Daisy....da....i...s..y....

Construction on my soon to have a really cool japanese name 1337 computer has begun. The Motherboard, CPU, Graphics Card and Memory are all in, and most of the fans. The only complication that remains is in setting up RAID for my hard drives (the manual doesn't go into it) and hooking up the DVD/CD-ROM. There's a slight chance I'll have to borrow a floppy drive to set up RAID, but there are a few computers I can do that with.

I may eventually overclock my weapon, but as I don't understand optimizing overclocking and preventing explosions yet, that's a far off project.

In other news, I'm done bothering to read any more comments on Rockstar's "Hot Coffee" debacle. I won't even bother posting a link to pertinent information. There's not much to know.

Basically, Rockstar coded a mini-game into the latest Grand Theft Auto game that had the game's main character having sex. Whether from some sudden decency (unlikely), some sense of incompleteness, a sense of how lame the idea was, or fear of retribution, Rockstar blocked the content off.

The problem arises from the nature of how they blocked it off. It was a coded detour around the mini-game, as opposed to an actual removal of the pertinent code. When some skilled, and likely bored, hackers poked around in the game's code, they found the mini-game and released a mod to unlock it.

Now Rockstar is under fire for not alerting the ESRB to this minigame. Such famous people as Hillary Clinton and the ever persistant Jack Thompson are talking (and raving) about the issue. As a be all and end all, I'll make my points and never speak about it again, unless some crazy legislation passes that will cut back my first ammendment rights as a video game developer.

Point 1: Rockstar is, partly, responsible in that they did not sufficiently remove the code. They obviously took the time to make a detour for it, it shouldn't have been too much harder to remove it (although not easy as pie).

Point 2: It seems utterly ludicrous to me that a game company should include in their presentation to the ESRB anything that will not be playable in the end game (as the company finalizes it). Any additions or gameplay changes by others should be seperate from this.

Point 3: Jack Thompson is still out of touch with reality.

Point 4: My greatest fear in all this is the legislative possibilities that might arise. The complete hassel for developers to show to the ESRB every last nook and cranny of their game, including features that aren't complete, won't be completed, and will be removed, will only hurt the industry and further hinder the efforts of small, independent developers. The creation of a new ratings system might not be so bad, in that when it kicks in and the problem isn't solved because the ESRB worked and the problem lies greatly with parents who buy the games for their kids, people might realize that they need to take responsibility and be parents. Still, a new system is simply more likely to make life a living hell for anyone who wants to sell or buy video games.

I'm picturing a world where I'm on a list of "VG offenders" that ignorant people can look up and think I'm a bad person because I've played FPSs. A world where buying video games that aren't all sugar drop fairies and gum drops takes a background check more thourough than one for firearms. Heck, a world where developing games requires several hundred liscences which need to be continually renewed at high cost. And while we're at it, the Japanese will get nuked again for being the source of the problem.

The sad thing is, only the last sentence was the least bit improbable.