Didn't read the whole thread, but anyone with a prescriptive attitude as to what games can, cannot, should, or should not be can just fuck along now.

Patrick Stewart is ADORABLE

I must be a strange guy because the hottest girls in gaming (to me) have small boobs. I don't like big breasts.

You're not alone. I'm not really attracted to the ginourmous melons. I want soemthing that allows me to put my hands in different boobs and still hold them in a satisfying fashion, damnit.

Pedophiles.

Liberal, 100%/40%

i don't see what this has to do with ethics. obviously this behavior is unethical, i don't think anybody disagrees with that.

In that case... what exactly is your argument?

also, i think it's a bit hyperbolic to compare this to murdering children; cloning a game is not like murdering children at all.

I wasn't, I was comparing your stupid ethical argument to another similar argument applied to another situation. Basically, under that system I could punch you in the face and pee on you and justify that with "Hey, maybe it'll all turn out for the better this way. Who's to say? Cause and effect! Crazy shit!"

But it is unknowable if Hitlers are more bad than good or more good than bad.

That's true. One of those Jews he killed might have been the next Hitler!!!

what i mean is: every decision we make has an infinitude of negative and positive consequences, far beyond our imagining. and this particular issue has much good and much bad coming from it.

Exactly; after all, you never know if that adorable little boy is going to grow up to be the next Hitler. This is why child murder should be legal.

1. 2d>3d is retarded

As is 3d>2d. They're both fine choices and either can be done well or poorly.

Yeah I'm thinking it's maybe time for a mod to lock this. Anyone?

Yes, so not only are they targeting people who haven't done anything wrong they have shitty aim to boot. It's pretty awesome.

Also, you don't prove it isn't a slippery slope argument by giving a slippery slope argument.

Not a slippery slope argument. I am not arguing "you should be upset about x because it might lead to x," I am saying "x is a small but significant erosion of personal freedom, and every time you let them get away with it that's one less freedom you have."

I will freely admit though that it's not JUST this law in itself that I think is upsetting, it's this law taken in tandem with other bizarre legal fuckwrangling in Australia which paints an unsettling picture. The fact that they're willing to criminalize people for being harmless perverts worries the hell out of me, because I and many of my friends are harmless perverts. Thank god I don't live in that retarded country.

The reason why I say 'seriously' is because I think that it's ridiculous that you can think this is not a big deal at all. I was just having trouble expressing how INCREDIBLY stupid it is to think that something like this isn't a problem. Maybe it's not big brother, but it's the slow strangulation of artistic freedom, piecemeal. Would it be okay if they banned naked black women because it supposedly encouraged slavery? I know that is completely retarded, but so is this.

It isn't a slippery slope argument. This is a problem, right here, right now. They've put people in PRISON for having DRAWINGS you... Gah. Never mind. Whatever.

Seriously?

But how is it artificial if the methodology is completely different? You can make the claim that, given the final product, you have no way of knowing its production methods and therefore such knowledge shouldn't be relevant to a value judgment of the piece in question, but that's not really the same thing.

what i meant was more like this: there are an infinite number of ways and degrees to copy something. for our own purposes, we separate those infinite ways and degrees into two groups: ways which are 'inspired by' and ways which are 'rip-offs'. the distinction between those two groups is artificial, even though the distinction between any given types of methods isn't.

as an example, fps's used to be called doom clones, and now they're called first person shooters; before they were considered rip-offs of doom, now it's considered a genre.

In some cases, though, there are very clear and obvious differences. If someone gets a decompiler and copies out source code and steals graphics assets from games, that is an obvious quantifiable and qualitative difference between the methodologies and moralities of the product in question. Saying that there are situations where there's no clear division is certainly something I would agree with, but using that to imply that it's impossible to make a value judgment about this sort of thing because there's NEVER a difference doesn't follow.

In short, for every example that's 'inspired by' or 'ripped off from,' there's also 'plagiarized.' Pretending these are equivalent actions is an insult to anyone who is legitimately trying to use someone else's work as a springboard for their own creativity.

Yes. A law to protect children. By putting them in prison. And putting them on a public sex offender list which makes them a target of Batman wannabes everywhere.
POSSIBLY the most retarded trend in the current legal world, but it's got stiff competition at any rate.

@kobel: i didn't mean those particular acts, i meant them as stand-ins for a large range or category of activity. insert 'activities like' in front of both parts of that comparison. i could have just as well said that it's an artificial distinction between copying someone's music with a microphone and humming a version of it yourself. i meant that the distinction between direct and indirect copying is artificial (while also being useful).

But how is it artificial if the methodology is completely different? You can make the claim that, given the final product, you have no way of knowing its production methods and therefore such knowledge shouldn't be relevant to a value judgment of the piece in question, but that's not really the same thing.

The world is fucking crazy.

Our world is probably the sanest it has ever been.

Which is, itself, FUCKING CRAZY

in reality the distinction between tracing a drawing vs copying the idea of a drawing and creating your own version of it is an artificial distinction. nonetheless, it's a useful artificial distinction.

What the fuck? These are mechanically completely different activities; they don't even completely use the same muscles or parts of the brain. Argh! Specious as hell, yo.

On a related note though,
here in canada if you receive nude pics of a chick younger than 18, it's child porn.  ...so I'm guessing a lot of teenagers are going to end up on the sex offender list.

Hate to tell you this but that's probably already happening. It's definitely happening in the US. In fact, I believe some girls may have even ended up on the list for distributing pictures of themselves on the grounds that it's distributing child porn.

The world is fucking crazy.