On Oblivion

It shouldn't surprise me, really. It happens all the time. Yet another organization is looking out for me -- or more accurately for my children, if any, and the children in my village that I'm supposed to help raise. Because in America, our tireless hunt for the "real killer" involves protecting our children from video games.

Okay. I admit it - there's a middle ground here! The industry developed - on its own, mind you - a ratings system to help parents as well as regular gameplaying adults with varied moral convictions decide what games are right for them. And this is a good thing because well-informed parents who are well-involved with their children can have a happy relationship between kid and console, right? No. Because parents don't raise children anymore - it's now everyone else's responsibility. And television, movies, radio, and -- you guessed it -- video games, are destroying America's youth. Right?

Well, that's what you'd be led to believe. Here's the skinny:

"Oblivion Video Game To Be Relabeled, No Recall"
"Oblivion Mod Warrants M-Rating by ESRB"

This news story (the first above link from Reuters, but it's being propogated throughout the digital universe, the second an article with more detail) deals with the ESRB re-rating a game called The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, a first-person single-player "Role Playing Game", to "Mature". The basic premise of the game is that you are an unknown hero who, by a twist of fate, is the only one capable of saving the world of Tamriel from some major mystical catastrophe of some sort. It's been that way since the first game, and continues to be that way. There's some hack and slash, a bit of blood but not "bloody" by any stretch of the imagination, and a lot of quests to engage in and solve. Very medieval, very much fun. The developers of the game, Bethesda Softworks, suggested rating the game T for Teen, meaning it is suitable for ages 13 and older. The description of Teen on the ESRB web site states "Titles in this category may contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling, and/or infrequent use of strong language." The description of Mature (suitable for ages 17 and older) suggests the game contains "intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language." Oblivion contains fighting, but less blood (and no gore) than is realistic in a sword game, no sexual content at all, and no strong language at all.

"So what's the problem," you ask? You may remember that another game caused a storm of controversy not too long ago: Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. This game has the player be a hoodlum who does all sorts of outlandish crimes. There was a big to-do about this game because you're encouraged to steal cars, rough up people, kill cops, etc. But what really caused the big problem was that the game was rated Mature by the ESRB, and it was discovered that Rockstar left in an Easter Egg referred to as "Hot Coffee", content which showed the game characters engaging in explicit sexual activity. This event led to political stumping and soapboxing, and laws in Michigan, California, Illinois, Washington, and elsewhere that actually restricted the sales of violent and/or explicit video games. These laws, thankfully, were struck down by the courts, as it limited freedom of expression.

Ever since then, every politician who was old enough to have lost weight with Ayds has taken a "hard stance" against video games and the ESRB. Here's the tiny little problem - Bethesda actually decided to eliminate the partial nudity from their games a long time ago. The first two installations of the series - Arena in 1994 and Daggerfall in 1996 - showed topless characters when the character died and was looted of all clothing by the player. When the third installment of the game (the sublime Morrowind) was released in 2002, players saw that all characters wore underwear that could not be removed. Players on the forums complained about this, claiming it detracts from the immersion qualities of the game, but Bethesda stood by their decision. Morrowind also debuted a new game engine for the series which allowed Bethesda to build a framework and use their own construction kit to build the game. The benefit is that this construction kit could be shared with customers, who could add their own plug-in modules to the game to add weapons, armor, quests, graphic tiles, and even entire land areas. So, naturally, some of the role playing purists developed a module that re-added the ability to remove clothing for a body.

What does this mean, dear reader? It means that if you go on fan sites relating to the game, and search through the mod databases for the mod that allows non-player characters to be topless, download it, unpack it, and install it, you might actually see BREASTS! Digital, drawn, and in many cases, green or blue or yellow breasts! On women with orc teeth or elf ears!

Aren't folks going a bit too far? California Assembly Speaker and 12th Assembly District Representative Leland Yee claiming that Take Two Interactive, the publisher of both Rockstar's games as well as Bethesda's, "just doesn't learn". He's not the only one - look at all the news stories - legislators are trying to use this flap to further their agendas to legislate how video games are rated and sold. It's happened before, as the links above illustrate. In fact, it's still going on, even though the previous laws have been struck down. People who have never played a video game are still attempting to try to find a way to ban or restrict certain types of games with inappropriate content. Yee released a follow-up press release today in response to the re-rating berating the ESRB and game makers for 'hiding' content and 'misleading' the public.

Here's the problem, Assemblyman Yee. Unlike the specific case of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, these breasts you're so afraid of do not come with the game. That's right - you have to go out to the Internet to one of the sites hosting amateur player "mods" for Oblivion, download the mod, and install it onto your game to see these horrific mammaries of corruption. And these mods are by so-called "third parties", a term that makes it sound like a respected gaming company like Blizzard is publishing add-ons for the game. They aren't - the mods are written by individuals like you and me. Mr. Yee seems to suggest that it's second nature to download these mods. It isn't - it's really for the "hardcore gamer". It takes very specific and directed action to get these mods.

See, this is the thing - it's no different than if someone gave me web space to blog and I decided to post pictures of breasts on it. Would you start a crusade against blog sites? No, of course not because the blog site provides an empty canvas for the creative (or in my case, angry) to create (rant). This specific case is the exact same thing. There are literally hundreds of mods available for this game and most are very elaborate, creative, and enhance the game beyond the developer's conception. There is one that I found in my searches while writing this blog that enables topless females.

Now poor Bethesda has to backtrack. They have to send out stickers to every retailer so that the game box will reflect the new rating. They have to print new boxes for games not yet distributed. They have to make silly statements saying that they'll take steps to eliminate the ability to make nude models for characters. This is impossible and will just be hacked around if somehow done, and represents a waste of everyone's time and Bethesda's money. They are going along with the new rating because it simply isn't worth their time and expense to fight the ESRB's decision to revoke the Teen rating. Even though their game does match the ESRB descriptions for Teen, and Bethesda did not 'hide' anything, they are being slapped with a black mark and negative publicity as well as taking financial hits over this flap.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has been universally celebrated with great reviews and scores, and is the best selling video game right now on XBOX 360 and PC. The PC version is the only one that allows downloading of add-ons written by third parties. The series is beloved by its fans, a group that is growing with each release of the now 11 year old series. To take away from its accomplishments in this fashion and suggesting that the game includes inappropriate content as shipped and applied an inappropriate rating amounts to nothing more than slander by Mr. Yee and others, because the game fits the description of the "Teen" rating to a tee.

The only party truly in the wrong on the software side is the ESRB itself, who over-reacted to the news about the mod and changed the rating of the game. They should have stood by the game and the rating, noting the rating standards published, and that the game as shipped does properly conform to the "Teen" rating. They have kowtowed to partisan sensationalist politics and went into crisis mode to avoid another San Andreas situation. All of which actually made the situation worse.

Fact: any game can be hacked to include topless characters - even if it ISN'T moddable out of the box! Watch out Disney! So should every game be rated "Mature" or "Adults Only" just in case? What's the point of that - wouldn't THAT eliminate the effectiveness of the ESRB ratings?

This brings me back to the original point. These poor unaware children are not receiving this mod from Bethesda. They are also not receiving the mod via the post, nor via distribution in school, nor on a free CD-ROM distributed at the game shop. They're downloading it themselves on their PC in the home! Further, they're not doing it accidentally. The mod describes what it is - and you have to go looking specifically for a topless mod! For those interested, here it is. It even gives a nudity warning, and provides an alternative way to use the full mod without the female nudity if it offends. So clearly even the modder kept it in mind that some would want to use the features of the mod (which does go beyond simply adding female nudity) without the female nudity and provided a workaround. Well done. In summary - the children everyone's so concerned about (a) go looking specifically to get a mod so that the female characters, when looted of clothes, are topless, and (b) already know about and wish to see breasts.

If this is the case - and keep in mind there is no sexual aspect here - no explicit sex, no showing of sex parts other than breasts - what is the big deal? And whose responsibility is it to prevent children under 18 from viewing the results of this mod? If adults wish to download this mod because they wish to increase the immersion/reality quotient of the game, so be it. But isn't it incumbent upon the PARENTS to monitor what their kids are downloading and what they're doing? It wouldn't take too long spending time playing the game with your son or daughter to determine how the game is played, and how it is displayed to the player. But that is clearly asking too much. We expect a tiny little label on a box to tell us what evils may come to the child for playing the game. We want a ratings board and oversight committee and state legislature and national congress to take care of telling us what content should go into video games on the off chance that children might encounter them.

And that label doesn't matter much if you don't take an interest in what your kids are doing on the computer and spend some time with them.

Just Think A Little...

Welcome, reader, to my new blog -- Just Think A Little. I'm getting in on the ground floor - only the 1,328,934,001st person to blog on the Internet. Congratulations to me.

Now that self-congratulations are out of the way, I'd like to introduce you to what this blog is.

This blog is a place where I will discuss issues in my life that I observe or am involved in. It is a place where I will discuss world events, ranging from politics to media to everything else. I hope to inspire conversation and - there it is - thought. Note that there will be a lot of opinion here, and, sadly, I am not always correct. So please, comment away, even if you have only a few words to contribute. The blog will likely evolve and change over time - this is expected, and this is desirable.

A few simple rules: If you'd like to link here, do so. In return, I'd appreciate your linking back to me. If you'd like to publish a snippet of my thoughts, or a post in its entirety - by all means, do so - thought is to be shared and spread - but please credit and link to me. All text posted by me on this blog is my Copyright. I reserve all rights to it, and reserve the right to revoke any use of my content that I deem inappropriate. If you wish to use my content for commercial purposes (beyond quoting in a news story or another blog), please contact me first at exsententiaveritas@gmail.com.

The title of this blog was derived from the title of a book written by a man named Tim Stryker, who was a visionary technologist in the mid 1980s through the mid 1990s, who did things with computers that should have, at the time, been completely impossible, and who died long before his time. He consistently considered ways to apply technology to democracy - how to eliminate overhead, oversight, and government interference in it. In short, he championed Superdemocracy - a concept ahead of its time, and Incentivism. He published a book entitled Think A Little - published by Cool Hand Communications (ISBN: 1-56790-025-9) - which is sadly long out of print, but worth finding. It encapsulates much of what I believe and will try to get across here - that ideas, no matter how out there are worth pursuing and considering - and you don't have to agree with everything, as long as you think about it.

Thank you for reading. I hope you come back often.

Yours,
Ex Sententia Veritas