Digital Cream

This is due to the HotCoffee fiasco which I presume everyone already knows about.

I think the action by the ESRB forcing an AO rating onto GTA:SA is justified. Rockstar needs to be spanked in order to bolster confidence in the ESRB rating system, which is (at least for now) protecting our industry from heavy-handed governmental regulation.

The political grandstanding about this is, as usual, both amusing and revolting. But that’s to be expected. Rockstar were idiots to allow this to happen and I want to personally slap those responsible.

I’m more willing than anyone to see an AO game be made and sold to enormous profit… but it must be clearly rated as such. Rockstar has set things back considerably.

This article on sweatshops for virtual items makes the quote:

There’s a world of difference between making sneakers and watching bots fight all day. However, they are underpaid, or as Smooth Criminal puts it, “They get paid dirt. But dirt is good where they live.”

I think it’s all bad, and a sign of how badly exploited so many people are in those parts of our world surrounding very lucky people like us who can live and work with dignity and hope.

And it’s worthwhile to keep in mind that even worse, more dangerous, and more unhealthy exploitation is going on right now to make our clothes, electronic equipment, food, and so on.

A tiny but defensible bright spot is that slowly, very slowly, the world may be becoming a better place in this regard. As horrid as this is today, fifty ago I believe it was much worse. But it is shamefully slow and spotty progress that makes me, for one, feel guilt about doing so little to help. As a far luckier society, do we speed this improvement by making minimum living conditions a requirement for trade with a country? Or do we trust the market to slowly improve their lot as competition for workers creeps upward in the developing world?