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Manhunt 2 Rated Adults Only by ESRB

Quazar said:
You need to understand what the purpose of a forum board is. And no I dont need to give it a rest. I'll voice my opinion on anything I want, whether thats against a sheeps mind or not. It's not about any rape. If you read my posts I agree to certain content being cut.
1. I fully understand what forums are for. They're for discussions, whether they be between like-minded people or those that differ.

2. This discussion is getting to new levels of stupid by you telling me what to do and when I tell you to give it a rest, you respond with bullshit like the above. Nice work.

3. If you agree that some content should be cut then what is your problem?

4. I'm not "sheep minded" just because my opinion differs from yours. There's nothing wrong with me looking at this from a business perspective and understanding that companies exist to make money. That's been my angle and it sure as hell makes more sense than your "this is BS" angle. Tootles.
 

angelfly

Member
Nintendo not letting this get released on their system really pisses me off. The damn system has parental controls and I'm even reminded of evey single time I update. If it goes pc only then sadly I can't play because my pc isn't powerful enough. I really hate all this crap happening because parents don't want to take responsi........ugh never mind I'll stop now.
 

Quazar

Member
Mr_Furious said:
1. I fully understand what forums are for. They're for discussions, whether they be between like-minded people or those that differ.

2. This discussion is getting to new levels of stupid by you telling me what to do and when I tell you to give it a rest, you respond with bullshit like the above. Nice work.

3. If you agree that some content should be cut then what is your problem?

4. I'm not "sheep minded" just because my opinion differs from yours. There's nothing wrong with me looking at this from a business perspective and understanding that companies exist to make money. That's been my angle and it sure as hell makes more sense than your "this is BS" angle. Tootles.

2. Angry much?
3. Its about what content my friend.
4.baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
j/k
To you.
 
Hairtux said:
Uh..no. There is no logic to it. Parents will let kids watch action and horror movies all the time, but any sign of a tit and it's "OH MY GOD GO TO YOUR ROOM!" No logic there.

Uh... yes there is. It's all about the perception that sex will more easily encourage promiscuity (because it's a pleasurable act) than violence would encourage real-life violence (because it's a painful act). One can surely disagree with it largely because the reality may differ from perception (hey, I'm not even sure I agree with it), but it does make sense.
 
soundwave05 said:
We are taking about a country that had a meltdown over a Janet Jackson nipple though.

I've always wanted to ask Janet what was supposed to happen that night. I know the whole thing looked deliberate as hell, but I can't quite bring myself to accept that she would do such a stupid thing on purpose. Janet Jackson didn't get to where she is by being an idiot.

Edit (Sorry for back-to-back posts)
 

Dr.Acula

Banned
Allow me to weigh in.

R* is probably the dev most familiar with the ratings board, and the guidlines of the console manufacturers. R* are the guys always pushing the envelope and they've been burned before. They are a very rich group of people [edit] who I am sure can afford lawyers [/edit] and I am sure after Hot Coffee, everything that goes into the game is thoroughly discussed before management.

Correct me if I am wrong, but submitting a game to be rated involves creating a video of all the gameplay elements to be viewed by the ESRB. So R* can in this regard make their game seem worse than it is.

I'm reminded of an old filmmakers trick, where the filmmakers would edit in violent, gratuitous acts that they never intended to make the final cut. When they ultimately got back their NC-17 rating, they would take out all that footage and re-submit the film and act as if they spent all this time and effort to make the film more palatable.

Now the delay until September is worrisome, but the cynic in me says that that's just a ploy to try and give the illusion that they're working hard on retooling their game.

I just can't believe that R* would have actually intended for a sex scene involving a corpse to be part of the gameplay, and that they would have been unaware of Nintendo's policy of no AO games. Hot Coffee was a lot less than that. I think the only answer is that R* felt that this game was a borderline candidate for the AO rating based on violent content, so they threw in something truly offensive, then delayed the game so that they could give the appearance that they're striving to curtail the offensive parts of the game, so when they ultimately re-appear in front of the ESRB they can present the great job they did in censoring their product.

Plus all this AO stuff is GREAT publicity.

And on the subject of a private ratings board rather than a public one...

If the government rated games (that would be the best job ever, by the way, government jobs are sweeeeet), then the raters would have to be above influence, they would have to provide full transparency and a list of standards, there would be a legal route for appeals, free speech would certainly enter into it, there would be an ombudsman etc.

I think the idea of a private board free from political tampering is just dandy in theory, but it's been an abysmal failure for movies. As a minor I was able to read books like Lolita, and visit galleries featuring nude photography, but I couldn't see the '97 film Lolita. Books and art are subject to government censorship, but it's rarely exercised, and successfully censoring a work had proven very difficult in the past. Movies and games are censored constantly.
 

deadbeef

Member
Dr.Acula said:
*Dr.Acula weighs in*

Oh I have no doubt this is the intended response. R* certainly knew what they were getting into. It's good publicity.

I think they're also releasing another game this year.
 
Quazar said:
2. Angry much?
3. Its about what content my friend.
4.baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
j/k
To you.
B. Not angry at all
C. You said you'd understand if rape/molestation content had to be removed.
 
Mariah Carey said:
Uh... yes there is. It's all about the perception that sex will more easily encourage promiscuity (because it's a pleasurable act) than violence would encourage real-life violence (because it's a painful act). One can surely disagree with it largely because the reality may differ from perception (hey, I'm not even sure I agree with it), but it does make sense.
If one doesn't agree with it, why would one agree it makes sense?
 

Jirotrom

Member
Dr.Acula said:
Allow me to weigh in.

R* is probably the dev most familiar with the ratings board, and the guidlines of the console manufacturers. R* are the guys always pushing the envelope and they've been burned before. They are a very rich group of people [edit] who I am sure can afford lawyers [/edit] and I am sure after Hot Coffee, everything that goes into the game is thoroughly discussed before management.

Correct me if I am wrong, but submitting a game to be rated involves creating a video of all the gameplay elements to be viewed by the ESRB. So R* can in this regard make their game seem worse than it is.

I'm reminded of an old filmmakers trick, where the filmmakers would edit in violent, gratuitous acts that they never intended to make the final cut. When they ultimately got back their NC-17 rating, they would take out all that footage and re-submit the film and act as if they spent all this time and effort to make the film more palatable.

Now the delay until September is worrisome, but the cynic in me says that that's just a ploy to try and give the illusion that they're working hard on retooling their game.

I just can't believe that R* would have actually intended for a sex scene involving a corpse to be part of the gameplay, and that they would have been unaware of Nintendo's policy of no AO games. Hot Coffee was a lot less than that. I think the only answer is that R* felt that this game was a borderline candidate for the AO rating based on violent content, so they threw in something truly offensive, then delayed the game so that they could give the appearance that they're striving to curtail the offensive parts of the game, so when they ultimately re-appear in front of the ESRB they can present the great job they did in censoring their product.

Plus all this AO stuff is GREAT publicity.

And on the subject of a private ratings board rather than a public one...

If the government rated games (that would be the best job ever, by the way, government jobs are sweeeeet), then the raters would have to be above influence, they would have to provide full transparency and a list of standards, there would be a legal route for appeals, free speech would certainly enter into it, there would be an ombudsman etc.

I think the idea of a private board free from political tampering is just dandy in theory, but it's been an abysmal failure for movies. As a minor I was able to read books like Lolita, and visit galleries featuring nude photography, but I couldn't see the '97 film Lolita. Books and art are subject to government censorship, but it's rarely exercised, and successfully censoring a work had proven very difficult in the past. Movies and games are censored constantly.
I'm willing to bet you hit this on the nail.
 

Krowley

Member
Mariah Carey said:
Uh... yes there is. It's all about the perception that sex will more easily encourage promiscuity (because it's a pleasurable act) than violence would encourage real-life violence (because it's a painful act).

I think this is a solid bit of logic and many people simply don't understand it.

As a teenager I watched stuff like texas chainsaw massacre and never wanted to disembowl anybody but every time i watched a skinemax movie... Well let's just say it's a lot easier to encourage promiscuity than violence... The real life consequences of violence are readily apparent to normal kids while the consequences of unrestrained sex are a bit more esoteric when you're at that age.
 
Krowley said:
I think this is a solid bit of logic and many people simply don't understand it.

As a teenager I watched stuff like texas chainsaw massacre and never wanted to disembowl anybody but every time i watched a skinemax movie... Well let's just say it's a lot easier to encourage promiscuity than violence... The real life consequences of violence are readily apparent to normal kids while the consequences of unrestrained sex are a bit more esoteric when you're at that age.
It's a solid bit of logic that again, research doesn't support. So many people walk around with these "Old Wives' Tales" perceptions. It's frightening.
 

Dr.Acula

Banned
Krowley said:
I think this is a solid bit of logic and many people simply don't understand it.

As a teenager I watched stuff like texas chainsaw massacre and never wanted to disembowl anybody but every time i watched a skinemax movie... Well let's just say it's a lot easier to encourage promiscuity than violence... The real life consequences of violence are readily apparent to normal kids while the consequences of unrestrained sex are a bit more esoteric when you're at that age.

I think it's more likely that people are naturally averse to disembowling/being disembowled, and that sex is a basic biological function.
 

Krowley

Member
Segata Sanshiro said:
It's a solid bit of logic that again, research doesn't support. So many people walk around with these "Old Wives' Tales" perceptions. It's frightening.


I don't know man... I always knew the difference between movie violence and RL violence but I didn't give a rats ass about any consequences of sex as a teenager even though I was well educated. It's not a question of research, it's just a question of real life personal experience. Everybody knows that you have to be a psycho to watch a gory movie and actually want to duplicate the violent acts... Sex is entirley different.

Dr.Acula said:
I think it's more likely that people are naturally averse to disembowling/being disembowled, and that sex is a basic biological function.

Precisley my point. That's why they censor sex more than violence. People want to have sex anyway.. why encourage them early when they're too young to make smart decisions?

edit// it's like if i was on a diet and I saw a somebody on TV eating ice cream.. I want ice cream anyway, so it doesn't take much to make me break my diet.. And, I'm not saying that keeping kids away from sex in movies is going to make much difference anyway, but there is a sound logic behind censoring one more than the other.
 
Krowley said:
I don't know man... I always knew the difference between movie violence and RL violence but I didn't give a rats ass about any consequences of sex as a teenager even though I was well educated. It's not a question of research, it's just a question of real life personal experience. Everybody knows that you have to be a psycho to watch a gory movie and actually want to duplicate the violent acts... Sex is entirley different.
There's been not-inconsiderable research done in this area. The connection here is even more specious than the one for violence.

Of course teenagers want to have sex, and many do, but the frequency at which they engage in promiscuous behaviour does not correlate to sexual content viewed. Your personal experience may vary, I'm simply going with statistical support.
 

vdo

Member
Amused_To_Death said:
logo_steam_header.jpg

That would be one of the better ways to get the game wide distribution on the PC. As soon as the press release about it being available came out, the ease of getting instantly, as well as impulse buys from it being so easy to get would sell a lot of copies.

BTW, your user name is my favorite album.
 

Dr.Acula

Banned
Krowley said:
Precisley my point. That's why they censor sex more than violence. People want to have sex anyway.. why encourage them early when they're too young to make smart decisions?

edit// it's like if i was on a diet and I saw a somebody on TV eating ice cream.. I want ice cream anyway, so it doesn't take much to make me break my diet.. And, I'm not saying that keeping kids away from sex in movies is going to make much difference anyway, but there is a sound logic behind censoring one more than the other.

I get that, I just hope you weren't saying that if you never saw a skinemax movie, you would have never had sex when you were younger, cause that's pretty specious.
 

Krowley

Member
Segata Sanshiro said:
There's been not-inconsiderable research done in this area. The connection here is even more specious than the one for violence.

Of course teenagers want to have sex, and many do, but the frequency at which they engage in promiscuous behaviour does not correlate to sexual content viewed. Your personal experience may vary, I'm simply going with statistical support.

Note my edit above.. I'm not suggesting it will make any real difference, I'm just saying that there is a sound logic behind the distinction. They make the distinction based on human nature, but it may not make any real difference in behavior. Teenagers are going to have sex as soon as possible.

I think It's possible that way back in the 50's or earlier that general ignroance and fear of the unknown may have slightly lessened the amount of teen sex but there are probably no statistics available.

Dr.Acula said:
I get that, I just hope you weren't saying that if you never saw a skinemax movie, you would have never had sex when you were younger, cause that's pretty specious.


Definitly not. Maybe if there was absolute ignorance about the sexual act, kids would be more hesitant, but that's not realistic in the modern world.
 

Dr.Acula

Banned
Krowley said:
Note my edit above.. I'm not suggesting it will make any real difference, I'm just saying that there is a sound logic behind the distinction. They make the distinction based on human nature, but it may not make any real difference in behavior. Teenagers are going to have sex as soon as possible.

I think It's possible that way back in the 50's or earlier that general ignroance and fear of the unknown may have slightly lessened the amount of teen sex but there are probably no statistics available.

"I'm not suggesting it will make any real difference, I'm just saying that there is a sound logic behind the distinction."

If you can't say it makes a difference, how is it sound logic?
 

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
Dr.Acula said:
Allow me to weigh in.

R* is probably the dev most familiar with the ratings board, and the guidlines of the console manufacturers. R* are the guys always pushing the envelope and they've been burned before. They are a very rich group of people [edit] who I am sure can afford lawyers [/edit] and I am sure after Hot Coffee, everything that goes into the game is thoroughly discussed before management.

Correct me if I am wrong, but submitting a game to be rated involves creating a video of all the gameplay elements to be viewed by the ESRB. So R* can in this regard make their game seem worse than it is.

I'm reminded of an old filmmakers trick, where the filmmakers would edit in violent, gratuitous acts that they never intended to make the final cut. When they ultimately got back their NC-17 rating, they would take out all that footage and re-submit the film and act as if they spent all this time and effort to make the film more palatable.

Now the delay until September is worrisome, but the cynic in me says that that's just a ploy to try and give the illusion that they're working hard on retooling their game.

I just can't believe that R* would have actually intended for a sex scene involving a corpse to be part of the gameplay, and that they would have been unaware of Nintendo's policy of no AO games. Hot Coffee was a lot less than that. I think the only answer is that R* felt that this game was a borderline candidate for the AO rating based on violent content, so they threw in something truly offensive, then delayed the game so that they could give the appearance that they're striving to curtail the offensive parts of the game, so when they ultimately re-appear in front of the ESRB they can present the great job they did in censoring their product.

Plus all this AO stuff is GREAT publicity.

And on the subject of a private ratings board rather than a public one...

If the government rated games (that would be the best job ever, by the way, government jobs are sweeeeet), then the raters would have to be above influence, they would have to provide full transparency and a list of standards, there would be a legal route for appeals, free speech would certainly enter into it, there would be an ombudsman etc.

I think the idea of a private board free from political tampering is just dandy in theory, but it's been an abysmal failure for movies. As a minor I was able to read books like Lolita, and visit galleries featuring nude photography, but I couldn't see the '97 film Lolita. Books and art are subject to government censorship, but it's rarely exercised, and successfully censoring a work had proven very difficult in the past. Movies and games are censored constantly.

100% certain. Take2 aren't stupid enough to think they would get an M rating for sex with a corpse and microwaving a cat, they knew it that's what they would get. They just wanted the easy publicity for an end-gen sequel to a poor title.

But I wouldn't be so sure about the game being released on Wii in the end, even with an M rating. I think the AO tag will stick to the game somehow, the ESRB won't change it or if they do people like JT (well he can't do shit anymore) will still cry foul.

We'll see.
 

Sirusjr

Banned
Krowley said:
I think this is a solid bit of logic and many people simply don't understand it.

As a teenager I watched stuff like texas chainsaw massacre and never wanted to disembowl anybody but every time i watched a skinemax movie... Well let's just say it's a lot easier to encourage promiscuity than violence... The real life consequences of violence are readily apparent to normal kids while the consequences of unrestrained sex are a bit more esoteric when you're at that age.
I totally agree with this though. I mean its not like if you have sex and have a kid you are all of a sudden going to loose your freedom for the rest of your life (assuming you are convicted and you will because you are young and stupid). I know that I am pretty much going to be screwed if I go and kill somebody and life as I know it will come to an end. On the other hand, if i went and screwed someone, I MIGHT get an std or i MIGHT get someone pregnant but these things aren't 100%. I sure as hell know that I don't want to deal with the hardships that come from having a child when you aren't ready but the average kid who watches porn or sex in movies doesn't know that or really care. Thats without even brining into question morality and religion.
 

Krowley

Member
Dr.Acula said:
"I'm not suggesting it will make any real difference, I'm just saying that there is a sound logic behind the distinction."

If you can't say it makes a difference, how is it sound logic?

It's basicly a case of catering to parents.

Everybody knows that their kids already want to have sex. They aren't so worried that their kids want to chop somebody's head off. So the relative level of concern from parents regarding the two issues is reflected in the ratings and the way we censor content.

there is a logic behind it in theory, but it doesn't nessecarily work in real life.

edit//Even so, I know that if I was a parent I would be much more worried about my 12 year old stealing my porno vids than if he stayed up all night and watched Friday the 13th. It probably wouldn't really make a difference, but it's just a gut level thing.
 

Dr.Acula

Banned
Krowley said:
It's basicly a case of catering to parents.

Everybody knows that their kids already want to have sex. They aren't so worried that their kids want to chop somebody's head off. So the relative level of concern from parents regarding the two issues is reflected in the ratings.

Okay, that I can buy, I just think it's silly is all.
 

castle007

Banned
I am actually surprised by this news. But the ESRB is very unpredictable. The game won't be released with an AO rating. They will delay it.
 
Hey thanks, Krowley, I thought I'd have to come in and argue all those points myself. :lol

JoshuaJSlone said:
If one doesn't agree with it, why would one agree it makes sense?

This was kind of touched on earlier, but it's all about perception. There hasn't been a definitive study comparing the effects of violent and sexual images, so perception is really what we mostly have to base our judgements on. One person's perception of the effects may differ, but can still recognize that another has come to a conclusion through sound logic based through the other's perception.
 

Razoric

Banned
Ether_Snake said:
B]Take2 aren't stupid enough to think they would get an M rating for sex with a corpse and microwaving a cat[/B], they knew it that's what they would get. They just wanted the easy publicity for an end-gen sequel to a poor title.

Um, that was a joke post. I don't believe Manhunt 2 features corpse rape and microwaving cats.
 

{Mike}

Banned
Krowley said:
Hey i bought it dude :lol

Hopefully you were joshing.. That would be pretty extreme and i would honestly question rockstars sanity.

Yea I was joking about the cat and necrophilia part :lol
 
Remember when Nintendo refused to carry the intact version of the first Mortal Kombat and Sega was will to take the heat and let it stand? The end result was that the Genesis' version kicked the hell out of the SNES version in terms of sales. Too bad there is no "Sega" in this current scenario to prove how wrong headed Sony and Nintendo are being in this.

Again, I'm not even particulary interested in this game and the content is certainly not my cup of tea, but I think that as this industry evolves it is important to be able to establish a viable "Adults Only" rating, a pitfall the film industry has unfortunately not been able to avoid. Rockstar should release an uncut "Adults Only" version on the PC and watch it beat down the other two in terms of sales.
 
Krowley said:
I think this is a solid bit of logic and many people simply don't understand it.

As a teenager I watched stuff like texas chainsaw massacre and never wanted to disembowl anybody but every time i watched a skinemax movie... Well let's just say it's a lot easier to encourage promiscuity than violence... The real life consequences of violence are readily apparent to normal kids while the consequences of unrestrained sex are a bit more esoteric when you're at that age.
Advocates that fictional violence leads to real violence usually don't say it's going to directly cause many disembowelings, but that it leaves people more aggressive. As a youngster, I had a lot more chance to be aggressive with my brother than to get laid.
 

Krowley

Member
JoshuaJSlone said:
Advocates that fictional violence leads to real violence usually don't say it's going to directly cause many disembowelings, but that it leaves people more aggressive. As a youngster, I had a lot more chance to be aggressive with my brother than to get laid.


Ehh.. I don't know, I'm not a psychologist..

I grew up watching road runner and popeye instead of blues clues and Dora the explorer and I'll admit I got into a large number of scraps at school, so maybe there's something to that.. Then again, maybe not. I never felt that I was inspired by movies to get into fistfights, so if it happened, it was entirley subconcious.

Also, it doesn't seem that violence in school children has gone down since they started pussyfying all the childrens programming and cracking down on movie violence.. People talk about hostel and stuff like that, but movie violence and sex in the 80's was actually much worse overall. It was easier to get an R rating and nobody gave a sh*t. These days you have to walk on your tiptoes to get avoid an NC17 but all but the most extreme stuff got an R rating in those days. The only other alternative was X.
 
Grand Theft Auto fans, fear for your game!

the ESRB has effectively opened a censorship loophole which it and your other mature rated games will slip into.

if an AO rating keeps a game from being published, it is censorship, it is a violation of your first amendment rights

no matter how obscene, perverse, disturbing, and potentially morally corrupting a game is, as long as it does not contain illegal content, to prevent the publication of a game or even to discourage such a game from being created (ex. for fear of a loss of profit due to rating) compromises the founding principles of our government.

expect to see this continue this fall
 

davepoobond

you can't put a price on sparks
tetrisgrammaton said:
if an AO rating keeps a game from being published, it is censorship, it is a violation of your first amendment rights

only the government is capable of censorship.


gatekeeping / self-censorship (even if its by other companies within the industry) is NOT illegal and NOT a violation of the first amendment.
 

Kevtones

Member
My Dad called me randomly to ask about this game today... told me as his son, he hopes I don't support the title :lol



btw davepoobond, I like your renovated avatar :lol
 
davepoobond said:
only the government is capable of censorship.


gatekeeping / self-censorship (even if its by other companies within the industry) is NOT illegal and NOT a violation of the first amendment.


well the ESRB was founded under significant government pressure on the video game industry , i do not think that any software developers got together and came up with the system on their own.
 
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