Clinton pandering to the religious right
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IllegalArgument
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Funny thing, is that another PS2 title, "God of War", has nudity in the gameplay and the cutscenes. It also has a mini-sex game, though you can't see anything. Nobody has made a peep about it.
GTA has been the poster child for "evil" games for years.
Actually, San Andreas is the only GTA game I have finished, it's much better than the earlier ones.
GTA has been the poster child for "evil" games for years.
Actually, San Andreas is the only GTA game I have finished, it's much better than the earlier ones.
UserGoogol
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To be fair, the M rating is supposed to be equivalent to an R rating, not an NC-17 rating. If this content had been known by the ESRB, they would have probably rated the game AO. (Which is also the rating they would give to Japan's infamous H-games and the like.) And the policy of not selling M games to people under seventeen is not official ESRB policy, but is insted something which some stores decide on their own.
I still think this is lame, but that's an important clarification to make.
I still think this is lame, but that's an important clarification to make.
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
I'm glad that all of New York's problems have been solved already so that Clinton can concentrate her energies on this.
Help me understand what's going on here, please. Assume (safely 
) that I know exactly jack squat about game programming or modding or anything else besides how to install and play a video game.
What does this mod do? Were the explicit scenes already written into the game by the programmers and the mod simply makes it possible to see them (or play them, or whatever?). Or does the mod actually access the game engine and write these sequences? How much work is involved in creating a mod. How much in installing a mod created by others? How does one become aware of the existence of a particular mod? Can these mods do pretty much anything to a game? Does the mod, once installed, have to go searching on the internet for information or does downloading and installing the mod do the trick? I'm totally in the dark here, as I imagine a lot of parents are.
) that I know exactly jack squat about game programming or modding or anything else besides how to install and play a video game.What does this mod do? Were the explicit scenes already written into the game by the programmers and the mod simply makes it possible to see them (or play them, or whatever?). Or does the mod actually access the game engine and write these sequences? How much work is involved in creating a mod. How much in installing a mod created by others? How does one become aware of the existence of a particular mod? Can these mods do pretty much anything to a game? Does the mod, once installed, have to go searching on the internet for information or does downloading and installing the mod do the trick? I'm totally in the dark here, as I imagine a lot of parents are.
IllegalArgument
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manny said:Help me understand what's going on here, please. Assume (safely
What does this mod do? Were the explicit scenes already written into the game by the programmers and the mod simply makes it possible to see them (or play them, or whatever?). Or does the mod actually access the game engine and write these sequences? How much work is involved in creating a mod. How much in installing a mod created by others? How does one become aware of the existence of a particular mod? Can these mods do pretty much anything to a game? Does the mod, once installed, have to go searching on the internet for information or does downloading and installing the mod do the trick? I'm totally in the dark here, as I imagine a lot of parents are.
Let me try and explain it this way. Image you have a DVD, there is a hidden chapter on the DVD with explict sex scenes. Normally, you can't see the chapter, it's not listed, you can't fast forward to it, but if you use a special software or copy the DVD to your computer and alter the code, then you can see the chapter.
Basically, the sex game was a hidden chapter, all the scenes were there but you couldn't access them. Someone figured out how to get access to them.
I hope that made sense.
It did, thanks. So like an easter egg, but requiring outside assistance to get to it? A couple more questions, please.
The guys who find these things, how do they go about it? Do they have to pore through millions of lines of code, or do they naturally know where to look or does the game manufacturer leak it (or get it stolen from them) or what?
What's in this for the game manufacturer? Do they always even know about these things? (Is it true that MSFT honchos didn't know about the game easter-egg in Excel?).
The guys who find these things, how do they go about it? Do they have to pore through millions of lines of code, or do they naturally know where to look or does the game manufacturer leak it (or get it stolen from them) or what?
What's in this for the game manufacturer? Do they always even know about these things? (Is it true that MSFT honchos didn't know about the game easter-egg in Excel?).
IllegalArgument
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Easter eggs are usually smaller than mods, so easier to slip by.
Someone could have had inside knowledge, or found the animations that make up the sex game by looking over the graphic files. Once, they knew there's a game in the game, they probably hunted down the startup commands.
Pure guess work at the point, I don't do this kind of programming.
You definately could think of this as a special kind of easter egg, the naughty kind.
Someone could have had inside knowledge, or found the animations that make up the sex game by looking over the graphic files. Once, they knew there's a game in the game, they probably hunted down the startup commands.
Pure guess work at the point, I don't do this kind of programming.
You definately could think of this as a special kind of easter egg, the naughty kind.
This mod in particular only unlocks routines that were in the game already, but that the game maker decided to lock before the release, so that people wouldn't be able to use them.manny said:
Depends on what game it's for. Some games, such as Half Life, are extremely friendly to mods. They allow programers to create a whole new game based on the HL engine. They distribute what is called an SDK which contains all the information (and even tools) you need to modify the game. Other games are less mod friendly, the most you can do is change the textures. So for instance the characters, instead of being clothed, are all naked. This is more of a case of some of the visual files the game uses being accessible to the user. Other games are completely mod unfriendly. All files are in propietary formats, the game maker doesn't tell you how or condone anyone modifying their game. For these games, some modding can still be done, but it's hard and the results won't be very spectacular.
Depends. Some mods it's as easy as download file, double click.
You follow the conversations of message boards relatd to the game in question. If a game is easy to mod, a whole mod community will sprout, with websites, boards and guides dedicated to it.
Depends, see above.
Depends, most mods are self contained, you download one file (which could be huge, as large as the game itself) and that's it. Others are a bit more complex, and can download only files you need. But in general a mod won't need to download anything else.
In that case I won't tell you about some of the stuff that's available out there. You might just throw your computer out the window.
Grammatron
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manny said:
It could be a combination of a leak and someone with way too much time on their hand.
Or maybe someone was trying to see what else they can do in the game and found the texture for a nude female model, and having never seen that aspect in game they played completely they tried to find it and stumbled onto other stuff they were not meant to see.
I wouldn't compare it to an easter egg -- unless it can be shown it was mean to be there for people to find it -- since easter eggs are meant to be found, this seems like left over code that was not meant to be seen.
That's helpful, too. Thanks.Grammatron said:
I guess where I'm going here is this: If the game manufacturers are shipping this stuff with content they're not disclosing AND if they're doing so with the expectation (or even hope) that the undisclosed content will soon be freely available to the kiddie end-users without mom knowing, then I think gaining the FTC's opinion on that is appropriate here. Disclosure of material facts about a product is an important element of informed consumer choice. If, on the other hand, it's code that got hidden during the gamemaking process and the gamemaker just never bothered to remove it because they thought it would be near-impossible to get at then I think Sen. Clinton is overreacting.
To be able to tell you which of these two options the mod is, it would require someone downloading the mode and seeing exactly what changes are made to it. What I can tell you is that it is a ~1MB archive, and that applying it completely replaces two files in the scripting engine of the game. Without owning the game and doing a side by side comparison of the original and modified files I can't tell you if the game studio expected the game to be modded in this particular way or not. Maybe Hillary will tell us if she had someone do this comparison.manny said:
A megabyte! Holy moly, that's bigger than my whole computer used to be. Guess GTA ain't exactly Zork for C/PM, is it?
That sounds a lot more like "someone with way too much free time" than "the company leaked some code."
It'll be interesting to see how Sen. Clinton handles this.
That sounds a lot more like "someone with way too much free time" than "the company leaked some code."
It'll be interesting to see how Sen. Clinton handles this.
A MB in the age of broadband and games that span several CDs is nothingmanny said:
But the fact that the mod includes the two complete files suggests to me that there are quite a bit changes made to the files. If it was a matter of changing a couple of bits around, there are probably better ways to do that.I actually agree with Clinton here. It is one thing if somebody created an independent program that alters the game and allows nudity in it. That would hardly be the game company's fault.
But if you ship a game WITH the nude scenes/game in it, not telling anybody officially but knowing full well that it would be a matter of days at most until somebody will "discover" it, then you are in the same moral position of somebody who ships a "Seasame Street" DVD with a "hidden" porn movie in it, knowing full well that people will look for and find it.
What we have here is a case of deception by the producer. They know that having X-rated scenes in their game will boost the interest in it, while they also know that giving their game an AO-rating would limit sales as most gamers are teenagers. So what do they do? They put the sex scenes in, don't tell anybody, get an M-rating, and a week later, all the teenagers who bought it now have a AO game after a couple of minutes of searching.
This is not a matter of fighting sexuality, it's a matter of deceptive marketing.
BTW, speaking of nudity and adult topics, how's this for a "Hillary in '08" slogan? "100% Clinton Brains--Without the Penis!"
But if you ship a game WITH the nude scenes/game in it, not telling anybody officially but knowing full well that it would be a matter of days at most until somebody will "discover" it, then you are in the same moral position of somebody who ships a "Seasame Street" DVD with a "hidden" porn movie in it, knowing full well that people will look for and find it.
What we have here is a case of deception by the producer. They know that having X-rated scenes in their game will boost the interest in it, while they also know that giving their game an AO-rating would limit sales as most gamers are teenagers. So what do they do? They put the sex scenes in, don't tell anybody, get an M-rating, and a week later, all the teenagers who bought it now have a AO game after a couple of minutes of searching.
This is not a matter of fighting sexuality, it's a matter of deceptive marketing.
BTW, speaking of nudity and adult topics, how's this for a "Hillary in '08" slogan? "100% Clinton Brains--Without the Penis!"
a_unique_person
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
Donks said:
That's not pandering to the religious right, that's pandering to parents.
Politicians in Australia have been sucking up to Hillsong, and it sickens me.
Cleon
King of the Pod People
Skeptic said:
Well, except that Sesame Street is marketed to children, and GTA already has incredibly adult content. For example: in the last two installments, and I assume in this one as well, you can steal a car, pull over, honk your horn at a hooker, and she will get in your car. Next thing you see is the car rocking, you're short some cash, and she gets out and starts to walk away--at which point, if you so desire, you can get out, beat or shoot her, and take your money back.
This game has its rating for a reason. It's hardly "Sesame Street."
