Sims 2 "Worse than Hot Coffee for GTA"; Possible Ban?

Have you all noticed the "similar threads" list at the bottom of this one? Talk about stupid programming. Only the quote marks are considered relevant... Maybe this is the program Thompson is using to make his decisions...

 

LOL Jiko. Like I said earlier most people don't consider it important to examine the evidence before making a decision (except in jury rooms where I firmly believe that the mouthiest so-&-so is the one who's opinion prevails regardless of right or wrong).

I was reading the claims made by modder Illspirit concerning the economic damage that prevention of modding would cause and this caused me to wonder if anything ever really changes ... every time a change in the status quo is mooted, demanded or (hell!) just happens it is universally slammed as a "Bad Thing" ... most people are just conseravtives at heart. The world is full of people who say one thing and do another; it is full of philnthropists who sell out as soon as the numbers on the cheque begin to look like a telephone number. Integrity has never been easy to find ... beware Greeks bearing gifts as the Trojans discovered. The other day, in an effort to boost my laptop's performance I Googled for 'rambooster' a nifty utility I found ages ago. Imagine my pity for the noble creator when I glibly went to http://www.rambooster.net/ and downloaded a heavier, more memory guzzling, less efficient tool (that -- although free to use actually has 'buy' and 'registration' options) than the original FREEWARE utility from (among other sources) http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,6624,00.asp

Like I said before. Big business always survives, some bits come and and new ones rise from the ashes but the essential structure remains. If mainstream outlets like Walmart refuse to stock adult rated (or unrated) games it won't be the games companies whose profits are hit. Walmart doesn't sell cheap ... it buys cheap; in that respect it has the production side of the economy over a barrel as much as it has the consumer over another. But if the games are any good -- and for that they need to be moddable -- they will sell and the software firms can come up with any number of strategies to not just maintain their business but to dramatically expand it into areas that would be even harder to police and to control. But I ain't gonna make it easy for them by giving away the three equally good ideas that I've had already to market games without using Mall-sized retailers ...

<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4735603.stm">

 

Kristal, did your letter make it to the "Letters to the Editor" Column?

 

I got a reply!

From: Sen.John Marty [mailto:Sen.John.Marty@senate.mn]


Shana:

Thank you for your note.

I sympathize with your concerns. From what I have seen, the blatant
violence in Grand Theft Auto games is more offensive than any hidden
sexual content. Grand Theft Auto should be restricted primarily for the
brutal violence in it.

As you point out, The Sims games are totally different in nature. They
are great educational games that give people a unique opportunity to
learn about life. Fortunately, I have heard nothing at the state level
about efforts to ban or restrict The Sims. I would certainly oppose a
ban or restriction if it were proposed.

Thanks again for writing.


John Marty

 

Nope. There were no letters to the editor this week printed in Sunday's paper. Instead he wrote a lengthy collum about his 50 years of pubishing that I didn't read.

 

great jupiter. glad to actually get a human response on this situation.

i take back what i said about the government. not every government employee is a paper pushing shovenistic pig

 

Yeah! I'd vote for that senator if I got the chance. How nice to see a politician make a plain statement!

 

Have to move to Minnesota then and join SBW and me here!

 

both of mine sent me errors saying they dont accept emails and I need to email them thru a forum on their website. Which requires an address, and I dont want them showing up at my door with VOTE ME signs insisting I take 10.

 

Heh, I'd love to see the Govenator (I live in Kah-li-for-ni-a) put up against this, which would make sense, considering he used to be the Terminator, and had a (I might say slightly medicore) game based off it, I'm pretty sure hes more understanding than most on the matter being an ex movie star.

 

Yes, but this argument ignores the fact that people who have sex in video games for gratification are losers who can't get laid anyway.

 

Both of you are ignoring the silliness of the "the material doesn't affect me but it must be censored to protect society from those it would affect" argument that is the essence of the anti-libertarian argument.

Young people with healthy sex lives emerge from good quality homes where discussion and education is not controlled by prejudice and preconception. By 'healthy' I mean one that is not apt to spread disease or unplanned pregnancy.

Morality is entirely separate discussion. Of course if we are suggesting that it is immoral to allow teenagers -- of any age -- to discover that sex exists then I am afraid I am outa here. By definition a teenager is a sexual mature citizen and IMHO the Sims franchise is probably the most valuable tool for allowing the passive absorbtion of basic morality that human ingenuity has so far produced!

Governments should not be involved in attempting to control the content and structure of products on moralistic grounds (though, of course, the reasons are obvious -- control laws are cheaper than education of the masses!) Parents who abandon their kids to video games (or any other entertainment such as 'hanging out at the mall with a gang') and who apply no control, supervision or feedback & discussion will always be the source for the maladjusted, the misfits and the paedophiles, rapists and other violent offenders. Children are not born with morals they learn them. Good parents appreciate that they can take moral lessons from any source and that censorship is almost as wholly ineffective (in a free society) as it is utterly hellbound in repressive tendencies that end in totalitarianism.

Hello Messrs. Hitler, Stalin, Hussein and Amin. Wasn't life soooo much better when you guys were running things.

I don't think so!

 

Great post Mirelly! I agree with you entirely except for one little thing.

Quote: Of course if we are suggesting that it is immoral to allow teenagers -- of any age -- to discover that sex exists then I am afraid I am outa here. By definition a teenager is a sexual mature citizen and IMHO the Sims franchise is probably the most valuable tool for allowing the passive absorbtion of basic morality that human ingenuity has so far produced!

A teenager physically is in the early stages of sexual maturity, certainly. But mentally? I don't think so. That is the time that, just as you said, the parents need to step in and start giving their children education about how to have healthy relationships, which of course includes the physical side of it. There are things that teens need to be told by their parents that the schools, TV, our culture, their buddies, etc. just cannot teach. The Sims can help, but it's really up to the parents. And the problem with our socitey is that the parents really don't step up and have those sorts of conversations, they allow the culture as a whole to educate their kids. Because of this, idiots like Jack Thomspon feel "responsible" for policing the video game industry, just as others feel they must police the other facets of entertainment. If every parent was responsible and talked to their children about waiting to have sex when they were mentally mature enough, and about the other issues surrounding relationships and sexual activity, then no one would take the fanatics seriously and they would go back under the rock they climbed out from under.

Example: My 14-year-old and I had a long discussion about teenaged pregnancy. He was saying that he knew a girl at school who was pregnant, and he just couldn't figure out why that happens. (Meaning, why would she want to do that?) And so I used the opportunity to explain that most of the times, the kids do not mean for it to happen, they just were not doing anything to keep it from happening. And then again, there are those girls out there who come from dysfunctional families, who's mothers were probably teenaged mothers themselves, who think it's cool to be moms, who are just looking for someone to love. I think that our sons need to know those girls are out there, for their own protection. And I used the sims in the discussion, telling him that these girls were like Family Sims, except that they started wanting to have 10 babies in their teen years instead of their adult years. And he understood that.

 

I am fundamentally opposed to a government that feels it is their business to tell me how to run my life.

My ideal government would exist to 1) keep the infrastructure going, and that would include EXCELLENT public schools 2) to protect us from our neighbors when necessary--not pre-emptively!--whether that neighbor was next door or across the ocean 3) to protect the environment and 4) provide medical care for all citizens when they needed it.

My ideal government would leave "morality" to the individual. Do you notice, whenever people want to force their ideas on other people, even extremely hateful ideas, that "morality" and "god" enter into the debate? It's downright insulting. Grrrrrr ....

 

My ideal government would exist to 1) keep the infrastructure going, and that would include EXCELLENT public schools 2) to protect us from our neighbors when necessary--not pre-emptively!--whether that neighbor was next door or across the ocean 3) to protect the environment and 4) provide medical care for all citizens when they needed it.

Hear, hear! well said.

 

Good points folks. I don't actually mind being told what to do so long as I am also given a choice ... but I guess that's how we all feel.

Kristal's example of dealing with her son's problem of understanding a situation is a classic example of good parenting. You talk to your kid, you find an area that needs an improvement in understanding and you work towards finding ways to make it clearer. As soon as that happens the job is done until the kid gets a bit older and a bit more experienced and needs a more thorough understanding of the subject.

 

Exactly. Hiding your head in the sand or refusing to discuss important issues like having babies when you're too young to care for them doesn't help anyone. You need to talk to your kids.

Good for you, Kristal.

 

Part of the problem is that ESRB is a pretty worthless fucntion. Its ratings are incredibly random, if you know what seperates a T from an M game. Essentailly, a violent game is ok, when the violent game somehow produces any form of blood, games like Halo 2 become M (and many probably OK games become M like this). What happened to Starcraft anyways? ESRB also needs to backup its ratings and its companies, I'm not comfotable with the fact that they slap a random sticker on a game box and cash in their paychecks for the week.