Should Bee have an minimum age recommendation or restriction?

[VictorPride]

• Yes
• No

Currently Bee has no minimum age recommendation nor restriction despite the community being overwhelmingly in favour of it and it’s upstream /tg/ being 18+ only.

I’ve argued in this thread that Bee should have an 18+ restriction (like similarly violent games), and Crossed has asked me to open a new topic for this which I have done here. Replies to their last post below:

@Crossedfall

Actually you can clearly see on both rating boards that we’d easily fit within the lower rating. Our gore isn’t overly realistic and overall pretty minimal. There is an argument that can be made for 18, but I think it’s fair to say that an argument for Teen would be just as easy.

Sources:
ESRB - Xbox – ESRB Website
PEGI

For the above agencies, for ESRB the difference in rating Teen vs Mature is “violence, minimal blood” vs “intense violence, blood and gore”. SS13 has lots of blood especially when you chop of peoples’ limbs or gib them, and with the huge variety of visceral murder methods it’s clearly intense violence.

For PEGI the difference between PEGI 12 and 16 is “non-realistic violence” vs “violence that looks the same as real life”. People can get delimbed, beheaded, cremated, gibbed etc which are all realistic methods of violence and murder. It’s not like videogame characters in Breath of the Wild who can get axed in the face and are visibly no worse for wear.

But the short descriptions of these ratings are insufficient - let’s look at 2D games with similar levels of gore. Hotline Miami, Doom 2 and Mortal Kombat Advance are all rated Mature, for 17+ by ESRB.

Despite my particular argument for a 17+ rating, I will note at this point that Bee doesn’t even have a 13+ rating and instead welcomes kids of all ages.

@Crossedfall

There are no laws (at least in the US) prohibiting minors from purchasing M or R rated media.

I don’t see the relevance here, the servers are based in Germany and they do prohibit minors from purchasing M or R rated media.

Any breach of these regulations is an offence pursuant to Art. 28 of the German Children and Young Persons Protection Act (JuSchG) and is punishable by a fine of up to €50,000 [source]

You can argue there is a moral obligation to restrict who can access our content, but that again conflicts with the fact that there is no official ranking on the game itself.

Due to the nature of SS13 being an online game the ratings agencies refuse to give an official ranking. It’s theredown down to the server hosts to adequately protect children by giving an age recommendation or resstriction themselves.

This is similar to if a developer released an online virtual porn game - it doesn’t absolve them from any moral obligation to warn children that they’ll be exposed to such content, even if official ratings agencies won’t rank them.

With that being said, putting in a “don’t ask don’t tell” 18+ policy like you suggested would do nothing to fulfill that moral obligation. We all know it’d do nothing to stop minors from joining and it wouldn’t magically remove them from our community. If anything, it’d be worse since we’re actively pretending like the obvious isn’t happening. With all due respect, it’s a silly argument to make.

If I had a 10 year old who found this cool looking 2D game then I looked over their shoulder to find that they were getting beheaded and their head was stuck on a spear thereafter, the first thing I’d be looking for is the warnings that the game host put up to prevent my child from being exposed to such content, so I can then find out why they weren’t heeded.

Whilst it’s obviously not a magical fix-all, adult content exists everywhere online and to protect their children parents teach them at an early age to pay attention to such warnings. The fact that there are no warnings at all to prevent pre-teens from being exposed to this content is disturbing.

@Crossedfall

Having an 18+ “don’t ask don’t tell” policy is nothing but a CYA move, it does nothing to address the actual problems you’re presenting. Which, honestly, fair enough. I understand why people do it, and hell, we might even do it at some point. But pretending that it actually solves anything is just wrong.

It does indeed protect younger children from being exposed to explicit content. Not as much as asking for their actual identification would, but a simple warning goes a long way and is clearly a sufficient enough deterrent that porn sites around the world are legally required to do this. I’m surely not the only person in the world who’s ever clicked away from a site when they were younger and saw that 18+ content warning before being allowed access.

[BlueScope]

Nope. BYOND specifies a minimum age of 13 by default, and we don’t have overtly sexual content that would dictate a required 18+. No reason to add another rule, when it isn’t needed. SS13 is thankfully not governed by ESRB ratings - or even governed by any laws in particular, except for the law of common sense which states that one should avoid exposing minors to sexual content. I thank my lucky stars for this, because every single server would be hit with so many DMCA’s that our collective heads would be spinning. Enforcing this rule would additionally be nearly impossible, so why even bother?

[VictorPride]

Please read the post in full instead of replying in the first minute and you’ll see the answer to your question.

[Archanial]

didn’t read, who cares about the age
in the internet everyone is adult, excluding Bastian

[BlueScope]

Guilty, I only glanced over your points before posting.
Okay, I’ve read it all - and I still stand by my first post. BYOND is inherently 13+ by default. The only argument I see here that’s worth considering is the possible fine, but SS13 is not a centrally hosted game. Every server lies in its own jurisdiction. The likelihood of being slapped with any kind of fine for content violation is so ridiculously tiny, that it’s not worth considering. Especially considering, again, BYOND specifies a minimum age of 13 by default.
“Moral obligation” is a non-argument. Everyone has different morals. Pushing a particular set that would yield no mechanical difference to the game, and would be impossible to enforce, serves no purpose.
How many people - not even exclusively 13-17 year olds - have the potential to “accidentally” stumble across SS13, and somehow remain unaware of what the game entails? What would be the point in creating a rule that can’t be enforced? How many 13-17 year olds are going to join Bee, see a big red flashing sign that reads “18+”, and then leave? How is a parent going to be so blissfully unaware of what their child is doing, that they’d allow them to play a game which specifies “18+ Furry ERP!” in its public server listing - if they were paying any kind of attention at all? How do red splatters and horizontal sprites in a 2D pixel-based game fall in line with the definition of realistic violence (though I do grant that the described methods are a little intense in this context, I believe it’s more about how it is depicted than what is depicted)? I have nothing but questions.

I’m surely not the only person in the world who’s ever clicked away from a site when they were younger and saw that 18+ content warning before being allowed access.

Pretty sure you are, actually. It’s not like 18+ content magically appears from the ether, and forces itself down children’s throats. I’d posit in 99% of cases, it’s because they go looking for that content. Creating a meaningless “Are you really, really sure you’re at least 18?” button on server-join would not deter them.

I’m not even against this, except on principle. It wouldn’t mechanically change anything at all, except (potentially) adding one more click required to join the server.

[steff05]

@Archanial

didn’t read, who cares about the age

exactly dawg most people been watching porn since they were like 9 so who cares

[PowerfulBacon]

Similar levels of gore

Doom 2 and Mortal Kombat Advance

[BarrelBox]

You erping doesnt mean we need to put a big fucking 18+ sign on our server. More over it is gonna attract unnecessary attention and people are gonna come to grief the server just because they see the 18+ sign. It also will scare off people on the basis that 18+ usually means hrp, so all in all its just bad marketing and not necessary or called for. The only issue this would fix is perhaps we could be less tight on racial slurs and stuff but as it stands right now there is literally no reason to reduce the punisment because its so pathetically small. TLDR; ungas will come to grief our “furry since 18+ server” and people wont come since “18+=hrp” fuck that.

[pixelman]

Let’s be honest, +18 signs actually ATTRACT more minors, with the current state of other servers, we will be attacked by a horde of ERPers after we put that +18 sign up, ss13’s violence is not releastic, it sounds releastic, it’s just some red pixels splattered around, it’s like if you attempt to ban little red riding hood because it is a violent story ( wolf eats grandma alive)

[BarrelBox]

Exactly that, cant even see the pros of putting up a sign

[ivanmixo]

Just don’t put 18+ anywhere in the server title and itll be fine

[xDyou]

Ah yes guy who got permaed for ERP is here to tell us that we need to make the server 18+ and have it in the title.

[VictorPride]

Taking tally now, almost twice as many people are for the change compared to those against it.

To address some of the arguments on the “against” side:

@BlueScope

“Moral obligation” is a non-argument. Everyone has different morals.

Subjective morality is a pretty weak argument when we’re talking about protecting children here. I don’t think any culture argues the opposite.

@BlueScope

see a big red flashing sign that reads “18+”

To reiterate, whilst I believe that’d be the most accurate rating it doesn’t have to be the selected one. But currently I don’t see precautions being taken to protect any age group from accessing the server.

Aside from protecting children, it also has the benefit of protecting the host from any legal issues that may arise due to age-restricted content or anything else. Plus generally I’ve found that the most childish and shittery behaviour has unsuprisingly come from the youngest individuals on the server.

And I’ve never stated it has to be some big red flashing sign. Just have it in the rules like /tg/ does.

@BlueScope

How do red splatters and horizontal sprites in a 2D pixel-based game fall in line with the definition of realistic violence (though I do grant that the described methods are a little intense in this context, I believe it’s more about how it is depicted than what is depicted)?

To put it simply 2D requires a higher amount of gore than 3D does in order to receive the same rating, but it is still easy to achieve that with a 2D game. And I’ve already pointed out similarly violent 2D games and what rating they get:

@VictorPride

let’s look at 2D games with similar levels of gore. Hotline Miami, Doom 2 and Mortal Kombat Advance are all rated Mature , for 17+ by ESRB

@BarrelBox

people are gonna come to grief the server just because they see the 18+ sign. It also will scare off people on the basis that 18+ usually means hrp

/tg/ and other servers have this rating and no such issue so this argument is moot.

All you have to do is follow this:

@ivanmixo

Just don’t put 18+ anywhere in the server title and itll be fine

@BarrelBox

The only issue this would fix is perhaps we could be less tight on racial slurs and stuff

That could be an advantage yes. Less related to that specific change but this server unlike many others has some offences be “unappealable” or “zero tolerance”, which I can only imagine is partly due to there being no age restriction. Finally adding this clause would go a long way to preventing such bans that quite honestly would not happen on any other server.

[xDyou]

Ah yes i will repeat,we really need the guy that got permaed for ERP to tell us to make server 18+.

[BlueScope]

Do you have thoughts regarding the following?

How many people - not even exclusively 13-17 year olds - have the potential to “accidentally” stumble across SS13, and somehow remain unaware of what the game entails?

How is a parent going to be so blissfully unaware of what their child is doing, that they’d allow them to play a game which specifies “18+ Furry ERP!” in its public server listing - if they were paying any kind of attention at all?

It’s not like 18+ content magically appears from the ether, and forces itself down children’s throats. I’d posit in 99% of cases, it’s because they go looking for that content.

Additionally:

Subjective morality is a pretty weak argument when we’re talking about protecting children here. I don’t think any culture argues the opposite.

Agreed. I don’t see how this would protect children, though. It’s just so toothless, that it wouldn’t end up protecting anyone.

But currently I don’t see precautions being taken to protect any age group from accessing the server.

There aren’t any, because there can’t be any. There is no effective method that one could introduce, beyond requiring people to post up their IRL ID’s for a whitelist. If anyone even mentions introducing a whitelist, I’ll shit all over them, by the by.

Aside from protecting children, it also has the benefit of protecting the host from any legal issues that may arise due to age-restricted content or anything else.

I did adress the legal aspect. There is a risk, but it’s so ridiculously minute, I don’t really see the point. That said, the trade-off for introducing a toothless rule in exchange for legal protection? Sure. That’s the one valid argument I see.

Plus generally I’ve found that the most childish and shittery behaviour has unsuprisingly come from the youngest individuals on the server.

How do you identify these people, with certainty?

To put it simply 2D requires a higher amount of gore than 3D does in order to receive the same rating, but it is still easy to achieve that with a 2D game. And I’ve already pointed out similarly violent 2D games and what rating they get

This says more about rating agencies than it does the content within. Just my opinion, of course. At the end of the day - 2D-sprites will never even remotely resemble IRL violence. There are plenty of movies which are rated PG-13, with much more accurate depictions of IRL violence than video games which have been rated with intense harshness.

Again, including this wouldn’t hurt anything - because it’s simply ineffective. Its only effective purpose would be to cover us in the infinitely improbable case of legal action. The other described reasons for including it are not effective.
I object on philosophical grounds. It sets a precedent for adding rules that are not based on improving the game for those who play it, as well as adding rules that can’t be enforced. Not a fan of either of those lines of thinking - though I do respect the motivation behind this suggestion.

EDIT: tl;dr - I’m extremely vocally ambivalent about this.

[Kerbin_Fiber]

I thought the only reason why TG was +18 was because of the three pixels of naked spessman pp and the other pixels of woman parts for naked spesswoman

[Kerbin_Fiber]

TG has a strict no ERP policy too.
It’s drilled into my brain, their rule 8.

Erotic/creepy stuff is not allowed.

No form of erotic roleplay is allowed on the servers, including things that could be construed as sexual by unwilling participants.

Which is then followed by rule 9.

Players need to be the age of 18 or above.

This rule is for the benefit of and is meant to protect people who shouldn’t be playing here due to the nature of the SS13 community. Your age won’t be hunted down, but if you admit it to us in admin PMs, or other places within the /tg/Station13 community (the official Discord server, forums, OOC chat, etc.), you’re getting banned.

Notice how it explicitly says that you must be +18 due to the SS13 community, not the game itself.

[BarrelBox]

Legal aspect. When half the game is filled with IPs im pretty sure we didnt buy, like: xenos, engi hardsuits, plasmacutters, meat hook, arguably “the thing” and “prototype” in the ling gamemode, light sabers (well, thats fine, we call em eswords), ripley suits, ai core display art from system shock, and many, many more

[zeskorion]

i wanna make it 18+ so there are no kids

[Velvet]

can LRP be kid containment? Thanks