What are you talking about now, Joystiq and John Romero?

Apparently, John Romero thinks that because someone put breasts in Oblivion, the games industry is going to explode like a huge bomb right in our faces. Joystiq obviously thinks that this is worthy of linking without comment on its completely ludicrous nature, but obviously not without the welcome addition of their customary nonsensical hyperbole: “Is the industry headed for dark days?”

No. Shut up about the industry please.

Romero’s argument is constructed from the following joists: Hot Coffee, the most pervasively stupid and uninteresting controversy ever, happened; “it’s now harder to get a lower rating because of these hacks”; therefore, “You’ll probably start seeing game data files becoming encrypted and the open door on assets getting slammed shut just to keep modders from financially screwing the company they should be helping.”

Firstly, if anyone thinks that these controversies actually hurt Rockstar or Bethesda in PR terms, they should go and live in a cave. Particularly Rockstar, whose image is based on “edginess”, God help them.

Secondly, if anyone thinks that increasing the age rating on a game makes it sell less copies they are clearly an American, and they should go and live in a cave. The age rating on something DOESN’T MATTER – most kids get their older brothers or parents to buy it for them, the kids who don’t have older brothers or parents pirate it…oh, that partially invalidates my point. Never mind, this is an argument with Joystiq and Romero, so I can still win despite that.

Anyway, Americans have this problem with age ratings, I don’t get it, I think it’s because they’re all bitter because everyone in this country can get served alcohol at 14 if they want.

Has anyone actually worked out how the compensatory factor of increased PR from controversy counteracts the lost sales from “minors” in these cases? No, because that’s really hard to quantify and it’s much easier to just post a load of nonsense on the internet while sitting in your pants. Shut up about age ratings.

Finally, this gibberish terminates with the conclusion that companies are going to clamp down on modders by “encrypting their data files”. Aside from the fact that this sounds like something which the main bad guy in a terrible film tells his minions to do just before Bruce Boxleitner and the FBI run in, who cares? No Counterstrike? What? I bet no developer is ever going to do that for legal protection from modders. That’s like encasing your bike in a tungsten box every time you leave it somewhere in case someone uses it to steal a dog.

If someone makes all the characters in Determinance into giant genitals, we’ll laugh. Don’t do that though. We’re not going to encrypt our data files – shut up about encrypting data files. And reverse the polarity while you’re at it.

[New Games Journalism] I just got five blank spam emails from the same address while writing this – I see this as a metaphor for this argument [/New Games Journalism]

Look, the point is this. The fact that it’s completely crazy that anyone can blame a developer for what someone does in a mod, whether that mod reveals “hidden content” or introduces content (apparently, the breasts weren’t already there in Oblivion), is key. How did cases like this even get to court – what’s wrong with the legal system in America? Modding should constitute “voiding the warranty” – once it’s been modded, it’s not the original product. That’s obvious – the fact that nobody has got a test case through to protect developers just means that they haven’t hired an expensive enough lawyer yet, or had a trial in the UK where the legal system actually works properly. Sometimes.

Also, “…to keep modders from financially screwing the company they should be helping” . Are modders there to help companies? The last time I checked, they were people who thought that putting exploding rabbits who talk like Beavis and Butthead in Half Life was funny, I don’t think they care about helping anyone.

Piracy hurts the games industry much more than this stupid porn modding nonsense – blog about that if you want to tackle an issue. Just shut up about Hot Coffee etc…I’m sick of hearing about it, because it doesn’t matter.

Also Daikatana LOL.

[EDIT - to be fair to Mr Romero, he has now made it clear that he blames this situation on the ESRB and not modders, which is good. The industry still isn't headed "for dark days" because he just said something about it, though.

How bad would it truly be if all games were "locked", which they won't be? And also, what's to stop a company releasing "Locked Game" (Rated U) and then "Locked Game Source Code Super Modding Fun Pack" (Rated M) separately, so that this alleged cataclysmic effect on their sales doesn't happen?]

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 5th, 2006 at 11:42 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

8 Responses to “What are you talking about now, Joystiq and John Romero?”

1. Ian:

   § May 6th, 2006 at 2:37 am

   

   The lucid-est thing you’ve said this month is that Romero’s comment about encryption sounds like a movie. Is his blog target market middle aged women? Is that possible? I guess Kill Crest (or whatever her name is. Kill Creek) is mid forties now so making his target market his wife’s (I have no idea if they’re still together, no less married) friends (this implies her friends are women in their mid forties and I’m certainly not sure of that) is a pretty cool idea.

   I’m not entirely sure why you’re being rude about Americans here… it would seem there are far more relevant places to do that.

   Bethesda leaving those models in (which by the way they did, the breasts were on the CD) was stupid. I happen to NOT AGREE with the ridiculous attitude towards porn the ESRB (or whatever) have, but I do agree that if you distribute materials that are dissalowed by the “law” with your game; even if they aren’t readable without modding, then you are breaking the “law”.

   Ian

2. The Mode 7 Games Blog » Blog Archive » Popularity3:

   § May 6th, 2006 at 11:23 am

   [...] The Mode 7 Games Blog Being walked like Bonds « What are you talking about now, Joystiq and John Romero? [...]

3. Paul:

   § May 6th, 2006 at 4:30 pm

   

   There’s some issue with whether Bethesda did that or not that I can’t be bothered to research.

   To clarify, I’m not being particularly pejorative about our cousins across the puddle here, I just think they have some association with age ratings which would constitute “a thing.”

   I’m also not being rude about modders, because modders have done a lot of awesome things in the past. And stupid ones. This is why we love them. However, they are not entities which anyone should expect to be bastions of moral responsibility.

4. Ian:

   § May 6th, 2006 at 5:18 pm

   

   I think the ESRB (or whoever) want to make an absolute rule about this “hidden content” issue when they CAN’T. It has to be case by case.

5. Ian:

   § May 8th, 2006 at 6:41 pm

   

   Tom’s take on it is that if a material is “readily available” (like tits) it shouldn’t be a problem if it’s on your game disc in some kind of hard-to-access form.

   I know what he means, but I hardly think “readily available” is a term you could defend in court very easily, and plenty of parents do their level best to protect little Jimmy from all forms of porn.

6. Paul:

   § May 8th, 2006 at 6:51 pm

   

   “I know what he means, but I hardly think ‘readily available’ is a term you could defend in court very easily.”

   Especially if the case concerns tits.

7. Binster:

   § May 9th, 2006 at 12:37 pm

   Paul is the king of hasty photoshopped images.

   More tits please.

8. Paul:

   § May 9th, 2006 at 6:32 pm

   

   Sorry, we’re not that kind of blog.