Gird Your Loins For Love
Okay, so this 'hot coffee' controversy. I know, everyone on the Internet (even the eight year old kids who only ever go on Neopets) is talking about this thing, either defending Rockstar or shooting them down.
What gets me is the fact that a simulated scene of sex which you don't really actively take part in (you press up and down rhythmically, which is about it), and in which the protagonist is fully clothed, is somehow worse than the entire amalgam of the whole game's ethos put together. Somehow, this brief encounter (and I mean extremely brief, your stamina stat must be way down, CJ) is more appalling than the fact that you can drive into a nearby neighbourhood with four of your gang and gun down/run over every gang member in sight. The fact that you can kill random people in the street with your fists and then steal their cash. you could even have 'sex' beforehand with a prostitute, and then kill her to get your money back.
Missions are available for you to break into people's houses/military bases and steal WMDs. You can break into the airport and steal a plane. Go basejumping and squash yourself into a bloody mess in the ground.
But somehow, all this is fine because it's been done before. But suddenly OH NO, THIS GAME COULD BE PLAYED BY PEOPLE UNDER 18 AND IT HAS SEX IN IT WHICH YOU HAVE TO BE RATHER TALENTED TO VIEW.
So suddenly, the game gets rated differently in America. Now you have to wait a WHOLE YEAR LONGER to get it.
Is it me, or is that the ESRB's fault for rating it wrongly in the first place? The BBFC and PEGI clearly rate it as 18. The ESRB, however, have some weird system that means that only sex can grant an AO rating (such as BMX XXX, for example, which didn't actually create as much steam, weirdly).
This all seems a lot of fuss for a game that should have been 18-rated from the beginning.
What gets me is the fact that a simulated scene of sex which you don't really actively take part in (you press up and down rhythmically, which is about it), and in which the protagonist is fully clothed, is somehow worse than the entire amalgam of the whole game's ethos put together. Somehow, this brief encounter (and I mean extremely brief, your stamina stat must be way down, CJ) is more appalling than the fact that you can drive into a nearby neighbourhood with four of your gang and gun down/run over every gang member in sight. The fact that you can kill random people in the street with your fists and then steal their cash. you could even have 'sex' beforehand with a prostitute, and then kill her to get your money back.
Missions are available for you to break into people's houses/military bases and steal WMDs. You can break into the airport and steal a plane. Go basejumping and squash yourself into a bloody mess in the ground.
But somehow, all this is fine because it's been done before. But suddenly OH NO, THIS GAME COULD BE PLAYED BY PEOPLE UNDER 18 AND IT HAS SEX IN IT WHICH YOU HAVE TO BE RATHER TALENTED TO VIEW.
So suddenly, the game gets rated differently in America. Now you have to wait a WHOLE YEAR LONGER to get it.
Is it me, or is that the ESRB's fault for rating it wrongly in the first place? The BBFC and PEGI clearly rate it as 18. The ESRB, however, have some weird system that means that only sex can grant an AO rating (such as BMX XXX, for example, which didn't actually create as much steam, weirdly).
This all seems a lot of fuss for a game that should have been 18-rated from the beginning.
posted by Will Templeton at 10:13 PM
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