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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.
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
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.
Your macro has totally removed the need for actual content or any effort at all to defend your point. Good job.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/02/24 01:50:56
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Your attack of a strawman position to my argument is something which I have no intent of actually putting effort into responding to.
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
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.
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
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.....
I've never feared Death or Dying. I've only feared never Trying.
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.
A) Loss of a job is not loss of life, and
B) China is not America
I've never feared Death or Dying. I've only feared never Trying.
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.
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
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.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/02/24 05:09:53
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
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.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2011/02/24 14:07:23
The people in the past who convinced themselves to do unspeakable things were no less human than you or I. They made their decisions; the only thing that prevents history from repeating itself is making different ones.
-- Adam Serwer
My blog
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
Automatically Appended Next Post:
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
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/02/24 14:42:32
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.
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
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.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
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.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2011/02/24 15:49:27
n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.
It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion.
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.
I've never feared Death or Dying. I've only feared never Trying.
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