once agian another dumb and usless law form some idiot who knows nothing about what he is talking about. this would be a waste of time and money for sveral reasons.

1. most games have more then one ending (Jade Empire for example) so you would have to play through the game about 20 or more times to get everything.

2. it would impossible to do this for online games (MMOs) for 2 reasons

a. the developers are always adding new content

b. there is anywhere from 10-100 charater classes and anywhere from 1-10 races u can chose from so finish a MMO to its "entirety" would take years.

this is just a few reasons why this bill would be a waste of time and money most games are near impossible to finsih 100%.

I posted this in another thread, but... in case nobody saw it, and because it's relevant as to why people are doing this...

"It’s American culture infiltrating into families and politics. Worse yet, it’s “smart” politics. I’ll explain by laying both out.

1. Lack of Accountability- no one want to believe that they are irresponsible people. But no one wants to take the time to either disprove the fact by providing excuses or disprove it by improving the way they act- rather, they would focus the blame on something or someone other than themselves to portray themselves as victims. So take a medium that few people who run things understand, as a focal point for pinning the blame on. They use technical terms no one seems to know, and every game, to them, is the same. It’s easier to find a scapegoat to pin societies ills on rather than solving societies ills with actual accountability. Look at Bush. He’d rather not believe he’s wrong. He’d go “Well, my intelligence tells me they were saying there MIGHT be WMD’s in Iraq, so… I’m not to blame.” Yet it was he who ultimately decided “Yeah, let’s roll over some towel heads and call it a day/4 years.” And then, of course, there’s a difference between accountability (i.e. “Okay… the direction we’re going is not working”), and then continuing to do the same thing ( i.e. “… so we’re going to send 20,000 more troops in to make things better, even though my defense secretary says it’s a bad idea”).

2. “Smart” politics.
Picture this.
We live in a nation where we have these things called “amendments”. And these amendments provide us a set of guidelines that we can use as a templte for creating laws within our nation. But somewhere in the 60’s, we lost track of what amendments were, and we started to forget what they were, and it seemed that only politicians and judges knew what each meant.
Go to a random person. Ask them what the 18th amendment was, and what made it so unique. Most people will give you a blank stare. The 18th Amendment, Prohibition, essentially outlawed alcoholic beverages, with the exception of those used for religious practices. It was later repealed by the 21st amendment. What’s my point?
My point is that alot of people will look at an amendment and say “…okay? I’m not sure I understand,” and will afterwards dismiss concerns over the constitutional problems on laws prohibiting things they find offensive.

A “smart” politician will say “Hey! There’s a new visual medium out there that adds in interactive possibilities, and some of them are created for people over 18 because they’re violent or sexual in nature! BUT! Little Jimmy here somehow got his hands on it and played it, and we’re afraid it warped his fragile little mind! And a couple of 18-year-olds just smacked an old lady upside the head with a bat, and you KNOW teenagers LOVE to play video games! We need to prohibit them, even though we don’t do that with movies and books with similar content in them, and even though their parents will probably supply the kids with these games anyway!”
Most people are going to be too concerned that a kid somehow got a game in his hands that he should not have been allowed to play, and they’re going to do anything they can to: A) not be held accountable for the game falling into the child’s hands by feigning ignorance to the rating and content lable, and B) provide “solutions” in which they don’t have to change the way they run things, deluding themseves into believing that they are NOT responsible for a supposed “failure” in raising their child.

Meanwhile, you have politicians using scare tactics, guilt-trips, morality claims and Jack Thompson to say “Hey, you should support this. It’s for our kids. This it to protect our kids from living in a violent world- by blatantly ignoring the First Amendment, which keeps us from being Totalitarian book-burners and censoring everything and everyone that we find offensive.” Only they don’t mention the First Amendment or the constitution. To them, they’re essentially saying “there’s something wrong with you if you don’t support this law, which we’re using to protect our children.” When the constitutional problems DO come up, they support their decisions, saying “Look, I’m only doing this to protect kids”, whilc thinking to themselves “this’ll net me alot of votes because of public appeal.” That’s when things come together-

1. Parents don’t want to believe they’re ignorant, lazy people and start raising their kids correctly, so they find a scapegoat to avoid accountability.

2. A Politician proposes a law to “protect” children, despite the blatant constitutional concerns surrounding it, and the fact that they’re owe a buttload money afterwards.

3. Parents and parent-groups support the measure to garner public appeal for their own uses, while politicians use the fact that these people are behind them to further their own personal agenda, which is also garnering public appeal.

4. Then, when the constitutional concerns come up, the politicians stand by it in order to maintain this is for the protection of their children. Since few people actually remember government classes enough to point out that such a law would fail due to it being unconstitutional, and because most politicians and committees will look at it knowing that their butts are on the line if they DON’T vote for the law, the law will pass.

5. In swoops the ESA, who points out correctly that the law is unconstitutional. Politicians, adamant on protecting the “law” (and simultaneously garnering even MORE public appeal by protecting an unconstitutional law that would “protect” children) swoop in to defend it. The ESA wins, and there’s a huge legal bill in court costs.

6. Time goes on, and political elections are coming up. It turns out to be exactly like a fight over the internet- both sides of the issue resort to calling each other names, pointing out stupid things they did, while covering their own asses about the stuff they did with half-truths. Then the video-game law thing comes up again. But while one guy DIDN’T vote on it because it was unconstitutional, the other DID, because it was to protect children. But protecting the children DESPITE constitutional concerns is more appealing to the public than voting against an unconstitutional measure that, if let loose, would supposedly have done so, even though it would not have worked. Since nobody really understands Amendments anyways, they go with the guy who voted yes.

It falls like that. And sadly…
… it works."

I dare Brownback to play a game to completion before proposing laws that a small group do that for hundreds of games

A full review of the entire content of the game? How in the heck do you manage stuff with games like MMOs or Sim-games where things are able to change over time and sometimes be completely different each time? Seriously, when Spore comes out, the game's gunna have so many different layers, it's gunna be near impossible to review the 'entire content', especially considering that Spore will let players create their own content which will be shared between games.

Lovely, just another stupid law that'll be impossible to enforce. Plus, the ESRB isn't a government agency? Why do they need to change how they rate things when the government isn't offering any incentive for the company to do such a thing? You think the least they could do is say, "We, the government of the United states want you to rate stuff, so here's some staff folks who'll help with this impossible task". And then folks would be pissed off that congress was wasting money on such a stupid law. Hrm... Ok, thats probably why. Its easier to say "Do it our way", and not try to actually be helpful and spend money to fix the "problem".

@Chrowx
I think you misread his post.

War on Ignorance anyone?
I'd propose we flood him with emails explaining why this is a horrible bill and how unconstitutional it is.

I volunteer to play WoW until it's completion, and be paid a full government salary until such point that I complete the game... ;)

[...] Presidential hopeful, Kansas Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, has re-introduced a bill that would require the ESRB play every game, all the way through, before assigning a rating. Every nook and cranny of that Thomas’ English gaming muffin would have to be explored before slapping a rating on the title. [...]

Guys, guys, guys. Come on now, stop being so hard on him. Yes, playing the entire game to rate it is a silly idea. But isn't this kind of what we've kind of wanted: for the ESRB to actually play the games, to put themselves in the gamer's shoes, to rate a game accurately and fairly? So people like Jack Thompson and Hillary Clinton don't try and destroy the ESRB and create a government regulated system for the industry?

I'm sure Brownback is a reasonable guy. Instead of flaming the guy, let's try and work with him.

I can see what he is going for, but it won't work. He seems to believe that all games still play like Super Mario Bros. when anymore they are much more complex then that.

-Auto

Sam Brownback is NOT a reasonable guy. He is an ultraconservative who wants to legislate morality.

All I want in my federal government is legislators who are socially liberal and fiscally conservative. For some reason, I have the exact opposite, a bunch of politicians that spend without regard for where the money comes from, try to expand the government's role in everyone's daily lives, and try to pass laws that repress people in their private pursuits.

The only possible explanation for this is that Brownback thinks the ESRB is a government organization. At least, in all other theories I come up with, he comes across even worse Considering everyone went over this the last time the bill was introduced, he must either insulate himself from the real world so much as to have never heard anything, just never paid attention or he knows this is a horrible law and it's a cynical political ploy. So he's either an idiot, completely ignorant of the law, completey negligent in basic law-vetting, like research on the affected parties and dealing with objections or just a guy wh really doesn't care if a law is good, just that it makes him look good. These aren't mutually exclusive, but I can't find any possibilty that suggests he belongs in the Senate. Of course, he's running for the White House, so he may just fail upward.

People like brownback don't relize what achually goes into making and playing a game. Such as online games, patches come out all the time and would require LARGE amounts of time to play through games over and over every time a new patch comes out. Pluss, contrarry to popular oppinion, people achuall do interact online! Amazing, I know, and thows people interact in diffrent ways. Some swear and say inapropiate things over mics and text. Then you may have a game like Counter-Strike, where you can have custom sprays that every one on the server can see or textures that you can DL form the internet. How would they regulate all this custom stuff that comes out daily on various websites. Besides, you can get a bulk of what a game is like just from playing a few hours of a game. Like GTA for example, a person and easly tell what the game is about just from playing a few missions and walking around a bit. Playing the whole game is compleatly unnessary.

There really needs to be an edit button added to this forum.

Also, with games like Oblivion, which, does end, takes forever, especially if you play threw every single side quest and such, and then there are the mods, expansions, etc.

//But isn’t this kind of what we’ve kind of wanted: for the ESRB to actually play the games, to put themselves in the gamer’s shoes, to rate a game accurately and fairly? So people like Jack Thompson and Hillary Clinton don’t try and destroy the ESRB and create a government regulated system for the industry?//

Even if they had started doing that (reviewing a game in it's entirity), people would STILL complain. "They didn't rate it like they should have", "They purposely mis-rated this!" and Jack Thompson and Hillary Clinton would still try to say that "games are meant for children and these GTA games are murder similators".

As the saying goes; "You can make some people happy of all the time, but you can't make all of the people happy all of the time."

How many modes and difficulties are there in Madden? I'm not even touching MMOs.

The second most popular computer game I have ever made (For context purpouses, I have made two computer games), had a very predictable finishing time. The game ended 14,000,000,000 years after the file was run. I'd like to see them complete that game.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2007...

And he's running for president......what a surprise.

@ChrowX

Dude, BrokenScope is right. I have no idea how what you said relates to anything in my post.


@gameclucks

Socially liberal and fiscally conservative is an oxymoron. You need to be fiscally liberal to support all aspects of social liberalism. I believe what you actually mean by social liberalism is social tolerance.

I've also said before that the idea behind this legislation is horribly flawed, even though it might have been formed with the best intentions.
Premise: Sen. Brownback apparently does not trust game publishers and as such makes it a requirement that the ESRB examine all game content before providing a rating. I can think of no other plausible motivation for this - if he felt the ratings were honest he wouldn't be calling it the TRUTH in VG Ratings Act.
This can play out in one of two ways.
1) The game publishers are trustworthy and do not include any content that cannot be easily accessed, and they fully disclose what's in the game so it can be found. Which would make for a great ratings system - in fact, that's probably why it's what the ESRB does now, more or less. This law just makes them do more work for the same result.
2) The game publishers are untrustworthy and include content not disclosed to the ESRB that can be accessed later. Now it's a battle between the game maker's ability to hide content and the rating board's ability to find it. And given the infinitely many ways in which things can be hidden, that battle's going to go in favor of the game makers every time. Example: A PS2 controller has 14 buttons that could be used for a secret code (not counting Start and Select, because I don't like them.) A programmer could embed a hidden hardcore sex scene that plays upon inputting an 8-button sequence. That's 1475789056 combinations you'd have to try to ensure that you had them all. And if it's only unlockable in certain areas - forget it. An uninformed tester could never find that, but it'd be easy for the programmer who added it to leak the code out well after the fact. And no law or ratings board will prevent that. None. We know what you're trying to do, Senator Brownback, but your law isn't going to do it.

now granted i don't know as much about law as i would like to so feel free to correct me if i'm wrong here but

Does the Government even have a right to dictate the business practices of a private orginization such as the ESRB in the first place? (such as them telling them how they have to review games)

i really wish politicians would realise what orginizations such as the ESRB are for, they are not designed to restrict the sales of games through their ratings, the ratings are there to inform people about the content of the games so that people who don't know about any given product can still make an informed decision about buying a game

Toss him a game of Tetris and tell him "Tell me when you finish it and give me a rating. Losing doesn't count as finishing."

And be done with it.

Any puzzle game makes this a flawed law. That includes almost all Pinball games. Sandbox type games like GTA and games where you can change your appearance like Saints Row. To get 100% completion of a game you must do everything in every different way.

We must also re-rate every game ever made now too.

“You can make some people happy of all the time, but you can’t make all of the people happy all of the time.” Especially for people who refuse to eb satisfied.

As for the facts. "Gets th facts, then you can distort them as you please?" Remember, the ESRB has a 40% failure rate and a 60% success rate. Whenever people like JT mention it, the 60% success magically vanishes, because it isn't 100%, anything below is unacceptable.

As for this bill, it sounds to me liek a creative attempt to incite a chilling effect. A game comes in to be rated, it gets played, yet user created content makes it in, changing the rating entirely, or say the raters miss something, like others have said, that the developer didn't disclose, and it happens multiple times. The ESRB can refuse to rate anymore games from them, thus stemming sales. Then it will no longer be profitable to make that game or even stay in business.

Of course, some can go to online distribution to satisfy all the five year olds with credit cards

Sam Brownstain effectively killed his infinitestimal chances at becoming President with this pile of crap.

This bill is clearly unconstitutional, just like all the rest.

When are people going to stop nominating for office idiots like this? Politicians should be concerned with other things besides video games.

@ Brokenscope

You want me to back up my views about why violent media is okay and not harmful to anyone? Here it is.

# 1 Violent video games are popular all over the world and very few people, who play games like Grand Theft Auto, ever commit murder.

# 2 The ones that do are almost always troubled, like Cody Posey.

# 3 A gun has to be heavier than a controller because it's made out of medal.

# 4 Guns are harder to use in real life because they're heavier than a controller and there is no automatic aiming system in real life like there is in Grand Theft Auto.

# 5 Most other countries don't blame games all that much for the actions of gamers, except maybe Germany.

# 6 Children are too small to pick up a real heavy gun and do some damage.

# 7 It always looks easier when someone else is doing it. When you see films with like "Desert Heat" and "Rambo" they show things that are almost immpossible or immpossible to do in real life. Most people couldn't duplicate what Sylvester Stallone and Jean Claude Van Dam do in movies if their lives depended on it.

# 8 The possibility of jail and consequences that keep people in line. People all know that jail isn't a nice place and that keeps people in line.

# 9 People also don't throw away their lives because of images on a screen. They know better than that.

Those are my reasons. Violence looks easy on a screen, but in reality, it's very hard to immpossible for the average person to even duplicate. Do those finally look like good enough reasons for my position and ideas?

Why the heck are you trying to pick a fight, Daniel? It was fun to watch at first, but it's getting a little boring. Why don't you just drop it, so we can all get back to saying mean things about moronic politicians?

Oh, right, the article:

As stated many times earlier, this bill is ludicrous. Forcing the ESRB, a non-government organization, to play through a game with a fine-toothed comb? It's a waste of time, and even if this bill were in effect back when San Andreas came out, Hot Coffee still would still have become an issue.

*groan*

@Daniel

Actually I also said "God you are a dumbass"


Daniel I after I got done laughing at your spelling mistakes, I found it very easy to dispute all but the common sense points. However this is not the place.


Our argument has transcended the different news topics on this blog. We have left many topics cluttered with our posts and in some cases killed discussion on there. I take full responsibility for that. I also apologize to the rest of the community for my part in this. I also apologize to GP, In hindsight I wouldn't have blamed him if he had banned me.

It has gone on long enough. Daniel henceforth I am going to ignore your posts unless they are written in a clear and thoughtful manner, they are on topic, do not include huge numbers of !!!, and HAVE not BEEN said before hand by you in other threads.

If you continue to post in your usual fashion I will ignore you. I will not reply to comments that you aim at me and I would also ask that Yoshiko and Hyabusa do the same. This is not the proper place for us to do this.

Daniel if you wish to continue this discussion, which 99% of the time involves your complete personal philosophy on games and media in general, we will go to the GP forums. You can make an account, its free, and we can continue this discussion on the forums, where those that don't want to see our arguments don't have to.

If you wish to question me about this post email me.

lodanas@gmail.com

This is the address to actually register for the game politics forums.

http://www.gamepoliticsforums.com/register.php

Here is the address for the main page of the forums.

http://www.gamepoliticsforums.com/index.php

I suggest you book mark the index page.

Daniel, with this I am essentially calling you out, we are taking this argument outside the bar. We have hit some other patrons and I really don't want to piss of the bartender because he has a really big ban stick.

I would prefer a mildly structured debate, however free form works as well.

To discuss rules email me. If you believe any of the things you say it shouldn't be hard to defend them in a calm and logical fashion in a semi controlled environment, where we are on equal footing. It will also be easier to follow conversations and threads. All are welcome in the thread to support either side as long as they follow what ever format we agree on.

Also if you continue to have problems with your email I will be happy to provide you with a gmail invite.

If you choose not to accept this, then I guess this is goodbye, because I have the odd feeling I won't be speaking with you for a while.

I will not respond to anything posted by you in this thread. As far as I am concerned this topic is closed between you and me. Feel free to contact me.

@ Yoshiko

Okay, fair enough. I just don't like it when someone starts a fight and then blames it on someone else. That irritates me. At least, you acknowledged it. I am glad that everybody knows the truth.

@ Brokenscope

I guess I could look into making an account on the forums. If it works, great and if it doesn't, oh crap. We'll see what happens.

Oh my...

Daniel, every time you post you dig yourself a deeper and deeper hole. Nearly every argument you make is more emotional, contradictory, and irrational than the other think-of-the-children cultists.

"# 3 A gun has to be heavier than a controller because it’s made out of medal.

# 4 Guns are harder to use in real life because they’re heavier than a controller and there is no automatic aiming system in real life like there is in Grand Theft Auto.

# 6 Children are too small to pick up a real heavy gun and do some damage."

Eh? But I thought you said before that it's easier to kill someone with a gun than it is to play a game? Which is it? Oh, right, it depends on which is the object of a ban at the time.

While I'll agree that games won't teach you to aim and shoot a gun, to say they're harder to use is rubbish. If one can figure out how to use the dozen or so buttons on a gamepad with any degree of coordination, it's not that difficult to learn the layout of the mere three or four controls on a firearm.

And too heavy? Erm, some (sub)compact polymer-framed pistols only weigh a few more ounces than a wireless 360 controller. Hell, my full-size P99 is probably lighter than the first Xbox's original controller. :x

As such, misguided arguments such as this will, at best, make us look like morons. Or, at worse will seem duplicitous. Remember, we're the good guys here. So leave the false, emotional, straw arguments to he-who-can-not-be-named, kthx.

....

Yes, they have, child soldiers are still fairly common in third world conflicts even in the 90s.

You had children no older than 14 leading platoon, company, and in some cases battalion strength groups, of other, much younger children. I would suggest a book called "Shake hands with the devil", it was about the genocide in Rwanda. While child soldiers are not the focus of the book, they are brought up many times because how much a role they played in problems between the Hutus and the Tutsis.

he probable wouldve done alot better if he said just play every game before rating it, not all the way through but just play it for maybe an hour a game, maybe even 2 but thats it.

fully through for some games = 3-XXX months and others 3 hours is more than enough, which some politicians do not understand, they probable played the original NES games and think every game is that long(legend of zelda anyone? that took 40 mins to go fully through)

[...] 2. Actually playing the games. that has already become a political issue given Sen. Sam Brownback’s Truth in Video Game Ratings Act, now pending before the U.S. Senate. Bonner writes: The ESRB’s current pool of fulltime raters… does not actually play the games that they rate. They just watch submitted videotapes or DVDs of someone else playing the game… [...]