If I were to ever find a document containing Sony's official procedure for making announcements I think I'd find something relatively similar to the title of this article written on it. To any ravenous Sony fanboys that are already primed to leave a negative comment without even having read the rest of the article, go over to my collection page for a second. Go ahead, I'll wait right here. Did you see the Playstation 3 and PSP games in there? Yeah, I own both, so don't go flaming me for being an Xbot or...whatever asinine term you use for Nintendo fans.
It goes without saying that everyone looking forward to the PS3 was taken aback when Kaz Hirai dropped the "599 US dollars" bomb on us back at E3 2006 (cue Lex Luthor). Six hundred dollars was an absolutely absurd price and even though a lot of us (myself included) paid it at launch we did it begrudgingly. Analysts and everyone else kept calling for a price cut on the PS3. They all said that $600 was too high and that in order to compete and create a larger install-base Sony would have to cut the price at some point. Naturally everyone was excited when Sony announced that the price of the 60 GB PS3 was dropping from $600 to $500. That was still $100 more than the high-end Xbox 360 but hey, $100 is $100. As was expected, interest in the machine increased and a huge sales spike followed. Sony had seemingly done something right. Then we all find out that what we thought was a price cut was really a liquidation sale. Sony made the announcement that production had ceased on the 60 GB and that when they were gone they would be replaced by a new 80 GB that cost...599 US dollars. Did I mention that the hardware emulation had been replaced with extremely sub-par software emulation?
Like its giant obelisk console counterpart, the PSP hasn't been the easiest sell either. In both the United States and Japan the system was consistently outsold by the DS Lite, typically by a wide margin. Sony figured that, hey, if Nintendo can release a remodeled system, so can they. Thus at E3 2007 the world was introduced to the PSP-2000, colloquially known as the PSP Slim. The announcement was great for Sony as they unveiled a system that offered numerous improvements, the best two being improved battery life and shorter load times (the two things most decried on the original PSP). Well, the load time improvement remains, at least for newer titles. However, the battery life improvement wasn't as advertised. Sony explained that the PSP-2000 would indeed have longer battery life...if you were using the PSP-1000's battery...huh? Even if you weren't like me and didn't trade in the original PSP toward the new PSP thus leaving yourself without a PSP-1000 battery, the PSP-1000 battery was too big for the PSP-2000. So, if you actually had an original PSP battery to use it would stick out and make your system lop-sided. You'd also have to order a special battery cover from Sony in order to cover it. Lastly, this is probably just me being upset over not paying attention, but Sony also announced a video out feature that would allow PSP owners to play PSP games on their TV. However, you have to have a progressive-scan TV for this to work. This means that SD television owners (the majority of TV owners) cannot make use of this feature but hey, at least we can watch UMD movies on our TVs. Yeah, as if most people own any.
I don't think this next one counts as announcing good news and then messing it up so much as it counts as Sony throwing salt in gamers' wounds. Lair was a game that almost everyone who owned a PS3 was looking forward to. It was an aerial dragon combat game from the makers of Rogue Squadron and it looked amazing. Now, I've never played Lair but general consensus claims that the game's controls are more or less broken. However, that's not the point. Despite not announcing anything good, Sony proceeded to step 2 anyway and sent out a reviewer's guide for Lair. Yes, it wasn't that Lair was a bad game, it was just that every professional reviewer in the industry, you know, people who play games for a living, wasn't playing the game correctly. Wow.
Though I could personally care less, most gamers were upset by the fact that the PS3 controllers would lack any kind of force feedback. Sony told a couple of different lies as to why this was. They told us that the tilt-sensor wouldn't operate properly with rumble weights and they told us rumble was a last-gen feature that wasn't important anymore. However, we all knew that they just didn't want to pay up to Immersion. Well, Sony eventually did pay their settlement to Immersion and the rumble-capable PS3 controller rumors started flying. Sure enough, one of Sony's big announcements at the Tokyo Game Show was the DualShock 3, the Sixaxis with rumble weights they had previously told us was impossible. Now I'm sure you must be thinking, "What's the black lining on that silver cloud?" Well, North America and Europe aren't getting these controllers until Spring 2008, whereas Japan gets them next month. There's no logical reason why Sony would be doing this. Accessories are not games; they do not have region codes and they do not need to be localized. You could import a Japanese DualShock 3 from Japan next month and it would work with your non-Japanese PS3 (unless Sony devises some stupid way to region lock accessories). I understand that these things have to be manufactured and shipped, but if they have enough of them to launch the controller in Japan next month it shouldn't take them six months to get a launch supply for North America and Europe manufactured.
After the whole liquidation sale debacle, gamers everywhere have been waiting for a real price drop for the PS3. Recently, rumors have been circulating that Sony would be announcing a 40 GB PS3 and, at least in Europe, they have. The system, as stated, only has a 40 GB hard drive, it only has two USB ports instead of four, and it no longer has the card readers. That's not so bad right? It also has no PS2 backward compatibility. Yes, you read that correctly. I don't mean that it just doesn't have the Emotion Engine, I mean it has nothing. You put a PS2 disc into that system and it will have no idea what it is. Sony's hilarious reason for this? They claim that few people really use it and that it isn't a feature most people look for when buying a PS3. Ha, ha, and indeed ha. Do they even have any idea what gamers think of their system? Did they not hear the ire of European gamers when they launched the PS3 with its shoddy software backward compatibility? Did they not notice how many people were scrambling to get a 60 GB when it was announced that the 80 GB wouldn't have the Emotion Engine? Sony knows that the PS2 had the greatest and largest library the last generation but they claim that they don't need to rely on that library anymore because the PS3 is going to have a whopping 65 game available by this holiday season. Wow, 65 whole games? So how many of those are licensed titles, available on other systems, or just bad? Never mind the fact that PS2 games are still being made. Granted, Sony doesn't have the Wii advantage here. A lot of people skipped the Gamecube so the Wii being able to play the whole Gamecube library was a selling point. Odds are anyone interested in the PS3 is probably one of the 100 million PS2 owners out there. Still, there's nothing quite like buying a brand new, super powerful system and having to leave it's predecessor hooked up so you can play its superior game library, right?
Looking at their track record I don't think it's any surprise to anyone that Sony is in last right now. They started with two high priced systems, announced pseudo-price drops and have released way too many iterations of a console that's less than a year old. On top of that, it seems that everytime they announce something that makes gamers feel better about them they jab us with a cattle prod as soon as we turn around. At least we still have Final Fantasy and Metal Gear, right?
Comment Response 1: staley6565: So you read all of the "walls of text" and couldn't find a point anywhere, huh? Did you try reading the title and the first paragraph? I'm going to assume you didn't less you wouldn't be complaining about my lack of a point. My point is simply that Sony's PR has been terrible this generation (which, if you notice in the comments, other readers were able to infer that). Everytime they announce something that sounds like good news they immediately follow it up with something bad or something that takes away from that news. As for my "simple history of things", those are what most people like to call support. You know, making a claim and backing it up with examples and facts instead of just spouting of baseless nonsense?
Secondly, you claim that lack of backward compatibility is not a big deal if you already own a PS2. Have you considered things like clutter or lack of inputs? For example, my TV has three inputs in the back, and one is taken up by my DVD player. That leaves me with two open inputs and given that I have 7 systems that need them, I have switch boxes connected into them. Fortunately, when I got my PS3 I was able to simply replace my PS2 with it. Had I not been able to do this all of my slots would have been full and if I ever had the need to install something else it would have come down to swapping cords. A minor annoyance, but an annoyance avoided by my backward compatible PS3. That's not even taking into consideration the amount of electrical outlets I need. Secondly, there's the issue of shelf space. Using myself as an example again, I have six spaces for my seven systems. As it is my Dreamcast has to rest on top of my Xbox so everything fits (though with your ideas on money you'd probably just recommend that I buy a bigger house, more on that in a second). Then you proceed to put words in my mouth, claiming that if Sony didn't release the absurd number of SKUs that they do that I'd be complaining about them forcing us to buy things. Let me start off by saying that I've never complained about Sony forcing anything on me. I didn't complain about it in this article and I've never complained about it elsewhere. In fact, and I'm not alone here, I hate the multiple SKU system so many seem to be embracing. I'm sure most remember back when systems came out and they only came out in one version. If you went to a store and asked for that system you got a system that was the same as every other one.
Not to mention the fact that software emulation would not bring up the price of manufacturing the hardware. Also, just last year Sony was calling bacwkards compatability a core value that was vital to their brand.
You end on a note that is just ignorant, claiming that $600 is not a lot of money in "the real working world." Wow. I'm not sure going to college and working part time in a grocery store counts as this "real working world" that you refer to, but I'll use myself as an example once again. I make roughly $150 a week working the hours that I can. Every week I deposit half of that toward my tuition and take out 25 for gas money. Then I pay $100 for my car insurance bill at the end of every month. This means that every month I make around 150-200 dollars that I don't have to spend on bills (so that's 3 months for me to earn "not a lot of money"), and I don't have anywhere near the amount of bills people in the real world have. Yeah, maybe you have a high paying job that allows you to drop $600 on a luxury and not even bat an eye, but saying that $600 isn't a lot of money just makes you sound like a pompous fool.
Comment Response 2: Charlie2688: Holy crap man.You do realize people are going to read the comments you post right? Grammar and mechanics are your friends. Using the right words might help too (hint: accent is not synonymous with accept). You start out by saying that I'm acting like Sony has wronged me personally...yeah, whatever. Then you tell me that articles like mine are the reason that people have a negative attitude toward the PS3 and can't explain why. What do you think all that text up there is? Oh look, it's me explaining why Sony has such a negative image right now. I'm also curious as to when exactly I bashed the PS3. As far as I can tell I was pointing out flaws in Sony's marketing department the whole time.
You then claim that everyone has forgiven Microsoft's problems. This is something you do throughout your entire comment. You're trying to attack me and yet you lump me in with every Sony hating fanboy out there. Anyway, it's called being relevant and being inspired to write something. The height of the 360's Red Ring issue was over the summer when the warranty program went into effect. Why would I write about something that saw the height of its news coverage months ago? Sony just announced their new, non-backward compatible PS3 yesterday and that news inspired me to write this. Trust me, everyone hasn't forgiven Microsoft. Hell, there are people out there who haven't even played Halo 3 yet because they're waiting for their consoles to be repaired.
You tell me to look at some of the brilliant comments (a category which your comment does not fall under) here on GameSpot about backward compatibility. So people screamed when Sony focused on backward compatibility and people screamed when they stopped focusing on it? Here's a crazy thought, do you think that maybe those were different people screaming both times? Obviously if you have no interest in the PS3's library you're not going to buy one just to play your old PS2 games. However, if you're like me and are interested in the PS3 but also have over 100 PS1 and PS2 games with limited system space then backward compatibility is obviously important to you. Plus, the backward compatibility issue is another example of Sony directly contradicting themselves as they are so apt to do.
You follow that up by telling me to accept (or accent, as you put it) the fact that I'll never be happy with what Sony does. Again, lumping me in with the Sony haters. If you notice I actually own a PS3 (something, based on your collection page, you can't say I might add) and yeah, I have some problems with it but not because of Sony's PR tactics. Why would I have a problem with the console because of Sony's business practices? You go on to follow step 2 of Sony's announcement procedure and completely contradict yourself. You accuse me of forgiving Microsoft for all their flaws and then go on to say that Sony's negative image isn't their fault its the fault of all the people complaining about the PS3. Why do you think people are complaining about the PS3?! Oh wait, it's because it's cool to hate Sony, right? It has nothing to do with any of the mistakes they've made so far this generation? Also, the reason you don't hear people complain about the 360 as much is because the Red Ring of Death is the only major thing people tend to complain about and Microsoft has taken steps to correct it. They spent 1.7 billion dollars to give every 360 owner a three year warranty and they just started releasing new systems that have all of the cooling components they should have had since day one. Sony even has Microsoft beat in this department! They have a better built and more powerful system than Microsoft does. The only reason they attract negative press is because they keep lying to us and contradicting themselves.
Lastly you speak of Lair and I'm not sure you read that paragraph right. You say people like to knock it without having even played it and that wasn't even what I was talking about. I talked about the ridiculous assertion that Sony made claiming that reviewers had all reviewed the game wrong. Here's a math tip for you. You claim that if so many people played Lair at a friend's house that it would be number one in sales. Other than the obvious fact that it wasn't, if all those people played it at a friend's house that means they didn't buy it.
You conclude your rebuttal by saying that blogs like mine will never help change Sony's negative image. You know what will? If Sony stops pulling crap like I've described above.
Bloody hell.You have got to be kidding me.
Apparently even Jack Thompson wants in on the Halo 3 marketing blitz.
Honestly, after his attack against BioShock, an attack on Halo 3 probably shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. Fortunately for me, GamePolitics posted the official complaint Thompson issued to the Florida Bar, so let's get right into it.
Before even getting into the document, I think the most amusing thing is just how far off the deep end this man has gone. As I'm sure everyone remembers, this is the exact same thing that Jack tried to do with Bully. What did that get him? An official complaint filed with the Florida Bar and a psychiatric evaluation, to say nothing of the fact that the game came out anyway. Does he really expect the exact same complaint to work with a different game?
The first ridiculous thing is the date of the complaint. It was filed today, Friday, September 21, 2007. For those keeping track, Halo 3 is set to launch this coming Tuesday and all copies of the game are already in the hands of retailers. Is he expecting to be granted a hearing and successfully convince the court to block sale of the game in three days?
It gets better from there. He lists the complaint as being from "John B. Thompson on behalf of the state of Florida." Wow, this complaint really has merit. He's got everyone in the state of Florida behind him! Being a bit presumptuous Jack?
Next comes the legal jargon. Apparently Jack's problem is the future sale of Halo 3 to individuals under the age of 17. So what, he's Nostradamus now too? Even more amazing is that he cites the law he's invoking against Halo 3 and for the life of me I can't see where it mentions video games anywhere.
"...tend[s] to annoy the community, injure the health of the citizens in general, or corrupt the public morals...any house or place of prostitution, assignation, lewdness or any place or building where games of chance (i.e. gambling) are engaged in violation of law or any place where any law of the state is violated, shall be deemed guilty of maintaining a nuisance..."
Oh yeah, illegal gambling and prostitution. I can totally see a video game connection there.
The following section is easily the most amusing. In a section called "THE FACTS", Jack outlines all of the reasons that Halo 3 should be banned as a nuisance and swears, "so help [him] God" that they're all true. Well Jack, you're going to be needing a a lot of the big guy's help.
Thompson starts his list in grand fashion by being wrong from the get go, claiming that Microsoft and Best Buy (they're the only retail outlet selling the game apparently) are preparing to sell Halo 3 on October 25, 2007. Hm, maybe that's why he issued this today, he thinks he still has a month to block the game.
Jack's next line has got to be my favorite. "Halo 3 is a video game that allows the virtual reality player to rehearse violent acts resulting in the death of one's virtual victims", or for the less pretentious among us, "You kill people in this game." Wow, way to describe 99% of all video games. I love how he describes the gameplay as the rehearsal of violent acts that result in death. Yeah, I find whenever I'm faced with the task of killing hordes of invading aliens a video game is the best way to prepare.
Immediately following this he jumps right to the insanity we all know him for. He cites the DC Beltway Shootings and claims that Lee Boyd Malvo used Halo to train himself to fire a sniper rifle. In addition, Malvo's partner, John Muhammad, knew how effective Halo was at training killers as the army in which he served used the gam...er, "murder simulator" to train snipers to kill. First of all Jack, Halo had nothing to do with those attacks. Malvo was also found to have a scrap of paper referencing The Matrix in his pocket, that doesn't mean he shot those people in the name of Zion. Yeah, Malvo may have played Halo, a lot of us have, but that doesn't mean we all know how to fire sniper rifles. Also, if Muhammad truly was trained to snipe using Halo then that must have been one sorry excuse for an army. Personally, I have no idea how to operate a sniper rifle but I can guarantee you it isn't "Push the right analog stick and then press the right trigger." He tries to bring credibility to this claim by saying that the Halo connection was reported on NBC news. Yeah, and Jack reported the video game connection to the VTech shootings on the news before the killer was even identified. That doesn't change the fact that there was no connection.
Jack then proceeds to try and prove his claim using questionable studies, speculation, and outright nonsense. He then claims that the ESRB's existence is the industry acknowledging that violent games are harmful. Whatever you say Jack.
Lastly, he claims that last time he was chasing after Best Buy's ambulance they agreed to ID anyone when selling a Mature rated video game. In what he calls a "sting", Jack sent his own 15-year-old son to Best Buy to buy a copy of BioShock (I assume the concept of irony is lost on him), which he was able to do. Based on the fact that one person was able to buy an M rated game without being IDed Jack was successfully able to conclude that Best Buy is never going to ask for ID from anyone when selling an M rated game. Ever.
He then goes on to complain about how Microsoft is aggressively advertising the game to "teen boys" to ensure that it becomes "the best-selling video game of all time". I didn't know Microsoft was trying to beat Super Mario Bros. sales record. He goes on but honestly I'm getting sick just reading this dreck.
Seriously, Jack, man, get a hobby or something (one that isn't trying to censor any video game you deem worthy of censorship). This is yet another instance in which Jack shows us all that he isn't out for the good of the people. No, he's out for his own gain. How do I know this? Jack consistently only targets popular violent games, not just violent games. Grand Theft Auto, Manhunt, BioShock, Halo, all huge names that are well known in the public eye but they're hardly the only violent games. What about Persona 3, where you have to shoot yourself in the head (though not with a real gun) to unleash your power? What about Sega's Yakuza series, where they drop more f-bombs than anyone ought to and where your means of disposing of your foes is through bloody and brutal hand to hand combat?
Seriously though, he's after Halo of all games. I've always referred to Halo as an M rated game that doesn try to live up to its rating. By that I mean that Halo's goal isn't to be ultraviolent and gory and thus achieve an M. No, Halo's only M rated offense is that when shot or otherwise dispatched, enemies bleed for the sake of realism. It's not even that violent. If you get a headshot with a sniper rifle does your Covenant foe's head explode into chunks of skull and brains? No, there's just a splatter of blood and he falls over dead. What about when you kill someone with a grenade? Do they get blown into bloody pieces that fly every which way? Once again no. They simply bleed, go rag-doll and fly through the air before hitting the ground. To top it all off, throughout the entire single player campaign you are never "rehearsing violent acts against" other humans. The enemies in all three of the games have been non-human aliens. Even though it has never been proven that violent games turn kids into killers, at least with Grand Theft Auto and its ilk you can argue that the game simulates reality at least a little. Halo has you take control of a genetically and cybernetically enhanced soldier fighting aliens. Even when you're in multiplayer you're fighting aliens or other cyborg soldiers. To top it all off, you're never going to find a real gun that operates using analog sticks.
So in closing, go ahead and file your complaint Jack. No one will care, the world will keep on spinning, and Halo fans everywhere, including fans from the state you submitted this complaint "on behalf of", Florida, will still be playing the game this Tuesday when it's officially released.
Comment Response 1: Ah yes, I knew I was going to get at least one supporter of Doug Lowensetin's Jack Thompson Theory. For those of you unfamiliar with Doug's remarks, he claimed that the only reason Jack has any credibility is because we gamers won't shut up about him. He argued that any time Jack attacks the industry we should basically stick our fingers in our ears and go "La la la, we can't hear you." Obviously, be it as I'm talking about him, I disagree with Lowenstein and his supporters. I think Jamaius said it best down in the comments. He said that though Jack has minimal influence his power could easily snowball if he were to gather a large group of supporters. You know what would make that really easy for him? If we just ignored him and said nothing about his endless assault on our hobby of choice. I know that his "facts" from his Halo 3 complaint are ridiculous, you guys know it and most gamers know it. You know who probably doesn't know? The large majority of middle America, that's who. History has shown that it's typically left up to gamers to defend ourselves when the industry comes under attack. So what happens if we stop speaking up? Jack keeps spewing out these ludicrous attacks of his and every "Won't somebody think of the children?" soccer mom in the country rallies behind him and we just sit there and say nothing? Honestly, I think if that's our plan of action we may as well just come out and agree with whatever he says if we're not going to bother to refute it. EDIT: OK, I didn't say it at first but MuscleCarMan alluded to it in the comments so I'll insert my original argument for why "Ignore it and it will go away" doesn't work. The majority of Europe and America both thought that if they ignored Hitler and the Nazis they'd eventually go away too. I'm sure you all know how well that worked.
Honestly though, do people just expect Jack to fade into a cloud of vapor if we stop talking about him? He's been doing these kind of things his entire "career." He's attacked the music industry, the porn industry, and now the video game industry. Though many people think he's just doing it for attention, he really isn't. He's come out before and said, and I quote that "God put [him] on this earth to fight violent video games." The man thinks he's on a bloody mission from GOD to stop violent video games. Regardless of what that psychiatric evaluation said there's obviously something wrong with the man. If we go silent he'll simply think to himself that he's beaten us.
Lastly, I don't understand how gamers are giving him any shred of credibility. Yeah, we may talk about him a lot, but it's not like when we do we're all hiding behind our controllers and saying "Man, I wish that Thompson guy would shut up. People are going to find out the truth and take our murder simulators away." Far from it. Any time we mention Jack Thompson we're either questioning his sanity, baffled as to how he ever became a lawyer, or writing overly long blog entries that debunk his legal complaints piece by piece. That's acknowledging him as a threat? Sounds more like acknowledging him as a joke.
Comment Response 2: Binarynova brings up a good point and I would have to agree that gamers bashing Thompson and threatening him in forums (by the way, to those if you in the "I want to kill Jack Thompson" crowd, I shouldn't have to point out the foolishness of threatening to kill someone when they claim that video games make people violent) help to portray the negative gamer stereotypes. However, this was not what Lowenstein was referring to. Lowenstein claimed that no one should give any press at all to the man, and that would include my article here, the GamePolitics article that inspired it, and any others like them.
Comment Reponse 3: Wow, these just keep coming. Anyway, there's two comments I want to mention.
First, sdcazares1980, you say you see what I'm saying but I'm not really sure that you do and I also think you don't have all your facts straight. I think my Hitler metaphor sent the wrong message. I am in no way comparing Jack Thompson to Adolf Hitler The Hitler reference was merely an extreme metaphor saying that ignoring something and hoping it will go away isn't a good solution to a problem. You go on to say that Thompson has been discredited numerous times and held in contempt of court as well. Not everyone knows that and even if they do it isn't a guarantee that people won't listen to him. Also, how do you think he keeps getting discredited (hint: this article and the one it references might be good places to look)? I think the point of the article got lost somewhere as well. This article's purpose, as its title would lead you to believe, is to discuss Jack Thompson and his complaint with Halo 3, not the whole game industry and its attackers. Speaking of which, you mention Hilary Clinton and Joe Lieberman. Do you know that earlier this year both of them voiced their support for the ESRB and have made no major attacks on the industry since? You also reference Arnold and I have to say he doesn't worry me at the moment. Why? His law was already thrown out and he is currently in the process of wasting Californian taxpayers' money trying to appeal it. Ultimately the law will be thrown out again and the people of California will have to cover the cost just like every other time some misguided politician has tried to challenge the Constitution. One thing you said really worries me though. You claim that R-rated movies can't be sold to kids and that you don't see why there shouldn't be a law making the sale of M rated video games to kids illegal and that's where you're wrong. There is NO law restricting the sale of R-rated moves to children. Movies are rated the same way games are rated, by a committee selected by the industry that reviews the content. It is then left up to theaters and retailers to enforce the ratings. It would be a complete double standard to have such a law exist for video games. I'm all for such a law if they're going to make it illegal to sell R-rated movies and Parental Advisory CDs to kids too, but that isn't going to happen.
Second, RaohTheKenoh, I'd have to agree. Thompson does make one or two good points every now and again but they're always so enshrouded in stark-raving lunacy that they're impossible to take seriously. Yeah, children probably shoudln't play M-rated games or watch R-rated movies but that isn't for Thompson or anyone else but the parents to decide. I personally wouldn't let a child play Grand Theft Auto but once again, that's not my call. That's what the ESRB is for, to inform parents and help them make the decision on their own. If a parent allows their child to watch an R-rated movie then they'd probably allow the child to play an M-rated game as well. Thompson and many others want the government to step in and life the responsibility of parenting from the shoulders of parents.
As far as carding goes, the industry has been steadily improving in that regard. Sure, not 100% of retailers do it, but there are many theaters and retailers that don't card for movies 100% of the time either. Once again, it's a double standard levied against games. I have a little story about carding. I was up at the mall with my friends one night and they wanted to buy cigarettes (we were all 18 at the time). Though they were both 18, my friends could have easily been younger and one of them didn't even look 18. They walked up to the counter and my younger looking friend hands money to my other friend at the counter and he buys the cigarettes without so much as a single request for ID. Later on, we went over to the Best Buy nearby and I bought a copy of The Warriors for the Xbox and I got carded. Not requesting ID is not a video game specific problem and you have to ask yourself which is more dangerous: not carding for a game or not carding for cancer inducing cigarettes?
Thompson's complaint is also ridiculous in the fact that he isn't simply requesting that all shoppers be carded. He is trying to have a video game declared a public nuisance. That's insanity. You agree with me that learning to snipe from Halo is ridiculous, but go on to say that I can't deny that violent games have an effect on the human mind, and I can't. As you said, violent games cause a small increase in aggression levels in players and studies have confirmed this. What these studies have also confirmed is that this increase is temporary. So yeah, video games give you a slightly heightened agression level for a short time after playing. You know what else does that? Any other violent media or even sports for that matter. Do you think that people don't get aggressive playing American Football? I can guarantee you no one is going to try and get Football declared a public nuisance. You claim that we have to be more vigilant about ratings in order to claim Thompson has no grounds and I disagree. If the world wants to hold gaming to some picture perfect standard then all other forms of media should be held to the same standard.
The last thing you said worries me and is essentially the essence of censorship. You claim that most of us are alright with violent media but for some people (perhaps mentaly unstable) that the constant violence could send them over the edge. This is true, but it doesn't have to be a game. If someone is mentally unstable it could be any kind of violent media. A violent movie, a song with violent lyrics, a violent comic book, any of these images could make these people snap. Denying all of the stable people access to these things because a select few people could be negatively affected is ludicrous. In the words of Mark Twain:
"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it."
I don't buy into the whole "interactive vs passive" nonsense either. As I stated, you agree that holding a controller has no correlation to real world violence. So why is it that pressing a button and watching a guy get shot is so much worse than just watching the guy get shot? If you were watching a movie and you had to press a button on your remote every time someone was going to get shot would that turn it into some horrible murder simulator? No, you'd still just be pushing a button.
Lastly, I got a call a few hours ago from GameStop about their Halo 3 midnight launch. Anyone want to guess what a certain piece of information from that message was?
"GameStop will begin selling Halo 3 to shoppers 17 years of age or older at Midnight on Tuesday."So, before the TGS rush I'm going to do something many have done before: Post my personal review of Mountain Dew Game Fuel.
Yes, there it is in all its glowing orange, speed line, and scan line glory. Personally I bought a 20 oz., a 2 liter, and a 12 pack just because I wanted the containers and I'm a huge dork like that.
When I first heard about the soda I was actually excited for it. Those who know me know I love Mountain Dew Code Red and drink far more than I probably should. Code Red is cherry flavored so when Mountain Dew announced a cherry/citrus flavored Halo 3 branded soda my interest was piqued. However, my reaction would ultimately end up being the same as it was to every non-Code Red flavor of Mountain Dew.
The first thing I noticed was that the soda smelled of sour bubblegum. That wasn't a good sign. Ignoring the smell I took a sip anyway and that turned out not to be the best of ideas. The taste is similar to Code Red. Just imagine taking Code Red and adding some artificial citrus flavor, more effervescence and way too much sugar. The soda was sour too. For anyone that tried Pitch Black II last Halloween it tasted kind of like that. For those that didn't, imagine taking the crystals from a bunch of Sour Patch Kids and mixing them with over sweetened, over carbonated orange soda. The most peculiar thing was that the soda managed to get gradually worse, the taste declining with each successive sip. By the end your mouth is filled with this ridiculously sweet and sour flavor that's just unpleasant.
So yeah, not the best soda I've ever consumed. Though I suppose if I ever have the need to best a non-English speaking Halo 3 player on Live I can just grab a bottle. That's the message I got from the commercial anyway.
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