September 14, 2007
Gamers don't appear to like the edits Rockstar made to Manhunt 2 in order to avoid an adults only (AO) rating from the ESRB. Late Wednesday night we fired up a poll regarding the edited, M-rated version of Manhunt 2. So far, the results are not promising for Take Two/Rockstar.
As I write this (late Thursday night) only 18% of poll respondents say they plan to purchase Manhunt 2 when it launches on Halloween. 52% say they definitely won't buy, while 30% are undecided.
We'll leave the poll open through Friday, so be sure to vote!
Comments
All in all, a pretty useless poll, if I may say so.
Should be interesting on halloween
I'm not much into gore for gore's sake.
Give me a game from the Silent Hill series anytime where the blood and disturbing images actually have a function.
you can put me in that column.
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
Random Tower: Game News and Commentary
Uncut or edited manhunt 2 was at best a curious rental for me and nothing in the last few months has changed that.
That said I strongly encourage the efforts of the industry to inform the media and lawmakers that computer gamers have grown up and with it the industry and while every effort should be made to protect children from experiences intended for adults banning out right is not the way to go.
BTW, when I say content, I mean violence.
I have Metroid Prime, Twilight Princess and WoW to keep my free time not so free. This is a niche market game to begin with, and watered down just makes their target audience less interested.
I don't want an edited version desiged to make Hillary Clinton happy. That is not the point of the game. The original was excellent in that it really (and I mean really) made a statement about the times we live in, what we find entertaining and how we treat people.
I was sure Manhunt 2 would have been a continuation and possibly an expansion of the theme.
More importantly the idea that R* and TT would release the game despite all the cries of pop moralists was important for the industry and for consumers. Changing the game to placate the self riteous 'critics' was a terrible move.
And I won't be buying it. If R* takes a loss on this one I hope that it and other developers understand that it isn't controversial games that don't sell - its changing the content of a game that ruins its original intent and thus makes it less playable.
Yeah, sorry but I have to go with the "What about those of us who weren't going to anyway" group. While I did vote, I was never even planning on buying it, ever.
Oh well, back to Persona3. All that game has is teenagers who repeatedly blow their brains out. Suck it, ESRB.
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Papa Midnight
There you go with the ESRB again; give it a bloody rest. They are to rate, nothing else. They do not force censorship; Rockstar decided that ON THEIR OWN. They could have left it as is and tried porting it to the PC, and selling it through their site.
I'm very much against anti-video-game legislation, and support the freedom of game developers to express themselves. But that doesn't mean I approve of this crap.
But maybe it'll be good for us in the long run. This kind of controversy that raises public awareness (even if in a temporarily negative way) may help shift the general view of video games being an entertainment medium for all ages, not just children (as too many people over 40 seem to be locked into believing).
I don't know if I'm going to buy it or not. I couldn't give a s**t about all the media crap that's been going on, the re-ratings etc.
The only thing that affects my decision is if the game is any good or not.
I'll see what it scores on metacritic, then decide if I want to buy it or not - circus's are for children.
The only reason I have to buy Manhunt 2 is because the "Culture Warriors" don't want me to.
The poll was biased and broken, like most GP polls are, and the results say nothing about peoples actual opinion other than a good number of people just don't want to buy Manhunt 2.
Lets crunch some numbers for a moment:
52% won't buy
30% are unsure
18% "will" buy?
18% of the gaming public will buy Manhunt 2? If this was true, this game is going to be the best selling game ever! Lets consider the 30 million PS2 systems in the US... that means 5.4 million copies will sell in the US on PS2 ALONE. Not counting Wii or the European markets... if this poll were accurate, R* will soon be the most successful game company on the planet.
Or maybe those numbers are stacked by the fact that many of us (myself and EZK) who won't buy the game didn't vote because we weren't represented in the poll. Those us us who would rather see Manhunt 2 die silently instead of getting constant publicity from both the pixel-anti and GP don't have the option of "I have better games to play" in the poll.
Yes, I'm frustrated. I was only slightly frustrated when I saw the poll was broken yesterday. But the fact that the results of said broken poll are now being used to make the exact argument that I feared they would: "See R*, you shouldn’t have censored it!", this just pisses me off.
GP, your site is the best place on the internet to get news on the current state of game controversy. But in this instance you really dropped the ball, by using the results of a poorly written poll to try and push a biased agenda. You're better than this.
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Cross posted from:
IGN: How Rockstar Toned Down Manhunt 2 for an M Rating
On a somewhat different topic: I think GP needs to have somebody else make the polls that show up on the front page. They are often written in a way where all answers display a knee-jerk reaction.
The current one is especially bad, though many others often exhibit these traits:
“Given what you know about the changes Rockstar made to the game, will you be buying Manhunt 2?”
- I’m Buying
- No Way
- Not Sure
The wording of the question is specifically discussing it as if the decision to buy the game is affected by the changes currently made to Manhunt 2. These answers are directly interpreted as:
- Yes, I’m buying it despite the changes.
- No, I’m not buying it because of the changes.
- Not sure if the changes will affect my decision to buy Manhunt.
In other words, the answers assume that we were already going to buy Manhunt 2. What about those of us who have no interest at all in the game? We’re not represented in the poll.
While I know that internet polls aren’t really “official”, polls written with this sort of bias help feed the common misconception that we’re all frenzied in anticipation for the next Rockstar bloodfest, when I say “No Way” it will be interpreted by the pixel-anti and gamercore alike as being another vote toward “See R*, you shouldn’t have censored it!” when my actual reaction is “I don’t give two shits about this game.”
If it was just this one poll I wouldn’t feel the need to comment, but more often than not the polls on GP give me this same impression. I always want to put my vote in on the poll, until I realize that my vote will be biased toward the opinions of the person who created the poll. So usually I just look at the results and wonder “How many of these people actually meant what they said here, and how many just didn’t read the poll closely enough?”
Enough ranting, carry on with the otherwise good work. :)
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...many of us (myself and EZK )...
…many of us (myself and EZK INCLUDED)…
:)
Nightwng2000
NW2K software