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We are NOT responsible for other's children... at least not to the degree you seem to think we are.
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I agree with that.....to a point. This is always an issue I've had with the game, playing around little kids. Not talking about 15s and up, but younger than that. No, you're not responsible for anybody else's kids, but when I know there are kids in the room where I am in game, I act differently than I might if it is all adults, just out of respect. If I still had small children I certainly would not want somebody else to act like a complete ass around them on purpose unless they did not see them in the room or did not realize they were there or something.....because of that, I give other people's children the same respect. Yeah, those kids have probably already been exposed to that before, but they're not gonna be exposed to it by *me* if I can help it. That's just my conscience.
But this is a different issue. EA is a business, a corporation, and I think it is completely irresponsible of them to open the door for kids to search for and view pornographic material to create to 'test' that feature. I think as a company they have a greater responsibility to censor those kinds of things from children's eyes than we do as individuals. Yes, they are going to do that in the game, that was the whole reason for the test, but it just seems stupid to realize that its not appropriate for the game, but not realize that its not appropriate to even temporarily allow it for 'testing' purposes. There are many other ways they could have and should have tested this rather than giving children free reign, even for those couple days, to seek it out and use it, especially without getting the permission of their parents. IF their parents said it was OK, then I still wouldn't agree with it, but it'd be a matter of me not having any right to tell somebody else how to raise their children.....but they didn't get parental consent for the kids to play in TC3, and they didn't get parental consent for kids to participate in this particular test that was specifically for material that was already deemed inappropriate for children in the first place. It just seems like logic to me, although it would have been more work, it would have earned them some major 'brownie points' in alot of parents eyes as far as watching out for their young subscribers, whereas what they did could have COST them subscribers, and still might.
In short, I think 'I'm not responsible for someone else's kid' is a copout. No, you're not responsible for someone else's kid, you're responsible for your actions around that kid and the influence that you have on them......whether or not they'd have gotten that same influence from someone else is completely irrelevant. You're still accountable for it if it comes from you. That's my opinion.