Mods, Ratings, Censorship and Game 3.0

[Dr.Finger]

The Escapist (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/101/19) looks at last year's Oblivion Nude Mod fiasco and what it potentially means for the industry as it moves forward.
What neither Bethesda's defenses nor Vance's attacks shed light on are the possible future implications of this decision. The speed with which the ESRB revoked the "T" rating should have publishers of mod-able games thinking hard about their priorities. Which is more important: a thriving mod community, or a rating you can bank on?

"Game 3.0" concepts, talked about extensively at Sony's GDC event earlier this year, rely heavily on community input and outside content to make them "sticky," in a social sense. Sony's Phil Harrison spoke calmly about the ability for Home users to mute offensive speech and ignore users with pornography-filled personal spaces. In that light, the ESRB's "Game Experience May Change During Online Play" seems like a gross understatement, the possibility for abuse too tempting for those with lots of time and little perspective to ignore. A very timely, and interesting analysis of the issue. Ratings systems are here to stay, but rating a 60+ hour game with millions of lines of code is worlds different than rating a 2 hour film. When you star inserting online play, user-created content, mods and racist 12-year-olds screaming epithets into the mix and you have a maelstrom on your hands.

[Citizen Philip]

The lesson is, you can murder people in a game, animate the dead, stab people in the back, use poison,etc but you cannot see a boob.

Boobs are wrong and might give children the wrong idea.

[Chaos Machine]

Developers should not be responsible for any content they did not create. Period. The rating should reflect the vanilla game as it would be experienced by joe idiot using the default settings. As far as online play goes, the developer cannot be held accountable for johnny pottymouth. at most they should facilitate parental controls that lock out voice and text messenging in the game as well as any other user created content that is automatically downloaded and viewed. like sprays in counterstrike.


this actually has me thinking about possible ramifications on the rating of "Spore" how do you rate a game thats made with almost entirely user created content. when it streams a Penisaurus Rex onto your computer that some fucktard made do you rate the game based on that? I understand that the streaming thing is optional however the way the rating system is now regardless of parental controls the game is reviewed based on the mature content. Duke nukem 3d didnt get a teen with parental controls on.

[Chaos Machine]

The lesson is, you can murder people in a game, animate the dead, stab people in the back, use poison,etc but you cannot see a boob.

Boobs are wrong and might give children the wrong idea.

funny how in germany they have taken the exact opposite approach, censoring violence instead of sex.

[bKangy]

I really wish you had to provide certain forms of ID like a driver's license or something to play online. I've had one dick too many call me a "fucking gayboy" over voice for briefly lagging in DoD:S.

[KingGorilla]

When will the Rescuers get their rating changed to R?
http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/rescuers.htm

[Rogue_hunter]

When will the Rescuers get their rating changed to R?
http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/rescuers.htm

or for that matter, the original VHS of Roger Rabbit...

[Johan]

Developers should not be responsible for any content they did not create. Period. The rating should reflect the vanilla game as it would be experienced by joe idiot using the default settings. .

I would agree, except in circumstances where the developer includes materials within the game that, if properly unlocked through a modification of what is already available within the game, would change the rating ("Hot Coffee" anyone?). Developers shouldn't be held responsible for what others create and add to the game, but should be held responsible if what others create merely unlocks material already present in the game that subsequently changes a game's rating.

Which means, of course, that like much of life, the easy solution fails because there is more to this than meets the eye; each situation is unique and requires some wisdom/discernment in deciding where responsibility lies for such material.

Yeah...that'll happen, too. :rolleyes:

[Venkman]

When will the Rescuers get their rating changed to R?
http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/rescuers.htm


Oh my God, that is hilarious. The old school disney people really had some chutzpah.

[Rafer]

Developers shouldn't be held responsible for what others create and add to the game, but should be held responsible if what others create merely unlocks material already present in the game that subsequently changes a game's rating.

Well that's pretty much how things are now, as the various "nude raider" mods out there haven't forced the Tomb Raider games to change their rating.

The article is conflating two different issues, unlocking of unrated content already in the game (Oblivion, GTA:SA) and games that feature user created content (Forza 2, the upcoming LittleBigPlanet), which will undoubtedly cause some controversy but I think the phrase "Game Experience May Change During Online Play" has that covered.

[karak]

Right. User added content should in no way be held against anyone. Stuff within the game should and after working a bit within the development side I can say some groups are taking strides to make sure nothing gets into their games for just this reason. On the other hand, companies that push the edge like Rockstar I love because despite it all, good and bad, it does indeed bring the worlds eye to games. I do believe that bad press is just that...bad press but lets be honest if some kid hacks a game so that he can put his OWN nude textures on a character its not the developers fault.

[Venkman]

On the other hand, companies that push the edge like Rockstar I love because despite it all, good and bad, it does indeed bring the worlds eye to games.

What I don't like about Rockstar is their wonderful tradition of "no comment" whnever they piss someone off. They constantly push the boundries but let others do the real fighting for them. I don't really like their games, but I might have more respect for them if they backed up their choices and got involved in the battle (which is occuring in large part because of them) instead of letting the ESA or some other group do it for them.

[Fubl]

so what about the sims.... I mean how many nude user created content for that series one of the highest selling titles to begin with.

[devyn69]

nuderaider anniversary?