Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Personal Responsibility Surrenders

I just was browsing around at CNN.com and came across this story. Apparently, a woman has filed a lawsuit against Rockstar Games and Take Two Interactive for "engaging in false, misleading and deceptive practices."

The lady, an 85-year-old grandmother purchased the game for her 14-year-old grandson without knowing it contained hidden sexual content.

Now first off, we (well, I) had an editorial in today's issue of The University Star in which we addressed this exact point.

Take a read. Go ahead and then come back.

The lawsuit states that she bought the game (a game titled "Grand Theft Auto"... just let that set it for a few seconds) even though at the time, the game was rated "M" for mature audiences. Now, there is not a law that states retailers have to check ID - and even then, she purchased the game.

Let's analyze the box art to this game.


In one panel, there are three clearly displayed guns being used in a drive-by shooting. In the one to its direct right, there is a man holding a gun and in the top left panel is a man with an automatic gun. I also see references to gambling, a police helicopter and a woman licking her lips in a suggestive fashion.

Now, I'm not saying that the game probably shouldn't have the "AO" (Adults Only) rating - but that's solely based upon the descriptors given by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board. The "Hot Coffee" mini-game does indeed have prolonged sexual content, albeit pixelated and poorly acted.

It's not retailers, game publishers or the government's job to tell you how to raise your kids. If you don't want your kids to play a game that might be too violent or sexual in nature - research it, go out and rent the game and watch your children play it. Hell, your kid might be mature enough to distinguish between reality and fantasy. I know my mom never had an issue with what I listened to or watched - I just knew that if I ever performed acts like that, spoke like that or basically tried to use that as an excuse, it'd have been my ass.

I've just registered to get the documents online and I have them, so I'm going to start pulling stuff from there.

When are people going to start taking responsibility for their own actions?

Do you realize that in the state of Iowa, this lady's grandson can legally consent to actually have sex?

He can fuck, he just can't play a game that has some fucking.

I can't say I'm shocked at this lawsuit, but sometimes, stupid people just need to be smacked.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Very nice blog. Interesting writing.

Thursday, 28 July, 2005  

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