Ryan Henson Creighton

i like your writing style, Julieanne. You're funny. i like funny.

i'll offer that i'm a white male and i code. i tried to teach my wife how to code so that she could help with the family video games business, but her heart wasn't in it. i really hope i can convince my two daughters to enjoy it because, like Michelle says, it'd be nice to have less expensive labour when i need something coded.

... add to that the fact that women get paid 20% less than men for doing the same jobs, and it's a win for daddy! HIYO!

You actually believe that PG-13 movies (Transformers?) are more violent than M-Rated video games (Fallout 3?). And that Grand Theft Auto is age-appropriate for five-year-olds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yl_NrtYzec&feature=related

Conversation over.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE&feature=related

i'm a great parent. i carefully monitor everything my kids see and hear. But it's not my kids i'm worried about. In the absence of proper parenting (which Lord knows the USA is full of), it's reasonable to expect the government to take an active role.

Games are not illegal because the industry started self-regulating to prevent the government for doing it for them. i don't agree with all of the ratings the ESA has cooked up - namely the GTA series, which i think should have been AO, Hot Coffee notwithstanding.

Convenience store owners cannot sell booze, cigarettes or skin mags to kids. Movie theatres do not allow unaccompanied children into R- or NC-17-rated films. Video game stores should not sell M-rated games to kids. It's elementary.

i'm sorry to hear that my logic has been "invalided".

By "parents who aren't there", i'm referring to parents who abandon their children. Single-parent homes where (usually) dad leaves, and mom holds down the fort on her own. It's far more difficult to properly parent a child when your parenting power is cut to 50%.

i agree that there may not be a massive difference between a 17 year old and an 18 year old. The fact is that, fair or otherwise, you have to choose an age of majority and stick to it. The US and Canada have chosen 18. They do this because otherwise, they'd have to give teenagers regular personality and aptitude tests to determine majority. It would be like getting your driver's license: getting your adult's license. Probably wouldn't work.

Likewise your suggestion to fine parents or guardians for allowing kids to purchase adult content. In that vision, children could waltz into video game stores, adult magazine stoers and tobacconists and purchase whatever they'd like. Cops would - what? - lurk outside the stores and pounce whenever they'd see an eight year old with a copy of Fallout 3 or H.R. StuffNMuff. (If the product was in an opaque bag, the staekout would be foiled.)

Then the cop would drag the kid home by his ear, hope that a parent or guardian was home, and say "Scuse me, Mrs. McNegligence, but we're going to have to slap you with a $1500 fine for tacitly allowing your son to purchase this box of cigars."

It's pretty impractical when you reason it out as a logical, level-headed grown-up. Perhaps you're not quite ready for your adult's license?

Griffin - your opinion, and the opinion of this site in general, is irresponsible and naive. We don't live in a fantasy land where all parents are loving, lucid, or even *present* in the home with their children. The government imposes regulations and fines to keep firearms, tobacco, pornography, home ownership, car loans and other dangerous adult activities away from minors.

1. Kids should be protected from potentially harmful adult things until they reach the age of majority.

2. Many adults are mentally and emotionally kids themselves, and do not parent responsibly.

3. It takes a village (aka the government) to raise a child. Unless and until they force people to obtain parent licenses before having children, it is absolutely the government's place to advocate for the safety of the country's kids in the absence of proper parenthood.

i discovered these back in September when we were opening our offices at Untold Entertainment Inc. Now we have sweet Monkey Island 1 and 2 posters on the wall. Haven't hung the Sam n' Max poster yet.

And the Dig? Well ... we took a pass on that one.

@kristof -

The difference is tens of thousands of dollars. i believe that console kits clock in at $10-20k per kit. iPhone development is costing me $1200 (for my Boxing Day Macbook), $99 (for my developer fee), $1000 (for the costs associated with incorporating), and $?? for the time it'll take me to learn the very unfamiliar Xcode/Cocoa/Obj-C environment.

Gabriel Knight? Kill me now.

http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html

It's long, but be sure to savour every word.

i played the game at X08 and wasn't impressed.

http://untoldentertainment.com/blog/2008/08/21/x08-underwhelming/

The controls felt really floaty, and the levels are HUGE ... running around without a vehicle seemed to take forever. The demo jockey threw me into a vehicle that had all the bells and whistles unlocked, with four rockets surrounding the ship, and it wasn't really all that fun to play with.

This is definitely not the Banjo Kazooie of my youth. It may have been interesting with an entirely different IP behind it. Skinning it with Banjo and Kazooie seems like purely a money grab, and is somewhat of a bait-and-switch for players so that Rare can (IMO) dishonestly maximize their game sales.