'Faith-based' investment firm fingers holiday's most sinful games Buying video games as holiday gifts can be pretty intimidating when you've got a major deity looking over your shoulder. Fortunately, if you subscribe to the same flavor of US "conservative Christian" values as the Florida investment firm The Timothy Plan, this year your soul may conveniently be spared from the ever-lasting …
just a bit of twisted humor on my part but had any one really thought to who or whom these so called moral companies answer to?
i recall hearing or reading something in or from the good two ply t p aka the bible that money is evil or root of all evil
so by that logic alone does this company since being a company it exists to make monetary gain and profit answers to god/s or satan/s or to none?
also on serious note who the hell made these twits into a morality police in first place?
Violent games, anti-family? Well, I guess it depends on the family.
I wonder whether they evaluated that game some fundie nuts created, Left Behind or something (you won't catch me dead visiting the site of a "faith-based investment firm" (but then again, aren't they all? (nested parenthesis galore! I should try Lisp, maybe)), so don't tell me to follow the link...)
"The firm said it cooked up the list because it thinks most parents are mouth-breathing morons that can't read the ESRB rating and warning right there on the game's box."
Sounds pretty accurate as far as their target demographic goes, methinks.
It's amazing how people in denial on any subject would much rather shoot the messenger than face the reality that their personal beliefs may not be supported by facts.
God forbid anyone should expose video games for their negative impact on under developed minds. Why would we want to ask people to make good personal choices when it's so easy to sell them sex and violence via video games?
Err .... are not all WoW games not designedly homo-centric for they are of no Possible Interest or Use to Women and/or their Lovers? And its Play tells the World that its Players do not Know what Love is. And that is a Catastrophic Vulnerability with no Known Defence against ITs Stealth and Seductive Attacks ...... Skirmishes and Entanglements with XSSXXXXPerienced Professionals in the Search for UltiMate SoulMates and PleasureRobots.
The sadest thing about this story is that a list like this is actually necessary, since a lot of parents are mouth-breathing morons that can't read the ESRB rating and warning right there on the game's box. Or at least don't understand/care about how much an influence games can have on kids, when it's their main source of actual parenting. But then it's still likely that the people who need to read a list like this wont.
Then again, why an investment company feels the need to do this is beyond me.
This is quickly going to become every child must have game list. The publisher should start putting big warning stickers saying ... "Rated most offensive game of 2008".
And honestly if the kids parents are paying attention ... they will notice the nature of the games their kid is playing, if they are not ... then the kid can just hide the game.
Best thing to do to raise decent kids is be a decent person and let them see you treat others with respect and compassion. Games are just games.
How terrible it must be that a group of people are looking to the interests of that group of people and addressing them. Heck, next thing you know, there'll be technology podcasts talking about things that only technology people would want to know, giving them advice and tips on things like 'how to network Linux in a Windows environment' or, worse still, reviews of applications marked down because they're not very good against measured criteria which the afore mentioned group of people would find interesting - but stuff that most people wouldn't even want to read! Shame on them!
Kids should be able to play whatever they want, whatever their age. Can't these stupid do-gooders see that the world is a better place for violent games where toddlers can learn the art of torture and efficient killing? The world is a better place because of these games, more should be produced, aged banding chould be banned. Only this way can the improvements we're seeing in Western society actuall continue to the godless utopia we all want.
So based on faith (i,.e. by definition lacking rationality, logic, or scientific scrutiny) rather than based on rationality, logic, or scientific scrutiny?
For some reason I struggle to see that being a great way to decide what to buy, what to invest in, or as a way to live my life. With the obvious exception of the FSM, obviously.
You know, as a parent I'm not sure the idea is bad.
ESRB ratings are pretty simplistic, and what these guys have done is to try to weight the rating. Which is good.
It's a nice example of great idea, poor execution, but given their target demographic I'd wager that last qualification doesn't really matter.
To be honest looking through the list, and to their credit, it does actually look as if they have played the games to quite a deep extent, not just a brief play or pulling their info from online reviews.
I would guess that the guys (or girls) doing these "reviews" or play throughs don't actually believe in any of the stuff they are punting, but after all, there is a demand for this sort of information, why not make a nice holiday buck supplying it?
Probably pays better than writing for gamespot!
1) Top 30 games for parents who can't or won't bother parenting,
Maybe it can teach basic values such as helping people (you know .. doing quests), making friends and trying to get along.
2) Top 30 games which aren't like real life,
You know - like all of them!
3) Top 30 games that will teach parents to say NO to their children, rather than caving in a buying them whatever they ask for.
I can imagine a Wii game where the 'child' has to get the 'parent' to buy sweets etc. but the parent has to not only say no, but also stop the little'un from dropping things in the shopping cart - at the same time as getting things which are on a list.
Hold on - that might make the second list .. hmm
ttfn
"Best thing to do to raise decent kids is be a decent person and let them see you treat others with respect and compassion."
Not according to these guys... They give Christians (and all religions) a bad name buy treating everyone who is not like them as a lesser person, and apparently even people who do are treated like morons.
Let's see:
sex - check (For instance Job and his daughters), nudity - check (For instance, Noah and his son Ham), gay/lesbian encounters - check (Sodom and Gomorrah), violence - check, cartoon violence - no, language - no, comic mischief - no, drugs - no, alcohol - yep (Noah, Jesus), tobacco - no, gambling - no, demonic references - hell yeah, and addiction - plenty of people are addicted to the Bible.
"Bible: the game" looks like it would be a sure-fire winner.
Do any of you actually have children? Or are you simply trying to justify your own game preferences and upbringing through ridiculing this attempt to inform parents?
For the uninformed out there, children are highly influenced by everything they see, hear, do, eat, drink etc. That's why most sane parents don't let children drink, drive, do drugs, visit lap dancing bars, etc (setting aside the legality of these things). So the fact that children are influenced by computer games (just as they might be by a book or a film) is indisputable. The question, as parents, is knowing what that influence might be and whether you want it or not. Parents make these sorts of decision all the time, so there's nothing wrong with the intent of this - whether it is an effective way of informing parents is another matter.
As much as I really, really want to mouth off about nut-job Americans who pick and choose which aspects of Christianity they like (and invent to few more for good measure), my disdain is tempered somewhat by the irritation I find when playing 'adult' games (that's GTA IV, people - not Leisure Suit Larry).
CoD4 and GTA IV both have ratings that say you must be a fair way through puberty before you get in on this game. So why do I find myself being shot at by high-pitched voices on Xbox Live telling me to "freak off?"
Next time I think I may befriend these children (steady) and teach them a few choice words to say to their parents (like "Ma The Farquar"). That at least should get their Xboxs taken away for a bit.
The point still remains, however, that if parents are too retarded to read a simple label that says "For 16 year olds and above only" then a long report from a wannabe disciple of the Almighty won't help a jot.
the parents are just the innocent dupes of the Satanic games industry which puts flowers and rabbits on the covers of violent computer games so that they think the rating are lies, also put there by the devil.....
parents are at fault for nothing their children do or are exposed to these days because it's all the work of the devil and you can't fight that with parents, only by blaming someone else after the event.
Jeez (oops, hellfire for me!) people need to take some effin' responsibility for their actions for once....if I trip on the street do I blame myself for not paying attention or sue either the footwear manufacturer or the local council for not making either the street or my shoes correctly??
Their kids, their problem, their responsibility, honestly!
Point is that the games ARE NOT designed for kids, hence why they get 18 ratings.
So, i enjoy games that are, ahem, more 'mature' and get ratings of 15+ I also enjoy games that are rated below that, since i am a gamer. Why the fuck should some little peabody decide if i should be able to play something that isn't suitable for kids. I'm 30 years old, i can make my own descisions.
It's clearly the parents fault though, I was talking to a mother who let her 13 year old son play GTA4 but then wouldn't let him watch a film rated 15. When i tried to explain to her the hypocrisy of this situation she just shrugged and said 'games aren't as bad as films' when clearly they are. Parents need more educating on the whole subject. Hopefully then people will shut the hell up about it and let us gamers enjoy a myriad of games in peace.
OK, so it's a long time since I read a bible, so correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Jesus kick the moneychangers out of the temple, and tell a rich man to give up all his worldly goods?
Somehow don't think he'd be too keen on an investment company operating in his name.
"i recall hearing or reading something in or from the good two ply t p aka the bible that money is evil or root of all evil"
Read it again then. It's the *love* of money, not money itself. If they're rich, they're OK with their book so long as they don't love the money.
Misquoting does annoy me so.
If they just said something like "we don't think that the following games are suitable for kids/family consumption" I'd have a lot more time for them, it's the dressing it up as some sort of moral crusade that gets me. It seems pretty sensible that you don't let children play on 18cert games, in the same way that you don't show them slasher flicks, or have I missed something?
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
Nuff said really!
I think it was the LOVE OF money that was the root of all evil, not the money itself.
However Jesus was pretty specific on his feelings that time he visited the money lenders (and what else is investment if not that) and even if you take the more lax definition of "usury" as charging EXCESSIVELY HIGH interest, any Christians involved in any way with either credit cards or sub-prime mortgages might need a bit of intense soul-cleansing for the next few decades!
...while your demon spawn child kills little girls on video games.
I am slightly upset that Saints Row 2 didn't rank higher than GTA IV. Where in GTA do you get to smoke a fat blunt, get your kit off and go wave your bits around in the face of some old lady for extra points and respect?
Also, see this blog post: http://www.thatsfuckingstupid.com/index.php/2008/12/videogames-dont-kill-people-people-kill-people/
I was going to start with the number of demonic references missed, got up to 4 (starting from the bottom going up on the full list), before i got to: "Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers"
....
O.O
(Got to 9 for deminic references in the end, though i didnt know some games, and let a few off)
Also, Oblivion is on there twice (as Elder scrolls IV: Oblivion, the. and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) and scores differently (7 and 8, aparrently picking up a point for drugs somewhere),
"most parents are mouth-breathing morons that can't read the ESRB rating and warning right there on the game's box."
Actually, the $DEITY worshiping folks this is targeted at are mouth-breathing morons, who apparently can't read. At all. They've certainly never read their own "good book", at least not for comprehension. What makes "the timothy plan" (caps not needed) folks think that the parental units will learn to read, just to read an obscure web page?
"the firm claims there's unmentioned but "somewhat homo-erotic undertones between the two main characters" in the third-person shooter, Army of Two."
I thought that was a *movie*, not a game? Chaps in uniforms, bunks, "standing to attention"?
/mine's the one with the sticky "homo-erotic" DVD in the pocket.
Wouldn't it be more informative and useful for them to just make a list of the games they approve of? This list is going to be much more use as advertising for the games that made it than help to the games that didn't make it.
Also, I can see how they judged all but the last category: how do they rank "addictiveness" of a game? Isn't that really just a measure of how much people like to play it? If so, why is it a bad thing? It's not like the game actually contains physically addictive substances.
Didn't they also use their review criteria to find the top game for christian stockings this christmas?
1. Wacka-gay - You take the hands of a Vicar, have to thwack the heads of any gay and lesbian folk who pop their heads up through the a set of holes within a certain time limit.
Aren't there laws against this kind of thing now?
It's not only by rating computer games that families can protect themselves from evil. I'd like to see this rating system applied to any books that the children are exposed to.
Can we make a start by rating the Bible according to the same criteria? It probably features prominently in quite a few homes and children may be tempted to 'sneak a peak' at it when their parents aren't around to give guided reading.
it's like Radio One banning a single...a guaranteed Number One!
Anyway, given the choice between sitting on a cloud playing a harp, playing monopoly or being warm and toasty with women in leather and whips and chains and all that...know where I want to go.. Woo ha ha haaaa
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"Games on the firm's list accumulate points representing its soul-corrupting properties by scoring in categories of sex, nudity, gay/lesbian encounters, violence, cartoon violence, language, comic mischief, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, demonic references, and game addiction."
What has any of this got to do with being offensive to religious sensibilities? Now bear in mind I have studied any of the well known religious books of fairy stories to any great extent but I'm pretty sure that at no point does it say that "That shalt not indulge in comic mishief."!!
Bloody, moralistic, religious nutcases, think their faith gives them a right to mouth off on every subject under the sun, 'cos it's tied to religion the mouth-breathing, fire and brimstone mob all sit up and take note, 'cos they so mind numbingly daft they can't make up their own minds about what's right or wrong.
What's usually the first thing any psycho says when he's carved up 26 people and buried them under the patio? "God spoke through my dog/dreams/toaster/XBOX, and told me to sort humanity out!".
...have you /seen/ the picture-based, simplified logos?
And this doesn't force parents what to think about a game; it just says what's in it. I'm a Christian and I'll happily play all of those games, but that doesn't justify anyone having a go at people who might think differently, especially this style of sappingly mediocre gnawing of half-implications and sounds-ok-if-you-already-agree-with-it logic.
If you're already a parent to stupid or too lazy to oversee what your children play then a list like this is extremely unlikely to change that.
Oh dear what am I saying? I can see it now, the first time mom and pop take an interest in what their kid is playing is because it offends Jaysus and Dear Lawd God Almighty.
Quick BURN ALL THE GAMES!
And what are these kids going to do when their misguided parents take away the only outlet for their deeply embedded frustration and rage?
Do you have a 'Gone on a gun rampage' icon?
Nanny state! Nanny state! Parents should be parenting, not a nanny state! People should have choice! Parents should take responsibility and make informed judgements.
So these guys come along and try to inform parents to help their judgements.
Which makes the parents mindless sheep!
Religious morons! Religious nutters!
I hope you all realise that this was a sarcastic post, and that it's meant to point out how thick some of you religion-bashers come across when you just jump on any mention of religion as a chance to declare how thick religious people are without engaging in any critical appraisal of what's going on.
If you want to demonstrate that someone else is stupid, try not to act stupidly yourself -- pots, kettles etc.
Grow up.
Surely games - in childhood - are essentially a harmless way to build skills used in later life. Games - in adulthood - are an opportunity to relax outside of work. Any good parent should at the very least be AWARE of the content of the games played by their child, shouldn't they? Personally, I don't want my kids to learn anything about drugs, prostitutes or methods of murder until they are teenagers and they can put those ideas into a reasonable context. I remember well the kind of impact computer games can have on the young mind. The bugs in some of my computer games left DEEP mental scars.
...thanks for doing all the donkey work for me, now I know which games to buy ;)
I had a parent complain bitterly to me the other day that one of the games she got her child was full of violence etc (it was Dead Space)...
Is it really that hard to say 'no' to your child? Is it really that hard to read the ratings system on the bloody box?
A dyslexic chimp could have easily found out that the game was not suitable for her child by simply glancing at the box (lets face it, the severed hand on the cover of the game pretty much says it all)!!
I honestly shook my head in disbelief...she seemed a bit shocked at my look of total confusion and dismay...
Remember the earth is just a huge computer designed to calculate the ultimate question. We know the answer to be 42. So here we are, at the peak of our civilization were all us busy humans linked together with our primitive technology. The super computer known as Earth finally up and running at full speed, rich with a tasty history of war and carnage. Here we are all tiny code lines in the great multi threaded software run on distributed hardware, all nearly compiled and doing our part. One can hear the buzzing in the air and feel the Earth warming up due to increased load. We are currently burning away the energy reserves built up and set aside for the final task. The bies, i.e. maintenance drones, have started to disappear, buzzing away to different parts of the computer doing emergency repairs and bringing reports to the white mice.
Think about it, this list is deeply tied into the fabric of human society and history. It has solid roots in the history of the Earth itself. The list is a direct result of an old religion, which has influenced most of human history, and is a response to modern technology. So it is tying history, i.e. already processed data, with the latest calculations. The items on the list have inspiration from all different aspects of culture, history, the universe, fantasy etc. In other words the list is filled with the most valued simulations so far to find the Ultimate Question.
We just need one more category now, and a game to get full score.
This article reminded me of http://www.pluggedinonline.com/ which is a Christian review website. So I went and had a look at their game reviews.
Actually I was a bit disappointed - they're nowhere near as funny as their film reviews which include "profanity counts", such as "God's name is abused nearly 10 times." , sections on sexual content, violent content, drugs and alcohol content.
In CD reviews, we're warned against S Club 7: "Still, S Club 7’s fun-loving optimism is refreshing. If only certain lines didn’t reveal a burgeoning sexuality. Families should use discretion."
If they can't read the ratings what makes you think they can read a whole article ?
I teach elementary grades 3-6 (8year to 12 year) and I have kids mentioning GTA San Andreas from time to time in my class. So that proves the total stupidity of parents because I doubt that the kids earn enough money to buy PS3 games ( I think it was a PS3 game that they mentioned).
LOL, reading the fallout 3 one, which is the only one I have read, it does appear that they have played the game quiet a lot, how are they going to save their souls?
I did like it where it talks about shooting legs out from underneath people which is good for fleeing enemies, so not only have they played the game but are offer game play tips :)
>Do any of you actually have children? Or are you simply trying to justify your own game preferences and upbringing through ridiculing this attempt to inform parents?
Yes, and this is not required, all these games have ratings, which irresponsible parents ignore, it only serves to distract from the religious abuse of their own children (anti gay, anti choice, fear etc.).
>For the uninformed out there, children are highly influenced by everything they see, hear, do, eat, drink etc.
Which is why religion tries to "get them early" and brainwash them to remove personal control and choice, indicating prescribed sins like homosexuality, smoking, abortion.
>So the fact that children are influenced by computer games (just as they might be by a book or a film) is indisputable
What do you mean by influenced? I've read "The Female Eunuch" (but I'm not a millitant feminist), I've probably read more of the Bible OT/NT than most Christians (including of the original Hebrew texts, some Torah, Talmud, Quran) and I'm an Atheist - more so because of the reading, I also play counter-strike but have never been a "real" terrorist and killed anyone, I've also never had the urge to kill anyone (and I legally own weapons), I guess the only influence I have had from counter-strike is that my reactions are above average for my age.
From early 80's research onwards there has been absolutely no link found between violence in games and violence in children, a violent child may gravitate to a violent game (but this is not cause and effect), almost every child - even very young will know a game is not "real" and their minds deal with this with logic.
Did Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill all the people at Columbine because of Doom? or was it to do with gun laws, social exclusion, american culture, anti depressants and the slack way that the death threats were dealt with?
And let us not think for a moment about the hipocracy of all this "faith" based moral direction, the priest who in one breath says you'll go to hell for wearing a condom and in another sexualy abuses children, get your own house in order first.
Please accept my sincerest apologies for the appalling behaviour of my Former-Colonoial Christian brothers, they really just don't get God at all.
They seem to think Christianity it is about conforming to a list of rules and regulations, and imposing these rules and regulations on all and sundry. Christ was more bothered about his followers being servants than being masters; therefore, telling people what to do is actually potentially going against God's will.
So, for that reason (though more could be supplied), please accept my sincerest apologies for their behaviour. I would do something unpleasant to them, but I'm not allowed. Bum.
No fair! Where's it gone? I wanna know how to corrupt my soul!
If I've got it totally wrong and the big guy exists up there, how embarrassing would it be to have to hang out with him for all eternity? No way! I have to make sure I take the downwards escalator and this list sounds like a great start. Pity they've blocked access to it, huh?
Should it be Devil Steve or Devil Bill? Hmmmm.......
Hm... this isn't new. There's a site called CAPAlert which rates movies under a similar category-based points scale. However, that one has max score for "good" movies, and zero points for "bad" movies ... which if I remember, Scary Movie had the honor of being the first movie to get 0 points.
I am surprised, however, that Doom 3 doesn't have any demonic points, given that the whole game deals with Hell, and there's a bunch of references to satanic pentagrams and 666's, but then you're *fighting* the forces of Hell, so maybe they actually take this into account.
World of Warcraft only got a 9 I thought for sure the demons running around would have pumped up its rating as well as the pentagrams in summoning circles at certain places in the game. Maybe they should have done Wrath of the Litch king where you go killing innocent townsfolk for 30 minutes for fun when you start and turning them into a army of undead ;)
...that BioShock is high up on the list--but let's face it; it's a very dystopian Art Deco city, with lots of violently insane Splicers and other assorted nasties--so it comes with the territory. The fact that EVE use is fairly high is pretty much the bulk of the score, I know--it does look a lot like heroin use, but you do need to use one just to get past an important area early on. Can't avoid it, at first.
I do bet that there's some fundamentalists out there playing it, though, smirking at the thought that they're "doing DOG's work" by systimatically "weeding out the impure and saving the innocent."
Just imagine the poor reviewer having to go through all these games and check everything off his list...
"Oh no, there are more breasts here. And oh, look, women in a skimpy outfit, oh, wait, I'd best wander around and see what I can do to those women, just for review purposes of course..."
...traders will start to bribe self-appointed Moral Guardians for such non-regulated extreme ads. Oh, wait... right, they already did this for years and years. After all, it's not just GTA virus marketing for hentai-fans, even Hurry Patter had ads of this kind - so why not complete Moral Guardian industry, really? Just slap "anti-christian" on something, and all True Goth Lemmings will purchace it, no saving throw. Best of all - no legal troubles... as opposing to, you know, really making something. Only one problem: too many competitors.
To run on "anonymous" donations some sort of Internet stray watchdog barking at "evil words" - hell, now it looks like damn profitable business ! Let's invest ?
The funny part about their guide, assuming it's accurate, is that it provides a signpost to those looking for games containing nudity, criminal activity, drug use and all the rest.
Let's see.. which game shows the most ( o )v( o ) ? OH there it is.
Mine is the trench that hangs down to my ankles...
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