So apparantly, the Bulletstorm is the new Devil amongst all the violent video games. Author Carole Lieberman states that “The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games,” What do you guys have to say about this?
There are people who profit from this prolific hate for videogames. I can imagine quite a few rightist special interest groups giving the Liberman's quite a bit of money for saying that videogames cause rape. (which is complete and utter bs)
Content is getting worse but the content is often what sells.
A bit opf crudity makes up for a lack of quality, and if you get quality and crrudity together you have a sure fire seller.
Parental ratings are a badge of honour for rappers and games, a bit like ASBO's and hooligans. The answer is not to 'rate' videos music and games, the answer is to tax them.
You want extreme language go ahead thats 5% on top of RRP, violent sex scenes, thats another 10%. All governments need to do to sell this to the people is apportion some of the tax revenues to such things as victim support battered wives and correctional methodologies for juveniles.
Record companies in particular encourage swearing and trashing hotels, it sells. I bet they would be teaching their artists something else if it cost them 10% on album receipts to the government for doing so.
Limiting free speech, not at all, by taxing extreme content one can in fact justify its place far better than a censor-not censor decision.
I think it would be unlikely that the politicians would come up with a ratings system themselves. They'd just get somebody else to do it, like the BBFC in Britain.
Fattimus_maximus wrote:There are people who profit from this prolific hate for videogames. I can imagine quite a few rightist special interest groups giving the Liberman's quite a bit of money for saying that videogames cause rape. (which is complete and utter bs)
Censorship is hardly a rightwing phenomenon. Tipper Gore was the one who led the crusade against violent media for a long time.
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Orlanth wrote:Record companies in particular encourage swearing and trashing hotels, it sells. I bet they would be teaching their artists something else if it cost them 10% on album receipts to the government for doing so.
Limiting free speech, not at all, by taxing extreme content one can in fact justify its place far better than a censor-not censor decision.
If you give government a direct profit incentive, you'll quickly see them classifying all kinds of things as undesirable content. Creep is inevitable.
The best option is to get parents to pay attention to the ratings system.
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Melissia wrote:Because the government is run by politicians, whom use stupid and arbitrary reasoning for everything they do.
Whereas the people at the top levels of industry make informed and rational decisions at all times. This is because of magic.
I mean, I get the idea behind the profit incentive, I dare say I'm a stronger believer in it than most people here. But this thing where simply being government or simply being private sector somehow makes you incredibly foolish or incredibly savvy just by the nature of being one or the other needs to die, because it is silly.
I mean, what happens to a person who was in the private sector who then moves to government, does he become stupid overnight? What happens if he moves back?
We should put achievements in games for fining in-game representations of Jack Thompson and killing them, ripping off their heads, and violently fornicating with it.
We should put achievements in games for fining in-game representations of Jack Thompson and killing them, ripping off their heads, and violently fornicating with it.
That's a reason to complain.
Would you believe me if I told you it's been done already?
We should put achievements in games for fining in-game representations of Jack Thompson and killing them, ripping off their heads, and violently fornicating with it.
That's a reason to complain.
Would you believe me if I told you it's been done already?
So apparantly, the Bulletstorm is the new Devil amongst all the violent video games. Author Carole Lieberman states that “The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games,” What do you guys have to say about this?
-Tubby
Edited for spelling.
The funny thing about the Lierberman argument is that rape has gone down in prevalence from ~2.4 of all US women in 1980, to ~0.4% in 2010.
Granted, under reporting is a factor., but its hard to imagine how all the many and varied programs to help victims that have taken off since 1980 could possibly have caused the rate of reporting to go down.
sebster wrote:
Whereas the people at the top levels of industry make informed and rational decisions at all times. This is because of magic.
I mean, I get the idea behind the profit incentive, I dare say I'm a stronger believer in it than most people here. But this thing where simply being government or simply being private sector somehow makes you incredibly foolish or incredibly savvy just by the nature of being one or the other needs to die, because it is silly.
I mean, what happens to a person who was in the private sector who then moves to government, does he become stupid overnight? What happens if he moves back?
What I've never understood is why there is this myth that there is no profit incentive involved in governance. Maybe because there seems to be an Anglican ideal of governance as something that is done out of duty to the nation? Or because the money that is made through governing tends to be seen as illicit?
Its all very strange, and as you said, silly. Government is necessary, and good governance requires that the governors don't take whatever they please, but its certainly not a huge issue that they set up the system to ensure their own profits insofar as everyone else (or at least most of everyone else important) gets in on the action as well.
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Emperors Faithful wrote:I have to say, "Gangbang" for killing multiple enemies? I certainly wouldn't be comfortable playing that game.
But seriously, gang bangs aren't a huge deal, its gang rape that gets you in trouble.
I can't take anything fox news says seriously. So I just see this as mindless banter, though the game itself isn't exactly helping the image of gaming... but that's the developers fault for trying to target the teenage demographic.
And with kids as young as 9 playing such games, the experts FoxNews.com spoke with were nearly universally worried that video game violence may be reaching a fever pitch.
Orlanth wrote:Content is getting worse but the content is often what sells.
A bit opf crudity makes up for a lack of quality, and if you get quality and crrudity together you have a sure fire seller.
Parental ratings are a badge of honour for rappers and games, a bit like ASBO's and hooligans. The answer is not to 'rate' videos music and games, the answer is to tax them.
You want extreme language go ahead thats 5% on top of RRP, violent sex scenes, thats another 10%. All governments need to do to sell this to the people is apportion some of the tax revenues to such things as victim support battered wives and correctional methodologies for juveniles.
Record companies in particular encourage swearing and trashing hotels, it sells. I bet they would be teaching their artists something else if it cost them 10% on album receipts to the government for doing so.
Limiting free speech, not at all, by taxing extreme content one can in fact justify its place far better than a censor-not censor decision.
Are you really comparing rap to video games?
I am of legal age and sound mind, why should I be penalized because a game I want to buy just so happens to be a little "crude" in another persons eyes?
Dead Space 2's 'yourmomhatesthisgame' campaign is a sign of that.
Right wing and left wing wingnuts love to jump on videogames. The right wing says that they're protecting conservative values while the left wing says that they're protecting the children.
Dreadwinter wrote:
Are you really comparing rap to video games?
A useful and easy example of how parental ratings are as marketing tool not a warning in the eyes of media producers.
Dreadwinter wrote:
I am of legal age and sound mind, why should I be penalized because a game I want to buy just so happens to be a little "crude" in another persons eyes?
What has that to do with anything. A box doesn't ask who picks it up, proliferation is pretty much inevitable. What can be targeted is the concept of soiling media content as a selling point.
Take the trailer for Bulletstorm everything about the gamer indicates marketing for a teen audience. It would not be the only game out there to be directly marketed at an age group technically prohibited on the cover. You cannot stop games from getting lewder or more violent but you can give incentives not to. Currently through ratings and low brow content the encouragement is to sink lower and lower. An accompanying tax scale with ratings would do more to clear up the media than anything else.
Orlanth wrote:What has that to do with anything. A box doesn't ask who picks it up, proliferation is pretty much inevitable. What can be targeted is the concept of soiling media content as a selling point.
Take the trailer for Bulletstorm everything about the gamer indicates marketing for a teen audience. It would not be the only game out there to be directly marketed at an age group technically prohibited on the cover. You cannot stop games from getting lewder or more violent but you can give incentives not to. Currently through ratings and low brow content the encouragement is to sink lower and lower. An accompanying tax scale with ratings would do more to clear up the media than anything else.
To make my point again, "If you give government a direct profit incentive, you'll quickly see them classifying all kinds of things as undesirable content. Creep is inevitable.
The best option is to get parents to pay attention to the ratings system."
Bought and played through the campaign for Bulletstorm today, and I don't think it's any worse than many other violent games on the market. The whole "gangbang" thing is a rather tongue-in-cheek crack at a certain..well..we all know-what and a quite literal meaning of one "bang" taking out a "gang" of enemies. The gore was rather cheesey and - if played a certain way - can be prevalent. The gore can also be avoided.
That aside, violent video games don't breed violent people. I hate to beat a dead-horse, but I believe that indifferent and apathetic parents lead to violent people. My parents took a strong emphasis on teaching me the difference between real-life and fantasy. They let me play whatever video game tickled my fancy. I grew up to be a fairly controlled and reserved person. Fox is probably just bashing this game because the ads and trailers generated a lot of hype, and by talking down about it they, in turn, generate ratings. I'm willing to be that the majority of them couldn't care less about what's actually in the game.
Dreadwinter wrote:
Are you really comparing rap to video games?
A useful and easy example of how parental ratings are as marketing tool not a warning in the eyes of media producers.
Dreadwinter wrote:
I am of legal age and sound mind, why should I be penalized because a game I want to buy just so happens to be a little "crude" in another persons eyes?
What has that to do with anything. A box doesn't ask who picks it up, proliferation is pretty much inevitable. What can be targeted is the concept of soiling media content as a selling point.
Take the trailer for Bulletstorm everything about the gamer indicates marketing for a teen audience. It would not be the only game out there to be directly marketed at an age group technically prohibited on the cover. You cannot stop games from getting lewder or more violent but you can give incentives not to. Currently through ratings and low brow content the encouragement is to sink lower and lower. An accompanying tax scale with ratings would do more to clear up the media than anything else.
What does that have to do with anything? Absolutely everything about your argument, you are wanting to make it harder for people to put out content that I like. So that has everything to do with me. Me, being of legal age and sound mind. Not a minor. I would enjoy having these things.
Now, the way you are saying this, you are making it sound like every game studio is shooting for an M rating with max shock value. That is actually stupid, a lot of studios lose money when they get bumped up to M from a T or an E. A lot of parents are smart and wont buy their kids games that are not good for them. I cant help it if some parents ignore the warning signs on the box. Why should I be penalized for poor parenting?
sebster wrote:
The best option is to get parents to pay attention to the ratings system."
Alternatively, the best option is to allow parents to determine what their children do and do not view.
I say this because I'm not convinced that violent media is harmful to children. Were that the case I would have expected to see a steady rise in violent crime, particularly amongst juveniles, over the last 15 years, but the opposite had occurred.
dogma wrote:Alternatively, the best option is to allow parents to determine what their children do and do not view.
I say this because I'm not convinced that violent media is harmful to children. Were that the case I would have expected to see a steady rise in violent crime, particularly amongst juveniles, over the last 15 years, but the opposite had occurred.
Absolutely, and I agree about the noted decrease in violent crime (from what you hear society is a chronic state of demise and, possibly just to annoy the doomsayers things keep getting better).
But ultimately it's the parent's choice whether their child is exposed to violent media or not, so a ratings system that informs parents as to the content of the game makes good sense.
What I would like to know is, has there been an increase in the violence and brutality in games?
There is the potential for games designers to contsantly raise the ante of the shock value as a selling point. I understand that the games may appear more graphic than they used to given the ever increasing realism of the graphics.
Don't play computer/video games very often and stick to strategy when I do. Why frag zombies when world domination is so much more fun.
Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:What I would like to know is, has there been an increase in the violence and brutality in games?
There is the potential for games designers to contsantly raise the ante of the shock value as a selling point. I understand that the games may appear more graphic than they used to given the ever increasing realism of the graphics.
I would say yes, absolutely. Though I also imagine that there's a threshold at which shock simply becomes irrelevant. For example, while I am pretty jaded, the idea that Bulletstorm is somehow uniquely offensive struck me as very odd. It doesn't seem any worse than any other FPS on the market, and actually appears considerably less "offensive", by way of cartoonish violence, than something like Modern Warfare.
Also, I remember reading another Lieberman comment about how Bulletstorm would encourage copycat crimes. My first thought was about how impressed I would be by a child that managed to develop an energy lasso in order to imitate the main character by tossing random bystanders into the air.
As someone who has always loved Looney Tunes I have never felt compelled to flatten, annihilate maime or blow people/animals/anything up as a consequence
There maybe some effect of games on some players due to their own psychopthic tendencies? Not entirely convinced that the games will turn everyone into raving mad axe killers.
Not entirely sure why poeple play these games either tbh. but I am a squeemish wuzz.
Is there a possibilty that games are a release for most people and short cut actual tendencies to chop up and decapitate in the real world?
If computer games really had that much effect on people, everyone in the 80's would have been running round in the dark popping pills and listening to electronic musi... damn...
dogma wrote:I would say yes, absolutely. Though I also imagine that there's a threshold at which shock simply becomes irrelevant. For example, while I am pretty jaded, the idea that Bulletstorm is somehow uniquely offensive struck me as very odd. It doesn't seem any worse than any other FPS on the market, and actually appears considerably less "offensive", by way of cartoonish violence, than something like Modern Warfare.
The people who complain about these games rarely actually play them, so they're not informed by the games content. They're informed by the games marketing campaign, and Bulletstorm has one that plays up the more graphic content.
It's like the contraversy over GTA, people kept citing things like the Hot Coffee thing, as though that was the worst possible thing about the game. I mean, the basic pick up and play game involves murdering people, stealing a car and trying to evade police pursuit. It took a while for me to realise that the reason their complaints about the game were so weird was because they had not only never played GTA, I'm pretty sure they didn't even understand what games are about.
Orlanth wrote:What has that to do with anything. A box doesn't ask who picks it up, proliferation is pretty much inevitable. What can be targeted is the concept of soiling media content as a selling point.
Take the trailer for Bulletstorm everything about the gamer indicates marketing for a teen audience. It would not be the only game out there to be directly marketed at an age group technically prohibited on the cover. You cannot stop games from getting lewder or more violent but you can give incentives not to. Currently through ratings and low brow content the encouragement is to sink lower and lower. An accompanying tax scale with ratings would do more to clear up the media than anything else.
To make my point again, "If you give government a direct profit incentive, you'll quickly see them classifying all kinds of things as undesirable content. Creep is inevitable.
The best option is to get parents to pay attention to the ratings system."
I could think of worse things to tax, and the revenue is needed. I dont actually have a problem with it. As far as 'creep' is concerned, media could be properly scaled, now at least there is an incentive to do so.
Parents cant pay attention to the ratings system because a lot of the time proliferation is outside parental control. The above solution doesn't make parental control content more exotic or kewl, it just makes it taxable, this in itself will do more to clean up the industry than anything else.
Orlanth wrote:Parents cant pay attention to the ratings system because a lot of the time proliferation is outside parental control. The above solution doesn't make parental control content more exotic or kewl, it just makes it taxable, this in itself will do more to clean up the industry than anything else.
Parents should keep themselves aware of what they are buying their children. You can't buy rated games without prooving that you are aged appropriately for the game you are buying. Fairly regularly when I go into the various games shops in town there will be some kid (probably 10-13) leading their parent round, picking out 18 rated games, sometimes even saying "Wow - this one is so cool, you get to kill people and blow them up" (or similar). More often than not the parents will buy the game (assuming it does not cost too much, which is the most common negative comment I have heard).
It is very rare that I have ever heard a parent say a child is not getting a game because it is too violent/has adult themes/etc.
And judging by how many squeeky voices there in multiplayer on many 18+ rated games I play, there are a lot of parents who buy their kids games either without knowing what the game contains, or not caring. I would suggest that this is a far more common method of children getting hold of such media than children secretly running rated games through a schoolyard black market which is totally uncontrolled by any parents/adults.
And regards creeping taxation - I'm fairly certain that once the government gets hold of a new revenue stream, it will grab hold of it with both hands. I can see entertainment eventually being taxed to the same extent as fuel is now.
Which as has been pointed out is not in any way fair for those of us who are of age to play the games, or watch the films. Why should everyone be forced to watch/play tellytubby level TV/games just in case a child gets his hands on it? As has been pointed out, such entertainment does not automatically lead to cackling children standing over mass graves, covered in the blood of their victims.
Often shock value is added simply to cause a marketing stir, or its reviewed in certain directions to cause.
Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:What I would like to know is, has there been an increase in the violence and brutality in games?
There is the potential for games designers to constantly raise the ante of the shock value as a selling point.
And This.
My prime personal concern is due to a decline in quality, in many media shock is turning from the exception to the norm, and it does the media no good, nor does it help society.
dogma wrote:
I say this because I'm not convinced that violent media is harmful to children. Were that the case I would have expected to see a steady rise in violent crime, particularly amongst juveniles, over the last 15 years, but the opposite had occurred.
I would like to know where you got those figures from, in the UK this is precisely what has happened. Though I would be reluctant to place the blame directly on the shock media it does have an effect. Outside of rare cases the problem is not a direct translation to violent crime the problem but more a detachment from any communal responsibility and the causes of this are far wider.
Humans pick up their moral values before they are 10, the media is dispelling innocence at far younger ages and the societal effects are very much evident. Every generation blames a cultural decay on its youth, but there has been a sea change in recent years with violent and anti social behaviour effecting younger and younger age groups. The last big youth revolution in the 60's and each preceding normally occurred in a much older age group,
I do not blame video games for this, I can see the influence of shock media in general, of which gaming is a very small part. Modern 'comedy' is far more a threat in this case, as with some games the shock value is there to mask reduced overall quality, raise publicity through controversy and thus raise capital. Fine a shock jock for breaching broadcasting standards and you have made his career jump, place a surtax on his materials and he will have a genuine incentive to clean up a bit.
The thing is you would have to do this across the board.
Bottom line here is that would there be a difference in a family setting that does not swear from one that is blue mouthed in terms of the values of the children raised. Time and again the answer appears to be yes, shock media and its prevelence all but ensures that the latter is all we can have.
Dreadwinter wrote:
What does that have to do with anything? Absolutely everything about your argument, you are wanting to make it harder for people to put out content that I like. So that has everything to do with me. Me, being of legal age and sound mind. Not a minor. I would enjoy having these things.
Taxes happen. Taxing shock media would reduce pressure elsewhere, both USA and UK are running at a horrid deficit and new taxes are needed, better this than something else. Media can avoid this though. Perhaps Bulletstorm can make itself 'kewl' by including some genuine wit in its dialogue than making comments about strap on dildos in a game evidently marketed for minors.
Dreadwinter wrote:
Now, the way you are saying this, you are making it sound like every game studio is shooting for an M rating with max shock value. That is actually stupid, a lot of studios lose money when they get bumped up to M from a T or an E. A lot of parents are smart and wont buy their kids games that are not good for them. I cant help it if some parents ignore the warning signs on the box. Why should I be penalized for poor parenting?
Unless the kids are never given any money they can go and get the stuff themselves, most kids with access to computer games have pocket money at one level or another. Now laws might prevent sale to minors, but there are ways around this. The only way to clear up is to make incentives not to.
Also most games are not going for a higher rating, you can have and do have adult themes in games without raising them, games need not and indeed should not be bloodless an accurate WW2 game should be classified differently than Bulletstorm, even if both include gore.
Lets be clear here I am far from advocating that a teen audience should be restricted to bloodless games.
SilverMK2 wrote:
Parents should keep themselves aware of what they are buying their children. You can't buy rated games without prooving that you are aged appropriately for the game you are buying. Fairly regularly when I go into the various games shops in town there will be some kid (probably 10-13) leading their parent round, picking out 18 rated games, sometimes even saying "Wow - this one is so cool, you get to kill people and blow them up" (or similar). More often than not the parents will buy the game (assuming it does not cost too much, which is the most common negative comment I have heard).
It is very rare that I have ever heard a parent say a child is not getting a game because it is too violent/has adult themes/etc.
And judging by how many squeeky voices there in multiplayer on many 18+ rated games I play, there are a lot of parents who buy their kids games either without knowing what the game contains, or not caring. I would suggest that this is a far more common method of children getting hold of such media than children secretly running rated games through a schoolyard black market which is totally uncontrolled by any parents/adults.
Bad parenting is much of the problem, but that is due to a general societal malaise. Shock media has its part in that too, and needs to be restricted to some degree.
SilverMK2 wrote:
And regards creeping taxation - I'm fairly certain that once the government gets hold of a new revenue stream, it will grab hold of it with both hands. I can see entertainment eventually being taxed to the same extent as fuel is now.
Maybe not as much a fuel and cigarettes but yes the tax would creep as dogma pointed out. I don't see this as too bad a thing though. The economy is fethed and we need to raise taxes to offset the squandering that has occured before, in the UK at least something has to give, this is a very good path of least resistance. Better than selling off the forests.
Either way it would help clean up certain media that badly need it.
SilverMK2 wrote:
Which as has been pointed out is not in any way fair for those of us who are of age to play the games, or watch the films. Why should everyone be forced to watch/play tellytubby level TV/games just in case a child gets his hands on it? As has been pointed out, such entertainment does not automatically lead to cackling children standing over mass graves, covered in the blood of their victims.
Its fair because it effects everyone, so noone is singled out, media producers can limit or even eliminate this tax burden by cleaning up, also shock media is not just a problem for kiddies. You mention bad parenting as being a cause, I agree. With the current generation of couldnt give a feth parents I wonder what is on their DVD rack. At 18 you have access to all non censored content, this much is fair, not all content is wholesome at any age. Again a tax would not force this stuiff from the shelves but would restrict access somewhat, as you said cost is a major issue.
Yes I would like to see a hearty surtax on Russel Brand 'comedy' DVDs, and other deliberate shock media. You can put the fether in a tribunal and he still wont change because shock is an easy way to money and publicity. Actually Bulletstorm and games in gerneral are way way down on the list.
However it all comes down to the four hundred billion dollar question. Is this justifiable, are people - of any age - effected by what they see in the media?
I call it a four hundred billion dollar question because that is roughly the amount of money spent in the US on advertising each year, on the grounds that people are..
halonachos wrote:Dead Space 2's 'yourmomhatesthisgame' campaign is a sign of that.
My bad, I forgot that all people over the age of 18 no longer have parents.
Yeah, the minute I turned 18, my parents just vanished into thin air.
same! Also any references to parents now have no effect on me, it's as if I never had them, so obviously any references to parents in advertising have no effect on me whatsoever.
Orlanth wrote:Its fair because it effects everyone, so noone is singled out, media producers can limit or even eliminate this tax burden by cleaning up, also shock media is not just a problem for kiddies. You mention bad parenting as being a cause, I agree. With the current generation of couldnt give a feth parents I wonder what is on their DVD rack. At 18 you have access to all non censored content, this much is fair, not all content is wholesome at any age. Again a tax would not force this stuiff from the shelves but would restrict access somewhat, as you said cost is a major issue.
Hey, I know! Lots of people die in road accidents every year, let's ban all motor transport! That way we will all live forever!
I grew up in a house with plenty of adult themed videos (no VCD's/DVD's back then ). Various horror/thriller/action films etc. What you seem to be suggesting is that entire generations of people are being turned into worthless individuals because they are exposed to violent, or otherwise "unsavoury" material.
Really?
Society has always contained people who are essentially "do nothing" parents. Children have been growing up for generations in this kind of environment. Entertainment has very little to do with it in my eyes. Go back a hundred years and look around a working class slum - kids everywhere doing pretty much whatever they wanted to and could get away with. It is common for streets of kids to essentially mob into gangs and take on other streets/areas.
I bet they were all exposed to too much sex and violence in the music halls!
All we have now is a modern expression of the same problem - kids filling their time however they want so long as the parents get a bit of rest.
I, as an adult (of over 18 years), with no children, living in a house where no children visit, present absolutely 0 risk to mentally or emotionally impressing on a child anything with the media available in my collection (which ranges from Disney movies to supergore^3!!!!1111pi and everything in between).
Why should I have to pay more for something because it has been deemed "too morally questionable" or because of "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!"? In what way is it appropriate to tax certain types of media because they display violence, or adult themes?
Warhammer allows players to commit genocide on a massive scale, historical games allow you to play as the Nazi's, or crusading knights... all topics that people could feel were "inappropriate" to expose children to. Should they be taxed as well?
How about books? Lots of blood and gore in fantasy books and science fiction. Hell, there is a lot in factual books about war as well. Should they be taxed on this entertainment taxation system as well? After all, they are entertainment, and some people may find them offensive, and some kid, somewhere in the world may be offended by their contents.
I just don't get any part of how such a tax would be fair or justified. The ratings system already provides protection for children. If anything, give more power to enforce that, rather than simply pricing innocent customers out of the market.
Yes I would like to see a hearty surtax on Russel Brand 'comedy' DVDs, and other deliberate shock media. You can put the fether in a tribunal and he still wont change because shock is an easy way to money and publicity. Actually Bulletstorm and games in gerneral are way way down on the list.
However it all comes down to the four hundred billion dollar question. Is this justifiable, are people - of any age - effected by what they see in the media?
Well, anything you experince any time of any day in any format will affect you in some way. The point is that taxing something for being "morally wrong" is not only extremely subjective, but extremely unfair for the exact reason that it is entirely subjective.
The ratings system currently in place in many nations establishes relatively agreeable limits as to what people can and cannot be exposed to at various ages. It allows someone to go into a shop with $25 and pick up that new childrens animated film, or the latest SAW, depending on their age and preferance. Someone wanting to watch SAW (though why you would I am not sure ) should not have to pay, say, $50 because "oh no there is blood and children might see it".
It WAS odd to single out rap since all those metal albums with stickers have them for the same reason: because the dudes in the bands thought it would make them look "more metal" if they swore, and because teens woudl want to buy it more because of said swears...
Orlanth wrote:Its fair because it effects everyone, so noone is singled out, media producers can limit or even eliminate this tax burden by cleaning up, also shock media is not just a problem for kiddies. You mention bad parenting as being a cause, I agree. With the current generation of couldnt give a feth parents I wonder what is on their DVD rack. At 18 you have access to all non censored content, this much is fair, not all content is wholesome at any age. Again a tax would not force this stuiff from the shelves but would restrict access somewhat, as you said cost is a major issue.
Hey, I know! Lots of people die in road accidents every year, let's ban all motor transport! That way we will all live forever!
I grew up in a house with plenty of adult themed videos (no VCD's/DVD's back then ). Various horror/thriller/action films etc. What you seem to be suggesting is that entire generations of people are being turned into worthless individuals because they are exposed to violent, or otherwise "unsavoury" material.
Really?
Society has always contained people who are essentially "do nothing" parents. Children have been growing up for generations in this kind of environment. Entertainment has very little to do with it in my eyes. Go back a hundred years and look around a working class slum - kids everywhere doing pretty much whatever they wanted to and could get away with. It is common for streets of kids to essentially mob into gangs and take on other streets/areas.
I bet they were all exposed to too much sex and violence in the music halls!
All we have now is a modern expression of the same problem - kids filling their time however they want so long as the parents get a bit of rest.
I, as an adult (of over 18 years), with no children, living in a house where no children visit, present absolutely 0 risk to mentally or emotionally impressing on a child anything with the media available in my collection (which ranges from Disney movies to supergore^3!!!!1111pi and everything in between).
Why should I have to pay more for something because it has been deemed "too morally questionable" or because of "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!"? In what way is it appropriate to tax certain types of media because they display violence, or adult themes?
Warhammer allows players to commit genocide on a massive scale, historical games allow you to play as the Nazi's, or crusading knights... all topics that people could feel were "inappropriate" to expose children to. Should they be taxed as well?
How about books? Lots of blood and gore in fantasy books and science fiction. Hell, there is a lot in factual books about war as well. Should they be taxed on this entertainment taxation system as well? After all, they are entertainment, and some people may find them offensive, and some kid, somewhere in the world may be offended by their contents.
I just don't get any part of how such a tax would be fair or justified. The ratings system already provides protection for children. If anything, give more power to enforce that, rather than simply pricing innocent customers out of the market.
Here here!
Also, do we tax "Romance Novels", with graphic descriptions of sex, because think of how scarring that would be to kids.
Viddya Games don't need taxes, we just need more parents who don't use Games, Any game I'm playing in particular, as a baby sitter for their annoying 6 year old......
SilverMK2 wrote:
Hey, I know! Lots of people die in road accidents every year, let's ban all motor transport! That way we will all live forever!
I grew up in a house with plenty of adult themed videos (no VCD's/DVD's back then ). Various horror/thriller/action films etc. What you seem to be suggesting is that entire generations of people are being turned into worthless individuals because they are exposed to violent, or otherwise "unsavoury" material.
Really?
Try again without the hysteria please.
SilverMK2 wrote:
Society has always contained people who are essentially "do nothing" parents. Children have been growing up for generations in this kind of environment. Entertainment has very little to do with it in my eyes. Go back a hundred years and look around a working class slum - kids everywhere doing pretty much whatever they wanted to and could get away with. It is common for streets of kids to essentially mob into gangs and take on other streets/areas.
I bet they were all exposed to too much sex and violence in the music halls!
All we have now is a modern expression of the same problem - kids filling their time however they want so long as the parents get a bit of rest.
SilverMK2 wrote:
I, as an adult (of over 18 years), with no children, living in a house where no children visit, present absolutely 0 risk to mentally or emotionally impressing on a child anything with the media available in my collection (which ranges from Disney movies to supergore^3!!!!1111pi and everything in between).
Why should I have to pay more for something because it has been deemed "too morally questionable" or because of "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!"? In what way is it appropriate to tax certain types of media because they display violence, or adult themes?
You wont have to pay more for most media, the concept targets media designed to include needless gratuity as a selling point. Ratings dont work with that material, because the driving force is economic.
Plenty of games out there, and comedy too thats doesn't cross the line.
Also this isn't a 'think of the children' mindset, censorship and ratings effect everyone. Some media is ordered to be cut before release, and thats is for anyones benefit not part of a child protection dogma. Also by its nature a tax system would not drive shock media off the market, if it wasn't taxed it wasn't marketed. Instead its a counter-incentive for shock media to clean up.
SilverMK2 wrote:
Warhammer allows players to commit genocide on a massive scale, historical games allow you to play as the Nazi's, or crusading knights... all topics that people could feel were "inappropriate" to expose children to. Should they be taxed as well?
Look at the argument calmly and you will see this has not been advocated. Most nations also have exemptions within the classification rating, mostly for educational purposes. This has already been thought of.
SilverMK2 wrote:
How about books? Lots of blood and gore in fantasy books and science fiction. Hell, there is a lot in factual books about war as well. Should they be taxed on this entertainment taxation system as well? After all, they are entertainment, and some people may find them offensive, and some kid, somewhere in the world may be offended by their contents.
No mention of books.
SilverMK2 wrote:
I just don't get any part of how such a tax would be fair or justified. The ratings system already provides protection for children. If anything, give more power to enforce that, rather than simply pricing innocent customers out of the market.
Well, anything you experince any time of any day in any format will affect you in some way. The point is that taxing something for being "morally wrong" is not only extremely subjective, but extremely unfair for the exact reason that it is entirely subjective.
Its very easy to justify actually, we have a censors office, and it is busy. The already classify things, a tax surcharge would only his the top end, beyond a normal 18 certificate. There is already a number a thresholds at which perental guidance labels are attached.
SilverMK2 wrote:
The ratings system currently in place in many nations establishes relatively agreeable limits as to what people can and cannot be exposed to at various ages. It allows someone to go into a shop with $25 and pick up that new childrens animated film, or the latest SAW, depending on their age and preferance. Someone wanting to watch SAW (though why you would I am not sure ) should not have to pay, say, $50 because "oh no there is blood and children might see it".
I think you miss the point. 'Because children might see it' is only a small part of the issue, we already have what safeguards in play that we can. The tax would apply to counterbalance excessive (which can be classified) gratuitousness as a market tool. Most titles affecting a 'normal' 18 rating would and should not be touched.
So what in particular is supposedly so offensive about this game?
Specific content?
I looked at the game's website and it seems like pretty standard fair:
1. an innovative and intriguing name that suggests both guns and violence? Check
2. Loud music? Check
3. A female character with big guns? Check
4. An overly dramatic storyline and forced voice acting? Check and check
5. main charcter who nicked Wolevrines hair-do and raspy voce? Check and check
Seriously it seems pretty typical, so what is the fuss specifically?
Not to mention the fact some of the content is rather comical such as a trick shot that make your target breakdance, etc. Seems a step back actually from seriousness and grit of some previous games...
sebster wrote:Whereas the people at the top levels of industry make informed and rational decisions at all times.
Kilkrazy wrote:Responsibility for video games is being transferred from the BBFC to the PEGI system this summer.
In the UK yeah. In the US, it's the ESRB, and the ESRB is why there's no government regulation in the rating system. There's no need for it when the gaming industry regulates itself and rates its own games. A lot of games have content removed to drop them from AO (Adults Only 18+) to M (Mature 17+), as part if this self-regulation.
I can hardly see the problem with this game. It's just Borderlands meets Unreal Tournament. I enjoyed the demo, and have it pre-ordered... suppose I should really be picking it up... meh...
I'm guessing it was a slow newsday in the entertainment office.
Kilkrazy wrote:Responsibility for video games is being transferred from the BBFC to the PEGI system this summer.
I thought it had already changed? Most new games are rated by the PEGI system.
BRAINFART: Unless it's one of those slow transition jobs...
Article wrote:“If a younger kid experiences Bulletstorm's explicit language and violence, the damage could be significant,” Dr. Jerry Weichman, a clinical psychologist at the Hoag Neurosciences Institute in Southern California, told FoxNews.com.
I love how the anti-video game activists keep railing with 'THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!' pretending that these things are just being handed out for free for everyone.
I also notice that these same people have no problems with R rated movies. Hyprocrisy much?
Orlanth wrote:
I think you miss the point. 'Because children might see it' is only a small part of the issue, we already have what safeguards in play that we can. The tax would apply to counterbalance excessive (which can be classified) gratuitousness as a market tool. Most titles affecting a 'normal' 18 rating would and should not be touched.
Article wrote:“If a younger kid experiences Bulletstorm's explicit language and violence, the damage could be significant,” Dr. Jerry Weichman, a clinical psychologist at the Hoag Neurosciences Institute in Southern California, told FoxNews.com.
I love how the anti-video game activists keep railing with 'THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!' pretending that these things are just being handed out for free for everyone.
I also notice that these same people have no problems with R rated movies. Hyprocrisy much?
They used to. Look up the Hays Code.
Also see Tipper Gore's campaign against explicit lyrics in records, which has been extended to explicit boobs in comic books.
Back in Victorian times there was much worry about the pernicious effects of Penny Dreadfuls on weak, working class minds.
Oh, I know about the Hya's Code, however since it had passed on, I viewed it as irrelevant. I was more referring to the current anti-video game movement.
Medium of Death wrote:I can hardly see the problem with this game. It's just Borderlands meets Unreal Tournament. I enjoyed the demo, and have it pre-ordered... suppose I should really be picking it up... meh...
I'm guessing it was a slow newsday in the entertainment office.
It's because many people in the news media who don't specifically specialize in video games are pretty consistently out of touch at best or completely clueless at worst when it comes to games and the gaming industry. It doesn't matter that there have been many other games in the past with similar levels of violence, profanity, nudity, adult themes, or whatever else, this is just the most recent one the news media has gotten a hold of. Since it's "new" to them, they act like it's actually something new to the rest of the world. Like daedalus already said, the universe survived Postal 2.
The Duke of Wellington was against railways because he thought it would encourage the lower classes to move about the country.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The Roman Catholic Church was against bibles and services not in Latin until the 1970s, because they thought it would give the people the wrong ideas.
Orlanth wrote:
I would like to know where you got those figures from, in the UK this is precisely what has happened.
I'm specifically citing US juvenile crime statistics from the OJJDP. I'm having trouble finding similar statistics for the UK, but as I recall there is a great deal of debate as to whether or not the recent increase in juvenile offenses is the result of a more delinquent youth, or a more restrictive code of justice.
Orlanth wrote:
Though I would be reluctant to place the blame directly on the shock media it does have an effect. Outside of rare cases the problem is not a direct translation to violent crime the problem but more a detachment from any communal responsibility and the causes of this are far wider.
I honestly don't see how that is a problem at all as "communal responsibility" has always been a dicey idea in the Western world, at the very least. If the crime rate is relatively low, and social services are not experiencing a great degree of fraud, then there does not appear to be an issue with responsibility so much as, perhaps, budgetary concerns with respect to the overall expenditure on aid to the poor.
Orlanth wrote:
Humans pick up their moral values before they are 10, the media is dispelling innocence at far younger ages and the societal effects are very much evident. Every generation blames a cultural decay on its youth, but there has been a sea change in recent years with violent and anti social behaviour effecting younger and younger age groups. The last big youth revolution in the 60's and each preceding normally occurred in a much older age group,
Marcuse made that argument years ago, and it hasn't gotten any better in the ensuing period. The family unit was never an impermeable barrier, its simply that socialization was naturally constrained to those people in the immediate vicinity of any given child. Now, with the ubiquity of media, kids are exposed to a highly diverse set of influences that naturally expand their sphere of awareness, and so serve to detach them from classical communities. I, personally, see no problem with this. If the "old village" dynamic is lost it will be replaced by something else, and most people won't weep for its loss, and those that do aren't likely to be around for much longer anyway.
Orlanth wrote:
I do not blame video games for this, I can see the influence of shock media in general, of which gaming is a very small part. Modern 'comedy' is far more a threat in this case, as with some games the shock value is there to mask reduced overall quality, raise publicity through controversy and thus raise capital. Fine a shock jock for breaching broadcasting standards and you have made his career jump, place a surtax on his materials and he will have a genuine incentive to clean up a bit.
The thing is you would have to do this across the board.
Bottom line here is that would there be a difference in a family setting that does not swear from one that is blue mouthed in terms of the values of the children raised. Time and again the answer appears to be yes, shock media and its prevelence all but ensures that the latter is all we can have.
I disagree with everything that you've just written and, quite honestly, it sounds like absolutely nothing beyond an old man ranting about how the youth aren't like what he remembers from his own juvenile period. You're talking about nothing more than aesthetic judgment without any sound backing in statistics, or even a reasonably objective understanding of what constitutes "decay" or "clean". This is most evident, perhaps, in your last two sentences where you seem to use "difference" as a substitute for qualitative differentiation.
Ultimately though, that's fine insofar as you recognize the argument that you're making for what it is: a desire to impress your own preferences on the world at large. Of course, that's not necessarily a bad thing, its something that most of us attempt to do at one point or another.
dogma wrote:
I'm specifically citing US juvenile crime statistics from the OJJDP. I'm having trouble finding similar statistics for the UK, but as I recall there is a great deal of debate as to whether or not the recent increase in juvenile offenses is the result of a more delinquent youth, or a more restrictive code of justice.
While the code of justice has been increasingly restrictive of late, it has also been quite toothless in dealing with juvenile behaviour.
dogma wrote:
I honestly don't see how that is a problem at all as "communal responsibility" has always been a dicey idea in the Western world, at the very least. If the crime rate is relatively low, and social services are not experiencing a great degree of fraud, then there does not appear to be an issue with responsibility so much as, perhaps, budgetary concerns with respect to the overall expenditure on aid to the poor.
Community is always going to be a nebulous quality because it generally refers to a mass attitude, which is not something that can easily be measured.
dogma wrote:
Orlanth wrote:
Humans pick up their moral values before they are 10, the media is dispelling innocence at far younger ages and the societal effects are very much evident. Every generation blames a cultural decay on its youth, but there has been a sea change in recent years with violent and anti social behaviour effecting younger and younger age groups. The last big youth revolution in the 60's and each preceding normally occurred in a much older age group,
Marcuse made that argument years ago, and it hasn't gotten any better in the ensuing period. The family unit was never an impermeable barrier, its simply that socialization was naturally constrained to those people in the immediate vicinity of any given child. Now, with the ubiquity of media, kids are exposed to a highly diverse set of influences that naturally expand their sphere of awareness, and so serve to detach them from classical communities. I, personally, see no problem with this. If the "old village" dynamic is lost it will be replaced by something else, and most people won't weep for its loss, and those that do aren't likely to be around for much longer anyway.
Human society is still coming to terms with the chaos that is the information revolution. The 'old village' as you put it need not be replaced by anything wholesome, decay rather than re-balance is the historical norm when a social order is overturned.
Orlanth wrote:
I do not blame video games for this, I can see the influence of shock media in general, of which gaming is a very small part. Modern 'comedy' is far more a threat in this case, as with some games the shock value is there to mask reduced overall quality, raise publicity through controversy and thus raise capital. Fine a shock jock for breaching broadcasting standards and you have made his career jump, place a surtax on his materials and he will have a genuine incentive to clean up a bit.
The thing is you would have to do this across the board.
I disagree with everything that you've just written and, quite honestly, it sounds like absolutely nothing beyond an old man ranting about how the youth aren't like what he remembers from his own juvenile period.
Well nice for you to reduce my arguments to a charicature so as to avoid dealing with them.
You also omitted to quote by backing for my argument: if you really do disagree explain advertising, explain political rhetoric, explain the mass media in all its forms since the printing press. They all boil down to this time tested truth: people are influenced by what media they receive, for better or worse to some extent or another.
dogma wrote:
You're talking about nothing more than aesthetic judgment without any sound backing in statistics,
A sound backing in statistics is something hard to come by, especially when regarding to something as egg-in-the-face as crime statistics under the previous decade. Do not make the mistake of over-relying on statistics they are easily doctored and often are, at least over here. Statistics from the Blair era in partuicular are highly suspect, especuially when there is political mileage in misrepresentation. A good example where official statistics have proven horribly inadequate is over immigration, because its a soft subject, crime statistics have similar problems. Oner report I read indicated that reported crime statistics only included certain types of reported crime, IIRc crime phoned in rather than reported at the desk. By applying 'tactics' like this crime figures could appear lower than they actually were.
I would like accurate crime data from the UK, but I don't trust I will be able to get any. Point remains even with the doctored evidence crime and youth crime in particular are going up. This is not an aesthetic judgement.
dogma wrote:
or even a reasonably objective understanding of what constitutes "decay" or "clean". This is most evident, perhaps, in your last two sentences where you seem to use "difference" as a substitute for qualitative differentiation.
Who does? Are you fit to authenticate the standards , no? We all have our individual judgements we can feed into the consensus, which is the only real way to determine these sorts of questions as they are human factors. Such questions as is society getting worse or better cannot easily be established except by a poll as these values are not quantifiable outside of human opinion.
The main difference being that the 'pulse' of society tells me there is cause for alarm, so I make the comment. Maybe its different around your home region.
I use difference to refer to differentiation, what of it. Big words eh.
dogma wrote:
Ultimately though, that's fine insofar as you recognize the argument that you're making for what it is: a desire to impress your own preferences on the world at large. Of course, that's not necessarily a bad thing, its something that most of us attempt to do at one point or another.
Are you trying to imply you have 'got over' the stage where you apply your own preferences by the way. Because you have appeal of authority.
Has not every point in this thread been a personal opinion, there is no weighting you can apply to that of itself.
Orlanth wrote:
Human society is still coming to terms with the chaos that is the information revolution. The 'old village' as you put it need not be replaced by anything wholesome, decay rather than re-balance is the historical norm when a social order is overturned.
There's no distinction between the two outside of individual preference. What is decay for one person is progress for another.
Orlanth wrote:
Well nice for you to reduce my arguments to a charicature so as to avoid dealing with them.
You didn't make any arguments. You said X is bad, and then moved on. Making an argument would involve citing statistical evidence, or indicating why your qualitative description was motivated by something other than personal preference. I'm not interested in what you do, or don't, like.
Orlanth wrote:
You also omitted to quote by backing for my argument: if you really do disagree explain advertising, explain political rhetoric, explain the mass media in all its forms since the printing press. They all boil down to this time tested truth: people are influenced by what media they receive, for better or worse to some extent or another.
I didn't disagree with that idea. I disagreed with the idea that it is problematic such that something like a sin tax is either necessary or desirable.
Orlanth wrote:
A sound backing in statistics is something hard to come by, especially when regarding to something as egg-in-the-face as crime statistics under the previous decade. Do not make the mistake of over-relying on statistics they are easily doctored and often are, at least over here.
WE've had this conversation before, and I imagine that it will not be different this time, so I'll cut to the chase. If you understand statistical methodology, then they cannot be doctored insofar as the source is honest. Honesty, of course, is an issue regardless of the type of information being considered.
Orlanth wrote:
Statistics from the Blair era in partuicular are highly suspect, especuially when there is political mileage in misrepresentation. A good example where official statistics have proven horribly inadequate is over immigration, because its a soft subject, crime statistics have similar problems. Oner report I read indicated that reported crime statistics only included certain types of reported crime, IIRc crime phoned in rather than reported at the desk. By applying 'tactics' like this crime figures could appear lower than they actually were.
That's not a tactic, its a methodological choice. But, ultimately, the problem there is not a problem of the measure, but of the reader. If the person reading the statistics is begins to equate what is being measured, with what the measure is intended to indicate, then they will obviously arive at a fraudulent conclusion. This hearkens back to my comment above.
Orlanth wrote:
I would like accurate crime data from the UK, but I don't trust I will be able to get any. Point remains even with the doctored evidence crime and youth crime in particular are going up. This is not an aesthetic judgement.
As far as I know youth crime in the UK has trended upward for ~80 years, which indicates a problem that extends well beyond mass media, and one that may not have anything to do with the youth at all.
Still, again, you're confusing inaccurate statistics with your own inaccurate readings of them. An inaccurate statistic is one that involves an actual miscount of the thing being measured (at least insofar as we're only concerned with simple statistics), not one in which what is being measured is counted accurately. What you're talking about is non-representative statistics, which is something predicated on either aesthetic choice, or necessary separation from the subject on inquiry (eg. reported rapes as a measure of all rapes).
Orlanth wrote:
Who does? Are you fit to authenticate the standards , no? We all have our individual judgements we can feed into the consensus, which is the only real way to determine these sorts of questions as they are human factors. Such questions as is society getting worse or better cannot easily be established except by a poll as these values are not quantifiable outside of human opinion.
You missed the point completely. The question "Is society getting worse?" is meaningless because it is nothing more than a question of preference with respect to the continual process of change. Government would be interested in the result, as they have a necessary interest in determining the desires of their population so as to effectively control them, but from the perspective of the individual citizen (who essentially controls nothing) the matter of what others prefer is as close to irrelevant as is possible.
Orlanth wrote:
The main difference being that the 'pulse' of society tells me there is cause for alarm, so I make the comment. Maybe its different around your home region.
Why do you allow other people to determine for you whether or not there is cause for alarm?
Orlanth wrote:
I use difference to refer to differentiation, what of it. Big words eh.
If you were using it in that fashion there would be no cause for alarm. Unless difference itself is alarming.
Orlanth wrote:
Are you trying to imply you have 'got over' the stage where you apply your own preferences by the way. Because you have appeal of authority.
Of course not, though I do my best. I'm interested in understanding the world, and largely indifferent to impressing myself upon it.
Orlanth wrote:
Has not every point in this thread been a personal opinion, there is no weighting you can apply to that of itself.
Has it? I've not really been expressing any opinion, merely making arguments regarding those of others, I'm honestly indifferent to sin taxes, video game regulation, or anything else similar. If something I like doing is taken away, I'll find other ways to amuse myself.
Ugh, "sin tax". Why does that make me think if religious nutjobs trying to penalize anyone who doesn't act like they want them to act (but not actually how they DO act)?
Melissia wrote:Ugh, "sin tax". Why does that make me think if religious nutjobs trying to penalize anyone who doesn't act like they want them to act (but not actually how they DO act)?
Not my words just dogmas attempts to twist them. So no excuse to go on a church burning, this thread isn't religious or about religion.
From google references to the term we have rather a lot of 'sin taxes' already, the levy on tobacco and alcohol. They aren't refered to as sin taxes as such, just 'duty'.
So there is a precedent for such taxes, and it isnt religion based. Happy now?
halonachos wrote:Its a choice that has the potential to ruin your life while making you look cool, I would consider it the same.
So could going to college. Or having sex. Or taking a drive down the highway. Or sunbathing. Or attempting to cook your own food. Or a thousand other common things.
Orlanth wrote:
Human society is still coming to terms with the chaos that is the information revolution. The 'old village' as you put it need not be replaced by anything wholesome, decay rather than re-balance is the historical norm when a social order is overturned.
There's no distinction between the two outside of individual preference. What is decay for one person is progress for another.
Ok, so if a society breaks down into a lengthy gakstorm like Lebanon did, thats progress to some. I can see that but am not willing to cater for the fethheads for whome it is progress.
Some people will be pleased with societal decay, that doesnt mean that we can call it decay not progress nor do we need to do anything but mourn its loss.
dogma wrote:
You didn't make any arguments. You said X is bad, and then moved on.
Ig I did that my post would have consisted on one sentence.
dogma wrote:
Making an argument would involve citing statistical evidence, or indicating why your qualitative description was motivated by something other than personal preference. I'm not interested in what you do, or don't, like.
Youth crime in the UK is going up. I cant be arsed to find the stats, not should I . Its a commonly drawn conclusion over here to the point that the media and government are making comments about what is to be done to stop it. Consistinetly indicating that the problem exists. You got a percentage on how nasty Bin Laden is? 50% 80% no statistics, can't he be the nice guy then. Sometimes we don't need statistics, sometimes looking at the results of incidents is enough.
dogma wrote:
I didn't disagree with that idea. I disagreed with the idea that it is problematic such that something like a sin tax is either necessary or desirable.
And failed to articulate why. It looks strongly that you rather than I are bound to a whimsical opinion. I have my reasons, so far all I get is 'I dont like it'.
dogma wrote:
We've had this conversation before, and I imagine that it will not be different this time, so I'll cut to the chase. If you understand statistical methodology, then they cannot be doctored insofar as the source is honest. Honesty, of course, is an issue regardless of the type of information being considered.
You can claim to know statistics until you are blue in the face and deny any logic on my part as is your want, but whwen statistics for a whole decade are spurious at best I am skeptical, with good reason. You didnt live under Blair mate, he ran a regime with a really slanted view on public information. Many many important statistics under New Labour have been proven to be deliberately misleading. The official immigration figures being one of the owrst cases, crime figures were also doctored.
However every major political party admits that the problem of youth crime exists, and related law and order issues are in the press enough that its a solid call to say there is a problem.
It is futile to place an argument that there is no case to answer for. Methodologies to tackle the issues vary at that point, but here at the looking for solutions stage we are not in need of statistics, at least until a pilot scheme is initiated.
dogma wrote:
That's not a tactic, its a methodological choice. But, ultimately, the problem there is not a problem of the measure, but of the reader. If the person reading the statistics is begins to equate what is being measured, with what the measure is intended to indicate, then they will obviously arive at a fraudulent conclusion. This hearkens back to my comment above.
Nope. Government statistics are released post filtering, we don't get the full dataset, only the edited one. So the reader cannot be blamed for getting the wrong end of the stick if they take ob board the official statistics.
Anyway this is irrelevant. Statistics are not needed to validate my position, because it simply reiterates something that is considered a known political fact. At that point looking for solutions to some of the causes is valid. Now lets move on. If you have a problem with this particular solution itself by all means explain away, but please keep away from your 'I am logical but I declare that you are not', because that is wearing a little thin.
dogma wrote:
As far as I know youth crime in the UK has trended upward for ~80 years, which indicates a problem that extends well beyond mass media, and one that may not have anything to do with the youth at all.
Well at least from your own words you can no longer refute the idea that I call it 'decay'.
I do not consider the decay to be solely a youth problem either, but the media does have a strong influence on it, and the UK media is getting steadily worse. Again no statistics for this, I offer you instead something human, a parallel to the decline in Roman society as expressed in the Ludi Magni. Rome collapsed in part due to the spiraling cost of the games, this was because people were ever more dissatisfied with the level of content and as they became increasingly jaded required more and more blood to satisfy them. At first a few pairs of gladiators was sufficient, but the games and the range of activities presented expanded as people no longer were satisfied with less.
I can recommend you a book Those Who Are About to Die by Daniel P Mannix. It does include some statistical data if that is all you listen to.
The human animal hasnt changed, and needs develop and degenerate over time as one gets innured to shock value. I saw a documentary once on an incident in 1970 when someone said 'feth' on national TV, it was a major scandal. We passed though as time of balance when the exceptionally prudish standards of Mary Whitehouse were discarded but some social safeguards were in place. TV now is far more base than in the past decades, and that is not nostalgia speaking because we can go back and compare the media of the time. Indeed some of the predictions of how 'bad' media would get by Mark Whitehouse that were laughed at at the time have proven to be actual understatements.
You see a societal rot occurs when certain types of media compete with each other as to who can go the lowest, sometimes as an attempt to replace wit with schadenfreude to provide a quality in 'comedy', sometimes to get a parental rating for marketing purposes etc. This outer edge of the shock media is the stuff I want to see targeted, and my reasons for doing sop are sound. We have censorship and we have broadcasting standards but if they are toothless because the fines given to a shock comic don't offset the subsequent DVD release of his work then adding a surtax would very quickly change thier ways. Behind most of these guys is a media mogul who may vocally critique escess but actually encourages it because it sells more copy.
A good example of this and how it happens is the Sex Pistols. For a while they were owned by Richard Branson who used them as a battering ram to break through media standards of the time which were quite conservative as to what could appear on an album or show. Branson did quickly drop the Sex Pistols after he got what he wanted, who moved to yet another label, but what was done was done. Content normally not acceptable was now proliferated and from this point of view at least the market was opened.
Now the Sex Pistols were quite mild compared to some and were pioneers of their time, but what quite correctly scared the government is what happens from there. A lot of the media is sordid and is very influential nevertheless and it proliferates because offensive and or smutty media is cheap and sells. There is no incentive for the owners of such media to clean up
dogma wrote:
Still, again, you're confusing inaccurate statistics with your own inaccurate readings of them.
Blah blah, I havent mentioned any statistics at all. I dont need to to see the problem.
dogma wrote:
Government would be interested in the result, as they have a necessary interest in determining the desires of their population so as to effectively control them, but from the perspective of the individual citizen (who essentially controls nothing) the matter of what others prefer is as close to irrelevant as is possible.
So you are saying, don't question what is beyond you. Sorry, freedom of thought and political critique is not only permitted but should be encouraged, you ought to know this. In put from private citizens is also not irrelevant, many laws are passed this way because people get together and petition for them. For example: I could if I wished take my opinion to my MP, if he agrees with it he might take it up with his party, if they agree with it it might get a reading in the house. An alternate path is a submission column to the editorial of a quality newspaper.
dogma wrote:
Why do you allow other people to determine for you whether or not there is cause for alarm?
I can indeed see it for myself, but if it was just me speaking against the flow then I would have to clearly stated why.
I still require some form of understanding why, which I expressed in these posts.
dogma wrote:
Of course not, though I do my best. I'm interested in understanding the world, and largely indifferent to impressing myself upon it.
You sure, you seem quite engrossed in our discussions, and are nothing if not forceful in put across your beliefs.
dogma wrote:
Has it? I've not really been expressing any opinion, merely making arguments regarding those of others, I'm honestly indifferent to sin taxes, video game regulation, or anything else similar. If something I like doing is taken away, I'll find other ways to amuse myself.
An opinion against is an opinion. unless you mean you dont have an opinion you just want to turn up and try and pick holes at random on my threads, thats just trolling you know.
Orlanth wrote:I could think of worse things to tax, and the revenue is needed. I dont actually have a problem with it. As far as 'creep' is concerned, media could be properly scaled, now at least there is an incentive to do so.
Scales are much simpler now, because there's no monetary incentive to expand them. I think it's very strange that you aren't even considering the possibility that if government has a direct monetary incentive for classifying a game as having adult content, then over time it might be tempted to expand the definition of adult content to increase revenue.
Parents cant pay attention to the ratings system because a lot of the time proliferation is outside parental control. The above solution doesn't make parental control content more exotic or kewl, it just makes it taxable, this in itself will do more to clean up the industry than anything else.
What you're doing is telling a company that makes mature content and wants to sell that content to an 18 year old that they have to pay for the privilege.
The basic problem is that you've got a completely wrongheaded view on the situation. Most folk think that if someone is over 18 then they can access whatever media they want (with an absolute ban being put on the most extreme media), in fact this is the default approach across the developed world, and has been for many decades.
The problem comes with people under the age of 18 accessing this media. We allow parents to make the choice for their children, and most solutions to the problem come from trying to engage parents and get them to consider the content of the game before allowing their kid to buy it.
But you're not worrying about how much violent media is accessed by kids. You're looking at a system to reduce the total amount of violent media present, as if it's any business of yours what games a 24 year old chooses to play.
Melissia wrote:If you become addicted to them and ignore your life outside of gaming they can.
THat applies to everything though, and unlike drugs this is a psychological conditioning rather than a physiological one.
True, but until we get to the Korean Threshold of Being Addicted to Games, I don't really think it matters.
Everquest my friend.
I have never heard of anyone letting themselves starve to death because of Everquest, nor Have I heard them let their baby waste away in it's crib because they were playing with a Virtual child.....
halonachos wrote:Actually people have lost their jobs due to Everquest addiction, although it was probably the same people who got 'Avatar Depression'.
I'm also sure that people have died due to Everquest, I know China has a big problem with internet addiction.
sebster wrote:
Scales are much simpler now, because there's no monetary incentive to expand them. I think it's very strange that you aren't even considering the possibility that if government has a direct monetary incentive for classifying a game as having adult content, then over time it might be tempted to expand the definition of adult content to increase revenue.
i understand that all too well, and even mentioned such in the previous posts, you seemed to have missed it.
we already have measures in plaace than can utilise this change, censorship bodies can highlight media to be taxed and that which is not.
A counterpressure is also possible, and likely. We get this when the government wants to change which items are VAT exempt.
Now at least with taxing certain adult content there is a reason to do so.
sebster wrote:
What you're doing is telling a company that makes mature content and wants to sell that content to an 18 year old that they have to pay for the privilege.
Again you misread what I wrote, this is targeted at the subtype of media that adds needles gratuity or an extra level of gratuity for the likely purpose of raising publicity, getting a parental rating as a 'medal' or otherwise abusing the system to capitalise on ratings or a medias notoriety.
Standard 18 rating content would not be effected.
The sub-categorisation would be up to media classification bodies, which are largely independent bodies.
sebster wrote:
The basic problem is that you've got a completely wrongheaded view on the situation. Most folk think that if someone is over 18 then they can access whatever media they want (with an absolute ban being put on the most extreme media), in fact this is the default approach across the developed world, and has been for many decades.
Well actually its the right headed view. Take the target group, shock media. a shock media production might be held up by broadcasting standards and fined and the controversy plus fine are not only acceptable but even welcomesd for the extra revenue and publicity gained. That is wrongheaded. shock media needs to learn therefore if they cross the line in regards to content, and stay this side of an outright ban then expect to get their media taxed heavily enough that playing ball and not being fined by broadcasting standards is the better of the two options.
Also there are plenty of precedents, over drinking age I can drink, over smoking age I can smoke. Duty is applied to both. This is no different.
sebster wrote:
The problem comes with people under the age of 18 accessing this media. We allow parents to make the choice for their children, and most solutions to the problem come from trying to engage parents and get them to consider the content of the game before allowing their kid to buy it.
Actually that is part of the issue, parents cannot adequatelty police what chidren do nowadays. however 'think of the children' is not my prime concern here, its putting a halt to the gradual rot set in my shock media which in order to remain shock media must get progressively worse as people become innured to earlier shock media.
sebster wrote:
But you're not worrying about how much violent media is accessed by kids. You're looking at a system to reduce the total amount of violent media present, as if it's any business of yours what games a 24 year old chooses to play.
No its not my business what a 24 year old plays, but its eveyones business how media standards are deteriorating due to boundaries being pushed back further and further. With terms of how far media can go, its a case of give an inch take a mile. One borders are pushed back the next person wants to push them further. This runs eventually into grounds of free speech and wether one has a right to produce such media. When in such rocky territory we are left with three options, a ban, let media deteriorate further - with no real end in sight of how low some media will go or make it financially less viable to cross the line. This latter is by far the easiest and most effective of the three options.
Besides whether you are upset because I propose a new tax because it means higher prices for you and the merits for the argument to tax said media are separate issues. Noone likes to pay more, sometimes we have to.
sebster wrote:
Tipper Gore lost. You'll lose too.
From what little I have gathered she appeared to have won. Her argument back in 1985 was that parental guidance notifications should be added to media if needed, at the time they were not (in the music industry) now they are.
If you are refering to something else I would like to know more, in \ny case ifs different from my proposal.
Orlanth wrote:i understand that all too well, and even mentioned such in the previous posts, you seemed to have missed it.
Fair enough, my apologies.
we already have measures in plaace than can utilise this change, censorship bodies can highlight media to be taxed and that which is not. A counterpressure is also possible, and likely. We get this when the government wants to change which items are VAT exempt.
Now at least with taxing certain adult content there is a reason to do so.
Sure, and you'll note that VAT and the like is a highly political process which produces complex and often non-sensical decisions. Bringing a direct tax in will only increase the level of
Again you misread what I wrote, this is targeted at the subtype of media that adds needles gratuity or an extra level of gratuity for the likely purpose of raising publicity, getting a parental rating as a 'medal' or otherwise abusing the system to capitalise on ratings or a medias notoriety. Standard 18 rating content would not be effected.
The sub-categorisation would be up to media classification bodies, which are largely independent bodies.
Once they're bringing fines into government coffers, they'll get a whole lot less independant.
The bigger problem is that we already have a really hard time figuring out exactly what is high level sexual content and what's moderate sexual content (a common marker between 15+ and 18+ classifications). You want to include as subjective a term as 'gratuitous' to that and then make the term actually lead to a direct tax. It'd be a nightmare to quantify.
Well actually its the right headed view. Take the target group, shock media. a shock media production might be held up by broadcasting standards and fined and the controversy plus fine are not only acceptable but even welcomesd for the extra revenue and publicity gained. That is wrongheaded. shock media needs to learn therefore if they cross the line in regards to content, and stay this side of an outright ban then expect to get their media taxed heavily enough that playing ball and not being fined by broadcasting standards is the better of the two options.
No, because you've just moved from adult content to shock media, and maintained the idea that government should be charging people more for the privilege. If some 30 year old wants to get cheap laughs from rude words, gore and boobies then let him. It's nothing to do with the rest of us.
Actually that is part of the issue, parents cannot adequatelty police what chidren do nowadays. however 'think of the children' is not my prime concern here, its putting a halt to the gradual rot set in my shock media which in order to remain shock media must get progressively worse as people become innured to earlier shock media.
Or we watch it burn itself out, as has largely happened. The shocking elements of many films of the 70s drifted out of the mainstream because there was no more censorship to rail against and most of us got tired of it, so it become the video nasty subculture of the 80s, which slowly declined into non-existance).
The thrill of saying poopyhead is only a thrill when someone is trying to stop you saying it, or you're coming out of a world where poopyhead was previously banned.
Look at Howard Stern - the only legitimacy he can summon for his antics was that someone was trying to stop him saying it.
Computer games are no different.
No its not my business what a 24 year old plays, but its eveyones business how media standards are deteriorating due to boundaries being pushed back further and further.
So you're saying it's no business what people consume, but what's available for people to consume is our business. I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense.
With terms of how far media can go, its a case of give an inch take a mile. One borders are pushed back the next person wants to push them further. This runs eventually into grounds of free speech and wether one has a right to produce such media.
The answer is that they do, and that ultimately we have to trust that people aren't so debased that the novelty of the odd shock product will remain a novelty, and most media will remain tasteful. If that isn't the case, and if we really do crave more and debased material, then that's a problem that's well beyond a tax to solve.
Besides whether you are upset because I propose a new tax because it means higher prices for you and the merits for the argument to tax said media are separate issues. Noone likes to pay more, sometimes we have to.
I doubt I'm ever going to buy another computer game in my life. I'm certainly not going to buy some gorefest. This has nothing to do with me paying more money for a game, and everything to do with the right of anyone to tell another person what media they can consume.
From what little I have gathered she appeared to have won. Her argument back in 1985 was that parental guidance notifications should be added to media if needed, at the time they were not (in the music industry) now they are. If you are refering to something else I would like to know more, in \ny case ifs different from my proposal.
That was the position they ended up accepting. There was a whole lot more on the table before that. Where did you read that was her only argument? I'm not surprised but I am certainly disappointed that another bit of history has been re-written.
Efforts to greater inform parents and the market as to the content of a game have generally met with success. Efforts to control what content hits the market have failed.
I see people are taking care of my dirty work in here so that I don't actually have to reply to Orlanth and his ridiculous "lets tax video games because they are bad" arguments.
Am I the only one who thinks that the game looks total gak? Like a parody of a shoot-em-up? It's the sort of thing they would show Bart playing in an episode of The Simpsons - loud, gory and completely nonsensical.
Albatross wrote:Am I the only one who thinks that the game looks total gak? Like a parody of a shoot-em-up? It's the sort of thing they would show Bart playing in an episode of The Simpsons - loud, gory and completely nonsensical.
No, I thought it was fairly naff after playing the demo for pretty much those reasons (though I did not think about Bart playing it ).
Albatross wrote:Am I the only one who thinks that the game looks total gak? Like a parody of a shoot-em-up? It's the sort of thing they would show Bart playing in an episode of The Simpsons - loud, gory and completely nonsensical.
No, I thought it was fairly naff after playing the demo for pretty much those reasons (though I did not think about Bart playing it ).
Yeah, when I play FPS games (which is rarely) I prefer them to be more 'gritty' and realistic. Visceral. Preferably with actual viscera.
This just looks silly - so, they've crashed on an alien planet, but wait! Dinosaurse! Better get mah electro-whip out!
Albatross wrote:Yeah, when I play FPS games (which is rarely) I prefer them to be more 'gritty' and realistic. Visceral. Preferably with actual viscera.
This just looks silly - so, they've crashed on an alien planet, but wait! Dinosaurse! Better get mah electro-whip out!
I don't mind a bit of cartoony-ness, however I do find that it detracts from getting involved in the game. Borderlands is another case of a slightly more "cartoon" style game that while interesting, just never really grabbed me. One of the reasons for that being the cartoon styling of the damage indicators etc.
TF2 is slightly different as it allows lots of people to get together and shoot each other, which is a great concept that suits the kind of cartoon look they went for.
Albatross wrote:Am I the only one who thinks that the game looks total gak? Like a parody of a shoot-em-up? It's the sort of thing they would show Bart playing in an episode of The Simpsons - loud, gory and completely nonsensical.
I think it's a hilarious concept myself, like pro skater's scoring system meets call of duty.
Realism doesn't bother me either way, but "realistic" games are often boring because today's developers seem to think realistic means too much gritty brown and grey monotony where every cooridor looks the exact same as the last and you can't tell the difference between each level of the campaign.
sebster wrote:
What you're doing is telling a company that makes mature content and wants to sell that content to an 18 year old that they have to pay for the privilege.
Again you misread what I wrote, this is targeted at the subtype of media that adds needles gratuity or an extra level of gratuity for the likely purpose of raising publicity, getting a parental rating as a 'medal' or otherwise abusing the system to capitalise on ratings or a medias notoriety.
Standard 18 rating content would not be effected.
The sub-categorisation would be up to media classification bodies, which are largely independent bodies.
So wait, your saying you dont want to tax games that are aimed at 18 year olds, just the ones that get the 18 rating? Parental ratings are not 'medals' they are used to restrict who has access to a game to people of a certain age, why should they be taxed for selling to a narrower audience?
Orlanth wrote:
sebster wrote:
The basic problem is that you've got a completely wrongheaded view on the situation. Most folk think that if someone is over 18 then they can access whatever media they want (with an absolute ban being put on the most extreme media), in fact this is the default approach across the developed world, and has been for many decades.
Well actually its the right headed view. Take the target group, shock media. a shock media production might be held up by broadcasting standards and fined and the controversy plus fine are not only acceptable but even welcomesd for the extra revenue and publicity gained. That is wrongheaded. shock media needs to learn therefore if they cross the line in regards to content, and stay this side of an outright ban then expect to get their media taxed heavily enough that playing ball and not being fined by broadcasting standards is the better of the two options.
Also there are plenty of precedents, over drinking age I can drink, over smoking age I can smoke. Duty is applied to both. This is no different.
So because of your personal moral outrage certain video games should be taxed higher, and the difference between violent games and alcohol/ smoking is the later have been proven to cause health problems and addiction.
Orlanth wrote:
sebster wrote:
The problem comes with people under the age of 18 accessing this media. We allow parents to make the choice for their children, and most solutions to the problem come from trying to engage parents and get them to consider the content of the game before allowing their kid to buy it.
Actually that is part of the issue, parents cannot adequatelty police what chidren do nowadays. however 'think of the children' is not my prime concern here, its putting a halt to the gradual rot set in my shock media which in order to remain shock media must get progressively worse as people become innured to earlier shock media.
Um... im not quite sure if your aware but 'shock media' as you call it has been around for a while and is in no way limited to video games, i mean have you seen some 80's movies? (poor poor Murphy...) There have always been violent video games aswell, the only thing thats improved is the graphics (and scripting... and storyline... and characters... but you get my point).
Orlanth wrote:
sebster wrote:
But you're not worrying about how much violent media is accessed by kids. You're looking at a system to reduce the total amount of violent media present, as if it's any business of yours what games a 24 year old chooses to play.
No its not my business what a 24 year old plays, but its eveyones business how media standards are deteriorating due to boundaries being pushed back further and further. With terms of how far media can go, its a case of give an inch take a mile. One borders are pushed back the next person wants to push them further. This runs eventually into grounds of free speech and wether one has a right to produce such media. When in such rocky territory we are left with three options, a ban, let media deteriorate further - with no real end in sight of how low some media will go or make it financially less viable to cross the line. This latter is by far the easiest and most effective of the three options.
Besides whether you are upset because I propose a new tax because it means higher prices for you and the merits for the argument to tax said media are separate issues. Noone likes to pay more, sometimes we have to.
There is already set limits on what can be in video games, so because your view is "omg society is deteriorating" we should have to pay more? and your reasoning is "sometimes we have to"? Thats pretty poor reasoning, violent games already have a rating system which is enforced at game stores if a parent is giving their underage child hyper violent video games then that parent is irresponsible; not the company for making the game who in the development realized that because their game has violent content it will be sold to a smaller audience.
Maybe you should apply this tax to all violent media and call it something like the bill for the universal limiting of lewd and severely harmful industry technology
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Albatross wrote:Am I the only one who thinks that the game looks total gak? Like a parody of a shoot-em-up? It's the sort of thing they would show Bart playing in an episode of The Simpsons - loud, gory and completely nonsensical.
I think that is actually the point of the game, to be over the top and cartoony violence to make fun of other video games
Once they're bringing fines into government coffers, they'll get a whole lot less independant.
The bigger problem is that we already have a really hard time figuring out exactly what is high level sexual content and what's moderate sexual content (a common marker between 15+ and 18+ classifications). You want to include as subjective a term as 'gratuitous' to that and then make the term actually lead to a direct tax. It'd be a nightmare to quantify.
All media classification is subjective, always has been always will be. The system has worked so far.
Nightmare, not at all. There is a discussion and appeals process if a media is passed a higher rating than the producer wanted. again the system is working.
sebster wrote:
No, because you've just moved from adult content to shock media, and maintained the idea that government should be charging people more for the privilege. If some 30 year old wants to get cheap laughs from rude words, gore and boobies then let him. It's nothing to do with the rest of us.
Certain forms of adult content i.e shock media. and the aguement is not that people pay more, directly, it is that shock media cleans up by becoming less viable.
sebster wrote:
Or we watch it burn itself out, as has largely happened. The shocking elements of many films of the 70s drifted out of the mainstream because there was no more censorship to rail against and most of us got tired of it, so it become the video nasty subculture of the 80s, which slowly declined into non-existance).
If only that were so, its thriving particularly in 'comedy'.
sebster wrote:
The thrill of saying poopyhead is only a thrill when someone is trying to stop you saying it, or you're coming out of a world where poopyhead was previously banned.
Look at Howard Stern - the only legitimacy he can summon for his antics was that someone was trying to stop him saying it.
A surtax would have worked where media derision failed.
sebster wrote:
Computer games are no different.
Indeed.
sebster wrote:
So you're saying it's no business what people consume, but what's available for people to consume is our business. I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense.
Nope, you misread again. You cannot ban shock media, it just drives it underground, there will always be fringe for whome the proliferation of material rather than material gain is the goal, you cannot stop them short of and out and out ban censorship, and that doesn't fuilly work. The majority of shock media is an merchandising gimic, give a comic some notoriety and the money flows, add some colourful language in the trailer of a game marketed at teenagers and the money flows because its kewl. Make that commercials less attractive and that will stop.
Music moguls like when rappers make 'cop killer' songs, they sell more not from quality but from controversy, they would have a completely different attitude if doing so cost therm 15%. As for punishing the consumer, not at all, the consumer pays once the mogul pays all the time. Besides media industry values are no constant, if you want to find out who is causing the consumer to pay more for media look elsewhere first, look at price disparity, DVD zoning and huge retail markups. Once you have dealt with all those then you can get upset at a tactical taxation policy which would very likely have the desired effect.
sebster wrote:
The answer is that they do, and that ultimately we have to trust that people aren't so debased that the novelty of the odd shock product will remain a novelty, and most media will remain tasteful. If that isn't the case, and if we really do crave more and debased material, then that's a problem that's well beyond a tax to solve.
Censorship is always a major issue for government because of this, media content is not just a concern of conservative old ladies, governments have long understood that a chaotic media leads directly to societal chaos. there are a lot of fingers in the dam now because of the internet. But this is another issue.
sebster wrote:
I doubt I'm ever going to buy another computer game in my life. I'm certainly not going to buy some gorefest. This has nothing to do with me paying more money for a game, and everything to do with the right of anyone to tell another person what media they can consume.
However a tax does not tell anyone what they can consume, a censorship ban does. Banning is sometimes necessary but usually a last resort for extreme media. Yours and some arfguemnts have revoled around the repeated mantra noone can tell a constenting adult what media they can buy.
Alcohol duty doesnt stop people drinking, cigarette durty doesnt prohibit smoking, it makes both less desirable.
Both the above are addictions and the politics runs deeper because they are ongoing expenditures of addicts that flow into government coffers.
An extra content tax would not be any great money saver for the government, would not tell even the most hysterical Dakkaite that they cannot play their game.
It hits directly where its needed, a media machine that uses shock as a marketing tool and is constantly pushing moral boundaries so that what is extreme on one decade is commonplace the next.
sebster wrote:
That was the position they ended up accepting. There was a whole lot more on the table before that. Where did you read that was her only argument? I'm not surprised but I am certainly disappointed that another bit of history has been re-written.
I dont care about her politics. I did a search on the name and saw a report on the net, I dont know what else she proposed, it's irrelevant anyway.
It looks like you are falling on association propoganda. Assuming that proponents of methods of cleaning up media are proponents of all or extreme methods of cleaning up media and cohorts of extremists with such viewpoints. That would be like me assuming that because you want media to continue unfettered by government interference that means you have common ground with a child pornographer.
sebster wrote:
Efforts to greater inform parents and the market as to the content of a game have generally met with success. Efforts to control what content hits the market have failed.
You cannot stop it all, and with free downloading you wont stop much. However you can look for pressure points where small changes do a lot of good. This is one of them.
Again the goal here is not to control what hits the market, taxes don't do that, instead the goal is to change production practices by making shock less commercially viable to media producers. This has been my point thoughout hysterically misrepresented as 'not allowing what I age x want to watch' or 'think of the children!!!'
lets take a small example from Bulletstorm . Its marketed for teenagers, that is very clear, yes older people will play it and 'officially' its for them because it wont pass with less than 18 certificate, but frankly its for kidz. It uses base language in the trailer purely for shock value, to make it 'kewl' to the market audience. The line about stap on dildos could be replaced by something witty or just 'heroic' as you might find in other game trailers of the same genre. Its there not to add to the game its there to add to the merchandising. If that was taxable the game would say something else like 'oh yes' or 'bring them on' or whatever.
Games can explore adult themes in a non gratuitous way, Dragon Age is a good example, it explores sexual concepts as well as violence and has an 18 certificate, but doesn't cross the line. Bulletstorm is there for shock, once it is out the next shock based production has to go further to have shock value, just as Bulletstorm itself had to go further than previous.
Actually games are a minor part of the problem, with some notable exceptions. Shock comedy is a far worse example mainly because shock can completely replace a comic talent in some cases, anyone can tell an offensive joke or pull a nasty prank and get a laugh because it ties into something animalistic in human nature. So a lot of that media is infested with crass negativity and its effects leask onto the populace at large.
This occurs because fools licence benefits are still in effect whereas fools license has a built in responsibility and inherent heutrality which has been discarded since the 80's first for political reasons and then as a mask for poor quality production.
Media is reflective of the society that produces it. Just look at how it has changed throughout history, or how different entertainment is in different cultures.
You can't say that media is the reason a society changes (or declines as it seems as though you are suggesting).
You can't sell material without an audience, and an audience doesn't exist without being receptive to the media.
We can see even from the relatively short period of time since the 40/50's how sucessive waves of media have come and "changed" society before burning out and some new wave starting on the next generation of children.
The hippy movement didn't last any more than the rockers and the mods did and last time I checked the vast majority of the people who were caught up in those times are generally responsible, productive members of society.
Gibbsey wrote:
So wait, your saying you dont want to tax games that are aimed at 18 year olds, just the ones that get the 18 rating? Parental ratings are not 'medals' they are used to restrict who has access to a game to people of a certain age, why should they be taxed for selling to a narrower audience?
Read above thread, its all explained, several times.
Gibbsey wrote:
So because of your personal moral outrage certain video games should be taxed higher, and the difference between violent games and alcohol/ smoking is the later have been proven to cause health problems and addiction.
Try again please. Its ironic that you are the only who is personalising this. My distain, I wouldn't as far as to say outrage' at shock media has been explained. Your argument appears to be 'it will cost me more'.
Alcohol and smoking are not taxed for that reason, they are taxed on that excuse. The logical response would be a ban on tobacco but that issue is all about revenue and not about public health.
Still both alcohol and tobacco duty do work to limit its proliferation, untaxed cigarettes would have a lot cheaper of course and would encourage those who have the habit to smoke more. Cigarettes are not like crack cocaine, it is rare that someone must have their fix to the point that any cost is acceptable so price is a deterent.
in any case media tax would have different effects, tobacco duty targets the consumer primarily by encourageing a limit to consumption, media tax targets the producer as it is avoidable my editing content and cost is only passed on once by the consumer, unless you smoke dodgy videos.
Gibbsey wrote:
Um... im not quite sure if your aware but 'shock media' as you call it has been around for a while and is in no way limited to video games, i mean have you seen some 80's movies? (poor poor Murphy...) There have always been violent video games aswell, the only thing thats improved is the graphics (and scripting... and storyline... and characters... but you get my point).
OK. It's time you read what your commenting on.
Gibbsey wrote:
There is already set limits on what can be in video games, so because your view is "omg society is deteriorating" we should have to pay more?
A whole less cow eyed than you would like to imply, no 'zomg' comments here. I type in joined up, metaphorically speaking.
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SilverMK2 wrote:
You can't say that media is the reason a society changes (or declines as it seems as though you are suggesting).
A reason, not the reason. Lets not be two dimensional on this, or at least don't assume I have two dimensional thinking, how you thinki is up to you.
Media has enormous influence on society, look up the word propaganda work out what it means then revisit your statement. Failing that ponder on the word advertising.
SilverMK2 wrote:
You can't sell material without an audience, and an audience doesn't exist without being receptive to the media.
A good seller can create a market, and can also gebnerate a reception. Ponder on the word sales then revisit your statement.
SilverMK2 wrote:
We can see even from the relatively short period of time since the 40/50's how sucessive waves of media have come and "changed" society before burning out and some new wave starting on the next generation of children.
A process that is now changing too quickly because of the 'global village' 'internet revolution' etc. Society is struggling to keep up with media induced change.
As a side example: sometimes this is a good thing Facebook in Iran, but a tool is neutral and can be placed in the hands of any hothead who wants to wield it.
SilverMK2 wrote:
The hippy movement didn't last any more than the rockers and the mods did and last time I checked the vast majority of the people who were caught up in those times are generally responsible, productive members of society.
Who was behind the hippy movement, the hippies? No, the media industry. Hippy declined because the media moved on to other markets. You will find the same pattern emerges with other similar movements.
I remember commentaries by a former hippy era performer, ?IIRC Bob Dylan? who in a much later interview confessed to always hating hippes, but finding them very lucrative.
I would like to point out that Movies went through the same thing as Video Games are now going through, and there is not a tax on R rated Movies or such. The Same should happen with Video Games, make the AO be unavailable at stores (like it currently is), but leave the E, T, and M ratings alone. No tax is necessary.
Once they're bringing fines into government coffers, they'll get a whole lot less independant.
The bigger problem is that we already have a really hard time figuring out exactly what is high level sexual content and what's moderate sexual content (a common marker between 15+ and 18+ classifications). You want to include as subjective a term as 'gratuitous' to that and then make the term actually lead to a direct tax. It'd be a nightmare to quantify.
All media classification is subjective, always has been always will be..
No, it isn't.
The PEGI system has a rigid questionnaire which the publisher has to fill in. Once the check list has been filled in, you have the classification and associated content logos objectively specified.
Postal 2 was still worse, and in spite of what Former Vice President Tipper Gore, Honoured Gentleman Mister Liberman, and the rest of the old curmudgeonly cronies would have thought, we managed to rebuild society once from the hellish apocalypse that we all remember so distinctly occurring for real eight years ago when it was released. What? No, I'm sure that happened. It caused the moral degradation of society. I'm sure of it.
It's quite long, otherwise I would have posted the entire thing here. Some bits I like:
Zappa wrote:
No one has forced Mrs. Baker or Mrs. Gore to bring Prince or Sheena Easton into their homes. Thanks to the Constitution, they are free to buy other forms of music for their children. Apparently, they insist on purchasing the works of contemporary recording artists in order to support a personal illusion of aerobic sophistication. Ladies, please be advised: The $8.98 purchase price does not entitle you to a kiss on the foot from the composer or performer in exchange for a spin on the family Victrola. Taken as a whole, the complete list of PMRC demands reads like an instruction manual for some sinister kind of “toilet training program” to house-break all composers and performers because of the lyrics of a few. Ladies, how dare you?
Zappa wrote:
While the wife of the Secretary of the Treasury recites “Gonna drive my love inside you” and Senator Gore’s wife talks about “Bondage!” and “oral sex at gunpoint” on the CBS Evening News, people in high places work on a tax bill that is so ridiculous, the only way to sneak it through is to keep the public’s mind on something else: “Porn rock”.
Is the basic issue morality? Is it mental health? Is it an issue at all? The PMRC has created a lot of confusion with improper comparisons between song lyrics, videos, record packaging, radio broadcasting, and live performances. These are all different mediums, and the people who work in them have the right to conduct their business without trade-restraining legislation, whipped up like an instant pudding by The Wives of Big Brother.
Gibbsey wrote:
So wait, your saying you dont want to tax games that are aimed at 18 year olds, just the ones that get the 18 rating? Parental ratings are not 'medals' they are used to restrict who has access to a game to people of a certain age, why should they be taxed for selling to a narrower audience?
Read above thread, its all explained, several times.
Gibbsey wrote:
So because of your personal moral outrage certain video games should be taxed higher, and the difference between violent games and alcohol/ smoking is the later have been proven to cause health problems and addiction.
Try again please. Its ironic that you are the only who is personalising this. My distain, I wouldn't as far as to say outrage' at shock media has been explained. Your argument appears to be 'it will cost me more'. Alcohol and smoking are not taxed for that reason, they are taxed on that excuse. The logical response would be a ban on tobacco but that issue is all about revenue and not about public health.
Still both alcohol and tobacco duty do work to limit its proliferation, untaxed cigarettes would have a lot cheaper of course and would encourage those who have the habit to smoke more. Cigarettes are not like crack cocaine, it is rare that someone must have their fix to the point that any cost is acceptable so price is a deterent.
in any case media tax would have different effects, tobacco duty targets the consumer primarily by encourageing a limit to consumption, media tax targets the producer as it is avoidable my editing content and cost is only passed on once by the consumer, unless you smoke dodgy videos.
Still your 'distain' for 'shock media' (see 'my personal opinion with no basis on playing the game and no real understanding of content') would lead to me paying more for a game and making it harder for creator to get their games out there, the creator has already limited their audiance by having a higher rating. Your apparent concern is that this media deteriorates society so it should be discouraged, even though the audiance for these kinds of media is already limited to a group of people who can decide for themselves. Any 'deterioration' at this point would already be in society. Tobacco and Alcohol do have serious health risks and even thought much of the tax is probably based on moral view and not health concerns it does not mean you can go increasing taxes on things that you personally do not like.
Orlanth wrote:
OK. It's time you read what your commenting on.
Did you?
Orlanth wrote:
Gibbsey wrote:
There is already set limits on what can be in video games, so because your view is "omg society is deteriorating" we should have to pay more?
A whole less cow eyed than you would like to imply, no 'zomg' comments here. I type in joined up, metaphorically speaking.
I was simply pointing out how your apparent view that games like this are deteriorating society is a little sensationalist, literally speaking.
Once again Fox news has half a clue and is speaking in half truths, which I might add is actually worse than having no clue or speaking in outright lies.
The in-game awards system, called Skill Shots, ties the ugly, graphic violence into explicit sex acts: "topless" means cutting a player in half, while a "gang bang" means killing multiple enemies. And with kids as young as 9 playing such games, the experts FoxNews.com spoke with were nearly universally worried that video game violence may be reaching a fever pitch.
Ow nooooo the video game is making a direct link between murderous violent acts within the game to sex acts, and fox news only has half a clue. Gamers have been doing that for years, and you'll hear gamers on every first person shooter that has an internet multilayer capability do the same thing. Everybody here who plays 1st person shooters know how the community is, knows just how bad the bad apples of the community is, knows how much gak talking goes on between players, and knows just how completely inappropriate of a place it can be for young children.
And then Fox news takes those facts and twists it into a case for government regulation completely ignoring the personal responsibility aspect in that parents should have a F'n clue what their kids are doing. The worse part is the stinking hypocrisy of Fox news because when it comes to damn near everything else they are the first to attack regulation and expound the virtue of personal responsibility, unless it's a censorship issue where the offending party might make the baby Jesus cry. Nine year old children who play Bulletstorm will probably grow up to be screwed up, but it's not going to be because of Bulletstorm or any other video game. Those kids are going to be F'd up becaues they probably either have parents who are way too lenient, have parents who just don't give a gak about what their kids do, and/or have parents that are clueless dittohead fox news tools. In any of those cases the last thing any of those parents want to hear is the truth ie they are bad parents and need to take some personal responsibility for raising a rotten brat, so let's just censor video games instead.
Once they're bringing fines into government coffers, they'll get a whole lot less independant.
The bigger problem is that we already have a really hard time figuring out exactly what is high level sexual content and what's moderate sexual content (a common marker between 15+ and 18+ classifications). You want to include as subjective a term as 'gratuitous' to that and then make the term actually lead to a direct tax. It'd be a nightmare to quantify.
All media classification is subjective, always has been always will be..
No, it isn't.
The PEGI system has a rigid questionnaire which the publisher has to fill in. Once the check list has been filled in, you have the classification and associated content logos objectively specified.
Sound a very european legislation way of doing things, in european law interpretation is to be discouraged, unlike English common law as practiced in the UK and US.
If that is the case then a threshold for taxations will be even easier to establish, technically, though any fixed non interpretive system like this throws up problems, but thats a wider legal issue not a film classification issue at heart.
Gibbsey wrote:
Still your 'distain' for 'shock media' (see 'my personal opinion with no basis on playing the game and no real understanding of content') would lead to me paying more for a game and making it harder for creator to get their games out there, the creator has already limited their audiance by having a higher rating. Your apparent concern is that this media deteriorates society so it should be discouraged, even though the audiance for these kinds of media is already limited to a group of people who can decide for themselves. Any 'deterioration' at this point would already be in society. Tobacco and Alcohol do have serious health risks and even thought much of the tax is probably based on moral view and not health concerns it does not mean you can go increasing taxes on things that you personally do not like.
Sigh. First 'my personal opinion with no basis on playing the game and no real understanding of content'. Where did you get this drivel, I am talking about a general principle not a specific game. My only comments on Bulletstorm are from the trailer where the concepts of what is done to market the game are valid.
Your apparent concern is that this media deteriorates society so it should be discouraged, even though the audiance for these kinds of media is already limited to a group of people who can decide for themselves.
Obviously you have a problem with basic comprehension: Customers can still choose for themselves.
would lead to me paying more for a game and making it harder for creator to get their games out there, the creator has already limited their audiance by having a higher rating.
Higher ratings do little when a game is obviously marketed at an age group it is restricted for. This is a common theme amongst some more extreme titles that are nevertheless aimed at a target audience under the age threshold society put on the title. The system is being flaunted, very deliberately, so its time to try something else.
This does not hurt production because it discourages shock not actual content, shock is easy to add or omit, content is what requires time and skill. you could add shock to anything with a choice vulgarism. So keep those two where they have thier place. Threaten a game with a percentage and the producers keep the same game but take the crude edge off the script, threaten an album with a percentage and suddenly you will find 'cop killa' lyrics aren't fashionable. Hope you arent one of these people who naively thinks those industries are artist driven?
Any 'deterioration' at this point would already be in society.
Indeed, but that is no excuse to stop trying. It would be like customs saying, might as well not scan for drugs in imports because there is enough on the streets. also its an ongoing battle, the moral thrsshold is getting lower and lower, shock ensures this, it can climb back up when a shocvk genre pases but with modern media few things truly pass.
Gibbsey wrote:
I was simply pointing out how your apparent view that games like this are deteriorating society is a little sensationalist, literally speaking.
More realism than sensationalism. like I said I cut out the 'zomg' comments and replace them with a long term view of the modern media. You simply would not get away with what many TV comedians get away with in the 80's, back then content we see on TV now would not pass censorship. People get inured to things because the boundaries are pushed back. At each stage free speech or restrcition is brought out as an excuse but if censorship rerlents the media pushes anew to the next boundary.
Anyway this is part of the issue, not the whole issue, but a part that nees to be addressed and the correct pressure point is at a production level, where the major decision making and profits are. Of course the actual senasationalists here will then wail and rant and say 'zomg higher prices, do not want!!!'. Sound familiar.
Fox News wrote:And with kids as young as 9 playing such games
Last time I checked 9 year olds couldn't buy 18 rated games, so someone must be buying them for them... You know... like their parents?
Yeah, surely if their parents are uninvolved enough that they'll allow nine year olds to have these games, then playing on an 18 rated game is the least of these kid's problems?
Also, this article is quite good concerning the actual fox article
Orlanth wrote:Of course the actual senasationalists here will then wail and rant and say 'zomg higher prices, do not want!!!'. Sound familiar.
Oh god forbid i should not want to spend more of my money out of my pocket because someone finds a rated game apprehensible, my point is "why should I?" so far your only explanation for why me personally should pay more is because "sometimes we have to pay more".
Also
RockPaperShotgun wrote:When Kotaku and Game Politics spoke to Lieberman, they had called her without prior warning. Claiming to not have the evidence for her claims at hand, she instead explained that it was just “common sense” that sexually violent games cause people to rape each other. She continued to imply that rape is increasing in the wake of these games (despite all available statistics showing a remarkable, consistent drop in rape figures over the last thirty years), and made reference to an elusive collection of “thousands” of studies that demonstrated she was right.
This thread seems far too full for a game that is so absurd/ridiculous in its portrayal of violence. I'd think this would be more of a fit for like... Condemned or CoD:World at War (where you can shoot off bodyparts and they lay screaming on the ground).
They also swiped my ID at Target when I bought Deadspace 2, just so you know.
Also, whenever a politician talks about video games, I'm pretty sure they are talking out of their asses, because they don't play video games, or even know anyone that does for proper impressions.
I mean hell, remember the SEXbox debacle about Mass Effect? That gak was hilarious.
daedalus-templarius wrote:This thread seems far too full for a game that is so absurd/ridiculous in its portrayal of violence.
We are having two discussions here, a little on Bulletstorm and a lot on a larger genre of media presented in this way and what or what not to deal with it.
daedalus-templarius wrote:
Also, whenever a politician talks about video games, I'm pretty sure they are talking out of their asses, because they don't play video games, or even know anyone that does for proper impressions.
How many politicians do you know? Care to quantify that statement. Also politicans often speak outside of experience, not due to their ignorance but because they would need several human lifespans to cover all they have influence over. Hopefully they are advised by experts in those fields. Politicians are not a dumb as you make out, if they don't play and their advisors don't play someone on the bodyguard team or an intern will. Asking around is not uncommon, besides getting a geek in the tech department to wheel in a laptop or an xBox so they can see for themselves is not exactly hard to do either.
Politicians are usually very well informed, a bigger question is what they choose to do with that information, and by far the biggest contributor is playing to the crowd rather than making the right choice on any issue.
Orlanth wrote:Also politicans often speak outside of experience... Hopefully they are advised by experts in those fields.
usually howver they take their cue from whoever is filling their pockets, supporting their party, or whoever makes for the best photo-op...
if politicians spent as much time applying rational thought to what they say/support as they do worrying about focus groups, political favor, poll numbers and getting a witty soundbite on the news maybe they could actually accomplish something meaningful once in a while.
But yeah Politics functions to serve politicians and their interets not the people they claim to serve...
Gibbsey wrote:Politicians hide behind God and children for their excuses
Child safety is a big dogma, but our lot did not so much as hide behind God as say 'we don't do God' and hide behind 'progress'.
Well im in America at the moment... so God is defiantly something politicians hide behind over here (honestly the only difference between some politicians and "god hates ***" westboro is that westboro comes out and says it (hatred of gays not hatred of America / whoever they can sue for the most money for disrupting their protests))
How many politicians do you know? Care to quantify that statement. Also politicans often speak outside of experience, not due to their ignorance but because they would need several human lifespans to cover all they have influence over. Hopefully they are advised by experts in those fields. Politicians are not a dumb as you make out, if they don't play and their advisors don't play someone on the bodyguard team or an intern will. Asking around is not uncommon, besides getting a geek in the tech department to wheel in a laptop or an xBox so they can see for themselves is not exactly hard to do either.
Politicians are usually very well informed, a bigger question is what they choose to do with that information, and by far the biggest contributor is playing to the crowd rather than making the right choice on any issue.
Wow you really think that, huh?
I'm not saying its not possible, but I have a feeling most of the people in the house, senate, governance have little to no experience with gaming as we know it. Nor do I think they'd bring in "a geek in the tech department" to give them a demo. That statement is literally hilarious to me. They could be very well informed, but the driver of what they present is "what spin can I put on this to benefit myself or who I represent/is-lining-my-pockets-with-wads-of-money".
Besides, a politician would have likely already made up their mind before ever seeing the game, they go into it with their disgust face ready and waiting for when "the geek in the tech department" wheeled in an xbox to show them... as for being advised by experts in the field, have you seen the sideshow that our government senate and house, and state houses, put on every day with comments from representatives? I'm sure they will have some rep on Fox to yell about how Bulletstorm is corrupting our youth and has graphic sex, that you can influence, plus gang-bangs, and also you kill kittens. Playing the game, or watching the game, for less than 5 minutes would show you that is absurd, yet those kinds of statements come out all the time from the media (not necessarily politicians exclusively).
If you think a politician has your best ideals/knows-what-is-best-for-everyone at heart... well, you shouldn't. They are probably looking out for #1, more than anyone else.
