League of Legends Publisher Riot Games Stands up Against SOPA, Representitive Who Plays LoL Comes Out of the Woodwork
Big and bright in the news today is that the Riot Games, the publisher of the extremely popular MMO, Riot Games, came out to the US political arena as being squarely dead-set against the Internet censorship bills SOPA and PROTECT-IP. They’ve even sent a representative attorney to Reddit to solicity the community there about how they should go about proceeding with their advocacy against these bills…
But it gets better!
In the very thread that they published about their opposition to the bills, a United States Congressman, Representative Jared Polis of Colorado, posted a comment explaining his position on SOPA
“As a member of the League of Legends community (partial to Anivia and Maokai),” Rep Polis writes, “and as someone who made his …
SCOTUS Appeal Watch: Violent video games should be limited for children
The Supreme Court of the United States has decided to review a case involving the censorship of video games—namely a controversial issue that involves prohibiting video game sales based on buyer age. Many bills and legislation drafted in this particular arena have failed due to poor design that did not take Constitutional law into account—so it’s interesting that the Supreme Court would like to hear this one.
IGDA, the International Game Developer’s Union, has issued a statement on this.
Limiting forms of expression in video games limits the expression of game creators, which violates their constitutional rights to free speech in the United States and abroad as specified by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from the United Nations.
In the specific case of the state of California’s Schwarzenegger v. Video Software Dealers Association, 08-1448, which is coming
…
Gaming In Chinese
I haven’t seen anything like this, lately, so here you go. China is a big place, full of people who could be, and want to be gamers. Outside the gold farms, there is a massive market slavering for new digital reality entertainments.
Then, there’s the Chinese government.
Ratings Board Leaves Australia Unprepared For Zombie Armageddon
The upcoming zombie survival game, Left 4 Dead 2, will be released short of a few features thanks to the actions of the Australian media censorship board. This board controls media by ratings and classifications, much like the American ESRB we’re all familiar with. Because we’re all Americans. Unlike our superior, more or less voluntary ratings board, the Australian version has the force of law behind it, and media without a proper rating cannot be sold.
The board has refused to give a classification to Left 4 Dead 2.
Features edited out to meet the board’s arbitrary standards include, “depictions of decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail or piles of dead bodies lying about the environment.”
Now that dead people have been thoroughly scrubbed out of a BRAIN EATING ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE WHERE THE DEAD RISE TO FEAST ON THE LIVING (ahem), the Australian ratings board has …
Professional Outragers Rage Against Madworld on Nintendo’s Wii
Once again, the less intelligent amongst us confuse a console for the games it plays. Yes, the Wii system can and does play such family-friendly fare as Wii Sports, Mario Everything, and Endless Ocean. That doesn’t mean it somehow can’t play games that gleefully splatter blood into your living room like Resident Evil 4, No More Heroes, and now, Madworld.
Madworld is a video game about a reality show, in the kind of reality where people with chainsaw arms go about slaughtering in a terrorist-controlled city for cash prizes. There are all sorts of stylized and over the top touches set against a Sin City-esque black/white/red palette but really, you either heard the term “chainsaw arms” in that special hidden little place in your heart, or you didn’t.
In a move about as stunning as the sun rising, the sort of people with nothing better to do …
Weep for Wizard101
I loved Wizard101 from the moment I laid eyes on it. I had tried to play the MMORPG holy of holies, WoW, last year but it never clicked for me. Even after hours of questing, leveling, and whooping ass with my friends, I couldn’t get myself to care about my character or the world. The storylines seemed violent, fake, impersonal, and bland — all at the same time. I felt like a cog moving through a modern war zone. Though I had loved text-based MUDs as a teen, I came to believe that I just wasn’t cut out for MMORPGS.
Then I met Wizard101 during its beta.
Wizard 101: How to Insult People and Circumvent the Filter
People probably have already heard from us about the white-listed filter that exists in Wizard 101. It is not as badly implemented as similar for-tweens offerings in the market—things that often implode under their own weight as unusable. While it is nice that the filter is less cumbersome it is still a filter. It’s a form of censorship that doesn’t really add to the experience, it doesn’t offer any actual protections, and exists solely to damage the immersion for the players and make KingsIsle Entertainment look better to potential investors and overzealous parents.
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