Civilization 4 delayed? The Take2 trouble

[civzombie]

"
GTA: San Andreas was rated M - for 17 year olds and over. M ratings contain strong sexual content, violence, and drug abuse (something like that). All the talk about it being bad for kids is rubbish - since kids shouldn't be playing the game in the first place."

Janos,

I 100% agree w/ you. Still, I was suprized to see for myself how explicit the in game movie was.

 

[Serutan]

Anyone mind explaining the HotCoffee Scandal?

A few years ago a woman bought a cup of coffee to
go from a McDonald's, took the top off the cup, and
(surprise, surprise), the hot coffee spilled into her
lap. She successfully sued McDonalds over this.

 

[Janos]

"
GTA: San Andreas was rated M - for 17 year olds and over. M ratings contain strong sexual content, violence, and drug abuse (something like that). All the talk about it being bad for kids is rubbish - since kids shouldn't be playing the game in the first place."

Janos,

I 100% agree w/ you. Still, I was suprized to see for myself how explicit the in game movie was.

I agree that Rockstar are very childish and silly to include this in the game, however, if people of the age of 17 are allowed to have sex, then i see NO problem with 17 year olds viewing a poorly pixelated sex sequence on a video game. If they haven't seen breasts or know how sex is done, then they are in a minority.

Hell, why don't we just not educate people about sex at all, seeing as it's such a discusting taboo and is a completely unheard of social interaction =). Sorry, i just hate the PC Parade consisting of Hilary Clinton and her deranged followers, and how this has got completely out of hand.

 

[Vellond]

If there afraid about teens hearing or seeing Sex drugs and violence, they'd have to shut the whole <Deleted> media down. No music Tv or Movies that are interesting. But I don't like rap, just including it.

Moderator Action: Language removed.

 

[Ex Mudder]

A few years ago a woman bought a cup of coffee to
go from a McDonald's, took the top off the cup, and
(surprise, surprise), the hot coffee spilled into her
lap. She successfully sued McDonalds over this.

To be fair, she did suffer from 3rd degree burns (charred skin, not just blistering). Now how exactly how a cup of coffee caused that, and why McDonalds was liable for such a freak accident, is beyond me.

 

[777]

You are right there, Superkrest. In Finland, for example, there's been some public worry about the increasing violence in video games,

This is very minor IMO. Violence in games is not yet issue in Finland and I've heard only rare people to complain about it.

 

[Padma]

To be fair, she did suffer from 3rd degree burns (charred skin, not just blistering). Now how exactly how a cup of coffee caused that, and why McDonalds was liable for such a freak accident, is beyond me.

The *only* reason she won her lawsuit was that McDonald's had the coffee set at way too high a temperature. (Company policy was that it be held at 180 degrees F, that store was holding it at over 190 degrees.)

As for the sex scene, I am sure it was originally supposed to be part of the game, but either Rokstar or TT decided it was just too much "over the edge", and had it cut. The simplest way for a programmer to cut something from a game like that is to leave the code, and just not call it. I am sure that is what was done. Thus a hacker was able to look at the code, find something that wasn't being called, and check to see what it was. He thought it was cool, so he published the crack.

 

[llib_rm]

The *only* reason she won her lawsuit was that McDonald's had the coffee set at way too high a temperature. (Company policy was that it be held at 180 degrees F, that store was holding it at over 190 degrees.)

...and that the store was cited by inspectors that the temperature setting was a safety violation and asked to make changes.

 

[Sub]

Take two won't go out of business. They'll put a fine on take two to make an example out of them, but it won't put them out of business. The biggest fine in history was 1 million dollars, so that’s really the highest they're going to go which isn't THAT big of a deal. As for people suing take two, take two has lawyers, and good ones at that. All of the cases will get thrown out, nothing will come of them. They did lose a lot of money on GTA sales in the short run, but in the long run, it doesn't matter. It was free publicity for the GTA series and I'm willing to bet the next GTA game will sell like crazy because of this. So again, Take Two will be fine.

edit: As for people saying Rockstar is silly and irresponsible putting content like this in game, here is what happens. In every game, there’s a lot of content that game developers make that doesn't make the game, for whatever reason. This content probably didn't make the game because they realized it was too edgy. Just simply taking this content out of the game isn't as easy as it sounds however. They would have had to go through what could be 5 thousand plus lines of code to remove something or just simply disable the code to access the content. So, instead of going through what could be 5 thousand plus lines of code and having to delay the game, they just simply disabled the code. A lot of game companies do this, its pretty common.

 

[bio_hazard]

I thought it was only a projected loss for Take2 (based on not selling MORE GTA to retailers), and it was the retailers that were taking the loss on the stuff that was already on the shelves that they had to pull. Seems like if Rockstar can turn around a 'cleaned' version fast enough (which I wouldn't think would be that hard, since its just deleting some files, right) and get the new product out, there might not be much of a loss.

I agree that it is being blown way out of proportion, but Take2 seems like they aren't handling it very well. A simple 'oops' at the beginning and it would have blown over, instead of blaming hackers.

So do you think CivIV will have some Hot Coffee too? A pimpin' palace? A 'We REALLY REALLY LOVE the King day?' Maybe some special scenes when Catherine learns horseback riding?

 

[Janos]

edit: As for people saying Rockstar is silly and irresponsible putting content like this in game, here is what happens. In every game, there’s a lot of content that game developers make that doesn't make the game, for whatever reason. This content probably didn't make the game because they realized it was too edgy. Just simply taking this content out of the game isn't as easy as it sounds however. They would have had to go through what could be 5 thousand plus lines of code to remove something or just simply disable the code to access the content. So, instead of going through what could be 5 thousand plus lines of code and having to delay the game, they just simply disabled the code. A lot of game companies do this, its pretty common.

I agree - they're not silly and irresponsible; they're immature and childish.

 

[warpstorm]

Take two won't go out of business. They'll put a fine on take two to make an example out of them, but it won't put them out of business. The biggest fine in history was 1 million dollars, so that’s really the highest they're going to go which isn't THAT big of a deal.

Who will fine them and on what cause? The closest could be false advertising and that's a bit of a stretch.

 

[bio_hazard]

Who will fine them and on what cause? The closest could be false advertising and that's a bit of a stretch.[/QUOTE]

CBS, an American television network, got fined half a million dollars (iirc) when Janet Jackson's boob showed during last year's Super Bowl. I assume it will be something like that. Apparently its a decency thing. You'd think with how homophobic these conservatives are, they'd be happy to show things like boobs and heterosexual sex to the typical demographics of american football and Grand Theft Auto. go figure...

 

[vbraun]

Your making a connection between the Super Bowl and Grand Theft Auto? Whoah, your jumping like 20 levels there...

I think Take-Two will at least be able to publish Civ4 for awhille, (I said "at least"). I don't expect this to shut down Take-Two, afterall Jamet Jackson didn't shut down the Super Bowl.

 

[DBear]

Who will fine them and on what cause? The closest could be false advertising and that's a bit of a stretch.

CBS, an American television network, got fined half a million dollars (iirc) when Janet Jackson's boob showed during last year's Super Bowl. I assume it will be something like that. Apparently its a decency thing. You'd think with how homophobic these conservatives are, they'd be happy to show things like boobs and heterosexual sex to the typical demographics of american football and Grand Theft Auto. go figure...

I know it's hard to know while your knee is jerking, but it was Hillary Clinton who started this "HotCoffee" scandal business, so let's get things right before
we post, mmmkay?

 

[bio_hazard]

Your making a connection between the Super Bowl and Grand Theft Auto? Whoah, your jumping like 20 levels there...

Personally neither really bother me- I'm just speculating on how this will go down. I mean, on the one had, there was a 2 second flash of a real woman that was sandwiched between 30 second ads for beers that had almost as naked women. On the other hand, its minutes of simulated you-know-what (although the dude still has all his clothes on???) in a Mature-rated video game filled with a lot of other graphic, criminal stuff...

edit: I don't have kids, but I can kinda see how parents could be upset. Don't sympathize enough to think that a $5m lawsuit is justified though...

I know it's hard to know while your knee is jerking, but it was Hillary Clinton who started this "HotCoffee" scandal business, so let's get things right before
we post, mmmkay?

Point taken. It does seem to be backwards day- Bill Frist is all gung ho about stem cell research and Hilary is hanging herself over GTA. She'll never get the MTV vote now! She must have hung out with Tipper Gore too much in the '90's... I guess the 'other guys' are still stuck on the teletubbies scandal...

 

[Janos]

edit: I don't have kids, but I can kinda see how parents could be upset. Don't sympathize enough to think that a $5m lawsuit is justified though...

It is not a kids game, therefore you wouldn't be upset because your kids would not be playing a game for 17 year olds would they?

 

[warpstorm]

CBS, an American television network, got fined half a million dollars (iirc) when Janet Jackson's boob showed during last year's Super Bowl. I assume it will be something like that. Apparently its a decency thing.

Different Jurisidiction. The FCC does, in fact, have jurisdiction over the content on the public airwaves (in the USA). They do not have jurisdiction at all on software. Like I said, maybe false advertising (and that is if they were knowingly trying to get around the ESRB voluntary rating system and release the Hot Coffee mod themselves at a later date (which has not been proven)).

 

[Nobody]

the american goverment burns babys skin off with naplam around the world, but they blame Rockstar and Marilyn Manson for their lack of morals. There are warning on the label, here in new zealand it is r18 anyway (AO) one year isnt going to matter. This is riduclas you could always pick hookers and listen to them orgasm, but now because you see it, it breaks the rules. USELSS, and since its an american company they will ruin it for the world.

 

[Karaman]

I think parents are to blame, not game violence! My friends and I love explicit video games and hard porn since we were 12 years old and nowadays at 25 we dont see life as a game where everyone is shooting, or beautiful women as porn stars I think despite all the R-rated games, we were brought up the right way! Parents are the most important and school too! Dont forget school! If your children are not required to study hard, it is useless! When I got to a school where I had to sit on my butt and study hard, I realized a lot about life and improved! The next improvement was when I was not paid on a job because of my colleagues! Laziness and fooling around are the worst enemies of a teenager, not video games!