Editorial John Romero vs teh evil modders

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Tags: Bethesda Softworks; Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

John Romero <a href=http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=12635>has spoken</a> against the evil modders, who are destroying everything that is pure, aka the game industry.
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<blockquote>John Romero, one of the founders of Doom maker id Software and now one of the co-founders of a new Bay Area game company working on a yet-to-be-announced MMORPG, has posted his thoughts on the whole Oblivion re-rating controversy on his blog. As you no doubt have heard by now, Bethesda Softworks' and 2K Games' PC and Xbox 360 RPG had its rating changed from Teen to Mature by the ESRB.
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"On the surface the bad news for Bethesda is that fewer units will be sold to an M audience and it's a little bit of a black eye as well because of the 'nude content introduced into the game from a third party mod'. Sure, it's only for the PC version but the news blurb will affect all SKUs regardless," writes Romero.
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He continues, "Ok, so the story is that there was no nude content in the game's data but some modder added it with a utility. In the case of GTA's Hot Coffee incident there was actually some hidden art assets and animations that were unlocked by modders and thus got that game jacked up by the ESRB as well - and it really affected ALL ratings in the industry past that point. It's now harder to get a lower rating because of these hacks."
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Interestingly, Romero then turns on the mod community. For the longest time modders have been seen as a positive for the video game industry because they often can introduce new ideas and levels, extending the enjoyment of a game or leading to the creation of a new game entirely—messing with the code has often sparked creativity. Now a few "bad apples" might ruin the modding scene for the genuinely creative modders out there who just want their chance to design.
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"What's the point of this all this? That modders are now screwing up the industry they're supposed to be helping," laments Romero. "In 1993 we opened up all our data to the industrious and ambitious folks out there who want to see what it's like to be able to make their favorite game a little more like what they'd want.....and get a taste of being a semi-game designer in the process. The most awesome example of what this philosophy has brought is CounterStrike."
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"Now what's going to happen?" he asks. "You'll probably start seeing game data files becoming encrypted and the open door on assets getting slammed shut just to keep modders from financially screwing the company they should be helping. And the day a game company's file encryption is hacked to add porn and the case goes to the ESRB for review - that's when we'll see how well game companies are protected from these antics and what the courts will rule. Hopefully it'll be on the developer's side."</blockquote>Someone also hacked the files and removed all those things developers told us about. That is the real crime, and someone should look into it.
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What a wreck. I guess he didnt realize yet that nobody takes him serious since Daikatana.

He's hopeless.

Yeah, the industry should be left in the hands of mature and responsible design geniuses like Romero.

Isn't he funding his appetite for eastern european child brides by making mobile phone games now?

I hope Sawyer put his balls on Romero's keyboard after hours at Midway.

I thought that the topless model was on the CD and you only had to rename a file to get access to them? This would conflict with Romero saying "Ok, so the story is that there was no nude content in the game's data but some modder added it with a utility.".

It's true, Elwro. The nipples were on the cd, they were just locked out of the game.

He says modders are ruining games while he is out making an MMORPG? Teh irony?

Yeah right! Modders are evil, modders are bad. They are soo bad that even when the game's producer kicked the bucket, its mod community makes it still playable (total annihilation, Red alert 2 etc etc)

Shit, man... Romero == failure in the gaming biz since Ion Storm collapse under his guidance. He may hanged out with the right persona in the past but that does not automagically makes his say-so's ex cathedra.

I'm still waiting for that guy to make me his bitch.

Pass the crackpipe over John, you've had way plenty already.

"..screwing the company they should be helping."

WTF is he talking about? The modders should help the companies? Why should they? Are they what, obliged to?

You can learn all about Romero here. You can also add your personal, heart-felt 'contributions' since it's a wiki.

It really is that simple. You can whine about american society, the ESRB being carebears, and whatever else, but who would be stupid enough post-hot coffee to ship nipples on a massive hit and not disclose it to the ESRB?

Bethesda seems to resolve conflict by just combining the negatives of all possible solutions.

Q: "Some of your long term fans would like to see nuidty return to TES, but that would give you an M rating that would hurt sales".

GamesByGamerz A: Fuck console noobs, the nipples are back and we're texturing the vaginal canal.

Publisher A: We just want to continue to make the best games, and to do that we need to reach the largest audience, so nudity is out.

Bethesda: hmm.. Let's be very clear that there will be no nudity to be sure to piss of the 10 people that can't find porn, and everyone will call us sellouts. Then let's add the nudity on the disk in a way that 99.99999 of the customers will never see it, but we'll be forced to get an M rating and lose hundreds of thousands of sales.

It probably went that way minus the bold part. I don't see them losing many sales to the re-rating. But maybe I'm wrong and people really pay attention to the rating, i.e. more attention than the unending nagging of their little brat "please please pleeeeease buy ths for me mommy/daddy".

Isn't the M rating a magnet for young children, effectively increasing sales?

That's pretty funny. I guess the esrb is blameless.

And the hanging rotting corpses? or shit like what was posted that is on the DB questline is aceptable for a Teen rated game and I seen that stuff the moment I crossed the first Oblivion Gate.

The question is why the FUCK does ESRB assigns a rating based on a god damn questionary? movies ratings are issued after being seen by a review board for a reason, if ESRB does not shape up and requires review copies before they issue a rating they sould shut down, they are NOT doing their job.

You can watch the whole movie in two hours, maybe three tops if you rewind all the juicy bits.

Think about how huge the world is in Oblivion, and how long it would take to see it all. Then consider that the entire game changes as you level up, what you see at level one is very different than at level 25. So they’d need to explore the -whole- world at level one, then again at level two, then at three, etc. The whole -purpose- of this game is to hide shit from the player, and make them jump though endless hoops to see it all. How long do you think it would take playtest it ALL?

I was thinking along the same lines; it's a staffing/manhour issue.

The questionary process seems reasonable, HOWEVER, it would make more sense if the penalties for lying or hiding stuff were much more severe than "let's change the rating". I don't know if a non-government organization has the authority to impose a financial penalty, but essentially anything that would deter companies from lying their ass out when they fill the questionary would help.

kingcomrade incorporated hereby imposes a financial penalty of $2,000 on the Codex for absolutely no reason at all. Pay up, bitches.

"As a result of recent vandalism, or to stop banned editors from editing, editing of this page by new or unregistered users is temporarily disabled."

The HiveMind is working fast.

Looks like a tranny. Disturbing, very disturbing.

Not even Herve Caen can dream of burning money as badly as John Romero