Topic: Is the Wii more Violent then traditonal consoles?

[that Baby guy]

What Carmine said.

Anyways, people need to realize, which most do not, is that the ESRB ratings are very comparable to movie ratings.  Giving something an "AO" rating would indeed be censoring it by pressure, and that rating is reserved for very extreme things.  In fact, I believe BMX XXX received only an "M," right?

The issue won't be the ratings, it'll be popular reception of the game, which, I think won't be too bad, considering no one is upset about boxing being rated "E," even though it could be used to train kids to beat each other up.  Seriously, you practice beating up caricatures of people you know.  It doesn't get too much more realistic than that, and no one cared.

[Ian Sane]

"Now that we know the games are coming, everyone stops and says 'Oh no! These game are too mature with the Wii controller! Let's slap an AO rating on the games and keep everyone from getting to play it!'"

I honestly don't care about the content itself.  I just want the videogame industry to do a good job of covering their ass so that the government doesn't step in and ruin videogaming for everyone.  'AO' is very rare rating and I disagree with GTA: San Andreas getting it because the objectionable content was only available by hacking the game and was pretty tame or at least nothing that was beyond an 'M' rating.  I only suggest Manhunt as a potential 'AO' rating because with the gruesome content and motion controls it could come across as the closest thing to a "murder simulator" we could get.  If the anti-gaming movement went insane over Hot Coffee, which really was a pretty minor thing to cause a moral panic, think how they'll react if the snuff movie game with realistic motion control comes out with the possibility of stores selling it to minors?

Rockstar's whole thing is making controversial games that usually glorify illegal activity.  It seems to be a successful strategy for them but it brings all this sh!t on the industry as a whole.  Legitimate game artists should be able to use the current freedom to create mature content but someone like Rockstar abuses that freedom and thus jeopardizes things for everyone else if they piss off enough people with government connections.  So taking one of their more exploitive games and giving it an 'AO' rating may be what's best for the industry as a whole.  Rockstar can still make their game and anyone over 18 can still buy it (and let's face it even if the game isn't at Wal-Mart several minors will likely be able to get ahold of it anyway.  After all it would still be available online.)  Meanwhile though Jack Thompson loses some of his ammunition.

Manhunt is a rare game anyway.  Few games have content that shocking so it's not like I'm suggesting that tons of future 'M' games should be given 'AO' ratings instead.

The "explicit lyrics" sticker in the music industry can limit what stores an album appears in but the alternative was outright censorship.  Yeah if I make a record that says "f*ck" all throughout it I am limited in what stores will carry it which in a way is a form of censorship.  But at least I can still make the record I want to.

[Smoke39]

People only freaked out over hot coffee because 1: people are horrified by sex and 2: I don't think most people really understood what it took to enable it or just how explicit it was.

People only care about violent games when some nut goes on a killing spree, in which case they vilify whatever games happened to be in the nut's possession for a little while then get distracted by other meaningless news and forget about it.

[BlackNMild2k1]

One thing you guys have to remember is that America glorifies violence and is ashamed of sex.
Movies can show all kinds of violence down to the goriest of details as long as it not rape (cause thats sexual), but anything involving sex is what gets censored the most.

Show penetration..... AO
close up of genitals that everyone has one or the other of..... AO

Decapitate a human with a rusty spoon..... R
Puree someone in a giant blender and drink the results..... R

I believe that as long as the game gets an M rating on PS2, it'll get the same rating on the Wii.
But it should also have the rating restictions more heavily enforced (for the Wii version) at the point of sale and store clerks should definately inform parents of what they are purchasing for their kids beforehand.

There are way too many kids growing up nowadays that are just too desensitized to violence, and acting out some of these motion with the wiimote may trigger some real-life curiosities that may have never been triggered otherwise. I just think its good for everyone to cover their own asses like Ian said.  

[Kairon]

Thankfully, I think that Gamestop fires any employees found selling M-rated games to minors now.

*remembers whistfully dragging my Mom with me when I bought Conker's Bad Fur Day for the N64, and the cashier glancing at her cautiously as he took my money*