So, Europe says videogames are culture

[Soygen]

Yeah, if only America had some sort of amendment to protect things like books and video games from the PC police...

[Flesseck]

Originally Posted by Zerai

I was gonna say, 70-80 cents a liter would be nice =x It's sitting around a buck a liter here, apparently heading to 1.50 in the summer. =/

But Europe is pretty much on the forefront of everything. RoHS, drugs, sex, this. Why isn't THEIR culture everywhere instead of the Americans =/

Ah, damn. I haven't been there in a year so it definitely went up. I also meant cents in terms of euros, not dollars.

[Quineloe]

Originally Posted by Soygen

Yeah, if only America had some sort of amendment to protect things like books and video games from the PC police...

you mean games like manhunt 2?

[Soygen]

Originally Posted by Quineloe

you mean games like manhunt 2?

Manhunt 2 was never banned in the US. Rockstar just didn't want to give it an AO rating.

[Quineloe]

Originally Posted by Soygen

Manhunt 2 was never banned in the US. Rockstar just didn't want to give it an AO rating.

oh and why was that, I forgot.

[Soygen]

Are you being sarcastic? Because it is harder for children to buy AO games and thus harder to make money. Not sure what point you're attempting to get at.

[Quineloe]

Originally Posted by Soygen

Are you being sarcastic? Because it is harder for children to buy AO games and thus harder to make money. Not sure what point you're attempting to get at.

Yes I am being sarcastic. You remember wrong.
The reason R* had Manhunt 2 rerated was because
- Major Retailers refuse to carry AO titles
- Sony and Nintendo reject AO titles on their consoles

So to me it looks like the "PC Police" prevented Manhunt 2 from releasing in the uncut form for PS2 PS3 and Wii.
It wouldn't have been "harder" to sell Manhunt 2 to children but IMPOSSIBLE.

[Soygen]

I'm strictly talking about the government of the US protecting movies, books, games under free speech, while the game was outright banned in other countries(seeing as this is about governments subsidizing gaming). Yes, the AO rating is a practical kiss of death here, but it's due to private retailers and businesses. Not the government censoring shit.

[Quineloe]

yes if you're 100% strict about it you can pretend that PC has no censorship ability in the US, but that's simply not 100% true. The first amendment doesn't do shit when it comes to video game ratings.

[Lorrac]

Originally Posted by The Ancient

Because you guys were slacking off for 200 years.

You mean, busy invading each other. And then some civil wars, to boot. Not to mention living within piss range of the communists. The reds liked it to splash, you know?

The other day in the newspaper they reported the death of a 105 year old lady. She was a high-society widow, who was married to some big time winemaker. During her lifetime, she went through an anarchist revolt, two military coups, a revolutionary republic, a civil war, post war famine, the mass introduction of the car (yeah, that happened in the 60's here...), the transition to democracy, the vasque terrorism, the turbo-capitalism of the 80's and the digital revolution. She lived under three different kings, a worker's commite, a military dictatorship, a republic, a fascist dictatorship and modern democracy. Gawd, I have a feeling my life will be rather boring compared to that.

[wild_whiskey]

Originally Posted by Quineloe

yes if you're 100% strict about it you can pretend that PC has no censorship ability in the US, but that's simply not 100% true. The first amendment doesn't do shit when it comes to video game ratings.

Soygen's point was that in terms of legality (not beyond the private institutions who can essentially can a project by their own discretion), video game developers are protected by the constitution to express whatever they will - the government can never stop them from doing so or outright ban it.

It's another discussion on whether or not it's kosher for private companies to indirectly censor video games by rating them AO, but it's pretty obvious with how quickly games are become more and more "mature," that in order for the system to progress, the ratings are going to have to be loosened, or the rating system will have to change. It just needs time - to most people, video games are still "for kids."

[Kolle]

our lives will be interesting. aliens will be landing in large numbers before we reach halfway through the century.

[Zerai]

Originally Posted by Kolle

our lives will be interesting. aliens will be landing in large numbers before we reach halfway through the century.

Sweet. Will we get star travel from them or they going to conquer us?

[Szlia]

I think not too much should be read in the cultural aspect of things. My guess is that these subsidies are similar to the ones in Quebec and only exist because the video game industry is growing, creates jobs and french have a major player in the industry with Ubi Soft. So it's about Ubi getting some governemental hears saying "Video games are awsome! So much money, so much jobs and we are a leader in the industry! Sadly most of our work force is in Montréal were we have incentives and in Shangai were salaries are dirt cheap. What can you do to motivate us to hire in France?".

If it was about promoting cultural diversity then it would be a system similar to the ones in the movie industry: advances. You get money to help produce the movie and you give it back (probably without interest) if your movie makes money. If it does not or not enough, you repay what you can or nothing at all.

For video games, the culture thing is probably only the cover for the EU to allow the subsidization.

NB: If there was a link to some kind of source that would make it easier to use less guesses.

[Lorrac]

Link to the story.

Games And Taxes: EU Approves France's Game Tax Credit