ESRB is Run by Mindless Androids

--- THIS BLOG HAS BEEN ABANDONED. OUR NEW HOME IS: THE WEASEL SOAP BOX ---

Ah yes, and here children we have another shining example of pure all-round American idiocy at its best:
San Andreas rated AO, Take-Two Suspends Production.

Porn Patch forces Grand Theft Auto rewrite

EDIT: So, now they're calling it a "porn" patch? Wow, how utterly ignorant! But, fortunately, I did chew them out on that. I sent a nice short letter to the editor of the Toronto Star, expressing similar views that I had expressed here earlier. Below is the letter I wrote to the editor. Hopefully I might finally get one published in the newspaper, even if it is a slightly scathing rant. (9:30am)

A 'patch' usually implies official status with the game. In the case of the article pertaining to the controversial mod that had been developed by a third part, which is against the EULA, (not mentined therein), the end user was exploiting code that was there and not removed because in later stages of game development, programmers leave in code to protect the rest. By removing large chunks of code, the rest of the program becomes prime season for bugs, and delaying the release. This is why they locked the code. The fact that a hacker exploited the code is not the responsibility of Rockstar. This third party violated the EULA, and therefore, since Rockstar never intended for it to be public and didn't wish to corrupt its code and send the code back to development. Further, the actual mod itself corrupts game files and when in use, the scene is hardly pornographic. The sex-scene (available with the hot coffee mod) is nearlY fully-clothed, and only a view of the girlfriend's chest.

Question: how many of these censors actually saw the hot coffee mod in use?

And, for your amusement, a slightly less scathing ranting about the same thing at another blog. This one is probably better informed than mine and less rampant with blow-out-my-ass opinion.

GTA:SA Controversy

ORIGINAL: I'm no fan of Grand Theft Auto, let alone its newest incarnation of San Andreas, but I really hate censorship of any material on any level (short of censorship of scathing blatant racism/sexism/discrimination - that's just an excuse to be malicious using entrenched rights). And this frankly pushes their lack thereof common sense over the edge of fantasitical existance into the nothingness of oblivion.

The game in its purest form - fill to the rim to boot with mindless violence, carjacking, and illegal use of sex trade workers and the killing of police and public officials only earned the game an M rating. But yet, an inaccessible part of the code without the Hot Coffee mod, in which their is a minigame involving nearly full-clothed sex is enough to push the rating over to AO. That makes absolutely zero sense. Then again, there is a vague chance than a child might see a pair of uncovered titties - oh dear heaven, no! Will someone think of the children!

This is nothing short of a victory for the under-qualified parents of America who are too damn lazy to bother to try with some real parenting. They'd rather put a scapegoat in the spotlight to sugarcoat their incompetancies and severe short-comings.

This is also a victory for the Bible-thumping cognitive-process-deprived "sheep" aka Christians, who while prefer to preach to the populance about how they're going to hell, proceed to break every rule in the book. In their prefect world, the only thing rated AO is their precious (piece of crap; irrelevant 'doctrine') bible, but even then, it retains it's G rating as every has to read it. Last I checked, there were plenty of parts that were extremely unacceptable by ERSB standards for young children, especially in the Old Testament.

Further, if you read, you'll also realise that the so-called democrats have jumped aboard this momentum gathering bandwagon of ignorance; notably the lovely New York senator - Hilary Rotham-Clinton. Her case against this is that GTA:SA is just as bad as alcohol and fags for children. Wow - such tripe! I'm impressed, Clinton - are you a closet Republicrap by chance because you certainly have the leanings for it, just like every self-hating Democrat that exists now; like every damn fucking spineless Democrat that is keeling over for that damn chimp!

It seems that Clinton has decided that it is now open season on all violent video games. Wow, I wonder which one's next? One of those WWII games? They've got plenty of violence; hell, those games are nothing BUT violence. GTA:SA has missions in which you can avoid killing people; you don't have to use the prostitutes (who aren't roaming the game at a time a dozen). And as much as the cut-scenes were boring, there were plenty. I wonder if any of these people took the time to actually look at them...

Now we come to the losers, the first of which is Rockstar.

Unless one is totally deprived of any thought process, they'd realise that late in the development of the game, the removing of code is often a trying issue. By removing large segments of code, the program may become ripe with bugs. Fixing those bugs can massively delay release on a game that is otherwise in prime condition for public release, which is why Rockstar locked that section of their code.

The EULA makes it clear that third party modifications to the game itself makes the game impure and no longer the same version as the pure unmodified retail one. So, when the hot coffee mod was developed and released, the hacker who developed it was in clear violation of the EULA. Irregardless of whether or not Rockstar left the code in, the code is unplayable without the mod that corrupts saved files (given the player has failed to back up his/her saved games).

Next - to the Republicraps, capitalism is an important concept. They've stabbed their best friend in the back. Capitalism - aka retail - as taken a severe blow by the change in rating. They're going to have to (at least the major retail chain stores) pull the game from the shelf, but yet, if it had retained its M rating, it'd be sitting right next to all the lower rated games; explain that one to me. Seems inappropriate to leave it in a section where young eyes may gaze longingly upon and whine and bitch about a mod that then exploits part of a code that isn't actually utilized in the first place.

Stay tuned for tomorrow's rant.