NY Governor to Target Violent Video Games 306
NoMoreGuns writes to tell us that Governor Eliot Spitzer is planning to target violent movies and video games in a new bill. "Spitzer said he wants to restrict access to these videos and games by children, similar to motion picture regulations which prohibit youths under 17 from being admitted to R-rated movies without a parent or adult guardian. Under Spitzer's proposal, retailers who sell violent or degrading videos or video games to children contrary to the rating would be sanctioned."
While we're at it... (Score:5, Interesting)
Lets ban children from watching, listening to, or reading the news. There are all kinds of accounts of anti-social behaviors contained in the news. Shouldn't we be "protecting the children" from that too?
Besides, are social problems like school related shootings really being encouraged by video games, or is it possible that massive news coverage plays a larger role? I mean, I take what I see on TV to be a lot more "real" and "possible" than anything I see on a video game.
Re:Fine, sanction the retailers... (Score:4, Interesting)
Make it illegal for retailers to provide the game to kids. That way, when the kid gets it from his inept, irresponsible, moronic parents, and actually *does* do something he saw in the game (probability dictates some retarded insane person is going to do it eventually, and you *know* what the media is going to focus on instead of them being retarded and/or insane), then the game companies and the publishers and the retailers can all say "look, the game says Adults Only, but that kids' parents got it for him, so they are obviously to blame." It will all be on mommy and daddy's shoulders then, and they won't have a leg to stand on.
That wont' stop the media from blaming video games entirely, of course, but it still weakens their argument.
I'm all for it (Score:2, Interesting)
I know a ten year old who was playing GTA San Andreas and thought that the dildo he found in the police station was a purple balloon. He's running around beating people up with it when I walk in and ask him where he found that weapon. Well, I'm still laughing. His much older sister felt compelled to explain it to him. Later he was asking me why the women were approaching his car asking if he wanted a good time. So he's way too young to be playing this and any reasonable store clerk wouldn't sell it to him, but he borrowed from a friend.
Re:Fine, sanction the retailers... (Score:5, Interesting)
As the saying goes, "you can't legislate stupidity." Parents are increasingly irresponsible and clueless when it comes to what their children say and do. We're having trouble with my 10-year-old stepson because he feels we're being unfair because we won't let him have games rated T-for-Teen, or have his own cell phone. He rails at us because we won't simply let him go where he wants, when he wants, and we won't continuously feed his bad habits. He constantly tells us how "other kids' parents don't do this," to which my standard reply is "I don't care what other parents do." And I don't, because I see how other parents let their children push them around, guilt them into buying them things, browbeat them when they don't get what they want. And these people cave in!
But again, that's what they decide to do. Parents will do stupid things and while you can make those things illegal, you can't make people not do them. Parents have to decide for themselves that buying these games for their children are a bad idea.
Re:Let me see if I've got this... (Score:5, Interesting)
I know for a fact this is not true. For a writeup of this, see:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070223-891
Video game restrictions, unless if it has something to do with pornography, are voluntary, just like movie restrictions are. Now, mind you, you have to look hard to find someone willing to violate these restrictions, which is why many people mistake this for a law.
Re:Bad headline! (Score:5, Interesting)
Incorrect. The body of law may seem to imply that, but certainly I as a parent don't. And I'm sure most of my fellow parents feel the same way.
Parents should be responsible for their children, not the government.
Re:Bad headline! (Score:3, Interesting)
Why crush the head when the throat is such an easy choke point, right Homer?
Re:Bad headline! (Score:2, Interesting)
But video games are newer, so parents are less comfortable with them. They don't know quite as well what to do with them. At least in my house, us kids bought the video games while my parents bought the movies. So this legislation is simply parents expressing their insecurity over their own ability to regulate their children's video games.
If the legislation isn't passed, in awhile it could probably fade to the background as parents find they can control what games their children play just they control what movies their children see. If it is that just means that parents don't think they can have that control on their own.
In either case no one is saying that selling "The Passion of Christ", "300", or any other R-rated movie to minors is a good thing.
Attn: Developers - New Game Idea (Score:4, Interesting)
In this game, you should get points for:
humiliating and ostracizing people who are different from you,
evading taxes by exploiting questionable tax breaks,
using barely legal accounting practices,
manipulating other people's emotions for political objectives,
taking campaign contributions that create conflicts of interest,
and suing people under immoral circumstances for profit.
Personally, I'd rather kids pretend to shoot people.
Wouldn't say "vast majority." (Score:4, Interesting)
You're right about it being voluntary, but I think you're wrong in saying "the vast majority do not." I can't think of any major theater chain in the U.S. that doesn't enforce the MPAA ratings on movies. If you can find one that doesn't, it's just because the employees are looking the other way, not because of any official policy. I mean, the theater owners have representatives in the MPAA -- they sit on the appeals boards for rating movies. (Go see "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" if you want to know names; it's basically a who's-who of theater ownership.)
Movie rental and sales may be a little more lax, because they're more focused on making a buck. However, the big chains all at least pay lip service to the MPAA ratings, and any difference between policy-as-written and policy-as-enforced (like being lax about the "R" rating, because it would hurt sales too much) is just going to get blamed on the employees.
The Book Test! (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's a simple test. Would you have this regulation apply to books? Are there some books -- and I'm talking about the kind with just words in them, now, no pictures -- that are not only inappropriate for anyone under the age of 17, but that should be illegal to sell to those under 17?
Here's me, the pimple-faced kid with the cracking voice from The Simpsons, and I'm behind the counter at a bookstore. Lisa walks up with a copy of Tropic of Cancer and I ring her up. WOOP! WOOP! Alarms sound, red lights flash, and out come Chief Wiggum and the boys to throw me in cuffs.
Sounds funny, but this sort of thing regularly happens to comic book stores. Comic books aren't seen as "books," so there's not the same stigma attached to banning them. So in certain communities, you have people hanging around comic book stores waiting for some kid to buy a copy of Legend of the Overfiend. When the purchase is made, in come the undercover agents and they take the kid behind the counter to jail. He's charged with a crime and ends up having to pay fines.
And the funny thing is, there's no law on the books specifically prohibiting the sale of adult comics to minors. In fact, there isn't even a real ratings system. (Don't talk to me about the Comics Code -- it hasn't had any teeth since the early 80s.) These arrests are based on so-called community standards, which legal precedent says is the benchmark for determining "obscenity."
This is how censorship starts. "What? Who me? I didn't censor anything! I don't even have the power to censor these products. I'm not the government. I'm just a lowly citizen." No, but what you did was hang the risk of arrest over anyone who sells the products, so it becomes to prohibitive for retailers even to stock them. That cuts into sales, especially in such a low-profit segment as comic books. And sooner or later, the company that produced the material to begin with can't support the operation anymore, and the offending material disappears.
Back to books. You think they didn't try it with Tropic of Cancer? Oh hell yeah, they did. We've been fortunate that, over the years, the efforts of various individuals and groups -- not least of whom, Holocaust survivors -- have put an even bigger stigma on book-banning than the stigma around selling books full of naughty things.
The real shame of it is that it's so much easier to want to ban videogames and movies than books because, I suspect, most people figure kids today aren't going to read books anyway. It sickens me to think that people don't realize how totally fucking unacceptable that excuse is, on so many levels.
YES, there is material that is not appropriate for minors. Where you draw that line, however, is fairly arbitrary. Parents should be raising their kids, right on through the teenage years. My own folks took a fairly laissez-faire approach to my adolescence, and through my peer group I got exposed to lot of eyebrow-raising ideas and situations, but that doesn't mean I was raised by wolves. On the other hand, if the government would have stepped in and said, "This is for you, this is not for you" ... I can guarantee you that I would have struck back in some way. And, ironically, I would have done it while being a much more ignorant person, having had blinders put on by the government.
Bottom line, the idea that we're going to have a wooden cut-out of Chief Wiggum with his hand up and a sign that says "You must be at least THIS tall to watch this movie," while it may be comforting for a lot of scared parents, is not only silly, it's dangerous.