PC Gaming

Britain’s Sky News TV channel on Tuesday uncovered a virtual playground hidden away behind a strip mall in “Second Life” — a playground where little girls offered the Sky reporter’s avatar, or virtual representative, a variety of sex acts.

The playground is called “wonderland” and the children avatars are in all age’s even toddlers, and they offer every thinkable kind of sex … including torture

If this would be a computer game it would immediately be removed from the shelves, but since this is user creatable content the law doesn’t know how to respond.

The question is, since each avatar is controlled by a person, who’s age you don’t know ( even the girls can be controlled by a grow man) is this really a crime.

My personal opinion woyu8ld be that they should shut this crap down, but lets say that this is only grown ups playing is it illegal then or is it just a sick act that they let stay in the virtual world.

Anyway Sky news is reporting that detectives will be sent in to investigate what kind of action this really is.

crime in games, wonderland, Second -life

The guys over at 1Pstart.com are reporting that “Rockstar has finally made its decision to fight for their much anticipated, highly controversial title, Manhunt 2, by issuing an appeal to the Video Appeals Committee in the UK.

Rockstar filed their plea yesterday, in hopes of defending the artistic merits of Manhunt and convincing the BBFC (the British Board of Film Classification) to overturn their decision to refuse a rating to Manhunt 2 given on June 19th.”

This is great news; course even though I do not like manhunt I still think that’s its up to the individual to decide if he or she wants to play the game and not the government.

Read more at 1pstart.com

Manhunt2, rockstar, ESBR

Since I am also a mother I get to hear this following phrase a lot: “Will you really let your son play video games”. Yes it’s true, even though we live in the 20’Th century people are still afraid for things they don’t know. My advice to parents around the country is to get involved in what their kids are doing …hey you might even like it. Anyway a new study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health has found that playing violent video games does not lead to violent behaviour in teens. The study also found that violent video games can help teens deal with their emotions like stress and anger.

Researchers looked at more than 1,200 seventh and eight graders who played video games regularly. “We found that most boys 12-14 years old are playing mature-rated video games, so this idea that ‘M’ rated games cause shootings or major violence just doesn’t hold water,” said Cheryl Olson SC.D., Massachusetts General Hospital.

Read the whole thing here:

video game, violence, pcgames, studies

“Manhunt made my son a killer”, says a mother in a recent article published by Newsoftheworld.com. I don’t like Newsoftheworld and I think it’s terribly wrong to blame games for such horrible acts as murder. I am sad to hear a mother desperately searching for something to blame instead of accepting the fact that her son did something horrible because he was mentally ill.

I write about this article for one reason … I believe that it’s very important that gamers are able to talk about the downsides of gaming. If we don’t, we are as bad as the guys who throw dirt on the world of computer games. There are downsides, such as addiction for example where kids plays to much and so on … of course there are ..but you also have to think of how many of the hundreds of thousands of players that plays on a regular basis that don’t get addicted.

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I do not like when people don’t have better things to do than harrassing people and finally …someone understood that the so called lawyer Jack Thompson is a bit of a nutcase.
The Florida Bar is proposing that the “lawyer” submit to psychological testing and accept a 91-day suspect of his law license as part of a Florida Supreme Court mandated mediation, Game Politics reports.

Thompson copied Game Politics in an email with the Florida Supreme Court:

“Mediation failed today because there was no mediation whatsoever… Ms. Tuma not only did not move off her demand one iota, not one smidgeon, but she instead upped her demand by requiring that Thompson undergo a battery of psychological tests as part of the fabulous deal The Bar offered him…
Ms. Tuma last demand going into the mediation was a 91-day suspension, and she opened and ended with that and a shrink’s couch. This is bad faith…

This “mediation” was a charade… Finally, [Thompson] requests a status conference herein as soon as possible so that we can… shut this Star Chamber down. Thompson is not the one who needs a psych evaluation. “

It’s great that someone realized that something has to be done when a lawyer constantly harasses journalist, game developers and others. And if there is someone that need to be permanently disbarred from his lawyer-duties in my opinion its Jack Thompson.

Couldn’t help myself including this one from Penny Arcade … when I heard this news!

Jack Thompson, games, court, game politics

The Church of England has threatened to sue Sony after the Japanese company used Manchester Cathedral as the backdrop to the gunfight in the PlayStation 3 game Resistance:The Fall of Man. And they could have a case. “
Isnt that a bit bizzarre? I mean if outside-buildings are considered protected under the law in the future, there will be no movies, no games and not even any private photos, since you have to pay for it.

Today you are free to shoot pictures outside a building but according to the business.timesonline article”the legal situation changes radically, once a game enters the doors of a location.
The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 contains the so-called “2D to 3D rule”. Designed to prevent architects’ blue prints being bootlegged by builders who could use them to build replica buildings it could also stop a games developer creating a fictional representation of a real site.
That means that EA Games, the biggest games developer, which features the new Wembley Stadium in its FIFA series of football games, has had to receive permission from the Football Association to do so.
“If a computer game developer is copying a landmark there generally isn’t a problem,” Mr Frederikse said. “But if a developer were to use details from inside a new building they will run into real trouble if they don’t have permission.”

In general a “2D to 3D” case can only be made if a copyright holder is still alive or has died in the past 70 years – a potential problem for the Church of England as Manchester Cathedral’s archives stem back as far as 1361 – though it was extensively rebuilt after the Second World War. “

So why do they have a case, you ask?
Well the Church argue that it owns the copyright to the photos that Sony is thought to have used to recreate Manchester Cathedral.

The Church could follow action under libel or trade libel laws. “The Church is by no means home on this, but if it could prove it has been sullied in the eyes of worshippers who believe it has endorsed or authorised this game.”

Let’s hope that there will be some sort of reason in all this and all hope that the church has better things to do than taking Sony to court becourse of this.

Source:business.timesonline

resistance-fall-of-ma, manchesiter-choir, games, lawyer

Although I really think that Second Life is not really a game, a lot of people would of course disagree. And since SL count’s as a game, this latest news from gamepolitics.com is quite interesting to read since it seems that some virtual land dispute that started last year has moved into actual REAL LIFE court rooms.

Attorney Marc Bragg “exploited a URL quirk to grab several plots of virtual land for cheap,” and Linden Labs then suspended his account, citing ToS violations.

Bragg responded by filing suit in a Pennsylvania court, which Linden tried to have dismissed (it didn’t work). No word on when it will actually be going to be heard in federal court, but it probably will since real money is at stake. If it does, it could be very interesting since the verdict of the case can set a statement for how virtual items should be handled in the future.

Read more at Gamepolitics.com

second life, virtual reality, court, games

… at least in Korea they do …

Well, we all know that Korea is a country with an obsessive fixation to any sort of online gaming, therefore don’t take it to serious …

In a new Korea Times article it says that parents in Korea are increasingly concerned that prepaid cards used for many games are contributing to game addiction. “Prepaid cards for online games are being sold to children without any restriction. More and more children are becoming addicted to games due to the free access of such cards.”

The article laments the accessibility of prepaid cards for online games in Korea. Somehow they equal those game-cards to booze and cigarettes, but unlike booze or cigarettes, they Prepaid cards are regulated. There are plenty of other products which consumers may become addicted to, such as junk food, but you don’t see a call to regulate those? What’s the next step, forbidding candy because it makes some people fat?

I don’t know, but what I do know is that a good step to prevent addiction and over consumption are responsible parenting? As a first step parents could stop using the computer as a babysitter and maybe take the kids out for a fun day in the park once in a while instead… and if you’re worried that they’re spending too much time playing the game, uninstall it. That’s so much easier than trying to regulate the cards, especially since these highly resourceful kids could probably find a way to sign up for a monthly subscription even if you take away the cards.

Source: Korea Times

online gaming, world of warcraft, parenting, games