the world, that keeps the human race going - and it gets rated AO.

The one redeeming feature of this? Rockstar, intentionally or not, could have taken one for the team here. By dealing with it long before it got out of hand, the whole concept of modding games won't be informed to the parents who want to protect their sweet and innocent kids from the evil and sinful sexual themes. Could you imagine what it would be like if these parents found out that sexual content could be modded into almost any game?

In the past, I've gotten sick of getting involved in arguments about violence and such in video games, but this just really takes the biscuit. What are you guys thoughts on this?
 

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It's more or less the fact that R* had content in the game and kept it a secret when the ESRB thinger rated it, otherwise it would've just kept an M rating anyways,I mean..Leisure Suit Larry is the most perverted game out there and it's got an M rating.
 
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Death sentence? Heh, if anything the reduced availability is more likely to cause people to get it from sources that -do- sell AO games, or people will wait for the new version--and then there will be a sizable 'boom' of sales then.
 
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That's the thing though, it wasn't technically in the game. I've not explored the San Andreas code or anything, but I get the feeling that it was some left over code and then some bright spark had the idea of fixing it up a bit and releasing it to the public. I highly doubt even Rockstar are stupid enough to intentionally leave this stuff as a "bonus" unlockable feature.

Edit:
Death sentence? Heh, if anything the reduced availability is more likely to cause people to get it from sources that -do- sell AO games, or people will wait for the new version--and then there will be a sizable 'boom' of sales then.
Taken directly from the article I posted "Company lowers third quarter and fiscal year guidance to reflect the expected negative impact on the title's retail performance". It seems that Take Two doesn't seem to agree with you. Among hardcore gamers, the value will likely sky rocket, but the fact that it's being taken off the main stream market is undoubtedly going to hurt sales pretty bad. If AO rating wasn't so bad, then no doubt we'd probably see many more games coming out with it right? As for the new version, I agree, that could help sales. Though still, even those may be hurt somewhat by the negative side of such large scale publicity.
 

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God damn, thats pretty ***. You know, if the person is old enough to play Grand theft Auto, then they're old enough to see what was on the mod.
 
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-JLN- said:
That's the thing though, it wasn't technically in the game. I've not explored the San Andreas code or anything, but I get the feeling that it was some left over code and then some bright spark had the idea of fixing it up a bit and releasing it to the public. I highly doubt even Rockstar are stupid enough to intentionally leave this stuff as a "bonus" unlockable feature.

Edit:


Taken directly from the article I posted "Company lowers third quarter and fiscal year guidance to reflect the expected negative impact on the title's retail performance". It seems that Take Two doesn't seem to agree with you. Among hardcore gamers, the value will likely sky rocket, but the fact that it's being taken off the main stream market is undoubtedly going to hurt sales pretty bad. If AO rating wasn't so bad, then no doubt we'd probably see many more games coming out with it right? As for the new version, I agree, that could help sales. Though still, even those may be hurt somewhat by the negative side of such large scale publicity.
It doesn't disagree with me.

1) They're projected results
2) Doesn't consider the long-term effects of short-term non-availability. Aka the "boom" of sales I mentioned when it goes back on sale.
 
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It wasn't just a mod. The sex game was in fact programmed into the game; it was just a big secret. Using Action Replay Max or something, I think it might've been the Gamespot guys that managed to put in the right codes to unlock the sex game on the PS2. It's an unformattable DVD; the cheat device can't change models or put in new code or any of that. The stuff was all there already, even though Rockstar denied it.
 

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still though, the fact is no one would be able to see it unless they were intentionally trying to see it.
 
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It's not like I feel bad for Rockstar. It's their fault for leaving the content in the game in the first place. Had they told the ESRB that it was in there but locked, ESRB would have had them delete it and things would have been fine. Sounds to me like R* just wanted some publicity. They're always trying to push the envelope.
 
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It doesn't disagree with me.

1) They're projected results
2) Doesn't consider the long-term effects of short-term non-availability. Aka the "boom" of sales I mentioned when it goes back on sale.
Yes, they're projected results, but by what I'm going to assume are financial experts. I'm sure it's reasonable for me to take their word for it.
As for the boom of sales, that could very well happen. Though I would say that depends some what on when it goes back on the market. If it takes a while, then a lot of interest could be lost in the game. Unfortunately I've not seen anything that gives any specifics about when the altered M rated SA is going to be re-released. Also, the whole situation hasn't really gotten out of hand in the real world. I've not seen anything yet on UK news channels about it, but maybe that's because this change isn't affecting us. How big is it on US TV? The problem is, I'm not sure the situation was large enough to get that much publicity to be honest, so a "boom" of sales might not be as big as you predict.

It wasn't just a mod. The sex game was in fact programmed into the game; it was just a big secret. Using Action Replay Max or something, I think it might've been the Gamespot guys that managed to put in the right codes to unlock the sex game on the PS2. It's an unformattable DVD; the cheat device can't change models or put in new code or any of that. The stuff was all there already, even though Rockstar denied it.
This is taken from what I assume is the same Gamespot article; "While devices such as GameShark and Action Replay Max can tweak preexisting variables in system memory with cheats". I would consider that modding. The problem is, that it seems to be just left over code that Rockstar didn't bother to take out. The games code still needs to be modded in order to get it working -- it's not really just a cheat code you put in to unlock this stuff. I'm no programmer, so I don't know, but the fact that Rockstar is claiming that the creators of the mod are in violation of the EULA suggests to me that it took more than just altering config files laying around as I'm pretty sure Rockstar doesn't condemn the modding of their games.
 
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Yeah, I'm ****ing pissed. I love that game, and as soon as my mom hears, guess what. She takes it away and hides it. ****ing christ. It's some real bull****.
 

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-JLN- said:
Yes, they're projected results, but by what I'm going to assume are financial experts. I'm sure it's reasonable for me to take their word for it.
As for the boom of sales, that could very well happen. Though I would say that depends some what on when it goes back on the market. If it takes a while, then a lot of interest could be lost in the game. Unfortunately I've not seen anything that gives any specifics about when the altered M rated SA is going to be re-released. Also, the whole situation hasn't really gotten out of hand in the real world. I've not seen anything yet on UK news channels about it, but maybe that's because this change isn't affecting us. How big is it on US TV? The problem is, I'm not sure the situation was large enough to get that much publicity to be honest, so a "boom" of sales might not be as big as you predict.



This is taken from what I assume is the same Gamespot article; "While devices such as GameShark and Action Replay Max can tweak preexisting variables in system memory with cheats". I would consider that modding. The problem is, that it seems to be just left over code that Rockstar didn't bother to take out. The games code still needs to be modded in order to get it working -- it's not really just a cheat code you put in to unlock this stuff. I'm no programmer, so I don't know, but the fact that Rockstar is claiming that the creators of the mod are in violation of the EULA suggests to me that it took more than just altering config files laying around as I'm pretty sure Rockstar doesn't condemn the modding of their games.

What they are trying to say is, the sexual scenes, EVERYTHING is in the game, the only thing the 3rd party things did was allow it to be viewed, that's it really. And I think R* deserves it for not presenting it when they got their game rated.
 
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I hear a lot of arguments from people trying to support R*. They range from "you have to mod the game to view it" to "there are worse games out there, you don't see them getting picked on." They don't seem to understand that that's not the problem. The problem lies in R*'s failure to inform the ESRB that the code still existed, whether disabled or not. Had they informed the ESRB in the first place, the ESRB probably would have told them to remove the code, or get stuck with an AO rating.
 
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Though it was pretty bold for R* to leave it in (either as an extreme easter egg or 'accident'), this is just a desperate excuse for those organizations to blame violence and stuff on videogames. They wer acting like children would be subjugated to it, like it would automaticall show once they booted up the game. I just think some people are too lazy to actually understand what their kids can handle and what they play, so they expect ratings to do it for them.
 
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Chakra-X said:
Though it was pretty bold for R* to leave it in (either as an extreme easter egg or 'accident'), this is just a desperate excuse for those organizations to blame violence and stuff on videogames. They wer acting like children would be subjugated to it, like it would automaticall show once they booted up the game. I just think some people are too lazy to actually understand what their kids can handle and what they play, so they expect ratings to do it for them.
yeah cos videogames dont affect people at all...

in the news here within the last couple of weeks, a 13 year old stabbed someone over a videogame.

i think the new rating is deserved. GTA should never be played by kids anyway =/
 
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talk about sales, i can see many people now going out to buy the pc version of the game just to patch it and see the scene. They think their doing R* something bad, but the publicity is actually going to increase their sales to the 18 year olders.
 
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yeah cos videogames dont affect people at all...

in the news here within the last couple of weeks, a 13 year old stabbed someone over a videogame.

i think the new rating is deserved. GTA should never be played by kids anyway
The thing is though, it wasn't meant to be played by kids anyway. It's not like it was a 12+ rating before. It was 17+, but just because people can now access sex scenes it's bumped up to an 18. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in most states aren't people legally able to have sex at 17?

Also, since Rockstar are still intent on providing copies of the now AO rated version to people who will put it on the shelves, does that mean Rockstar could in theory add whatever kind of horrific **** they wanted to the game? An AO rating would give them pretty much free reign over what content is in the game right? I doubt they'd take advantage of it, but it'd be funny to see them stir up controversy regardless. More realistically, I wonder if they'll unlock the sex mini games from the outset with future versions of the AO rated game. I mean, if they're already getting the AO rating for it, they've got nothing to lose by making it more readily available right?
 
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They snuck porn into the game, then lied about it. I don't see how they could possibly defend their position. I mean what's the defense?

"We could have taken the minigame out, but we had to go out and roll in some money.."

They weren't a tiny company working under pressure, desperately trying to produce a decent game. They were practically given a licence too print money and they still couldn't take the time to remove something that never should have been there. You can go around talking about how it's an adult game but, at the end of the day, we all know there are 13 year olds playing it at this very moment.

It's hypocritical to harp on about uncaring officials and overzealous parents - if the games industry can't act responsibly then maybe stricter regulations are necassary.
 
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-JLN- said:
The thing is though, it wasn't meant to be played by kids anyway. It's not like it was a 12+ rating before. It was 17+, but just because people can now access sex scenes it's bumped up to an 18. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in most states aren't people legally able to have sex at 17?

nope, 18+ with parents consent in a lot of states, 21+ without. in a few remote states, its 16+ with consent of a parent/guardian.

so really, since its now classed as pornography (anything depicting an act of sex). then if you wanted the game you should get ur parents to buy it.

whether you agree with them or not, they are complying to the law.

deal with it =/
 
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nobody was forcing the parents to buy their kids the game, >_>


they should be throwing **** at THEM, not the videogame industry
 

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