Video Games, the First Amendment, and Obscenity 229
An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from an article about how obscenity laws and the first amendment relate to modern games:
"This question is a tough one, for the very good reason that no video game developer or publisher has ever been prosecuted for obscenity related to video games. As we have seen, if the medium of video games are held to the same standard as literature and film then, presumably, they can also be held to be obscene. One of the reasons for the lack of obscenity prosecution against video game developers and publishers is that the courts have limited obscenity to sexual content only. In fact, the courts have gone so far as to specifically reject calls to alter the definition of 'obscenity' to include violent content in video games. The other major reason is the vast majority of video games sold in the United States have only small amounts of sexual content thanks to the Electronic Software Rating Board."
The main reason games don't have obscene content (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The main reason games don't have obscene conten (Score:5, Insightful)
The lack of sex has little to do with first amendment as its pretty much all based on the self censorship the industry is doing via the ESRB.
A game that contains sex gets rated AO by the ESRB and AO means that it won't be allowed to make it on either Nintendo's, Sony's or Microsoft's console. There is still the PC market, but Walmart and other shops won't carry AO either. So AO pretty much results in a game that you can't sell, so everybody avoids it as good as they can, meaning no sex in games.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:The main reason games don't have obscene conten (Score:4, Informative)
No, it wasn't. Mass Effect was rated "M" and can be purchased just about anywhere that sells video games.
The controversy that surrounded that game alleged that there was rape and other sexual disturbing scenes, which was completely false. There exists one (1) "bed scene" that is more tame than what you see on TV.
Re:The main reason games don't have obscene conten (Score:4, Informative)
There are a grand total of four possible sexual encounters. One is optional for all characters in all playthroughs (and happens or not depending on conversation responses). The last three are optional depending on which (if any) crew member you decide to romance - at most one of these will happen per playthrough. All of them are consensual and between adults.
The first doesn't show anything even remotely considered nudity, and is mostly implied. It's with an Asari (a mono-gendered, but female-looking/acting alien race) consort. It's a 'reward' for you if you don't think her gift of advice is enough for completing her sidequests.
The other three are very similar in style, and are between a male PC and a female human, a female PC and a male human, and a female or male PC and an Asari (female-looking/acting) scientist. They show, at most, mild nudity from the characters (showing rear nudity, with full nudity implied), and are indeed tamer than what you can see on network TV in most ways, and certainly tamer than some things you can see on cable TV. They also only occur after a fairly significant romance sideplot, advanced in conversations with the chosen NPC between missions, and only occur near the end of the game (which is, attempting 100% completion, a longer-than 20-hour game, and probably could not be completed in much less than 8 hours, even with skipping all non-plot related events or quests).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm in the middle of replaying the game - my memory of it is fresher than most people's would be. If you'll notice, most of the detail is also about the occurrence of them and not detail about the sex scenes themselves. Useful stuff to know when going for 100% completion in a game.
Re: (Score:2)
Mass Effect didn't have (humanlike) sex, it had a hand on a window.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The main reason games don't have obscene conten (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a different theory on old married couples.
I think they are a classic skinner box type training.
Every time you ask for sex, you had a good chance of being rejected so you ask less over time and have less interest and desire to avoid the pain of rejection.
I say this because I was in a long relationship with a lady where six times a month we got together and it was always a "sure thing" and the sex got better over time -- just walking in the door we would both be ready and we felt "safe" that it was going to happen and we were not going to be rejected. Other times were a "sure thing" that nothing would happen and that also felt safe and relaxed in a different way. People talk about liking spontaneity but it brings with it a risk of rejection and the subsequent ego hit.
I could ask him/her, but I have a 75% chance of rejection-- never mind. besides he/she rejected me and made me feel unattractive last time I asked.
OTH, a lot of affairs are smoking hot because-- the people know they are getting together for hot sex (tm).
Plus, then there are the bonus rejections for "I don't want to have sex because you didn't take out the garbage", "I don't want to have sex because my boss chewed me out and I'm worried about getting fired", "I don't want to have sex because you embarrassed me in front of the Jones."
---
As far as the watchmen went-- I felt the violence was beyond the book. And even where it was the same, it seemed more extreme because you could hear it and see it at the same time.
I think the watchmen was ruined by lacking a good soundtrack. It had a good score, but the soundtrack was weak and, at times, misleading. A good sound track cues your emotions appropriately for what is on the screen. The watchman soundtrack failed in that regard.
Re: (Score:2)
Why do you think old married couples don't have sex as often? It's not just because they are busy. It's because they have lost the curiosity.
Because women aren't as attractive at age 50 after 3 kids, as they were when they got married? Don't know about you, but where I live, sex isn't fueled by curiosity.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It is interesting that we are ok with violence, but fret over sex (At least in the US).
It's not just interesting, it's mind boggling.
Violence is bad, murder is generally considered to be the worst thing you can do. Sex is great, and actually required for human survival.
And which of these do we freely display in movies, while the other is only hinted at or avoided?
Re: (Score:3)
That ratings board is stil voluntary, right?
What's to stop someone from making such a game, that will work on some or all of the platforms, and marketing and selling it independently?
Sure, you may not get offical blessing by Sony, Nintendo or MS, and you may have to omit their trademarked names, but, surely there is no law about what you can plug into your own game unit that you own, is there? Hell sell it
Re: (Score:2)
Unblessed games don't run on unhacked consoles, so you can't sell your AO game to the mass market of any kind of gamers except those on PCs, a market which has been dwindling.
Re: (Score:2)
You clearly haven't seen the DMCA.
To be able to get the game to work on their consoles you have to get their blessing or circumvent their copy protection mechanisms.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And the thing is that for a disc to be recognized by a game console, it usually have to include material copyrighted by the console manufacturer, usually a picture of their logo (compared against a copy located in the firmware) and sometimes some proprietary bootstrap code, so if you're pretty much forced to have a license to be legally able to make a game running on their console.
Re:The main reason games don't have obscene conten (Score:5, Informative)
Actually the part about the proprietary bootstrap code isn't an issue as was decided in Sega v Accolade [wikipedia.org] in which Accolade reverse engineered code to load their games for the Genesis as they weren't a licensee of Sega. Basically that code wasn't covered by copyright because it was considered "non-expressive" and as such didn't get copyright protection. The issue for what the GP is talking about has to do with the cryptographic key signing that is used by the consoles. That is illegal to circumvent.
Re: (Score:2)
I seem to recall that in the accolade affair, they managed to circumvent the loading code so as to avoid to include any sega material whatsoever. I believe that it's actually why sega on the dreamcast later explicitely made the firmware do a bit by bit comparison of a logo picture stored in the CD's bootstrap, although there was no cryptographic key involved yet afaik.
Re:The main reason games don't have obscene conten (Score:5, Insightful)
What's to stop someone from making such a game, that will work on some or all of the platforms, and marketing and selling it independently?
The fact that it won't play on the vast amount of consoles that aren't unhacked?
Sure, you may not get offical blessing by Sony, Nintendo or MS, and you may have to omit their trademarked names, but, surely there is no law about what you can plug into your own game unit that you own, is there?
Are you completely unaware of the DMCA?
If the companies start bitching, just throw out the 1st amendment rights and the fair use doctrine.
And you'd lose on the grounds that circumventing copy protections in such a manner as you described is clearly against the law.
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't DMCA have provisions for compatibility/interactivity issues? What about monopoly issues, they the company alone decides who can sell games for their systems? That kind of thing wouldn't work for computers would it?
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't DMCA have provisions for compatibility/interactivity issues?
Sure, but none of them would allow what you are talking about.
What about monopoly issues, they the company alone decides who can sell games for their systems?
Pretty much would fail. No company is obligated to let anyone and everyone develop for their system. Especially if they aren't a licensee.
That kind of thing wouldn't work for computers would it?
Really? Seems to work plenty fine for Apple.
Re:The main reason games don't have obscene conten (Score:5, Informative)
The Japanese seem to have no trouble delivering on this...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eroge [wikipedia.org]
Re:The main reason games don't have obscene conten (Score:5, Interesting)
You Americans need to relax a little bit concerning sex. I think violence is a lot worse than sex.
It's OK for kids to see people being machinegunned into pieces, blood and flesh everywhere, but a boobie is simply too outrageous. WTF!?!
Here in Europe, most movies have nudity in them but in a Hollywood movie, if you see some boobs for a fraction of a second, it's outrageous. The leg-crossing of Sharon Stone in Fatal Instinct was deemed as the sexiest thing on cinema, but truly, it's pretty standard in European movies. Of course, in American movies and series, violence is rampant, even in family-rated stuff.
On American TV, I've seen boobs blurred out in movies, music videos, etc. I've even seen something incredible, Naomi Watts was masturbating in Mulholland Drive, but she was only filmed from the waist up, so you could only see her arm going up and down, suggesting what she was doing. They fucking blurred her arm! How stupid is this?
Re:The main reason games don't have obscene conten (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, WE KNOW.
We're waiting on the AARP crowd to die off so we can take control. There's a shit-ton of baby boomers out there, they're active and they vote.
Once they're all dead, we'll "relax" more as a country.
But yeah, I agree, I'd rather see a delicious breast than some dude get blown to pieces by a gun in a movie.
Don't kid yourself though, Europe is just as screwed up as the US is, just in slightly different ways.
Re:The main reason games don't have obscene conten (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, WE KNOW.
We're waiting on the AARP crowd to die off so we can take control. There's a shit-ton of baby boomers out there, they're active and they vote.
Once they're all dead, we'll "relax" more as a country.
I bet you don't. You'll be their age then, and I bet you'll be pretty much the same. Remember that those baby boomers were the "free love" and "turn on, tune in, drop out" generation!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Umm, do we have the same problems with rock music being characterized as devil music?
I think you'll find that was rather earlier than the baby-boomer generation.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, the problem generation is 65+.
Until two years ago, we had to wear dress shirts at work (in 95 degree weather at lunch) because of some ancient guy. The second he retired, polo shirts were finally allowed.
Sexual and racial attitudes have a very sharp line generationally currently at about the top of the baby boomer age.
Violence is a different thing-- since we grew up with it- it's cool at all age levels.
But, considering it- you do have a point, there was a ton of nudity in the 70's in films (inclu
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The boomers may have had their hippies for a brief period, but I think in reality most of them grew up with Ward and June Cleaver as role models for what's "normal" and "acceptable". By contrast, my generation grew up with Peg and Al Bundy.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
We're waiting on the AARP crowd to die off so we can take control.
Are you fucking kidding? Thats what we said when we were your age, and look at any of the movies that came out in the 70s and 80s when I was still young. Ever seen Fritz the Cat? How about Total Recall? I loved the mutant with three boobies. Terminator with Sarah fucking Kyle?
What movies have your generation produced like that? NONE. Jesus, you young punks even made HHGTG a G movie, WTF? You think boomers are on the ESRB? Quit blaming us geez
Re:The main reason games don't have obscene conten (Score:5, Funny)
What movies have your generation produced like that? NONE.
Watchmen had a faithful reproduction of the amount of sex from the book. I seem to recall there were a run of movies like Zack and Mimi and others which were even more raunchy than Total Recall. To be more to the point though, I don't think censorship is necessarily the problem here. I think that the problem is that there is very little content being produced with anyone over the age of 20 in mind. Back in the old days, kids had cartoons and they had disney movies. Now that people realized that kids are the only demographic worth catering to, that's all that's made. Don't hate the baby boomers. Don't hate the "pepsi generation". Hate all those overbearing marketing assholes who decided to prey on children with their inability to differentiate content from advertisement. Now that this is the standard operating procedure for anyone looking to make a buck, that's all you'll see anymore. Me personally, I just solve the problem by downloading kids movies, splicing in individual frames of sex scenes, and then posting them back out there for download.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Us young folks ain't censoring your generation. This isn't a generation thing. This is a regional thing. The United States is split into two (really three, but we're simplifying) cultures heavily based on region: the really-laid-back West Coast urban culture, the businesslike but still liberal East Coast urban culture, and the rural, moralistic culture of the Midwest and South. Unfortunately, somehow people from that last group seem to come to disproportionate prominence in the entertainment industry's
Re: (Score:2)
By then their AARP crowd will be dead and they'll be more "relaxed". I need to watch more British movies...
Re:The main reason games don't have obscene conten (Score:5, Interesting)
However, you can't directly compare it to violence. Explicit sex is media is frowned upon for entirely different reasons than violence. I'm not worried about my son, my daughter, or 99.9% of anybody else's kids wanting to go out and commit murder because they see it in a game. However, sex is a temptation. The kids would be weird if they DIDN'T want to go out and have sex... or lock themselves up in their bedroom and watch sex all day.
Yeah, I think it's too restrictive. I don't see anything wrong with a child seeing a breast. But in fairness, the current stigma is not because sex is considered WORSE than violence. It's considered more SEDUCTIVE than violence.
Re:The main reason games don't have obscene conten (Score:5, Informative)
I guess that openess and explanation works better than obfuscation, as always.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Kid's need to be exposed to sex and along with the good, show them the bad, like how sex will never last as long as a woman's ability to nag and spend money like it grows on trees.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is marked as interesting, but isn't this the exact line of thinking that we endlessly mock? Violence doesn't bother you because, well, no one is going to kill anyone hurr, that never happens.But OMG KIDS MIGHT WANT TO HAVE SEX THIS IS TERRIBLE WE HAVE TO STOP THEM SEEING THIS.
It's still about control then, surely. Sex is considered more 'seductive' than violence because it's not overtly illegal. Yet. You can't go out and hit/shoot/kill someone because that's against the law, so sure, let people watch p
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
That's not self censorship! (Score:2)
The lack of sex has little to do with first amendment as its pretty much all based on the self censorship the industry is doing via the ESRB.
That's only self censorship in the same sense that employer-mandated drug tests are "optional -- as long as you don't mind losing your job". Game developers censor themselves because if they didn't, their publishing opportunities would be zero thanks to console vendors and the ESRB.
Re: (Score:2)
mean while...we get the "ESRB-Experience may change during online play"
That I think is the loop hole that gaming companies want. The gaming company can't create it but I've run into enough players online that want to flaunt AO material.
I think that is great, but most gaming companies still crack down on AO fan material creation. If memory serves there was a AO guild that's stated purpose was to flaunt AO subject matter in WoW. Blizzard shut it down.
Personally I think gaming companies would be better s
Re: (Score:2)
That's true, and they're shooting themselves in the feet by doing it. This is a chance for a new undertaking that could eat Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft's lunch, by making a console that AO games would run on.
Computer games ain't only for kids any more, and actually never were. There's no valid reason why you can't have sex in a video game.
Look at the disaster Die Hard IV: Revenge of the nerds was. They made it so nothing would have to be cut for it to play on TV so as to get the "younger audience", and it
Re: (Score:2)
What evidence do you have for this untapped demand for AO games? There are AO games, porn games and Henai games which have sex and they don't sell in any kind of high numbers. Games with lots of sex seem at this point to be a niche product. What evidence do you have that there is some untapped market. As for profanity I believe M games can have profanity.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Alternatively they could cut it out for the American market and sell it as it was created in Europe, where many popular games are given the highest 18+ rating and are still sold in shops.
Re: (Score:2)
AO? Anal Orifice?
Re:The main reason games don't have obscene conten (Score:5, Insightful)
You are quite right about a chilling effect. That tells me we are doing things the hard way. Rather than censorship, I'd much rather we teach people that fictional depictions like video games can be appreciated for what they are without also being idolized and emulated. Any adult who can't understand what that means is not really an adult but an overgrown child. So I assume this must be about children. If parents are worried about their children being exposed to the more severe video games or movies or any other media, I fully support their right to act as the "benevolent dictators" that they are and control what their children have access to. However, I expect them to actually be parents instead of relying on institutional censorship to carry out their responsibility for them.
Re: (Score:2)
It boils down to this: Crusades = ok, premarital sex = da debbil.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I think this is mostly because most parents feel that their kids having sex is more likely than them becomming violent killers.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think this is mostly because most parents feel that their kids having sex is more likely than them becomming violent killers.
And they also seem to believe that the two are morally comparable.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I wouldn't say that. Its an application of expected value.
M = Lets call this immorality, with higher, positive numbers being more immoral.
P = Probability
M-total = P-sex * M-sex + P-violence * M-violence
In a lot of parents' eyes, you'd probably end up with 0 > P-violence, so you end up with P-violence * M-violence P-sex * M-sex, simply because sex is far more likely.
Along other lines, you have issues like teen pregnancy, which is far more likely to negatively impact a kids' life than violence.
Now, I don
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not even "a single breast being exposed during a Superbowl half-time show" but a single nipple. You can show much of the breast on TV and in print without being called porn. Just look at all of the bikini shots that show nearly the entire top of the model. But show one female nipple and you're in "won't someone think of the children" territory. I still haven't quite figured out how that small patch of skin on a female qualifies as obscene while the same patch of skin on a male is mundane. I keep e
Re:The main reason games don't have obscene conten (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, part of parenting is teaching your kids how to react to things that you don't usually allow. If you'd rather your kid not look at nude photos of women or play extremely violent video games, you don't just keep them out of your house and pretend that they don't exist. At some point, your child will discover them. Instead, you have a talk with them about why you consider those things bad (kids aren't too fond of "because I said so") and how to react if they should come upon something like that. It's what I do with my five year old son (and will do with my two year old son when he gets older).
Re: (Score:2)
I actually agree with you on expecting parents to be parents. However, as a parent, I have to mention that sometimes my kids stay over at other kids houses. We don't always get the ability to audit everything available in that house before they stay there.
So then don't let you kids stay at someone else's house. If you want total control, then thats what you should be doing... but instead you're going to the government to ensure your neighbor doesn't have anything objectionable to YOU.
Oh, don't see you agre
Re: (Score:2)
I'm kind of failing to see what the loss to humanity is if some commercial sex games aren't made.
I can definitely see that a game with strong sexuality can have artistic merit, that's not what this is about. On the other hand, I think most games like that would never, ever be made by anything other than an individual or small group that would make it regardless of whether it would be commercially viable.
Re:The main reason games don't have obscene conten (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm kind of failing to see what the loss to humanity is if some commercial sex games aren't made.
I can definitely see that a game with strong sexuality can have artistic merit, that's not what this is about. On the other hand, I think most games like that would never, ever be made by anything other than an individual or small group that would make it regardless of whether it would be commercially viable.
What humanity could stand to lose is the "we know what's best for you" mentality. Humanity could stand to lose that, the same way that a cancer patient could stand to lose a tumor.
Re:The main reason games don't have obscene conten (Score:4, Informative)
This applies to retailers as well, the same retailer will accept the content in a movie but not in a game. It's not just chilling, it's deadly to a game.
Re:The main reason games don't have obscene conten (Score:2)
Obscene (Score:4, Informative)
I can't remember off the top of my head what the case cite is, but the SCOTUS decided that each local has the choice of deciding for its self what is obscene and what is not.
For example, what might be obscene in Kentucky may be par for the course in California and so on.
Re:Obscene (Score:5, Informative)
That would be Miller v. California and is know as the Miller test. For something to be considered obscene, it needs to meet 3 criteria.
1. The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.
2. the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law.
3. the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
Re:Obscene (Score:5, Interesting)
2. the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law.
I've always found it kind of amusing that it's basically all about sex and pooping. Of all the forms of speech that can be censored due to being offensive, of all the activities which we can't tolerate because they're too objectionable, we've picked out sex and pooping.
Re: (Score:2)
That would be Miller v. California and is know as the Miller test. For something to be considered obscene, it needs to meet 3 criteria.
1. The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest. 2. the work depicts/describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions specifically defined by applicable state law. 3. the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
and now the Miller Test meets the Internet where my contemporary community standard is compared to San Francisco, Little Rock, New York, Houston, etc....
pretty impossible to meet any contemporary community standard now a days...unless one is aggregating the standard of the entire United States. I'm sure Hawaii will compare nicely to Dallas.
On a side note...there is only one county in Texas that restricts being topless, Brazoria, and it is a semi-recent change (about 4 years ago.) I was always proud of T
Re: (Score:2)
In that respect, the OP is not entirely correct that obscenity is just a local standard.
Re: (Score:2)
That didn't work the first [wikipedia.org] time.
Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness (Score:5, Informative)
Unless I'm mistaken, the Declaration of Independence has no legal standing.
Re: (Score:2)
No, but the Constitution does, and it says "life, LIBERTY, and property". It also gurantees you the right to free speech.
Re: (Score:2)
I know it's snark, but the Deceleration of Independence never had any standing. All it was was us thumbing our noses at King George and letting him know we were prepared to fight for our independence.
Now the Treaty of Paris [wikipedia.org] does have legal standing... But it also doesn't say anything about life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.
"Obscenity"? (Score:5, Informative)
Do keep in mind that the legal definition is really, past all the smoke and mirrors, whatever the judge personally finds distasteful. Deciding what the population doesn't need or want to view for them has no place in a free society.
Then of course, we're not a free society.
The law often makes up legal principles (usually giving them Latin names to try to make them seem magical and justified) to override other legal principles. Obscenity is a great way to override freedom of speech by taking speech, labeling it "obscenity," and then claiming that it's "not really speech." A problem with the constitution colliding with the rights of minors and school? No problem! "En loco parentis," is right up your alley (whether you agree with the concept or not). The "community standards" excuse is, even if it is applied as per the name, is a violation of individual rights which the legal system has been more than happy to sacrifice in the name of a sort of vicious populism. Why community standards in obscenity, and not political opinion? Obscenity, political opinion, all of it is simply how one takes it. Personally, I find Nazis more distasteful than goatse, but we're not at silencing them (yet...).
This also extends into the domain of politics, where wars become "police action."
Don't think freedom means a damn thing if the government gets to play with the meaning of words, or if whatever is popular reigns over individual rights.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. Except it's often clouded in some perverse "community standards" excuse, too.
Re: (Score:2)
I have often said that the actual principles of freedom and why those principles are correct is quite easy to understand. All of the mystique and the complication and the increasingly "priesthood" status of
Re: (Score:2)
Do keep in mind that the legal definition is really, past all the smoke and mirrors, whatever the jury finds distasteful.
There, fixed that for you.
This is not something that should be left in the hands of the judge.
Don't think freedom means a damn thing if the government gets to play with the meaning of words, or if whatever is popular reigns over individual rights.
They do this all the time by trying to separate the synonymous meanings of "arrest" and "detain" to sidestep the laws they've sworn to abide by.
Obligatory Tom Lehrer (Score:5, Funny)
"I do have a cause though. It is obscenity. I'm for it. Unfortunately the civil liberties types who are fighting this issue have to fight it owing to the nature of the laws as a matter of freedom of speech and stifling of free expression and so on but we know what's really involved: dirty books are fun. That's all there is to it. But you can't get up in a court and say that I suppose. It's simply a matter of freedom of pleasure, a right which is not guaranteed by the Constitution unfortunately."
(at which point he launched into this jaunty tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pva35TFiBfI [youtube.com])
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Anyone know of any court cases involving Japanese sex games? I know they get pretty obscene..
There's been a lot of talk [current.com] and grandstanding for banning games like "RapeLay" [slate.com] but I don't think there's been a court case or decree. It's pretty difficult to get a hold of through a major outlet though. And I think Japan's version of the ESRB is passing new standards [slashdot.org] preventing the publishing of games like this. No court cases on US soil regarding this title to my knowledge. From what I've read, it seems to be the most explosively controversial title out there right now.
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/manga-porn/
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Obscenity is so relative as to make its use in your sentence useless.
Demand is low (Score:2, Insightful)
Until the demand for content that is considered obscene (in current culture) allows for mass profits, the big developers will never take it on.
Re: (Score:2)
So what you're basically saying is that the big developers will never produce anything that would be deemed obscene.
If developers produce it, that means there is a large market for it. If there is a large market for it, that market doesn't view the material as obscene. Actually, when you think about it, it seems kind of ridiculous that there was such an uproar about the GTA games. They were some of the highest selling games ever made, obviously a large portion of the population didn't find them obscene.
There is good reason it hasn't happened (Score:3, Interesting)
And not just because Jack Thompson keeps failing on the civil side.
Getting video game violence declared obscene is well prevented by the movie/tv industries' efforts in the motion-picture realm. They've been working for decades to keep visual depictions of violence in the "OK for young children" realm. You can punch somebody on television and it'll be ok for anyone over the age of 8. Add some blood and it pops you up into the low teens, on par with a bit of side-boob.
The interactive aspect is too narrow a distinction for the rest of the entertainment industry to risk getting drawn in and censored, so it'll never happen until somebody comes up with a .9 r^2 correlation [wikipedia.org] between violent games and homosexuality.
beware (Score:2)
When people decide to get violence removed/banned/controlled in video games, get ready for millions of gamers to call for the same treatment of books, film, TV, and the most violent of all, the news.
Be a parent, not a fascist. Freedom is hard if you cant govern yourself, but at least you have options.
TOS clauses rule out real obscenity... (Score:2, Interesting)
TOS clauses of most ISPs rules out the distribution of genuinely obscene content. It is censorship, and in fact, many governments actually do censor this stuff as well.
I mean, if you go by the old rules of what is obscene, sex and violence, obviously, that's not too bad these days and won't get you into trouble. But if you put together a cartoon swastika game for children that features a character running around tossing minorities into concentration camps where you can dehumanize, torture and exterminate
"Thanks to" (Score:2)
ftfy
Topic is on Tonight on Penn & Teller with Thom (Score:2, Informative)
Probably only in the US... (Score:2, Insightful)
Integrating sex into gameplay (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that sex in games usually doesn't provide good gameplay. If you just want to watch porn, that's easily available. Besides, simulated porn doesn't look that good.
That said, the big flap about the "hot coffee" scene in GTA was sort of silly. The GTA world ought to have sex in it. In fact, it's inconsistent that a game with strippers and hookers doesn't have sex in it. There's so much unrealized potential there, for seduction, power games, devious girlfriends - all the basic male/female drama elements.
The key is integrating sex into gameplay without having the sex dominate the game. That's a design challenge. It's not impossible. Second Life has sex, but it's not primarily a sex-oriented MMORPG. What we need are R-rated video games, dramas where sex plays a role in the plot. That could be fun.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Hm. And, while we're on it, there's nothing wrong with me setting up in public and warning people about how awful homosexuals are, is there? After all, it's free speech. It's not even obscene. Oh, wait, you call that "hate" speech and have decided that "hate" is wrong, whereas "immorality" or "obscenity" is not, thus you want free obscenity and bridled hate.
That is in fact perfectly legal. The Westboro Baptist Church has become famous for doing exactly that, in contexts where it's generally considered to be in very poor taste (such as funerals for fallen soldiers). The point where it becomes illegal is when you start telling people to beat up gay people.
Re:Isn't it about PUBLIC obscenity? (Score:4, Informative)
Hm. And, while we're on it, there's nothing wrong with me setting up in public and warning people about how awful homosexuals are, is there? After all, it's free speech. It's not even obscene. Oh, wait, you call that "hate" speech and have decided that "hate" is wrong, whereas "immorality" or "obscenity" is not, thus you want free obscenity and bridled hate.
You have failed: It's only hate speech if you say "The Queers are ruining the soil, and we should do something about them." It's still legal to say that the Queers are ruining the soil to make landing strips for Gay Martians... unless you're actually harming someone. Actually, it has to be a direct incitement to violence to even be prosecutable in most cases; a sort of vague, general "someone should do something about those damned queers" is usually not actionable, even if you find it objectionable.
Anyway, libel, defamation and slander are illegal, so if you want to put up a stand and hand out pamphlets that tell lies about fags, it's against the law. However, it's against the law for them to put up a stand and tell lies about you... under the same laws.
Re: (Score:2)
Anyway, libel, defamation and slander are illegal, so if you want to put up a stand and hand out pamphlets that tell lies about fags, it's against the law. However, it's against the law for them to put up a stand and tell lies about you... under the same laws.
Not quite right. Libel, defamation, and slander aren't illegal, they're just a cause of action in a civil suit. The police won't arrest you for saying "drinkypoo 153816 is a big fat idiot". All that can happen to you is that drinkypoo can sue you into the ground (and in the case of a public figure like Rush Limbaugh, they'll lose the lawsuit as well).
Re: (Score:2)
You have failed: It's only hate speech if you say "The Queers are ruining the soil, and we should do something about them."
Now IANAL, but I believe in the US, that is still protected speech.
Actually, it has to be a direct incitement to violence to even be prosecutable in most cases; a sort of vague, general "someone should do something about those damned queers" is usually not actionable, even if you find it objectionable.
Speech, of that nature, can only be deemed illegal if it passes the Bandenburg Test [wikipedia.org]. The speech must be, "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."
If fact, I think it would be legal to say something like: "We should kill all the gays." But, it would be illegal to say something like: "We should kill him [pointing to gay guy in the crowd], right now." Even then, for the speech to
Re: (Score:2)
In any case, those on their moral high horses should probably clean up their own backyards. You are all for going out and speaking out on the immorality of gays, but why aren't you out speaking about the immorality of cheating on your wife? It's extremely hypocritical. You are all for putting the people
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
You thought wrong. As U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan said after putting a California couple in a cage for selling dirty pictures, "These prison sentences affirm the need to continue to protect the public from obscene, lewd, lascivious or filthy material, the production of which degrades all of us." [unreasonable.org] Obscenity laws are based on the insane notion that the mere existence of dirty pictures is harmful.
Re:BF Skinner was right (Score:5, Interesting)
Skinnerian radical behaviorism has all but been completely thrown out the window in modern psychology. These days, cognitive psychology is all the rage. Even more modern post-Skinnerian behaviorists like Tolman [wikipedia.org] had began thinking along more cognitive lines.
Thing is that I, along with many others, including my wife who self-identifies as a bevaviorist, believe that Skinnerian radical behaviorism is far too simplistic a view and that with advances in modern technology we have to look beyond simple operant conditioning as causes of human behavior, because at this point, quite frankly, we can.
Re: (Score:2)
I think Skinner was an idiot. If what you say were true, society would be becoming more violent, but it's not - it's far less violent than it used to be. How many people were burned at the stake in your neighborhood last year? How many were lynched? At least in Europe and the Americas (where people have the money to play these games) we're downright serene compared to ages past.
Read a little history.
Errata (Score:2)
Ok, I as usual did not see some errors in the preview, but noticed them right after clicking submit.
1. I should not have used the aggressive tone of "bible thumpers" in the first sentence. If was a bad start. I meant people who strongly believe in their religious rules (which include that view about obscenity), wherever they may come from. I hope you can forgive me, as I respect every person.
2. I should not have used the evil word of "bing" in the seventh sentence. It was a bad pothole. I meant the search e
Re: (Score:2)
First of all, traditional Christianity already took care of the "everyone's a sinner" thing. (If you want to talk about making them feel like dirty rotten sinners, perhaps you have a point, because people tend to think THEIR sins aren't that big a deal.) Some branches of Christianity might be guilty of using sin/guilt to maintain control of their adherents, but don't assume that all of them are like that.
Secondly, sex isn't bad or forbidden. It's good and entirely encouraged within marriage. The basis for t
Re: (Score:2)
What I find obscene may be right up someone else's alley.
You'd be surprised what happens in alleys.