Educator Group Calls For B.C. Game Ban
- Thread starter Andy Chalk
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Don't worry, you can cheer up just by looking outside the window in B.C.Kimarous said:As a resident of British Columbia, my reaction is thusly...
However, I highly doubt anything will come of this. The provincial government is getting enough flak without the youth taking arms against them.
O: When will these idiots give up or leave? And was anyone else having their skin crawl when she said "for the good of the public"?
Good god, do you think she said "children" enough?Andy Chalk said:
Andy, tell me what you think this proposal: Anyone found using the "Think of the children" arguement shall be sentenced to a week in solitary confinement and fed on on dry bread and water during that time.
What gets lost in all the noise, in this matter and a lot of others, is that we are thinking of the children. ESRB ratings are more effective than any other entertainment media rating system in North America, and even though there is absolutely no evidence that violent videogames are any more detrimental to children than violent movies, the videogame industry nonetheless continues to work to keep parents educated about the games and the ratings. We are ahead of that curve, and pulling away more and more with each passing year.Macgyvercas said:
I also, as always, find the nonsense about "sexually explicit games" especially infuriating. Anyone with half a brain in her head knows that the sale of sexually explicit content is already legally restricted, and that those laws cover games as much as they do movies and magazines - notwithstanding the fact that such games effectively don't exist in the first place.
Fortunately, it seems that the groups braying about the dangers of games become less and less relevant with each passing year. Someday this will all seem as ridiculous as the decades-old worries about the corrupting influence of comic books; the trick for gamers is to keep our heads above water until then.
I am so tired of constant claims from the out-of-touch that we are "corrupting the youth of Athens."
Near the end of Jack Thompson's death spiral, when many gamers were celebrating, I put forward a word of caution - what would happen if he was replace by someone generally likeable and competent? For all of his vitriol, returned in kind by many gamers, we were actually rather lucky that the public face of this crusade was someone who routinely ticked off the judicial establishment and was so far outside of the mainstream as to polarize many people in our favor.Andy Chalk said:
But there really was no need to worry, and I think you're entirely correct that at this point gaming has become sufficiently mainstream that we don't need someone as eccentric as Thompson to make this crusade look over-the-top.
I'm not always happy with ESRB, and I'd personally prefer game ratings (and movie ratings too) to have multiple categories - rather like what we had in the 90s where violent, language, and sexuality were rated individually. However even if I feel there's room for improvement I think ESRB does a solid job - and it certainly more informative than MPAA ratings.
Thank goodness, I thought someone had made a game based on Johnny Hart's comic strip. They ever do that, damn right it should be banned.
Sure but they were scripted events, like the Eyeball gib in ROTT. You couldn't dismember a person deliberately and methodicaly with a shotgun like you could in Soldier of Fortune. Locational damage modelling goes a long way. SOF2 is still one of the most violent games I have ever played.believer258 said:
Now this is what I call a good, (mostly) unbiased article [http://assets0.ordienetworks.com/images/GifGuide/clapping/citizen_cane.gif]. This is how you do a news article, especially for volatile subjects like these.Andy Chalk said:Educator Group Calls For B.C. Game Ban
The Delta Kappa Gamma Society International [http://www.dkg.org], a "professional honorary Society of women educators," has written an open letter to British Columbia Premier Christy Clark asking her to restrict the availability of violent and sexually explicit videogames in the province.
Did you know that in the year 2000, the government of British Columbia banned Activision's Soldier of Fortune [http://www.amazon.com/Soldier-Fortune-Pc/dp/B00003031F/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1311127306&sr=8-16] by declaring it "an 'adult motion picture' as defined under the B.C. Motion Picture Act?" Mary-Louise McCausland, then the Director of Film Classification, described the in-game violence as "brutal and portrayed realistically and explicitly," adding, "The object of the plot is to create an environment where the participant can maim or kill as many assailants as possible with the level of viciousness that the participant chooses to employ."
The ruling meant that anyone who wanted to distribute Soldier of Fortune in the province had to become legally licensed distributors of adult material - which is to say, porn - and would only be allowed to supply it to legally-license retailers of adult material - which is to say, porn shops. "If this inconveniences distributors," McCausland wrote [via The Free Radical [http://www.thefreeradical.ca/governmentAction/soldierOfFortuneDecision.html]], "I believe that the inconvenience is necessary to protect the interests of the public."
Now B.C. is the focus of another complaint that seeks even wider-reaching restrictions on violent and sexually explicit videogames. O. Babiuk of the Delta Kappa Gamma Society International has written an open letter to Premier Christy Clark, asking the government to "further limit" the availability of such games in the province.
"As summer vacation has started, children are particularly at risk for increased exposure to the violence celebrated in many of the video games which are commonly available for sale in local stores, and at video arcades," the letter says. "Significant research has been conducted to determine the effects of violence in video games and many of the results indicate short-term and even long-term behavioral and attitudinal changes in those who play these games."
"In the same way that we protect our children from secondhand smoke, we believe there would be a benefit from a ban on violent or sexually explicit games wherever children under 16 may be present and that the sale of these items should be tightly controlled," it continues. "Please help families keep their children from the negative effects of violent and sexually explicit video games by legislating strict rules regarding the sale and the use of these items."
But whether the B.C. government even acknowledges the letter is an open question at this point. For one thing, the Liberal government currently in power is deeply unpopular with voters and unlikely to have much interest in any legislation that could prove controversial. And while "thinking of the children" has for years been a popular go-to move for politicians, the world is a vastly different place than it was a decade ago. Videogames are no longer the default evil, and it's become widely recognized that informed parents and retailers, and not knee-jerk legislation, are the best way to keep inappropriate games out of the hands of kids.
Source: GamePolitics [http://www.royalcityrecord.com/business/Keep+sexually+explicity+video+games+away+from+kids/5121539/story.html]
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[sup]could do with a little less of the last paragraph, but hey, a helluvahlot better than other recent [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.286870-Psychology-Study-Blames-Games-for-Aggressive-Behavior?page=1] articles (couldn't find the other one)[/sup]
OT: I am really annoyed with this constant pandering to "the pure, innocent children!" Look, I get that they're all protective over their children and whatnot, to an extent I can understand this (still irrational) fear. But it's just so much pandering and buzz words and scary imagery of all these things that video games supposedly do to everyone and their grandmother. It's baffling how politicians are still allowed to be ignorant of even basic understanding of the people they work for.
"Please help families keep their children from the negative effects of violent and sexually explicit video games by legislating strict rules regarding the sale and the use of these items."
Maybe said families should be better informed to make decisions based on this kind of stuff, no? Or do you want government to baby everyone because you don't trust your kids to make rational decisions (and, by extension, be unable to make said rational decisions).
Someone needs to slap these politicians (not just them, every single one out there right now) some goddamn sense.
We all know that games do not cause violent behavior; Taking away games causes violent behavior! Let her try to take my gore-filled games. I'll go Soldier of Fortune on her ass.
Kidding of course. For what tiny amount of faith in our provincial government I have, I believe there is no way in hell this kook will change jack-all. If she does manage to do anything it will only mildly inconvenience me; There are many ways to get games other than retail stores.
Kidding of course. For what tiny amount of faith in our provincial government I have, I believe there is no way in hell this kook will change jack-all. If she does manage to do anything it will only mildly inconvenience me; There are many ways to get games other than retail stores.
this is a hilarious way of putting it, and i do highly agree...these people..where are they coming from? The brainwashing farm of ignorance down the road?Booze Zombie said:
Move all the anti-video game people there and move all the pro-video game and neutrals out. Australia was used as a prison island in the past right? I mean it's got all those deadly animals. Too bad this plan is largely impractical, unfeasible, and outright inconsiderate to the aborigines who were there before everyone else.TheLoneSeeker said:
