Check Out Video of Last Night's Violent Videogames Debate

[Starke]

One of the most interesting points, though, was that absolutely nobody on the panel thought that the Supreme Court would side with the 2005 legislation that Yee had authored.

This isn't really that surprising. Even Common Sense's Amicus brief wasn't arguing that the law was constitutional, just that it should be permitted as a new exemption, something the courts have almost universally refused to do.

 

[Whoatemysupper]

Kids under the correct age can't really buy games out of their zone without parental consent. If you want more violent video games to be upgraded to M, take it up with the ESRB or PEGI. I don't see how they can make such a big deal about this.

 

[Starke]

Here in Australia it's the law and things have worked out fine besides our R18+ debacles. Why don't you just make the ESRB legally enforceable? I don't understand why everyone cares that much. If they want to make it the law that if a child wants a game above their age bracket their parent has to buy it that makes perfect sense. I really don't understand the opposition on this issue. What could possibly go wrong if it's worked fine over here for years?

Because one of the most fundamental rights afforded to americans is the ability to publish material for public consumption without infringement, and making sales to kids illegal counts as infringement on that right.

-m

Edit: To anyone who's not up to speed on american constitutional law, this fight isn't going to make sense - but it's a very important fight in terms of the recognition of games as a legitimate form of expression.

Right, so it's not about the law as such, it's the infringement of constitutional rights and trying to show that games should not be treated any differently. Makes sense now.

I never got that wholl thing, children cant vote, cant drive, cant buy pornography, cant own a gun, I dont see how not allowing them to buy M rated games is some big contutional debate, but then again I'm not american and not up to date on the American constituion as I havent looked at it since my American history class and I doubt you want to know about the canadian constiution as it is rather boring you Americans have Life, Liberty, Property (or maybe Im qouting John Lock) We Canadians get peace, order, and good government.

You missed drink or smoke, but here's the thing. Voting is a right, but it is an easily revocable one. If you're convicted of a felony, you can't vote ever. If you're under a certain age, you can't vote. Before the 20th century if you had a pair of X chromosomes you couldn't vote.

Handgun ownership is basically the same way. You have a right to own a firearm, but that can be easily taken from you. Again, conviction for a felony, is the easiest way to lose that right permanently.

Children can't drive for a slightly different reason. There is no "right" to drive a car. It's an activity that requires a somewhat mature perspective on risk management, and driving a car without adequate risk management skills and discipline is simply dangerous, both to the operator and to everyone else in the vicinity. In this case, the government has what is called "a compelling interest" to restrict the use of motor vehicles to those it deems can use them. If anything the US is far more lax about this than other countries. Germany for instance can (and does) permanently revoke your license if you're pulled over after having consumed any alcohol, regardless of if you are visibly impaired.

And porn... see, porn is the one element here that actually fits within the scope of the case. Porn is protected by first amendment free speech, though it didn't used to be. And protecting children from buying pornography is the one (and ONLY) case where a free speech article[footnote]Classified documents are simply not protected by the first amendment.[/footnote] is subjected to this kind of restriction.

It creates a dubious precedent, I mean, how do you legally define "porn" without infringing on other forms of art? At the end of the day the court decided that protecting children from buying porn was worth an exemption, but porn is an easily identifiable (if not definable) form of speech. Violent video games are not.

Spoiler: A random bit of history.

So, this goes back a bit in American history... since at least the 19th century there have been elements of popular culture that varied political movements have found offensive and attempted to restrict. Ohio still had an unenforced law on the books that criminalized the sale of any publication to a minor if it included "information about perpetrated crimes." Early films were subjected to a large array of independent censorship boards. Similarly comic books and dime novels were both targets of attempts at censorship in their eras. And as recently as 20 years ago rap music was the scapegoat of choice.

The reason this is a major constitutional issue is because while we can identify what is or is not porn, we cannot define what is or is not a "deviantly violent video game". No one, not even California's lawyer, can point to a title other than Postal 2 and say "that will be affected". During oral arguments he kept saying, "well a jury can tell us", and got slapped around because there is no mechanism to let a company know if or when they're going to go too far until after they've spent the money on it.

So this stomps on free speech in two places, it will create a "chilling effect", where protected speech is infringed because of fear of governmental reprisal, and it violates "compelled speech" as it forces video game publishers to agree with California's belief that violence in video games is inherently harmful.

Finally it would allow factions that have wanted to pursue agendas against free speech protections for film and other mediums a precedent to build off of in crafting their legislative agendas.

 

[Starke]

Kids under the correct age can't really buy games out of their zone without parental consent. If you want more violent video games to be upgraded to M, take it up with the ESRB or PEGI. I don't see how they can make such a big deal about this.

What's interesting is, the ESRB actually has a higher rate of compliance than the MPAA's rating system. Aside from a few outliers, it isn't children buying these games without the knowledge of their parents.

 

[Roryomg]

The camera work in this is so amazingly poor

 

[MetalGenocide]

The blond guy didn't know what he was talking about the entire time. Tripping over his own sentences, cutting them adding segments from others, it was like listening to a 12 year old.
Said nothing of substance whatsoever.

The actiblizz guy was pretty much accurate and to the point.

Last one was confused and indecisive, but at least trying to think logically.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

It was good to hear from the Act/Blizz guy that the average gamer is 32, and other such things, I just wish we could get the message out there that a 'mature' game isn't necessarily shooting someone in the balls then kicking their head off while yelling 'Dicktits!' (although, damn it IS fun!). While many games are suitable for children, it's not a market only aimed at children.

Perhaps if somehow they could show clips from something like Heavy Rain, which I believe has a fairly high rating, yet looks more like a TV drama show, we might be able to chip away at the 'games are for kids so we must protect them' wall in our way.

Also, a VERY important point, if all future games had to go thru a legally binding rating process, just say goodbye to hundreds of great indie games each year, as they wouldn't be able to afford the upfront costs of going thru the government ratings board before going on sale for $2 or whatever.

No more iphone games, no android stuff, no nada.

Lastly, why on earth are they not pushing the similarities between gaming and movies, if a kid can't buy Saw at 12 in 99% of cases without a law being in place, and he can't buy Black Ops in 99% of cases, surely all's well? While games have interactivity and the repetition, they very rarely have the extreme and detailed and emotionally striking levels of violence (and of course sexuality) that you get on DVD.

PS: Also, where the hell are the 'rape' games that guy mentioned? Someone needed to let him know that in the US, you can't just walk into Walmart and buy 'America's got Rapists' - Rapelay was a one off mistake listing on Amazon and not another one in the COD series. Shoddy talk like that makes gamers sound like we're recreating rape for giggles, and needs shooting down hard.

 

[Altorin]

I am hardcore on the side of the games industry in this debate, but I'm not sure the fellow from activision was a wise choice to represent the industry. He's being a little more arrogant and dismissive than I like, and not nearly as well organized and clear in what he's saying as the guy from CSM.

I agree entirely.

 

[iDoom46]

What is this NPR!? Everybody is being all polite and talking things out without being rude or cutting each other off. BORING! Stop agreeing with each other! I want to see people screaming talking points at the top of their lungs in an angry, polarizing manner! Oh, and there needs to be more sexy blonde women with huge tits.

Also, who the hell buys their video games at a liquor store??

 

[Nikolaz72]

I think he and his boss (Bobby) is very smart - to the Actiblizz executive. . Oh why is it that sentence was the only one amongst many I took special notice of .

 

[Puzzlenaut]

Jesus that guy is a bad narrator-type-guy.

I got to where he said he would re-do the intro, groaned and keeled over at his annoying slurred voice...

 

[Lordmarkus]

Edit: To anyone who's not up to speed on american constitutional law, this fight isn't going to make sense - but it's a very important fight in terms of the recognition of games as a legitimate form of expression.

Ah damn, that just killed my entire post.

But one thing still doesn't make sense to me, why not take this up with the guys who sell the games, and not make them? But something has to be wrong with that idea, these guys would have jumped to that if it were the case..

The law would effect the retailers and the developers equally, and honestly, the result is the same either way.

Currently, the industry (game retailers and the ESRB) prevents minors from buying M rated games about 90% of the time.

If the law goes through, there will be a 1000$ fine associated with sales to minors.

So, in the instance of say, Call of duty, which sold 5 Million in the US, that's about 500,000 getting into the hands of minors. The financial risk associated with those sales is, under the proposed law, 5,000,000,000$. Yeah, five billion dollars in fines.

If you apply that fine to the game maker, then they stop making those games, because the financial risk is sufficiently high as to destroy any chance of those games meeting project approval during the design stage (why make an M game and risk 5,000,000,000$ in fines, when you could make a T game, and risk nothing?)

If you apply the fines to retailers, then the retailers refuse to carry the games, because there's too much risk of accidental sale to minors. (why sell M rated games, when T rated games carry no risk?", the net result of this is that game developers... stop making these games, because the marketplace, in which they might sell them, is gone.

Basically, such a law has a pronounced chilling effect on games that fall under the law's purview.

-m

Thank you very much for that explanation. I have not seen the problem with a legislation of videogames and why it has been argued over but when you put it on those terms, then it is understandable that such legislation would be crippling for the industry.

Of course, if the legislation would pass that wouldn't be the entire world. Both Uncharted, Battlefield 2 and the early Call of Duty games passed a Teen rating and those are all great games. Unfortunately they aren't Half-Life 2 or BioShock.

I'm hopefull towards the judges of the Supreme Court since they did not look very keen themselves to legislate videogames back in November. Still, it aggrevates me that USA have such a huge impact on our media and culture. Just because US adults don't have the balls to controll their kids, why must I be affected as a EU citizen concerning what media i appreciate. I'm sure many here on this site and around the world feel the same way.

 

[StriderShinryu]

In what game that is sold in stores do players rape young girls? This irks me. Why has he not been called on this?

I was actually wondering this as well. Granted, I didn't watch the whole debate but in the part I did watch I heard the anti-game rep repeatedly reference sexually violent games. If I was in the debate, that's probably the first thing I would have brought up as, certainly, I agree that there are videogames with extreme (perhaps excessive) violence, but I can't think of even one that is sexually violent. Sure there's the rape sim games in Japan, but those have never made it outside the country in a legal domestic release to my knowledge (and thus wouldn't have been available in stores anyway so this law would have no impact on them).

 

[Reincarnatedwolfgod]

this is the first time i saw this and that 8 minute was more entertaining then the 1 minute of that debate
i would like to see the whole debate just so i understand the argument against video games but it wound probably put me to sleep.
alliteratively i could play a game while listening

 

[Astalano]

It was good to hear from the Act/Blizz guy that the average gamer is 32, and other such things, I just wish we could get the message out there that a 'mature' game isn't necessarily shooting someone in the balls then kicking their head off while yelling 'Dicktits!' (although, damn it IS fun!). While many games are suitable for children, it's not a market only aimed at children.

Sorry but games ARE aimed at children and they ARE mostly about shooting people in the balls then kicking their head off while yelling dicktits, at least the mainstream console industry.

If you really think talking about an interactive movie (Heavy Rain) or Bioshock (which is also about shooting and killing) to defend video games being art or aimed at higher age groups then you are sadly mistaken.

There is little question that the industry is immature and not very artistic. Plus, any artistic or truely mature games made are almost always in the minority. We haven't had an artistic game like Shadow of the Collosus, for instance, since....Shadow of the Collosus and even that isn't mainstream.

The medium does have a lot of artistic and mature ELEMENTS and a lot of artistic potential but stop saying that it's not a medium aimed at children or people seeking to fulfil a power fantasy, because that IS the majority of games, whether we like it or not.

 

[Valanthe]

I had a hunch, while listening to this debate, and following that, I quickly brought up the ESRB site, and popped in a quick content search for games that included 'Sexual Violence' I was actually surprised at the results:

Entry 1 of 1
Title: Animamundi
Publisher: Himeki International Group
Rating: Mature
Content: Blood and Gore, Nudity, and Sexual Violence
Platform: Windows PC

One entry, out of how many thousands the ESRB has rated, got that rating. I had never even heard of this game prior, so I did a quick Google Search

Wikipedia has this to say:

Animamundi: Dark Alchemist (Anima Mundi: Owarinaki Yami no Butou) is a Japanese gothic horror visual novel developed by Karin Entertainment and distributed by Hirameki International in the United States...

As has been the case with most visual novels released in America, Animamundi did not attract much attention in the mainstream gaming press, thanks in part to its fairly limited distribution.

A review of the game I dredged up on girlgamersunite.com held much praise for the game, giving it an 85/100 and offered this explanation for my question of "what the hell is a visual novel?"

Assumable that you haven't heard of novel games before, we'll start with a brief explanation. Novel games might best be likened to a sophisticated variation on the "Choose Your Own Adventure" novel; the player takes the part of the protagonist and makes decisions at key junctures, and the plot branches accordingly.

So, my curiosity sated, I post this for all of you who've asked for an example of a game that includes sexual violence. I honestly expected there to be more, but apparently Rape does not a good video game make.

 

[Jumplion]

I never got that wholl thing, children cant vote, cant drive, cant buy pornography, cant own a gun, I dont see how not allowing them to buy M rated games is some big contutional debate, but then again I'm not american and not up to date on the American constituion as I havent looked at it since my American history class and I doubt you want to know about the canadian constiution as it is rather boring you Americans have Life, Liberty, Property (or maybe Im qouting John Lock) We Canadians get peace, order, and good government.

You have just compared video games to pornography, alcohol, and drugs. This would mean that video games are not like other mediums (movies, books, music, etc...) and they for some reason must be specifically monitored and regulated by the US government like pornography, alcohol, and drugs. This means that video games have no first amendment right as pornography, alcohol, and drugs do not share that privilege. This isn't even getting into the fact that the video game industry already regulate themselves far more effectively than other mediums, so it'd be a total waste of time and money to get the law to pass.

It doesn't make much sense in other countries, I'm sure, but here in the US we like our freedoms of expression in our movies, books, music, and games. All those mediums are self-regulated (to my knowledge) and they all enjoy free speech. Video games should not, and are not, an exception to this rule.