johnman said:
I dont get whats so bad about the bill he is trying to pass, isnt it already an offence to sell games to people too young to own them?
As noted above, what he's trying to do is foist a degree of liability on retailers that's an order of magnitude beyond common sense, and a disincentive to actually implementing any store policies to enforce the ESRB.
While some stores do have policies about ESRB based age checks, they're just that, store policies and nothing more, and various state attempts to enact legislation to make them legally enforceable have generally failed.
Part of the reason for that, is that there's generally two grades of id/age verification. The first is strict verification, where the retail establishment is legally liable for any failures, ie booze retailers, and the second is casual verification, where the establishment makes a good faith effort, but should little Timmy come home with a copy of GTA IV, the most the store is on the hook for is a sincerely worded apology from the CEO's executive assistant, a writeup in the sales clerk's folder, a $5 coupon for the food court, and, until recently, a nuisance lawsuit from JT.
Another point that's caused such legislation to fail, is that a store generally has no way of knowing whether a child's parent approves or disapproves of any given title. I'm sure there are far more parents in this country who would be upset that their precious babykins was denied Saw XVIII: The Game, than there are parents who would be upset that little Timmy was able to bring home a copy of GTA IV.
