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I was looking through my copy of PCZone today, when i saw this:
"I should explain why we haven't run a demo of Undying, despite the fac that it is freely available over the internet. Over the past couple of months you might have noticed a tiny ELSPA certificate on the cover of your CDs. We've been told if we don't use these voluntary ratings we run the risk of being sued for any obscene material that might appear. Like Undying. Having raved about the the atmosphere and playability we were desperate for you to get the chance to play it for yourselves, but then the bad news came. "It's an 18 certificate." So if we run with an 18 certificate you'd find us on the top shelf in between Fiesta and Escort."
So what does this mean for us games players then?
Well, having managed to download the demo, 96.8Mb, and just finished playing it i can safely say that it is quite scary and i agree with the 18 certificate. I'm 20, and if a game can make me jump and shock me, then i can understand why people don't want 14 year olds who buy games magazines to play it as well.
The thing is, as hardware increases and games become more realistic, we will probably see more and more games have ratings. It was quite obvious in the original Doom that things weren't real, when you shot something the blood was a big, square, pixellated mass. Games are now coming along like Duke Nukem, which will almost certainly be an 18, others will be released as well that may be too realistically gory for some, Return To Castle Wolfenstein, the new Doom game as well. Both of these may have some shock tactics in, and certainly have a fiar amount of blood. So more games will get the rating and have demos we can't play.
Or will they? How many people buy computer games without playing a demo first? Reviews are good and can be informative, but i personally prefer to play the game myself as only i know what game i will be prepared to spend £30 on. I suspect the majority of people also like to play the game themselves. If they can't get the demo from a magzine, or spend 3 1/2 months downloading it over their 33.6K modem (after all, not everyone has broadband net access, something developers would be wise to remember), will they still go out and buy the game?
So what is the answer? Tone down the demo so it is acceptable to the magazine publishers? But that will have it's own problems, people may complain when they get the game and find out it is more scary/gory/rude than the demo indicates. Imagine it, you play a demo of "Violent and Rude Game 3", which has been toned down, so all you do is walk around. You enjoy this, for some reason, so you buy the game. When you load the game up, oh no! There's lots of swearing and violence and blood, cue a law suit against the magazine and the games publishers. So maybe that's not an answer.
Another option would be to keep the gore/rude bits/scary bits in the demo so only a few people can get their hands on it, and hope word of mouth does the trick. Nothing sells ssomething better than rumour and expectation, look at the GBA, there has been so much on the 'net recently, only a handful of people have played one and yet that doesn't seem to be doing the sales any harm.
The third way would be for a special 18-rated magzine to come out. This magzine could deal primarily with 18 rated games, have all the disturbing demos on the one magazine. However, i feel that this option would cement gaming even further into the "geeky" section of some peoples minds if they saw a games magazine on the same shelf as Mayfair etc.
The answer that i'm hoping won't happen is for games developers to tone down the actual games themselves. We may see more FPS going along the same route as Nerf:Arena Blast. Oh god, please no!
All in all it's an interesting problem. Please discuss.
"I should explain why we haven't run a demo of Undying, despite the fac that it is freely available over the internet. Over the past couple of months you might have noticed a tiny ELSPA certificate on the cover of your CDs. We've been told if we don't use these voluntary ratings we run the risk of being sued for any obscene material that might appear. Like Undying. Having raved about the the atmosphere and playability we were desperate for you to get the chance to play it for yourselves, but then the bad news came. "It's an 18 certificate." So if we run with an 18 certificate you'd find us on the top shelf in between Fiesta and Escort."
So what does this mean for us games players then?
Well, having managed to download the demo, 96.8Mb, and just finished playing it i can safely say that it is quite scary and i agree with the 18 certificate. I'm 20, and if a game can make me jump and shock me, then i can understand why people don't want 14 year olds who buy games magazines to play it as well.
The thing is, as hardware increases and games become more realistic, we will probably see more and more games have ratings. It was quite obvious in the original Doom that things weren't real, when you shot something the blood was a big, square, pixellated mass. Games are now coming along like Duke Nukem, which will almost certainly be an 18, others will be released as well that may be too realistically gory for some, Return To Castle Wolfenstein, the new Doom game as well. Both of these may have some shock tactics in, and certainly have a fiar amount of blood. So more games will get the rating and have demos we can't play.
Or will they? How many people buy computer games without playing a demo first? Reviews are good and can be informative, but i personally prefer to play the game myself as only i know what game i will be prepared to spend £30 on. I suspect the majority of people also like to play the game themselves. If they can't get the demo from a magzine, or spend 3 1/2 months downloading it over their 33.6K modem (after all, not everyone has broadband net access, something developers would be wise to remember), will they still go out and buy the game?
So what is the answer? Tone down the demo so it is acceptable to the magazine publishers? But that will have it's own problems, people may complain when they get the game and find out it is more scary/gory/rude than the demo indicates. Imagine it, you play a demo of "Violent and Rude Game 3", which has been toned down, so all you do is walk around. You enjoy this, for some reason, so you buy the game. When you load the game up, oh no! There's lots of swearing and violence and blood, cue a law suit against the magazine and the games publishers. So maybe that's not an answer.
Another option would be to keep the gore/rude bits/scary bits in the demo so only a few people can get their hands on it, and hope word of mouth does the trick. Nothing sells ssomething better than rumour and expectation, look at the GBA, there has been so much on the 'net recently, only a handful of people have played one and yet that doesn't seem to be doing the sales any harm.
The third way would be for a special 18-rated magzine to come out. This magzine could deal primarily with 18 rated games, have all the disturbing demos on the one magazine. However, i feel that this option would cement gaming even further into the "geeky" section of some peoples minds if they saw a games magazine on the same shelf as Mayfair etc.
The answer that i'm hoping won't happen is for games developers to tone down the actual games themselves. We may see more FPS going along the same route as Nerf:Arena Blast. Oh god, please no!
All in all it's an interesting problem. Please discuss.
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Thats one way of grabbing peoples attention!
Okay now I am seriously scared. I only clicked the post button once whats going on around here.
**a sense of evil passes through Sb. Is this the dark presence present here in the forums or is it just a bad curry.**
**a sense of evil passes through Sb. Is this the dark presence present here in the forums or is it just a bad curry.**
RastaBillySkank wrote:
> Ahhh, so you're MJ then Shorty.
*********
So I didn't tell you RBS hang on a sec if I didn't tell you how di........now I am trufully scared.
How come SR never warned me about the contents of this forum. This is it I am sueing.
> Ahhh, so you're MJ then Shorty.
*********
So I didn't tell you RBS hang on a sec if I didn't tell you how di........now I am trufully scared.
How come SR never warned me about the contents of this forum. This is it I am sueing.
RastaBillySkank wrote:
> Ahhh, so you're MJ then Shorty.
*********
So I didn't tell you RBS hang on a sec if I didn't tell you how di........now I am trufully scared.
How come SR never warned me about the contents of this forum. This is it I am sueing.
> Ahhh, so you're MJ then Shorty.
*********
So I didn't tell you RBS hang on a sec if I didn't tell you how di........now I am trufully scared.
How come SR never warned me about the contents of this forum. This is it I am sueing.
RastaBillySkank wrote:
> Ahhh, so you're MJ then Shorty.
*********
So I didn't tell you RBS hang on a sec if I didn't tell you how di........now I am trufully scared.
How come SR never warned me about the contents of this forum. This is it I am sueing.
> Ahhh, so you're MJ then Shorty.
*********
So I didn't tell you RBS hang on a sec if I didn't tell you how di........now I am trufully scared.
How come SR never warned me about the contents of this forum. This is it I am sueing.
Ahhh, so you're MJ then Shorty.
Come on no game can be scary enough that it can't be on a demo disk without it giving the magazine an 18 rating. I am 14 and I have not yet played a game that has made me scared...maybe i have jumped but never ever scared.
Shadowman had no gore really to speak of yet I found that game enthralling to play. The sound pulled it through and really tried hard to scare you. It didn't succeed..well it did in the playrooms, but not so I was in tears or anything it as just a bit freaky if you see what I mean.
Undying looks to be a great game that I unforunately won't be able to play unless one of my friends gets it as my PC is unable to run it. The download is useless as well as I have a 56k modem running through AOL which everyone knows is absolutely the slowest thing I have ever used.
They should just stick it on the demo disk but give a warning about the content of the game.
Shadowman had no gore really to speak of yet I found that game enthralling to play. The sound pulled it through and really tried hard to scare you. It didn't succeed..well it did in the playrooms, but not so I was in tears or anything it as just a bit freaky if you see what I mean.
Undying looks to be a great game that I unforunately won't be able to play unless one of my friends gets it as my PC is unable to run it. The download is useless as well as I have a 56k modem running through AOL which everyone knows is absolutely the slowest thing I have ever used.
They should just stick it on the demo disk but give a warning about the content of the game.
Your Honour wrote:
> Hmmmm, maybe the title put people off?
'Course it did. We're all moral, ethically correct people here...
:-)
> Hmmmm, maybe the title put people off?
'Course it did. We're all moral, ethically correct people here...
:-)
I think PC Gamer has carried 15 games on their magazines, and it's been lowshelf... I think they are over reacting. If they carried the demo, I can't imagine newsagents making sure that it's on the top shelf, they'll just put it with all the other gaming magazines.
I was getting excited as well.
I agree with Goaty here, just to grab our unobservative attention 'ay YH?
I agree with Goaty here, just to grab our unobservative attention 'ay YH?
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