Although you may have elected to abandon the discussion one point I think that's missed when these talks come up is that freedom cuts both ways. You may not be doing this but I find it an increasingly irritating trend among creative people that they demand both freedom of expression and freedom from consequences. If you want to be a rock star that spits in the public eye, great. But have the balls to face the public response!

I'm of the mindset that offensive art should at least aspire to be transformative. If, on the other hand, you're pissing people off just to piss them off, bully for you. Have fun. But don't whine when they close ranks and use their freedom of expression to boycott you, boost your game's ratings to AO and otherwise make it difficult for you to implant your memes in their children.

There are many shameful examples of suppression of artistic freedom that harm societies the world over. Videogames are not one of them.

Quote:

Original post by Wavinator Although you may have elected to abandon the discussion one point I think that's missed when these talks come up is that freedom cuts both ways. You may not be doing this but I find it an increasingly irritating trend among creative people that they demand both freedom of expression and freedom from consequences. If you want to be a rock star that spits in the public eye, great. But have the balls to face the public response! I'm of the mindset that offensive art should at least aspire to be transformative. If, on the other hand, you're pissing people off just to piss them off, bully for you. Have fun. But don't whine when they close ranks and use their freedom of expression to boycott you, boost your game's ratings to AO and otherwise make it difficult for you to implant your memes in their children. There are many shameful examples of suppression of artistic freedom that harm societies the world over. Videogames are not one of them.

QFT. Beautifully put.

Those ESRB rateings are voluntary. Meaning developers don't have to go through the process of getting a rateing. However most point of sale retail shops won't deal with unrated games, and even then they can be reluctent to deal with "M" rated games (thier freedom of expression as well). Then there are the limits imposed by publishing on console systems. As well as the publishers themselves...And even the fraternity of game developers who may protest your game as well, or at least publicly throw scorn its way.

So you are John Doe at some cool, hip, edgy game development studio. and you want to explore artistic freedom...make something that will oh so easily attract negative attention from those "politicaly correct" types, knowing that there are tons of people out there curious enough to want to try your game because of it. So you set out to make some vampid piece of filth..."race war 3000" or some such nonsense, amping it up with forced rape scenes useing the main heros machette shaped penis that can slice victoms in two.

You think this could be a huge hit if given the AAA treatment. So you have to get the rest of the development studio and a publisher on board, figure a way to get it on all the latest consoles, past the ESRB board so the big retailers might carry it...Run it through all those filters, and your artistic vision is bound to be compromised heavily. And this is before it even reaches all those "politicaly correct" customers you were seeking to piss off in the first place.

Conversely, you could try to retain your vision. Find the tiny handful of development persons willing to work on the project, convince one of those microscopic publishers who dump such games on the market to help fund yours. Forget about the ESRB and big retailers and go the direct route through such publishers mail order systems and/or online only in some dark corner of the internet. And have the game be so off the radar of the "politicaly correct" customers you wish to piss off - wont be a AAA game, but your artistic vision will be protected...you wont be a "sell out"...You have that option.

Nowhere is it said your artistic vision deserves the AAA treatment and to sit high and mighty on retailers shelves. You want to go that route, you may well have to compromise. period.


But then I am of the opinion "politicaly correct" is but the flip side to the race card. Overplayied as equaly as the claims of those playing the latter...A way of burying heads in the sand to dismiss thoughful discussion of issues.

Honestly, Rockstar games isn't the problem with the whole "suck it up" thing. They got sued and stuff for having an unplayable sex minigame in their San Andreas game. It wasn't playable, but it still existed in the code. Mothers complained that their children were playing the sex minigame. In a game meant for adults. That isn't sold to minors. Who's REALLY at fault here? The ignorant parents who just buy any form of media for their children and complain when it is offensive to them? Or the company that releases this product that is aimed and only sold to adults?

Forgive me, I think I got offtrack here, but I honestly don't think that Rockstar is the problem with their games. They always go through the normal channels and never go past their ratings. Parents today don't want to be bothered with looking up what their kids want to play and they go ahead and buy them games that on the cover claim that they're for mature audiences only.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that the sex minigame was playable through using a cheat device to modify the normal code and variables. That's something that the parents also bought.

I agree with SATatami. GTA is a freak'n game designed for the sole purpose of entertainment. It's just another form of entertainment but I didn't read Beowulf and want to slay everyone I knew to become king. I watched 300, but didn't leave the theater stabbing people and shouting "For Sparta!".

I mean, for real people? And like SATatami pointed out, the parents are the ones that bought it in the first place. That's like them going out and buying drugs for their kids and blaming society for the corruption and addiction that they are now in.