Michigan Congressman Proposes "Video Game Decency Act"

@people who say that HC wasn't intentional

Well im going to go out on a limb here and take up the counter-argument of this point. First off tho let me say three things before everybody jumps onto me as some sort of mindless anti-game idiot: (1) I think that the whole double standard over sex versus violence in rating a game M/Ao is absurd, as well as the fact that the stigma of an Ao game not being sold at lots of retailers providing the pressure for companies to make sure their games arent rated Ao is a really screwed up system, and (2) I dont think there is anyway to prove 'intent' in the HC case up to the standard of here (or pretty much for any potential infraction), and so this is a meaningless and stupid law because it is a solution in search of a problem, even aside fromt he fact that it respresents ridiculous over-regulation of a private industry.

Those things said, tho i think a very convincing circumstantial argument can be made that its far more likely that R* knew about HC content and left it in specifically for it to get unlocked than that their 'official' explanation is correct.

First off, there is a substantial chilling effect on expression just from having the M/Ao system set up the way it is. Because the big box retailers dont sell Ao games (which is retarded, by the way) having an Ao game immediately means that your game is going to have a hugely lowered distribution footprint. Not important for a small niche game anyways (I honestly think that a tastefully done Ao JP-style hentai rpg game could sell well on a console like PS2 or something, IF the gameplay was better than your standard minimally interactive narrative hentai game you see for PC), but if you are talking about an AAA title with an AAA budget and AAA profit expectations its prohibitive. The ESRB has clear guidelines on what makes content M versus Ao (unlike the MPAA), and companies when they sit down to make an AAA title know in advance that they cannot put in content that would make it Ao, and if they and ESRB disagree and if ESRB is going to rate the game Ao based on some content thats in their that the company thought would be merely "M" then you can bet that content is goign to be gone and the game will be resubmitted. The ESRB process is clearly set up so that if a game initially comes in higher than the company wants it they can specifically tailor it to remove that conent so they can get the rating they want, thats simply the way business is done (and partly why that proposed law that requires the ESRB to play the finished game would totally screw up the system). People who say that it doesnt matter, that AAA "M" games are mainly played by adults anyways and those sort of gamers buy all their games at specialty stores anyways, are naive and basically don't understand modern-day game economics.

So heres the basic possible scenario: R* has this content that they did for HC, which adds value ot their game, but because of retarded way that sex is handled compared to violence, they cannot include it in the game (and im sure they know this in advance and remove it well before the esrb submission). However that content does add value to the game, since it creates 'buzz'. There is absolutely no way to prove intent here but basically its record that HC unfolded pretty well for R*, (up until the point when it all went horribly wrong whent he MSM picked up on it). From historical record we know that basically the HC content sits on the PS2 disc doign nothing because people dont mod PS2 games much. 6 months later when the PC version comes out, because of HC comes out relatively quickly after the PC release, you have basically a de facto 'enhanced version' with more content than the PS2 version in the minds of gamers. This not only brings san andreas back into the 'buzz' at a point when the PC version really just is a port that is 6 months late from the orginial version and not in itself 'buzz-worthy' - it also means that people who already have the PS2 version (or were fans of previous GTA but for whatever reason hadnt actually gone at got SA yet) are tempted to get the PC version also, because they can mod it.

Right up until the mostly beneficial buzz within the game community exploded into such a massive negative buzz in the MSM (fueled by a minority of vocal critics who were waiting for the first mistake fromt he game industry), R* was reaping huge benefits. Basically they got to have their game be M, while also having a bit of extra "teaser" to create buzz and sell the PC version of the game, preserving the value of that content (which although sophomoric, i think does create a bit of extra edginess) while having none of the negatives of if they had had to submit that content to ESRB anyways (or even directly associate themselves as creators of the content) and have the whole game end up Ao rated based on a throwaway gimmick thats not intrinsic to the gameplay or narrative itself. Also I think that since the rules about undisclosed inaccessible content werent on the books at ESRB, R* isnt so much cheating ESRB or its customers as figuring out how to use the gap between the capability of technology (and specificaly the fact that modders can and will unlock content acting as a third party) and the regulation of that technologies capability to exploit a loophole of the ratings rules. Since its a retarded and immoral rule anyways, more power to them, although in retrospect the ancilliary effects and how it was pounced upon by liars, cheats, and politicians (well actually thats redundant) meant that probably on the whole it did more harm than good.

Also if you look at the official story of R* and how it changed especially as HC was breaking in the MSM, they sure act exactly like you would expect somebody who is guilty to act. They wont admit that the content is theirs until the very last moment when its essentially proven for them - and they had plenty of time in between HC coming first to light and when it was shown that HC was on PS2 disc also to self investigate and come clean - so the idea that they just still didnt realize the content was actually theirs when they initially went on record gaving the impression that it was hacker added content strains crdulity. Also if you look at their initial comments (to the effect that this is somethign that is added by a hack), this was blatant sophistry in that they made a statemetn that was techinically correct (which is that you had to add a mod to see the content) but worded in a way so that it would read as a much stronger statement to the effect that the content was added by the hackers to everybody. And then when their try and dissembling on that front fails they just fall back on the technical meaning of their initial statement and then try and deny that they even ever said the first thing (which was doubly craven). Clearly they are guilty of intentionally misleading the ESRB and the public over this stretch, though in fairness that just established that when faced with a crisis they prefer to dissemble rather than be honest, it doesnt establish anythign in terms of intent back when the PS2 discs were originally printed.

Now of course none of this is conclusive or could ever prove that they intended to put the HC stuff on the disc as some sort of trojan horse to raise buzz when it eventually got found by PC modders (not an incredibly unlikely scenario despite what some claim), but conclusive proof is not really the point. My point is mainly that there is sufficient circumstantial reason to believe that R* would have had intent that it is rather short sighted to be saying statements like "there was no intent to decieve" as if those are plain and known facts. There is a world of difference between not being able to prove that somebody intentionally misled or cheated you to a court standard and being able to say as plain fact that that person dealt with you straight. See for example our current white house resident and his suspected lies which led us into Iraq - nobody is probably ever going to be able to prove before a congressional commision or whatever that he had intent to lie for that precise goal, but that does not imply for a second that anybody should trust him one iota.

@aniki21
Yeah if somebody who was really familiar with the ins and outs of modding GTA was to come on and show (with detailed explanation) that the HC code/implementation was sufficiently less complete than the rest of the "features" that would definitely argue very strongly against intent, I totally agree. I was always sort of just going on the reports (even from inside the gaming community) sort of paint it as s fairly 'complete' feature (although small in nature) - i had PS2 SA so i never bothered to actually try and play it (HC) to see for myself. Im not convinced either that they definitely left it iin with intent to decieve (or that hte cover up which definitely occured can separate between them finding out about the error after HC mod came out versus intentionally planning to have it hacked), I just think its a bit naive for people to state as plain fact that there was no intent to deceive when really thats just based upon R*'s say-so and they already demonstrated plenty of willingness ot be less then fully forthright. Or perhaps i am just overly romanticizing, because to me (because of my screwy situational ethics), if they put that info in to tweak the ESRB's absurd definitions of Ao versus M content in a gamble that just ended up goign terribly wrong, then i actually respect them a lot more than if they are just bumbling fools who were screweing around with code and put in an alpha feature that they forgot to remove and that is what led to the s***storm.

@jabr
True. And see the gov't could have saved an assload of money if they'd just gone and asked me for my analysis, I could have probabyl done it for 1/10th of the cost of the FTC study (special discount for my home country).

@Majestic
FTC already has the power to regulate things regardless of whether or not they are transmitted (they just have to be traded, ie bought and sold). I think you are getting a bit confused between the FCC (Federal Communications Commision) and the FTC (Federal Trade Commision). There's still a very reasonable question on whether the FTC getting all up into the face of a private ratings and standards board (tellign them how they have to do their job, etc) represents unneccessary and burdensome government intrusion on private business practice (or some similar), but thats totally separate from any issue of the fact that video games are untransmitted in public airwaves which is the reason that the FCC has no authority to, for example, fine R* for using swear words in SA.

Truec, The FTC only hands trade and marketing, and has 0 authority over production and distribution. they couldn't do anything about HC regardless. Like I said, having any government group try and control private industry ends up failing.