[dogscoff]

If my comments in this thread seem vague, flippant and self contradictory, it's because I'm not sure where I stand.Nevertheless I'm going to rant on authoritatively.

I believe that ppl should be able to make films, books, games, whatever, about anything they like, as long as access to negatively-influential material is restricted to adults. That there is a significant market for sick stuff like this pimp-game reflects a greater problem in society, but that shouldn't be allowed to interfere with freedom of speech. I guess I'm saying that I see this pimp-game as more of a symptom of the mysoginist attitudes prevalent in society, not a cause.

I'm reminded of some utter cretin of a woman I saw on TV a few years back. She was complaining about South Park, saying it was disgusting that stuff like that should be marketted at children. What she totally failed to grasp was that South Park was NOT aimed at children- however she had clearly ignored all the "18" stickers and bought her kids the video without a clue as to its contents, and THEN complained about the content.

This game will suffer from similar problems- in the hands of well-adjusted adults, it probably isn't harmful, and the game's age rating will reflect that. THe problem is that moronic parents who can't be bothered to consider how they are raising their children will go out and buy this game for their eight-year olds. Well, maaybe not in the case of a board game, but certainly in the case of a computer game like GTA. I guess many parents still look at computer games and think that they can't be any more sophisticated or influential than space invaders.

Spare the children, eat the parents. That's what I say.