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Oh man, I hate this guy! He is the guy behind getting rid of video games. He tried to get rid of Bully even before the game was close to being out. He said "Columbine simulator." The game has no guns, blood, or gore. It is against bullies. And he went on a rant of how the Sims 2 is worse then the "Hot Coffee" in GTA. (The only hint I'll give you is that it almost got them an Adult Only rating.) He says this because you can remove the blur from people, showing very detailed bodies. Well, its not true! The pixels are very hard to remove and when they are, its just the physique of the body. I am sorry if this is a little inappropriate, but what are your thoughts on him? (http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/07/22/news_6129609.html is the link to the article.)

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All this is old news... surely we have another thread on him somewhere? (EDIT: Hmm, older than I thought... the article I linked to is over a year old. Maybe the old thread on him is too old to post in anymore.)

Anyway, my own opinion is that he's an idiot who's not worth paying attention to. I don't care if you agree with his basic position or not, the manner in which he attacks games, and gamers, is malicious and infantile. I have no respect for anybody who uses misinformation and insults as his primary weapons, and who essentially goes "LA LA LA LA LA I'M NOT LISTENING" when you try to reason with him.

- Kef

(Sorry if it is an old one...)

Yeah, thats what most gamers in America are thinking about him.

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What??! He's ba... ohh wait, no, no, he's gone, theres no way he could be back.

Last i heard: he was in WoW, saying that "Undead" is a form of Video-game Racism towards Ghosts.

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Ghosts?

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"I OBJECT TO THAT!!"

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SPACE GHOST! I occasionally watch Coast to Coast when I slept on the couch.

But yeah. Being a gamer, I too would hate him. I think I remember a thread on another forum mocking him. Saying that one of my favorite racers was a hit'n'run simulator.

if he's banning video games, i hate him already.
racism towards ghosts? that's just stupid.

Well, not all video games, just the ature, violent ones.

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Well, technically, he's not banning anything. He's in no position to make any legislation to do that. Sadly enough, there are video game critics that DO have that power.. Don't look at the republicans this time. For once, they're off the hook. Sadly, the same can't be said for at least 2 of the other side's possible presidential candidates.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

I actually tend to agree with Hillary on this one. Games like GTA are promoting and even glorifying violence and crime, and for that reason should be banned.

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I don't know that I agree. I mean, some movies do the same thing. Do you support banning them as well?
Does the interactive nature of the game, that allows the user to commit violent acts, have some influence on the way you feel?

Personally, I see games as just that, games. They aren't real, they're an alternate reality where actions that have consequences in the real world have no meaning.
With that said, I do think most "violent" games are far too violent for most of the kids that play them.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

But that's not fair to responsible gamers. Just because some parents are too stupid to look up what games are suitable for their kids, doesn't mean you ban them. Same goes for the idiots who think art imitates life. Just because there are a few bad apples doesn't mean the whole bushel is rotten.

Solving the problem is simple: If you have to buy the game for your kid because they are too young, don't buy it. It's not for them.

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As much of a gamer as I am, I'm with Didy, most of the way, I don't think they should be banned entirely, but I think there should be more strict regulations preventing kids under, say, 18 (sometimes 21) on buying the games. Note that although I'm a gamer, I don't play games that have mindless violence, ot games that glorify it to the point of games like the new game: "Gears of War", where the sole purpose of the game is to be as bloody and gory as possible. On the other hand, I like the Halo series, for one it's a well made game, without a HUGE amount of senseless violence, and another thing that sets it apoart from other hugely-violent games is the storyline, instead of acting out revenge, or going around killing people for fun, you're trying to save mankind from being eradicated.

Don't eliminate the games is what I say, just make it so that it's illegal for someone under the age of 16, 18, or 21 (depending on content) to own the games. Mostly-banned, I should say. GTA should be one of the games for 21 and up, whereas Gears of War 18, and games like Bully maybe 16. That's my take, this is Droideka, signing out.

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But they already have that. What do you think that little ESRB sticker is for?

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For two sets of games, M and A, I say redo the system, and the thing is it's not illegal to own those even if you are under the age, I say make it illegal.

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I say no. The ESRB ratings are based of the MPAA Ratings for movies. They work fine.

Yeah but that is not fair for responsible gamers. You know what you do? You card the customer. If they are underage or lack ID, they don't get the game. If it is a parent you ask who it is for and what is their age. It's that simple. No need to go make nonsense laws.

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Problem is the parents get the games for their kids, regardless of content, a couple of laws wouldn't hurt that restrict non-appropriate games to a certain age group. I know of some people (at the local Gamestop) that never check ID, never care about the age, and that's a problem, the town around here also (it's interesting to note) has an alarmingly high murder rate, the people around here are often total idiots that think it would be fun to act like they do in GTA. Maybe some sort of license would help, just do something to restrict it to people that are mature enough. I think redoing the rating system could help, and instead of taking away, just add on, like T 16+, M, 18+, and A, just add two that might help, midpoints between T, M, and A.

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I don't think that's a problem to be addressed by restricting civil liberties.

When I was a kid (circa 4th grade), I played games like Mortal Kombat. Today I find the MK series to be silly and inane (although I do play them now and then out of sheer boredom). But when I was older, around 14 years old (maybe 15), I bought Leisure Suit Larry 7, an M-rated game that features occasional nudity and (mostly) off-screen sex, all of it tongue-in-cheek. I loved it then and I love it now (though I love it now for slightly different reasons). I certainly don't regret having played it at a young age. When I was around 16, I played through some of the game with who is now my stepdad; he didn't have a problem with me playing it, and found it a funny game. My point is I found LSL7 to be an important and enjoyable part of gaming in my teenage years. I played lots of games that were much more explicit than that at that age (as explicit as it gets, in fact), but they're not nearly so important to me as LSL7. I didn't turn out to be a sex-crazed freak, though. Heck, I'm nearly the opposite. I'm not "normal", but I don't see any way in which my "abnormality" can be linked to graphic video games (or videos, or whatever), not even a hypothetical, tenuous link. I was always abnormal.

That's not to say that everybody would have the same experience that I did. I have no idea how all this stuff affects the average child or teenager. But I do think that laws against buying an adult-oriented game for your kid are going too far. I think what's needed is to make sure that parents are aware of the ratings system and what it means. But I don't think we should make the judgements for them. If a parent is going to exercise bad judgement with a child, then I don't think what video games the kid plays is going to be the main problem.

- Kef

I doubt violence in games would cause someone to become violent themselves. Rather, I'm of the belief that violent people prefer violent images.

Movies have had violence for a long time, and not many people are seriously trying to ban violent movies. Heck, the violence in movies is a lot more realistic.

The real issue is parenting. Buying an M-rated game for your 6-year-old son is bad parenting. If you think something's too violent/"bad" for your kid, don't let him/her buy it. There's no need for laws in this matter.

so then does taht mean Baraq(sp?) O'Bama(sp?) is the one the Video Game community should support?

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COLA, you always come to the weirdest conclusions. By the way, his name is Barack Obama.

and toastpaint.

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Speaking of legislation and violent games, check out this article on Slashdot:

German Minister Seeks Jail Time For FPS Players

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My music
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That's mostly true, I mean it's not like shooting games cause school shootings, but it's hard to look at some of those video games out there and say they aren't affecting kids' thoughts.'

On the issue of parents buying inappropriate games... when I was younger, someone's older brother always had T and M-rated games, and we'd play them (sometimes with that older brother, sometimes not). The games were fine for older kids that the parents bought them for, but not really us, but we still ended up playing them all the time.

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Jack Thompson strikes me as yet another in a long line of joyless, dyspeptic nanny-state crusaders against bush league nonissues. While studies have shown that people with certain personality disorders are especially attracted to violent media, no hard evidence exists to suggest that video games actually turn people violent. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman has some interesting points to make on how realistic games can assail the natural inhibitions most of us have against killing our own kind, but his claims also remain unproven.

Mike

Heh...the term "bush league" does not refer to our president; it's a figure of speech meaning "small time" or "amateurish." As you may gather it was originally baseball jargon.

Mike

Jack Thompson needs to stop being the nations angry mother.
Video game limits for kids is a discussion for the family room not the court house.
On another note non-lethal crimes by minors went DOWN after GTA San Andreas came out.
I have toilet paper with Jack Thompson's name on it.
Find it a http://www.jinx.com

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TIRES TIRES TIRES

I was discussing this briefly with one of my coworkers the other day, and he pointed out something that I really agree with: If someone is going to play a violent video game and then go out in real life and do the same or similar violent things, then their brain is fragile as-is, and if it wasn't a video game that would spur them to be violent, it would be something else like a movie or music lyrics or a book (Catcher in the Rye, anyone?). It's like with the Columbine shooting--two kids out of millions that listen to a certain type of music or play certain types of games or what have you...only two out of millions that are actually that violent in real life...can it really be the fault of the games they played or music they listened to? I mean, if the media itself was solely responsible for causing people to act violently, wouldn't we be seeing a much greater percentage of violent people in our survey samples?

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

What do you guys think of Jack Thompson? Personally, I think he's a moron, and is a horrible attorney.

Learn more about Wacko Jacko here


Also, what do you think about video game violence? Does it affect people?


Discuss.

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(USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)

Jack Thompson - ¿Quién ahora?
Video Game Violence - ... Not really much to comment since most of the video games I play don't have serious violence in them...