Topic: What are some things that should have set off a storm but didn't?

[Shaymin]

Someone I know pointed out that the whole Hot Coffee fiasco broke about 5 years ago, and it got me wondering - is there something you can think of in gaming that should have set off a massive storm of controversy?

Two examples I can think of, one Nintendo and one not:
Nintendo
Pokemon Diamond/Pearl - The existence of Arceus
It's bad enough that Pokemon prominently features evolution, but then you have to go and create something that has the highest overall stat total in history, appears in a place called the "Hall of Origin" and has a move called Judgment? And left enough hints about the creation myth of the region that a six-year old could fill in the blanks?

It's a million-selling series, but it's obviously been a long time since everyone and their magician brother-in-law decided to get their panties in a bunch over it. Still, I can't help but wonder if the only thing saving Nintendo from a boycott was the fact that it was made inaccessible aside from an event item that to this point, has never been released.

Non-Nintendo
Persona 3 - The Evoker
Relevant quote on the subject: "The game's most iconic feature is the method by which the members of SEES release their Personas: by firing a gun-like object called an Evoker at their head" (Wikipedia, "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3", accessed 8/30/10)

You're summoning a demonic creature by shooting yourself in the head? And nobody had a problem with this? Didn't Ozzy Osbourne get dragged into court over "Suicide Solution"? Or was it because it was a Persona game released by Atlus, who don't have the marketing reach of a Rockstar, so nobody noticed?

[TheBlackCat]

Four words: "Touch Fuzzy Get Dizzy"

[stevey]

Someone I know pointed out that the whole Hot Coffee fiasco broke about 5 years ago, and it got me wondering - is there something you can think of in gaming that should have set off a massive storm of controversy?

Nintendo
Pokemon Diamond/Pearl - The existence of Arceus
It's bad enough that Pokemon prominently features evolution, but then you have to go and create something that has the highest overall stat total in history, appears in a place called the "Hall of Origin" and has a move called Judgment? And left enough hints about the creation myth of the region that a six-year old could fill in the blanks?

It's a work of fiction, in a fictional world, with fictional animals that can't not possibly ever exist in any shape or form as they are depicted, that do not obey any laws of science, or have any accuracy to it at all. What's wrong with having a god like Pokemon or Pegan back story as long as they're not telling people/kids to start worshiping it as a new religion or that any of it's real. Writing fiction with vague references to other works to give it a false sense of it being DEEP is one of the oldest hats in writing.

Non-Nintendo
Persona 3 - The Evoker
Relevant quote on the subject: "The game's most iconic feature is the method by which the members of SEES release their Personas: by firing a gun-like object called an Evoker at their head" (Wikipedia, "Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3", accessed 8/30/10)

You're summoning a demonic creature by shooting yourself in the head? And nobody had a problem with this? Didn't Ozzy Osbourne get dragged into court over "Suicide Solution"? Or was it because it was a Persona game released by Atlus, who don't have the marketing reach of a Rockstar, so nobody noticed?

It's not advocating suicide since they are not killing themselves (or advocating it because they're sick of life or related). Blood summonings and human/life sacrifices to conjure demons/spirits is extremely common in many cultures/religions mythologies around in the world; it's nothing new or socking. Furthermore, it's a M rated game not marketed to kids and not very interesting to them anyway so there's nothing to worry about kids copying it...

[Shorty McNostril]

Four words: "Touch Fuzzy Get Dizzy"

LOL. 

I actually very much enjoyed that level.  Sure, drove me skitzo the first few hundred thousand times, but now I have a bawl with it. 

[Morari]

Nothing should set off controversy. It's good that every little thing doesn't kick up a shitstorm of whiners. People need to stop being so sensitive, forcing their skewed morals upon others. This is especially true for Americans. Genocide is okay, but sex and foul language will guarantee you a ticket to Hell? Please, let's leave the these ideas where they belong... in the past, with the Inquisition and Crusades.

[Dirk Temporo]

Everybody was all blah blah blah about the Hot Coffee stuff, and then God of War came out with interactive sex scenes in the MAIN GAME and nobody complained.

wtf

[Ian Sane]

Something only creates a storm if the concerned parents types notice it.  Persona 3 is incredibly obscure.  No one is going to notice their kid playing it and go "what!?" because their kid isn't playing that game.  Their kid IS playing GTA so it gets noticed.  When hot coffee happened GTA was already under the microscope.  The watchdogs were just waiting for GTA to slip up and when it did we heard about it.

Back in the day there were other violent games aside from Mortal Kombat and Doom but those games were really popular so kids were playing them and their parents noticed.  That's what causes a stir.  Remember that these watchdog types usually aren't doing proper research so you can't expect them to notice everything or even get anything correct.  Night Trap's controversy was such that it seemed likely that no one complaining about it had ever even seen footage of it and were freaking out because of rumours.

[TJ Spyke]

I never got the controversy about Hot Coffee anyways. There was no nudity or sex. It was just dry humping basically, something you can see in PG-13 movies.

[broodwars]

Alright, how about Record of Agarest War for the PS3/360 when it comes to setting off surprisingly little controversy?  Apparently, the game itself is rather tame, but there's a lot of "naughty" (to use their own words) sexual inuendo in the marketing.  Hell, the special edition for the 360 even came with a mouse pad designed after one of the characters' chest.  Thankfully, almost no one bought the game so it never became popular enough to become an issue.

[vudu]

Pokemon Diamond/Pearl - The existence of Arceus
It's bad enough that Pokemon prominently features evolution, but then you have to go and create something that has the highest overall stat total in history, appears in a place called the "Hall of Origin" and has a move called Judgment? And left enough hints about the creation myth of the region that a six-year old could fill in the blanks?

I would think that Jynx would have rubbed people the wrong way more than any other Pokemon.

[Ian Sane]

I never got the controversy about Hot Coffee anyways. There was no nudity or sex. It was just dry humping basically, something you can see in PG-13 movies.

Look at it from the perspective of the watchdogs.  In their minds Rockstar hid sex in the game.  If you don't identify with that just replace sex in your mind with something you would find very offensive and would not want your kids to see.  And of course we know they didn't hide it in the game but if you're not quite so familiar with videogames or computers or how programming works it might seem that way to you.  If Ford hid a swastika in the engine of my car I might assume they put it there on purpose since I don't really know much about auto mechanics.  So you found something in your kid's videogame that you would not like your kid to see and it looks like the manufacturers of the game HID it in their for your child to find, you might be pissed off about that.  I really think the fact that it looks like they hid it on purpose is what is so offensive.
 
It can be hard sometimes to understand the viewpoint of someone that just does not gel with your viewpoint at all.  I've met people who think that dancing is evil.  Not bumping and grinding but just tapping your foot by yourself in time with music is as wrong and sinful as I would think punching someone in the face is.  It's really hard to understand that.  But if I think about something I do consider seriously wrong, if someone was trying to get my kid into that it would really bother me.
 
Hot coffee would not bug me (I wouldn't want my kid playing GTA anyway because of the violent content) but if some sort of government propaganda was "hidden" in a game, that would bother me a lot.  It's all context I suppose.  Don't think of the specifics but rather the idea of a videogame company hiding something in a game you don't want your kids to see.

[TJ Spyke]

It's not like kids could just find it anyways. The only way to access it was to download a fan-mad patch for the PC version or using a cheating device for the PS2 version.

It's just hard for me to get upset. I wouldn't be a lazy parent like the majority of parents who complain about games, they just use games as a babysitter. I wouldn't let my kids play M rated games and I wouldn't let them play something unless I knew about it. Any parent who doesn't at least know what their kids are playing in their ass are usually lazy or irresponsible. I also think video game companies should be allowed to do anything they want (well, maybe not have child porn in their game). Parents these days should just monitor what their kids play and watch rather than try to turn this into communist country by trying to tell the rest of us what we can play or watch.

[Shaymin]

I would think that Jynx would have rubbed people the wrong way more than any other Pokemon.

They changed Jynx starting with the GBC games releasing in North America because someone did complain. It also got an episode of the anime banned.

[ThePerm]

i remember when I was trying to make levels for GTA 3 on the Pc, rather unsuccessfully as I got nowhere. Anyway, the only place that i got was I downloaded a program that let me unwad the textures and menu graphics in the game. This was pointless too, but what was interesting was they had left a lot of uneeded **** in the pc version of the game. Like there was a controller setup menu from the playstation 2 version of the game which didn't need to waste disc space because its the fricken PC version. Also, there is all sortsd of things left in Nintendo games like the arwing in the beta version of Ocarina of time. Only accessible by gameshark. The question though is..why is it still in the game? n64 cart space is pretty damned precious.

[Mop it up]

I think BMX XXX could have potentially caused some problems if people like Jack Thompson (or whoever that anti-videogame advocate is) caught word of it. If it were advertised, and if it sold a good amount of copies, I'm sure it would have sparked some controversy. Fortunately, it quietly faded away.

[MoronSonOfBoron]

What about Postal?  Supposedly that was legendary enough to get a movie deal recently, but to be honest I never heard much about the game other than that it was chock-full of juvenilia.

[TJ Spyke]

I never heard of Postal until Postal 2 came out and was getting a lot of negative attention because the developer was putting in controversial stuff solely for the sake of getting the publicity.

[oohhboy]

Postal 2 wasn't remotely controversial, more comedy in a game form. It's quite possible to play the game entirely without killing a singe living thing. It's just that 99.999999% or players will quite happily murder their way through their objectives, including me because it was hilarious.

People do die, but you can choose not to join the mayhem. It's immature, offensive, but it doesn't give a damn.

[ThePerm]

yeah Postal was something Uwe Boll couldn't even **** up