Patricia Vance is Killing Gaming
Last year during the Hot Coffee fiasco the ESRB came down on Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto San Andreas for being hacked by a third party. The ESRB openly admitted that the game was hacked and still punished Take-Two somehow coming to the conclusion that they were at fault regardless of the circumstances. Patricia Vance made a statement in which she said:
After the ESRB confirmed that the game’s publisher, Rockstar Games, had not disclosed sexually explicit content that was “locked out” in the code of the game, but which could be accessed if players downloaded from the Internet a modification (dubbed “Hot Coffee”) created by a hacker, the ESRB swiftly announced the revocation of the game’s initial M (Mature) rating and re-rated it AO (Adults Only).
So Patricia Vance is on record basically saying that she didn't care if the game was hacked it still deserved to be re-rated and Take-two still deserved to be fined. It was bullshit back when she said it, and it's still bullshit now. However, now things seem to have changed with the hack of Manhunt 2 for the PSP which allows gamers to remove the censoring the ESRB forced on it. After openly admitting that GTA: SA was hacked and not caring, Patricia Vance is now on record defending Manhunt 2 citing the fact that it was hacked as the reason.
What parents, and indeed all consumers, need to be aware of is that computer software and hardware devices are susceptible to unauthorized modification. Parents should be cognizant of whether or not their children are engaging in unauthorized modification of their games, consoles or handhelds, as those modifications can change game content in ways that may be inconsistent with the assigned ESRB rating. That being said, the vast majority of consumers have not made the unauthorized modifications to their hardware necessary to view the content at issue.
What? What! So now all of a sudden parents need to be aware of "unauthorized modifications"? Why the hell couldn't they have been aware of these modifications back when GTA was being crucified for the exact same thing? Patricia Vance needs to go into politics because she has become an expert flip flopper and bullshit talker - all while setting the videogame industry back ten years.
I hate Patricia Vance. I don't remember if I've ever told you guys this, but I do. I hate her because she and the ESRB are killing the videogame industry. It's sad that the majority of gamers don't care about this issue, but it needs to be talked about. This type of garbage needs to be exposed! I should be happy that Patricia said the right thing, but I'm not because she is obviously playing politics. I have no doubt that if the heat got turned up again she would do the most expedient thing that saved her ass instead of actually doing the right thing.
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