Wasting time with these matters...

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Well, what can one expect - since most of the voters don't play games, it's little harm to try to abuse the old generation gap a little. Mom and Dad don't like how their kid plays games, and probably feel a little powerless to influence him or her anymore - sure, it's the games' fault. Not TV, not music (bigger amount of money there, of course), and certainly not the parents' fault. And here comes, in this case, Mrs. Clinton as a concerned mother and an upright politician. Sheesh. Is she so bent on appealing to teh "moral" crowd she'd do something like that? Apparently yes.

 

So the companies that make the game openly tell people that their product is not suitable for anyone under the age of 18, and they get blasted because some kids get to play it? Where are their parents? Until parents start paying attention to these things, and look at what their children are asking about, this is going to happen. This doesn't fall on the manufacturers, but those who buy the games and let children play or watch it being played. If I know that my place will be overrun with children or teenagers, I put away all the M rated titles I own, and all the R rated movies that I own. The Game companies have come as far as they are willing to come. It's time for Society to accept them.

Also, Someone said that video games couldn't be used as propaganda? I beg to differ. I believe that the US army was using the game America's army as either a recruitment tool or a training tool. I believe that some other uses could be thought of, it just takes some creativity...

 

Chev,

While I agree with most of what you're saying, I don't really agree with where you're going here. The sexual content is no more real than the violent content. You could even say the same thing with regard to the violent content, i.e., that it's already violent.

@all - It would be great if retailers would enforce mature rated games to audiences of the correct age. However, I would like to think that many of the under-aged users of this material had the game purchased for them. How many 12 and 13 year olds (or younger in some instances) have jobs and can afford to buy these games for themselves? Once you consider older teens who are 16 or 17, it is possible since they can drive that they have part-time jobs, but I think the real problem here is two-fold: 1.) Many retailers are willing to sell their mature content games to people under-age, but just as importantly 2.) Many parents and grandparents purchase these games for their children/grandchildren, and in such a case, the retailer is under no obligation not to sell their product. It can clearly be argued that there aren't too many grandmothers playing GTA, and so it is likely that any senior citizens purchasing the game is doing so for a child, but the fact remains that the retailer didn't do anything wrong by selling the game, as the purchaser was over 18.

 

Aldeth, surprising as this may be, I do get your point. The problem is more in putting my point across. To me, violence in movies is overdone. In many cases, they have a good reason for putting it there and, well, I do like action movies, myself. Indiana Jones style more than a classic butchery, but still. Thing is... when you have a gunnery scene, the guy who falls isn't dead and the guy who pulls the trigger isn't a ruthless killer. The blood is ketchup. But when you have two actors who make out or have sex, it's no computer engineering. They are making out or they are having sex. Movie is the reason, not personal pleasure, but they are still having sex or making out.

So if we consider just the message, then yes, I agree with you, sexual content is just as bad as violent content. But when we consider all contributing factors, then I have to say that sexual content is much worse overall.

On a personal level, if I were married and my wife played in violent scene -- killing or getting killed, I would leave it on her conscience and I wouldn't really mind. But if my wife played in a making out or sex scene (as in, actually doing it, not the countless ways of faking it), I would be in the court on the same day. Similarly, if you grabbed a camera to shot an amateur movie and told me to put up a make believe swordfight, I wouldn't mind. Not even if you brought a barrel of ketchup along. But if you brought along a woman and told me to start getting mushy, I would feel awkward and would refuse to do anything non-verbal because I simply couldn't do that.

 

I pretty much agree. I remember an especially dreadful episode from Quincy where he told the stunned tv audience that evil punk music drives youths raving mad and makes them kill each other (in this case with a screwdriver) and the like. Well: What the hell does he know?

And anyway, with today's annoyingly hypertolerant parents around, one of the few ways left to shock them is probably to play Doom 4, eat little kittens alive, become a practicing satanist or join Al Quaeda.

Parents, get more repressive - less tolerance, more action. That allows your kids to piss you off with harmless stuff, like dying their hair green and pierce their nostrils with steel bolts or staying out till 22:00 at night

 

From what I've seen, laxness doesn't bring about much good result. Some kind of upbringing that stresses responsibility and independence is good, but not the "unstressful upbringing", "stressless ubpringing" or however "bezstresowe wychowanie" translates into English.

I suppose saying what's right and wrong instead of "tolerating differences" is more important than punishment. It worked better on me when I was a child.

 

Ah, but now you have changed the context from video games to movies. In this I can agree with you. Showing people in intimate scenes in movies is very much people actually making out or having sex. (Although I would like to think a lot of the "sex scenes" in movies that the actor and actress aren't actually having sex. Rarely do you see full frontal nudity in a movie, and often times they are only shown from the waist up. So yeah, you see bare breasts, but they very well could be wearing underwear, and we'd never know.)

The point being here, in movies, yes, there is a difference between a sex scene and a violent scene in that in the former, there is actually intimate contact between the actor and actress, while in the latter it's all faked. The actor or actress doesn't actually get killed, but the actor and actress are actually making out (I wonder what you think about James Bond movies - i.e., not over the top with gratuitous violence, but always a sex scene.)

On the other hand, in the realm of video games, it's ALL faked in the sense that we have computer pixels, not real actors and actresses. Not only are no real people getting killed, there are no real people having sex either. It seems that in a video games, since it's all fake, the moral dilemna should be removed.

 

In other news, the FBI is creating a porn squad

from the WP article

I feel relieved knowing that the government is watching out for us

 

@Aldeth: Yeah, there is a difference between movies and games. You are right on that. I'm still not sure if sexual content is only as bad as violent content. Perhaps it is, perhaps not. Perhaps it's just I dislike immorality more than I do violence.

If actors are involved, I think nudity is less of an issue than non-nude making out, unless the actors have a relationship. I probably don't have to say that nude pics would still make me go to the court on the same day.

 

Really? I find this so odd. Nudity of any kind would automatically get you slapped with an "R" rating in the U.S. (R = Restricted meaning no one under 17 permitted entrance without an adult), whereas kissing (providing it isn't accompanied by nudity, cursing, etc.) would not. I've seen many movies where there is kissing (and I'm talking romantic kissing not a peck on the cheek or anything like that) that was rated "PG". (PG = Parental Guidance suggested - but not required).

While this is definitely not an issue for me as my wife is by no means an actress, I would personally have less of a problem of her kissing someone in a movie, than appearing nude in a movie, or a photograph. It would appear you hold the opposite opinion.

Is this just a European thing, or simply a personal opinion? Generally speaking, it appears to me that nudity is not nearly as big of a deal in most of Europe as it is in the U.S., especially in regards to female breasts. On the other hand, you're from Poland, which I would not group together in my "most of Europe" comment, and I would suspect that nudity there is treated much the same way as it is in the U.S.

I guess my main thing is this - while a nude scene does not necessarily involve any personal touching (despite the fact that in film it almost always does), it seems to me that displaying one's naked body is far more personal than romantically kissing someone.

 

Indeed I do. Of course, a sex scene would be more of a problem, even an implied one. But a generic nudity scene (they only really do that to show off the actresses but it pretends to have an artistic/realistic purpose) wouldn't. It doesn't include contact, while making out does. A casual kissing scene... well, with a relative, I wouldn't mind, with a friend perhaps I wouldn't. But a making out scene would get me to go to the court, really. Not like a nude one wouldn't but still.

It's not like I treat nudity as less of an issue than you do. I just treat making out as more of an issue than you do. Making out is also more personal to me than showing the body. Normal kiss not necessarily, but making out yes. I generally don't understand how people can kiss strangers on the mouth.

But if you're a stranger to the people involved, then yeah, a romantic kiss is less of an issue than nudity.

 

As much as I love violent computer games (D&D), I must point out one fact with regard to sex and violence on television.

I remember as a young child I asked my father if things were really all in black and white wayyyyy back then.

This shows two things: The first is that I was not a terribly bright child, and the second is that young children see television as a literal mirror image of the real world.