Um, am I the only person here who thinks this is a bit off the wall? That 3drealms is re-evaluating their game because it might contain "objectionable content"?

I mean, what the hell, I feel just as much about this as everyone, but that doesn't mean that we should go around jacking with games.

And no, I'm not just complaining because this'll push the release date back, I've waited for a couple years, I can wait longer. But it's ridiculous that we should have to "re-imagine" what a game is and remove "objectionable content."

What's the damn deal? There's a billion Pearl Harbor/WWII games out there, and while that is a very different situation than what happened on Tuesday, it's still along the same lines. Why is it such a big deal to have the trade center towers in the games? I'll bet anyone $50 that they don't even remove any content about the Pentagon because of this.

And what's with the completely dense journalists who think that you can just go play a game and learn how-to fly a plane? Does that mean I can go play Doom and learn how-to defeat evil underworld monsters, with a shotgun and a chainsaw no less, that suddenly come out of nowhere?

Hot damn, who needs to get trained or goto bootcamp, I'm going to go play one of the Jane's combat simulation games for a week and then go bomb the middle east myself. Because as we all know, games teach people how-to shoot guns at teachers and terrorists how-to fly jetliners.

I was surprised they were going to remove the towers from FS2002. Speaking for myself I would have liked to have a memory of these magnificent towers when flying around New York in FS2002.

Yep, when I first heard it, I wasn't sure I wanted this to happen--I think it's just denial, though. I guess I'm just not ready to see them take the towers out, but I suppose it's time to make the call.

I agree that all this talk about reevaluating content in games, movies and TV shows is really getting ugly. Certain things that recreate images from the attack are one thing, and should be pulled just to be tasteful. For example there was this commercial for flexible eyeglass frames that literally shows a skyscraper bending down to avoid being hit by a passing 747. I saw it one time on cable in the afternoon of the 11th, cringed and thought to myself, 'they'd best pull that one out of circulation quick'.

But now anything that takes place in NY or involves terrorism or exploding jets or a war in the middle east in being reworked or yank or pushed back. What happened was unfortuante and sad and will never be forgotten, but we can't start censoring and sanitizing everything. Games like Rouge Spear: Black Thorne and Metal Gear Solid 2 are about the fight against terrorism, why should we be afraid of these things. It looks like we will quite literally be watching a real war in real-time on television pretty soon, but I can't boot up my PS2 and try to erradicate some fictional terrorists because the game has been deemed insensitive?

Of course I can understand a little skiddishness on the part of publishers. Dark Horizons.com is reporting that certain pro-censorship groups are contacting video rental joints asking them to pull movies like Die Hard and Independance Day from the shelves because of the events of 9/11. But I certainly hope the suits at Konami or Red Storm, or 20th Century Fox and Paramount for that matter, don't don't start making any rash, emotional or reactionary decisions. Unless you're shipping this week you don't need to decide now. Give it a little time and reason things out.

Oh, and I've got to say it. Duke Nukem Forever is a game, I've heard, filled with misogeny, swearing and violence, but it's the 3D representation of the Twin Towers that will offend people...

Brad Grenz

While I think they are going way overboard on yanking everything. (Are they yanking Towering Inferno? Not only did that have a giant blast, fire and oj simpson. It also showed the poor planning of WTC architects to not have giant cisterns of water located on the roof). The difference between pearl harbor movies and this, is timing. They didn't come out with pearl harbor movies the next week. Give people some time.

As for MS FS - can't you get hours counted towards actual flying or something? Some lady at one of our clients was babbling on about it one day so I don't remember the details.

Chet

Sending out press releases shouting "HEY!
We're delaying/removing X from our game!"
kinda bothers me...I guess they're doing it to
ward off bad journalists who may hunt them
down and call them insensitive. At least I
really, really hope that's why they're doing it.

But I'm also working on a game that could,
unfortunately, now be seen as offensive
to some people. And of course I'm removing
the affected landmarks from the game,
because seeing those buildings actually
destroyed would indeed be incredibly
tasteless (to say the least) now. But I can't do
any more than that - cities being destroyed
(albeit by silly-looking giant monsters) is what
the game's about.

I just don't see how erasing every mention
of tall buildings, planes, terrorists, New York,
or violence will help anyone in this situation.

Well I understand that MSFS2002 is now "on hold indefinitely". So that looks bleak. However I have no problems with the WTC not being in 2002 since there will not be a WTC in 2002. However yanking them seems goofy for terrorist in mind since they aren't going practist flying into a nonexistant building.

"As for MS FS - can't you get hours counted towards actual flying or something?"

Yes. I have a friend studying to be a pilot in college (yes, it is a major) and he has told me this. There are some restrictions, but you can earn flight hours using it as a simulator.

We're on the cusp of a fundamental change in entertainment. I noted in another thread awhile back that it seemed like the country was getting tired of dark, dreary, ugly entertainment. This tragedy is going to initiate a complete turn around to lighter, happier fare coming from both Hollywood and the various game publishers because they won't want the risks involved in possibly insensitive fare.

There will be a lot of talk about sensitivity to the people involved in the tragedy and most of it will be warranted. You'll still see a fair amount of games with violent action and themes, but undoubtedly they will be more fantasy based. In that sense, Return to Castle Wolfenstein is safe because it involved slaughtering hordes of undead. Same with something like DOOM which involves demons, etc. What you won't see much of will be the counter-terrorist games where you can play the bad guys. Soldier of Fortune 2 may get dropped like a rock. Stuff like that, which some considered boderline inappropriate before, will be smashed by public opinion now.

There's a lot of other stuff I see in my gaming crystal ball including a rough launch for Xbox and maybe even Gamecube this Fall. What looked like sure sell-outs may not even come close in two months. Microsoft's price point just became an even bigger problem with the Wall Street decline and consumers scared shitless. We may even hear of people canceling pre-orders and getting their money back.

Expect to see a lot more games change somehow before release.

Maybe this is a good thing though. We might finally see more designers relying on their people to create better GAMES instead of better reality simulators.

--Dave

...But they aren't punishing just the games that are "reality simulators". They're trying to censor games (and movies) that are pure fantasy, but just happen to contain an element that in some way reflects what happened.

Why on earth should MS put off development of MS FS 2002?

Remember, everyone said this would happen after Columbine -- less violent games. Did it happen?

Condition Zero lets you play through the campaign as a terrorist, too. I wonder....

As if to validate my argument immediately...

Rogue Spear: Black Thorn delayed until further notice.

--Dave

As for removing the WTC from games, I think the developers will look really stupid after the towers get rebuilt. I can see it now: "We delayed development to take the WTC out, but now we're going to have to delay release to put them back in." I hope they're keeping backup copies of the maps. (heh)

- Alan

It took 7 years to build the towers the last time. I imagine DNF will be out before then...

You don't really believe DNF will be out in the next seven years, do you?

-Biyobi

Perhaps the best way I can sum up how ridiculous the pulling of certain aspects that might be taken to offense is the fact that Clearchannel Worldwide has apparently put a ban list on 6-7 AC/DC songs.

Now, I don't know about any of you, but AC/DC sing about one thing and one thing only, and that's sex. So why on Earth, why why why, is Clearchannel worried about people getting offended when hearing "T.N.T." or "Shoot To Thrill"?

If anyone is this sensitive to what happened, and think that they can turn the world off as we know it, then I hope someone kicks them in the ass and tells them they are sadly mistaken.

I might not watch much TV, and I have a movie collection that would make the AFI cry (so naturally I'm not worried about upcoming movies being pulled or old ones being pulled), but when you start censoring music---the staple of ALL free creativity---then you're seriously crossing the line in my mind.

It's silly, in some ways, I agree. But the idea of trying to be sensitive to people's feelings isn't inherently bad, and it isn't censorship, anyhow. When a commercial entity chooses to offer this or that product, and not this other one, it's not censorship--it's business. Only the government or equivalent entity can actually engage in censorship. If a radio network decides it doesn't want to play a particular song, no matter how silly that decision is (Pat Benatar songs, for goodness sakes?), it's their right to do so. We have not God-given right to pablum on the radio. It's a product.

Now if the government was telling them not to play AC/DC, that'd be different.

"If a radio network decides it doesn't want to play a particular song, no matter how silly that decision is (Pat Benatar songs, for goodness sakes?), it's their right to do so. We have not God-given right to pablum on the radio. It's a product."

Unfortunately, Clear Radio is becoming the Microsoft of radio. Once they decide not to play a song, it might not be censorship, but it ain't good.

Considering Clearchannel Worldwide owns the largest preportion of radio stations in the world---by a large margin---it can be considered censorship in my eyes.

The worst part? All the top (and I do mean all) stations in Dallas/Fort Worth are owned by Clear Channel with the exception of two.

All the top rock stations ARE owned by Clearchannel. So where does that leave me, and all the other 8 million people in D/FW, to listen to these songs that have been blanked from airplay:

http://www.fuckedcompany.com/extras/clearchannel_email.cfm

Maybe I'm overreacting, but tell me, if all the TV stations were suddenly forced to play nothing but reruns of Mama's House and Good Times, because all other shows are objectionable to a handful of people, wouldn't you be complaining?

Well, yeah,
It is silly, this ClearChannel business I mean, but it's nothing new. Even this new list is similar to older lists. Stations, particularly Oldies and Classic Rock, have a playlist of maybe 100-200 songs they're supposed to play. All the rest are sort of ignored. Sadly these lists often include bad 80's songs from Classic artists. I'm Still Standing, etc., The only difference now is the reason behind it.

It's been a long, long, time since the days when a DJ was in control of the playlist. Damn shame. Corporate radio sucks.

But this list is pretty silly. No Peace Train or Morning Has Broken? Why wasn't Big Old Jet Airliner banned? Or Leaving on a Jet Plane? I suppose those are offensive. No Rage Against the Machine at all? Not even Renegades of Funk?

Why not Renegades of Funk?

Why is Obla-Di-Obla-Da banned? If I squint really hard and hold my breath I can imagine why A Day in the Life was banned but why Imagine?

You may say I'm a dreamer...
-Andrew

The Zombies "She's Not There"?!!! So what, are all melancholy songs or songs of loss now of "questionable content?" There goes about 1/2 of pop music right there. I don't think exercising a little good taste is a bad idea, but a lot of these are beyond being a stretch by even the thinnest-skinned radio programmer or listener.

-Matthew

Actually, _Leaving On a Jet Plane_ WAS banned...

I realize I'm arguing semantics, perhaps, but it's still not censorship, even if it is bad. And I think it _is_ bad, in the long run, to limit what people hear on the radio. Still, it's a commercial product, and they can vend it however they want--you don't have to listen (God knows I don't listen to radio, period, except maybe for NPR news).

The monopoly aspects are indeed troubling, but that's a whole 'nuther kettle of fish.

I can see "She's not There", given someone listening may have lost a "she" who was "there". But it's silly.

I agree with Robert, of course they have the right but I wish they'd take the higher road. It's like Wal-Mart with the violent games or certain books/music they feel their customers would object to. Fine. Stock it in smaller numbers. But it behind glass. Locked glass like they used to do with guns. I've been to Wal-Mart (on a baby supply run) and wandered over to the music section thinking: "Oh yeah, I wonder if that have that new PJ Harvey... oh yeah..."

I just can't get over "Obla-Di" being banned. They've maybe got a problem with the line "la-la-la-la life goes on"

-Andrew

Geez, the FCC has just gone straight to hell since Reagan got a hold of it. If Clear Channel isn't a monopoly, I don't know what is. The old focus on local control is gone, too.

lol.

Blame it all on the Republicans, in some way all of this is their fault.

Seriously, in this case it's actually true. Reagan's appointees removed most of the total station ownership limitations, requirements for local control, lowered the hours of educational programming required, you name it.

Deregulation is normally great, but in this case I'm not sure how it's improved anything.