Putting aside the bad grammar, which is something I find to be appalling coming from a United States Senator (a Senator, in my opinion, should at least know how to speak the English language properly).
All of this sprung up, from a couple hackers that hacked the game engine for GTA: San Andreas. They used the game engine to design pornographic scenes, and posted them up as Omake (Easter Eggs) for the PC version of the game, saying that RockStar games had left this in the video game all along.
Rockstar games came out with a statement denying that they had anything to do with the pornographic material, and said that they parents need appropriate tools to know what games to buy for their children.
Clinton responded by calling for a congressional committee to be put together to investigate Rockstar Games.
Okay.. look. The ESRB is a voluntary system by which the gaming industry polices itself. GTA is rated M. And weather the sex scene was in the game as an Easter Egg or not, parents should not be purchasing that game for children under the age of 17. Pretty simple. If parents did choose to purchase that game for younger children then it was the parents that made the bad call, not the game designers or the video game industry.
Furthermore, why on God’s green earth do we need a congressional committee to investigate a video game company, when the industry has made it clear that it’s more than happy to police itself? This screams of another excuse to spend taxpayer dollars on hearings that might get Clinton launched into the White House in 2008.
Honey, get over yourself. The proper thing to do is to advocate legislation that requires that ID be presented to purchase rated M video games, and that these games rated M or AO cannot be sold to someone under the age of 18. That’s fair. The rest of it, well, that’s where you should ask the ESRB to investigate its initial rating of GTA: San Andreas. If the ESRB looks at the game again and finds the Easter Egg was in the game itself.. then the ESRB needs to release an announcement that this game should have been rated AO, and then it can send out stickers to all the retail outlets that sell the game.. and have them put those stickers on it as it sits on the shelves. It’d cost the ESRB a little cash, and Rockstar games would lose face.. and the next Rockstar Games title.. probably won’t get carried by Best Buy or Wally World, simply on principle. This hurts the game company where it counts, in the pocketbook.
We don’t need a congressional committee to do that.
Update: It’s not a congressional committee she’s calling for, she’s asking for an FTC investigation. That, is far more agreeable than earlier reports.
