What I wish people would stop doing is telling us how we should raise our kids. If they wish to inform the public about the rating system...then talk about that, for instance it should have been writen like this:

"Parents, I would like to take this time to inform you about the ESRB system we have in place for video games.
E-Everyone
T-Teen
M-Mature - 17 years and older
With certain M rated video games being released such as GTA VI, be be sure to make your self knowlegable about what your children are viewing and playing. This is simple to do, all games have a rating symble in the lower corner of the case and on the back lists reasons why the game has been given the rating. Reasons such as alcohal, sexual themes and violence. The Mature ratings are equivilant to a Restricted rated movie. It is a free country and as such we enjoy the liberty of free speech, it is up to you however to determine what is acceptable for your children view and interact with. Live responsibly. Thank you."

Now THAT is how the speech SHOULD have been delivered, but then that would be free of biasted opinions and over zealous incompitency. Effen politics...why is it that we keep electing dumb assess to govern us...

2nd who is mr clean?

[...] O texto de hoje foi publicado na revista GameMaster de fevereiro desse ano, por ocasião da proibição de Counter-Strike e EverQuest. Porém, selecionei-o para voltar à ativa porque o assunto está mais vivo que nunca, com a recente proibição de Bully e a iminência do lançamento de Grand Theft Auto IV, que já causa burburinho pelo mundo e traz incertezas sobre seu possível lançamento oficial no Brasil. [...]

Yee was doing okay up until this bit of garbage ruined it:

"Unfortunately, the makers of Grand Theft Auto have a history of deceiving the ratings board and the public on the true content of their games."

A history? I didn't know that one isolated incident qualifies as a "history". However poorly Rockstar/Take Two handled the Hot Coffee situation, ignorant politicians continue to act like GTA:SA was bundled with a copy of Hustler.

now...how can we get rid of yee? is he a lawyer? well we took down mr.clean, we are taking down jack and yee is next

Considering his history of deceiving his constituents on this topic, that was actually pretty cogent. And he at least got a decent main point in there. Last time around it was all Rockstar's fault. Now he's talking to the parents.

@GreatNocturn357

I believe he was a senator, but more importantly, he's a child psychologist, so people might believe the lies he spreads.

"Unfortunately, the makers of Grand Theft Auto have a history of deceiving the ratings board and the public on the true content of their games"

I usually am fairly polite in my postings, but this is a vicious and outright fucking lie.

If he were going to make it truthful, he should have said:

"Unfortunately, the makers of Grand Theft Auto had their product taken and modified illegally, which meant the rating did not apply to it any more. Even more unfortunately, I don't understand this and will conitnue to be an ignorant ass, blah blah blah"

I was wondering when Yee was coming back.

@ GreatNocturn357

Who is Mr. Clean?

This guy is a bigger threat than Hack Thompson ever could be. How did he get his degree? The shit he says is so stupid!

Translation:

LOOKIT ME! LOOKIT ME!

# SeanB Says:
"I”m glad someone has the guts to step up and speak the truth about Rockstar. I hope he get’s a medal. It takes a lot to pull shit out of your ass and put it on the news these days."

Actually these days it doesn't take very much to pull shit out of your ass and put it on the news. Just look at Fox's Mass Effect reporting and the aftermath. Heck look at Fox News they have mastered pulling shit out the ass and broadcasting it.

Not only have they tried not to obfuscate*

Comments could use an edit option, my bad. >_

"Hay Guise!! M-Rated gamezz r not for kids!"

Who knew?

News Shocker - Mature rated games not for children

Also in News - Sky is confirmed to be blue, and scientists reveal secret to staying alive is breathing!

Actually, I don't really mind having video games' biggest enemy be Jack Thompson. As long as enemy number 1 is a raving senile lunatic, it makes the anti-gaming bunch that much harder to take seriously.

You take a guy like Yee who's more composed in his delivery and more likely to be taken seriously as a result, the anti-gaming bunch gains undeserved creditability.

Fortunately, Jack's going nowhere. Law license or no, he'll never stop fighting his crusade and making the anti-game movement look more foolish as a result.

Thank you Mr. Obvious!

"...undoubtedly glorifies violence, is extremely realistic..."

C'mon now, you were the smarter version of Jack Thompson. What the hell happened?

"...and designed for adults only..."

Wait a minute... Did this guy just lose all intellegence and then gain it all back with that statement within a few seconds?

"Unfortunately, the makers of Grand Theft Auto have a history of deceiving the ratings board and the public on the true content of their games."

This is obviously a typo... I'll fix it.

"Unfortunately, I have a history of deceiving the ratings board and the public on the true content of the makers of Grand Theft Auto games."

So, is now the time to point out that politicians have a history of deceiving the people and making broad sweeping claims that often turn out to be outright lies, or the conflation of truths with slander? Such as, I dunno, claiming the cut content from Hot coffee was disabled just to slip past the ESRB?

"Unfortunately, the makers of Grand Theft Auto have a history of deceiving the ratings board and the public on the true content of their games."

Deceiving? When? The game isn't made for children. So selling it as a "Video game" is deceiving? What?

@Everyone who thinks that Jack Thompson is worse for games then Leland Yee

Let's say your a concerned parent watching the news. Two guys come on to bitch about video games. On one side of the screen, you see Jack Thompson, the lawyer, ranting incoherently. On the other side of the screen, you have Leland Yee, *child psychologist*, speaking clearly about the horrors of video games and their affects on children. Who are you more likeky to believe? Who sounds more like an expert on the topic?

@ GRIZZAM 512

JT still has more weight with the "concerned" parents than Yee does. Simply because he gets more face time.

That and your example would never work. JT will NEVER agree to share the limelight with someone else. :)

The people at Rockstar aren't idiots, they knew what would happen if something like hot coffee were made. My guess is that it started as an office joke of "haha look what I made" that somehow ended up buried in the code of the actual game that they didn't know was still there when it shipped.

Does this guy care about anything other than violent video games?

/sigh... it was going well up until he called out R* on deceiving its customers, but for the most part it's decently executed. Does sound like he's telling parents how to raise there children, however it seems like too many parents need this.

@Grizzam: Hot Coffee *was* the developer / publisher's fault. It wasn't like people created the content and added it to the game. They unlocked it. The publishers whether on purpose or by accident, lied about the content.

@Everyone else: World + Dog is not likely to change their attitude to gaming overnight. I would've thought that Mr. Yee would have more support on here - he's not calling for an outright ban, which is a remarkable change of stance from a US politician, considering how much on the opposite end everyone else seems to be. Sure, he said some things which are, at worst, technically inaccurate, but he's saying the right thing: Parents, look at what your kids are doing.

Cut him some slack, and seriously give thought, objectively, to what he's saying. Geez, no wonder people think that gamers are rabid lunatics.

Did he just call GTA “extremely realistic”? That’s easily the dumbest accusation I’ve ever heard in the history of gaming.

"Parents beware: this game undoubtedly glorifies violence, is extremely realistic and designed for adults only."

Hence the M rating?

If this prevents one parent from buying the game for their children, unaware of the content, and then making a fuss over the game then that's great.

Oh and kudos to him for not calling on retailers to not stock or treat it like porn (i.e. behind the couter or in the back room).

@ Rodrigo Ybáñez García

I was going to post a big elaborate response but you just said everything I was going to. nicely done sir.

he isn't too far off. i've always respected this man. he's wrong, but he truly believes that what he is doing is necessary to protect people and unlike other people he usually is calm and rational when discussing the issue. however, i am dissapointed to see him saying rockstar has a history of deveiving the ratings board. one instance does not constitute a "history," especially when considering the fact that the hot coffee content only saw the light of day because some basement dweller illegally hacked the source code.

like i said, i respect mr. yee. he is entirely justified in saying that GTA glorifies violence. if you think otherwise, you're kidding yourself or you have an ability to bullshit far beyond that of myself. and i don't think anyone here would disagree that children should not be playing this game. urging parents to be aware of what their children are playing is absolutely essential. while GTA isn't a realistic game, he is accurate in saying that the game features violence being enacted upon realistically rendered human bodies. in general, other than the comment about R* deceiving the ratings board I am in complete agreement with mr. yee.

I expect "News" that will "Support" This claim in the next few days. I can read the final Harry Potter book full of Violence, death, gore, and strong langague (although censored the langage not everything else) and it would be fine. But I play a M rated game stop the presses this 21 year old is going to be a killer soon ban everything. It makes not a lick of sense to me.

@Rodrigo Ybáñez García

Your third paragraph was a very good statement that conveys the bigger problem with Yee.

"nationally, underage buyers were successful in purchasing M-rated games 42% of the time"

There's hope for humanity yet.

stupid stupid stupid idiot
this guy is more retarded than Fusion Frenzy 2

NO WHERE does it mention that they didn't leave the content on the disk, NO WHERE does it say that the modders created the actual HC content. It is just a carefully worded statement confirming that the HC MOD itself was created by the hackers.

I can see no lie here, the hackers did need to go through significant trouble to alter the scenes. All this talk about just altering a single bit of information is absolute bull crap - that just unlocked fully clothed, dry humping animation (confirmed by the HC modder ilspirit).
The content that was actually left on the disk did not warrant the AO rating.

The hackers who created the HC mod were the only ones who I could see at the time were sticking up for R*. They released a statement actually defending R* despite the fact that nearly everyone else were wrongly claiming that they were trying to pin the blame solely on the GTA modding community. The modders could obviously see what everyone else was too blind to notice that the slime bag politicians like Yee and anti gamers were just using this as an excuse solely to try to ban games like GTA which funny enough they have been trying to do for years now.

Unfortunately, the makers of Grand Theft Auto have a history of deceiving the ratings board and the public on the true content of their games.

what part of MATURE is it deceiving!?

Oh, and I withdraw my misinformed comment that the Lukewarm Coffee fiasco was not partly T2's fault.

@ godofyouall: That's actually pretty interesting...my recollections from the time of the 'scandal' were that were that T2 had to a certain degree denied the whole thing.

Which sort of proves my point I think. I'm fairly young, I work in the video games industry, and I follow industry news pretty closely, and yet still it's hard to keep track of the precise ins and outs of all the pertinent news.

So, today someone who's pretty far removed from gaming culture releases a statement that's soft on some facts, and wrong on others, and yet still maintains a core message that's pretty positive and reasonable: parents need to be aware of what their kids are playing.

Do we:

A: Completely freak out, call them a liar, insult them and totally dismiss them
or
B: Support the core message, and perhaps work to remove their misconceptions

Seriously...unless we as a community start reacting like adults in situations like this gaming will always be viewed as the pasttime of children, and games like GTA will be reviled in the mainstream media.

We know GTA IV isn't for kids, it's just those parents out there who either didn't get the memo or don't care because they're assholes.

@GryphonOsiris:

At least Yee doesn't spend the day trolling gamer websites.

@ Mattie

If Rockstar stood up and defended themselves the full uncut version of Manhunt 2 would be available for retail or at least order from online in the US.

I am glad that GTA 4 is totally uncut in the US yet Rockstar still needed to stand up on the Manhunt 2 situation so people like Leland and Jack Thompson would have a harder time messing with them.

I wonder how Yee, Hillary, JT, and friends would feel if someone came by their home or office to drop their kids off. After all, they want to raise our kids for us, so why not babysit as well?

@GRIZZAM 512
Apperently a lot of people. People who can’t read. Or see all the suggestive imagery on the case.

Oh come on man, the woman on the cover is nearly fellating a lollipop, lollipops are for kids therefore the game is obviously for kids! Geez...

Holy CRAP! M rated games aren't intended for small children? What about hookers? Are they still okay for my toddler?

Well, on the bright side, at least he didn't suggest banning it.

"It is imperative that parents... always review the video games their children are playing."

This is like the best thing anyone can say, seriously. If parents want to prevent their kids from seeing anything they consider inappropriate, the best thing for them to do is review the games. It's not hard at all. I review most the games I buy, so i dont waste my money on a game i might think sucks...

The game is rated "M" for Mature. Thats the highest rating there is for the ESRB. Its intended for people 17 and up. The Adult Only rating is purely retarded, it raises the intended age limit to 18... wow 1 year. The politicians that try and push the AO rating are wasting tax payer money on dumbass stuff. It will never prevent people under 18 from playing the game. Itll just mean they cant buy it on their own in some places.

"Unfortunately, the makers of Grand Theft Auto have a history of deceiving the ratings board and the public on the true content of their games. Parents beware: this game undoubtedly glorifies violence, is extremely realistic and designed for adults only."

Deceiving the public, typical political tactic. He replaced some words with others that would be more effective as a fear tactic to get his anti-gaming/GTA message out.

As I said in the "Thompson bashing GTA bus AD" post, theres no doubt theres alot of posters like that one around the city. He chose that one which was close to a park that he worded as "kids' park" to help his cause. Im pretty damn sure it was just a normal park, he just added the word kid for shock value.

Thank you Captain Obvious! To stupidity, and beyond!

The Hot Coffee mod does not count as "a history of deceiving the ratings board and the public on the true content of their games." Anyone who saw that went through a lot of trouble to mod it and knew what they were going to see.

Despite that bullshit, Mr. Yee makes a good point by suggesting that parents should monitor what games their kids are playing. I suppose he's not quite as ignorant and stupid as JT.

again i feel the need to point out that Hot coffee was not the only ratings misstep to befall a take two game, take two has had at least 2 games which have been released, and then later re-rated with a higher rating

the first of course being GTA:SA with it's infamous hot coffee incident causing the rating to change from M to AO until they changed the game

then the second incident was with 2K and Bethesda's game Oblivion, which was originally rated T, then after it was found to have much more blood and gore then was in the original rating submission video, the game was re-rated to M

in the later case Bethesda took all of the blame, however, it was still infact a take two game, and while granted they really arn't the game makers, they are the publishers and as such they get lumped together as partial creators of both games, which could be the basis for claiming a "History" of deception (granted both were done on accident and not as deception, but thats how he's spinning it)

When you say to a child "this is forbidden" it just makes the child wanting it more. Like saying you cant play with toy guns, it will do what it can to get one. Saying that GTAIV is banned just makes it even more exiting... and think you ignorant politicians are just enhancing the advertising of this game. This is something that you guys will never win!

Buh. He made a perfectly valid point at the beginning with the whole "parents shouldn't let their kids play this game" idea, but then he had to go and be an ignorant asshole by attacking the company for "their history of deceiving the ratings board." Yeah, because the difference between an M rated game designed for those 17 and older and an AO game dsigned for those 18 and older is SO great, Take Two is willing to do whatever it takes to snag that one year age difference.

It is imperative that parents avoid purchasing this game for their children and always review the video games their children are playing.

And that is literally ALL one needs to say. No more, no less. Hell, this is what we've been saying for years. If thats all Mr. Yee had to say, he wouldn't be attracting the ire of the internet.

Unfortunately, the makers of Grand Theft Auto have a history of deceiving the ratings board and the public on the true content of their games. Parents beware: this game undoubtedly glorifies violence, is extremely realistic and designed for adults only.

Allow me to review the history of the GTA ratings...

GTA - M
GTA London - M
GTA 2 - M
GTA 3 - M
GTA VC - M
GTA SA - M (Rerated, AO, rerated M)
GTA (Gameboy Advance) - M
GTA Liberty City Stories - M
GTA Vice City Stories - M
GTAIV - M

I miss anything?

What do all these games have in common? M. What does M denote oh wise ESA?

Contains content that is considered unsuitable for children under the age of 17. Titles in this category may contain intense violence such as blood and gore, sexual references and/or strong language. Many retailers (such as Target and Wal-Mart in the United States, Future Shop in Canada, and Best Buy in both countries) have a policy of not selling games with this rating to people under the age of 17 without parental presence and approval

I dare say enough has been said... Although, I still say more goes down in Junior High and High School than GTAIV can even begin to fathom.

@ Mystic

Indeed, Yee has a job and a life...


@Tony Shelby

Actually, Oblivion was rerated because some pervert found out how to remove the female character's bras and textured boobs there instead.

@GryphonOsiris
Its not just Oblivion, They have done that with World Of Warcraft also, (the adding of breast+nipples+va-jay-jays with a user created downloadable mod) but it still has a Teen Rating...I wonder why they havent been attacked yet. Not that im saying they should be, i just have to wonder what makes these fanatics have selective games to go after? like does it have to fit some formula in thier messed up twisted little pea sized brain?

I hate it when people treat grand theft auto 4like its hostel the videogame.

@tony selby

Leland is addressing the makers not the publishers. Which means he is referring to the single hot coffee incident.

Also Oblivion was re-rated because Bethesda included the textures for MALE chest areas with the game, then a moder put those MALE chest areas onto the females... That is why Oblivion was re-rated and because even the ESRB realized that such a reason is insane, they said it was because it had more blood and gore then was stated...(even though they knew perfectly well about the blood and Gore)

As for Leland, until now, I thought that he was a rather reasonable guy...
I see now that he is just another Spitzer...