Xfire Censorship Debate Transcript

[Russ Pitts]

Xfire Censorship Debate Transcript

The Xfire Debate [http://www.xfire.com/cms/xf_censorship/] on game censorship went off without a hitch yesterday. I had the pleasure of debating with California Senator Leeland Yee, ESA CEO Hal Halpin, Gampolitics.com's Dennis McCauley, Matteo Bittanti and Dan Isett from the PTC. All were articulate and very passionate about the issue, as was our moderator, Henry Lowood from Stanford University.

The transcript of the debate is up at the Xfire Debate Club website [http://www.xfire.com/cms/xf_censorship/], as is a transcript from the Open Debate room, where the general public was simultaneously discussing the same topics we were. The transcript is a bit disjointed, reflecting the nature of chat-based conversations, but yields some interesting perspectives.

On the whole, it would seem that everyone, from the senator on down, is concerned about adult-themed content in games and how to preserve the gamemaker's rights to create such content while simultaneously keeping it out of the hands of minors. The devil, of course, is in the details. Exactly how to go about doing that - and defining the types of content to be restricted - is where we all seemed to disagree wildly.

Give it a read and chime in here, and if this is an issue you care about I suggest you write your congressperson and let them know how you feel. Videogames are the hot topic this election cycle, and our lawmakers deserve to hear from those of us who understand and care about games.


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[Joe]

You've clearly forgotten what it's like to *be* a child. My 8-year old nephew is the most violent person I know, even without video games.

Thank you for that. Isett clearly doesn't remember cops and robbers or beating up his friends over pickup basketball rules. Of course, I'm in my 20s and I can barely remember. I'm beginning to think part of growing up is forgetting what a violent force of nature you were back when you were made out of rubber and dirt.

Either way, I wouldn't want to be his kid.

Yee, however, was pretty impressive. His heart is in the right place.

 

[Dom Camus]

[Kids] somehow manage to grow up in spite of our best efforts to forestall that notion.

Yup, agree 100% with this point.

Mostly a good debate, but I think it's one real weakness was that all parties involved were really quite moderate. Nobody was representing the 'capalert [http://www.capalert.com/]'-style extreme censorship position and nobody was representing a pure anti-censorship position (which would be closest to my own stance).

 

[RikSharp]

i am and likely always will be of the stance that parenting young children is a job for the parents. just because some people are not as good at that job as others should not be cause for any media to change for the worse for the responsible parties.

if everyone parented correctly and did not let "little timmy" get a hold of "murder rape sim 5" then there wouldn't even be a debate.

"murder rape sim 5" would be be made, the niche target market would be happy, "little timmy" would be safe and everyone wins.

EDITED repeatedly as i just don't like spellcheckers

 

[JaredXE]

Videogames are the hot topic this election cycle, and our lawmakers deserve to hear from those of us who understand and care about games.

Oh dear god. So the economy, healthcare, illegal invasion of foreign nationals and equal rights takes a back seat to VIDEOGAMES this year? Goddamn I hate my government. I hope any politician that brings up videogames on the campaign trail when we don't have a perfect and stable country gets laughed out of office and has to find work as a burger flipper.

 

[loremazd]

I really don't see what the issue is with requiring retailers to verify age is. I wouldn't go so far as fines, but no one's gonna risk their job on selling something to minors. If they want something they can talk to their parents about it.

 

[Jamash]

Videogames are the hot topic this election cycle, and our lawmakers deserve to hear from those of us who understand and care about games.

Oh dear god. So the economy, healthcare, illegal invasion of foreign nationals and equal rights takes a back seat to VIDEOGAMES this year? Goddamn I hate my government. I hope any politician that brings up videogames on the campaign trail when we don't have a perfect and stable country gets laughed out of office and has to find work as a burger flipper.

When you say "this year", do you mean 2010, or 2007 when this thread was created...and when you say you hate your government, do you mean George W Bush's or Barack Obama's?

I don't know why this thread was revived after 3 years, but it seems a bit silly getting worked up over 2007's election cycle, especially when we already know the results.