Zero Punctuation: Hot Coffee

[CrazyGirl17]

Ah... I needed that. Thanks Yahtzee, that made my day...

But seriously, the people responsible for video game-related moral outrages ever worth listening to? Or am I just jumping to conclusions?

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Good episode, but the DCEU is awesome.

Also Hilary did win the popular vote and only lost cause of Russia compromising the results:https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-election/russians-compromised-election-systems-in-seven-states-nbc-news-idUSKCN1GC01E

"References Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign"

Ugh...look, there were a bunch of different factors affecting that election's outcome. I don't need the reminder that the candidate who won the popular vote still lost to the worst possible candidate.

Who the hell are we even kidding? They BOTH probably tried to rig the election. Trump just did it better and Hilary is pissy about it.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Ah... I needed that. Thanks Yahtzee, that made my day...

But seriously, the people responsible for video game-related moral outrages ever worth listening to? Or am I just jumping to conclusions?

To be fair, most moral outrages were simply viral marketing. Like how GTA was too violent and was gonna be banned? That was Rockstar, funding the entire thing, to get their game in the news and word spreading.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Look, Yahtzee! All these wonderful classic games that deserve attention and recog... Oh, you're gonna talk about something nobody cares about anymore? Alright then.

So you'd rather Yahtzee spend his time mercilessly mocking and ripping apart one of those classic games for its flaws and problems?

 

[Arnoxthe1]

So you'd rather Yahtzee spend his time mercilessly mocking and ripping apart one of those classic games for its flaws and problems?

Who says every game he reviews is ripped apart?

 

[ewhac]

Who is "Team Hollywood" and why are they shown as the "author" of this video?

Personally, Yahtz, I would spent the extra three-quarters of a minute mentioning the other time this was blown up into A Thing.

Back in the early 1990's, a game came out called Night Trap produced by Tom Zito/Digital Pictures and "starring" the late Dana Plato. (For those of you who've never heard of it before: JFGI.) In it was a game-over scene where the vampiric Augers capture one of the female characters in the bathroom with a blood-draining neck clamp, complete with an uncomfortably suggestive spinning drill bit. While there was no on-screen blood or nudity (and plenty of cheesy acting), Righteous Guardians Of The Nation's Moral Fiber (self-appointed) nevertheless decried it and demanded the Federal government put an end to this self-evident depravity.

As a direct consequence of this, the ESRB was formed. And while we may sneer at their somewhat pointless ratings system, it must also be pointed out that they have also gone to court to fight -- and prevail -- against laws passed at the state and local level attempting to restrict Free Speech rights in video games.

Couple of weird things, though: The footage that got the thespian moralists staging fainting spells had originally been furnished by Nintendo -- at that time the only console publisher who was screening games/publishers for content. Nintendo's Howard Lincoln then went before the Congressional committee and sanctimoniously testified that Nintendo would never approve such content for their upstanding family-oriented platform.

The other weird thing is that, back in the 1990's, one of the figures inciting the mob against video games was noted hypocrite and backstabber Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Himself), with Senator Dianne "I never met a civil liberty I didn't want to curtail" Feinstein (D-CA) in the runner-up position. Fast-forward to 2005, and who should turn up again in the Hot Coffee kerfuffle? Yup, Lieberman and Feinstein.

Lieberman has since "retired" (read: wasn't going to win re-election, so he bagged out). Feinstein so far has remained quiet on the current manufactured controversy, but there's nothing to suggest she's learned anything in the last 25 years.

 

[Brian Jay]

Good episode, but the DCEU is awesome.

Also Hilary did win the popular vote and only lost cause of Russia compromising the results:https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-election/russians-compromised-election-systems-in-seven-states-nbc-news-idUSKCN1GC01E

Russians also secretly forced Hillary not to campaign in battleground states.

Furthermore, as we all know, accepting lots of money from Russia is only a bad thing if you don't have a (D) next to your name. If you do, then you can accept $150 million from Russia and it's no big deal.

 

[Drathnoxis]

It looks even dumber in retrospect because games today have far more explicit sex scenes and nudity with an M rating. They even show nipples in some of them, ACTUAL NIPPLES! Not just the pure innocent breast flesh surrounding the depraved nipple.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Well, certain entities are trying to revive gaming controversies, so it's a fitting time to bring up Hot Coffee. I would hesitate say it was directly money for moral case chasers, instead I would guess that they would use notoriety from the case to get attention. It was fairly high profile, dealing with one of the big companies at the time and it wasn't like the others were making stuff of any controversy, especially since the gaming violence argument was pretty much dead. It was the last chance at gaming controversy before an entire medium moved on.

Of course, we now have the rise of a new wave of controversy, though the reasoning is a little different. In the present, we have organizations trying to revive an argument in order to create a diversion from more important issues that need to be addressed.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Who is "Team Hollywood" and why are they shown as the "author" of this video?

Asking the real questions, I thought for a second they were trying to pull a fast one and doing ZP style videos without Yahtzee.

 

[marioandsonic]

This is probably my favorite ZP in years. I nearly laughed the entire video.

 

[4Aces]

Aaaaahhhh, the memories. Clueless people making idiots of themselves, while fueling sharks everywhere. Considering a certain person just pushed another Bill without banning bump stocks, I will not be surprised to see him duck the NRA and blame games (and possibly Canada) for everything.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

"References Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign"

Ugh...look, there were a bunch of different factors affecting that election's outcome, but I still don't need the reminder that the candidate who won the popular vote still lost to the worst possible candidate.

Technically second worst possible candidate, as candidates are only ever as good as the election they win.

Depends on what criteria you're using to judge them. If you're judging them by ability to win, then yeah, that's necessarily correct. If you're judging them by whether they'd be good for their country then not necessarily.

Clinton is pretty damn bad though. If anybody but Trump had won the Republican nomination I wouldn't have bothered to vote, not that voting for a Democrat in Texas is ever truly worth anybody's time anyway.

 

[CaitSeith]

Those swings at the videogame content ratings from different countries reminds me of a pretty good video about the topic.


Fun fact: USA rating is anti-promiscuous while Japan is anti-gore (and anti-nipples; WTF Japan!? What's wrong about nipples!!!).

 

[fix-the-spade]

Hot Coffee seems so innocent compared to the various gambling scams run by streamers, publishers and seemingly endorsed by many governments (don't forget kids, lootboxes 'aren't gambling' under UK law so they're paerfectly fine).

Technically second worst possible candidate, as candidates are only ever as good as the election they win.

Nah, when you lose by more than 3 million votes, but still win because of a quirk in the rules, you're the worst possible candidate. As an excersize in min-maxing and gaming the system it's a fantastic achievement, but it serves to underline how of a shit head a candidate has be to win by undermining democracy.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Hot Coffee seems so innocent compared to the various gambling scams run by streamers, publishers and seemingly endorsed by many governments (don't forget kids, lootboxes 'aren't gambling' under UK law so they're paerfectly fine).

Technically second worst possible candidate, as candidates are only ever as good as the election they win.

Nah, when you lose by more than 3 million votes, but still win because of a quirk in the rules, you're the worst possible candidate. As an excersize in min-maxing and gaming the system it's a fantastic achievement, but it serves to underline how of a shit head a candidate has be to win by undermining democracy.

Eh. I've said it before, but popular vote is not how you win. If the electoral college was a secret, you'd have a point. But everyone knew how to win the election. Its like a team complaining they won the world series because they scored the most runs over all the games, rather than win the most games.
It wasn't the goal, and everyone knew that.

 

[CaitSeith]

Hot Coffee seems so innocent compared to the various gambling scams run by streamers, publishers and seemingly endorsed by many governments (don't forget kids, lootboxes 'aren't gambling' under UK law so they're paerfectly fine).

Technically second worst possible candidate, as candidates are only ever as good as the election they win.

Nah, when you lose by more than 3 million votes, but still win because of a quirk in the rules, you're the worst possible candidate. As an excersize in min-maxing and gaming the system it's a fantastic achievement, but it serves to underline how of a shit head a candidate has be to win by undermining democracy.

Eh. I've said it before, but popular vote is not how you win. If the electoral college was a secret, you'd have a point. But everyone knew how to win the election. Its like a team complaining they won the world series because they scored the most runs over all the games, rather than win the most games.
It wasn't the goal, and everyone knew that.

Then we can admit democracy in America is a lie, and the Electoral College is anti-democratic.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Hot Coffee seems so innocent compared to the various gambling scams run by streamers, publishers and seemingly endorsed by many governments (don't forget kids, lootboxes 'aren't gambling' under UK law so they're paerfectly fine).

Technically second worst possible candidate, as candidates are only ever as good as the election they win.

Nah, when you lose by more than 3 million votes, but still win because of a quirk in the rules, you're the worst possible candidate. As an excersize in min-maxing and gaming the system it's a fantastic achievement, but it serves to underline how of a shit head a candidate has be to win by undermining democracy.

Eh. I've said it before, but popular vote is not how you win. If the electoral college was a secret, you'd have a point. But everyone knew how to win the election. Its like a team complaining they won the world series because they scored the most runs over all the games, rather than win the most games.
It wasn't the goal, and everyone knew that.

Then we can admit democracy in America is a lie, and the Electoral College is anti-democratic.

Yeah, America was never a direct democracy. Its a Representative Republic. No president has ever lost the electoral college and still taken the Oath of Office.
Its like finally admitting Starcraft isn't a first person shooter. It never was.

 

[Callate]

"With the revelation that the general public had trustingly allowed into their homes a shameless portrayal of consensual lovemaking insidiously Trojan Horsed within their wholesome policeman murdering simulator..."

Well said, sir. Well said.

It's 2018, and that "Did anyone think about violent video games?!" is still a political tactic in anyone's toolbox is enough to make one reach for the blood pressure medication.

I have a soft spot in my heart for the game "Urban Chaos" for having "bangunsnotgames" as one of their cheat codes.

"References Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign"

Ugh...look, there were a bunch of different factors affecting that election's outcome. I don't need the reminder that the candidate who won the popular vote still lost to the worst possible candidate.

I dunno, I'm still not entirely convinced my party has cottoned to the fact that "Vote for us or/so we'll use our superior moral vantage point to call you scum" is not a particularly viable message. The occasional reminder might be useful; the one thing that would be sadder than Trump winning in 2016 would be Trump winning in 2020.

 

[mrdude2010]

Good episode, but the DCEU is awesome.

Only if you're talking about the comics and not the DC Cinematic Universe, because the DC Cinematic universe has 1 good movie, 3.4 if you include TDK trilogy. Marvel's only misses were Thor and The Incredible Hulk. I personally think Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is worse than The Dark Knight Rises, but I know there are people who would be very upset if I said that.

I'm kind of torn, because my favorite superhero is with DC, but most of the other superheroes I really like are with Marvel.