Games on Trial

[Sinspiration]

So again the companies and game makers are being blamed, the games industry has a hard enough time as it is without being blamed because parents don't use their heads and regulate the kind of content they allow their child to play/witness.

Its NOT the fault of the industry if some stupid parents cant control their idiot children.

 

[KunkMast3rFl3x]

I'm not sure if anyone has commented on this yet or not but reading through these post i realized, 'Schwarzenegger is head lining this campaign (from what i can piece together(i.e. Schwarzenegger v. EMA))'. does anyone see the irony, or maybe just the W.T.F., in this. Schwarzenegger. the Terminator. Conan the Barbarian. (insert big 80s-90s shoot first ask questions later hero here) Schwarzenegger is going against violent video games. Am I wrong? Does this not seem like a double standard here. He made his money off of violent movies and related video game merchandise.
IDK just a thought I had.

 

[Sinspiration]

I'm not sure if anyone has commented on this yet or not but reading through these post i realized, 'Schwarzenegger is head lining this campaign (from what i can piece together(i.e. Schwarzenegger v. EMA))'. does anyone see the irony, or maybe just the W.T.F., in this. Schwarzenegger. the Terminator. Conan the Barbarian. (insert big 80s-90s shoot first ask questions later hero here) Schwarzenegger is going against violent video games. Am I wrong? Does this not seem like a double standard here. He made his money off of violent movies and related video game merchandise.
IDK just a thought I had.

Uh.. Just because he plays a killer cyber organism doesn't mean he actually is one himself. So yeah, you're wrong. I believe its called understanding without condoning.

 

[KiKiweaky]

My son is 4, so quite a bit younger than the examples stated. At this age, the line as far as games he can be exposed to is a lot more clearly defined, so it makes my job a lot easier as a parent. He loves to play the x-box with his dad though. There is this "Dash of Destruction" free game released as an advert for Doritos that he loves because the dinosaur gets to chase the trucks. He likes to play drums (albeit badly) on Lego Rock Band, and he likes to play lego starwars and (strangely) an old PS2 NHL game I have. I'm thinking of introducing him to so classic Mario stuff soon.

As he grows up, it becomes my responsibility as a parent to set those further boundaries. Every child is different, and not all mature rated games are created equal. I would likely not have too much of a problem with say Assassin's Creed, Bioshock or even Mass Effect at age 14 (all rated Mature), but I would have an issue with The Witcher and GTA4 (same rating, obviously). My reason being that the statements the latter are trying to make get lost in the specticle created by some of the content. Both have a lot of value (I own both), but looking back at myself at age 14-16 I never would have been able to get to the meat of those games.

Then again, my frame of reference is very different than a lot of people here. My generation of M rated games were the likes of System Shock 2, Thief, and Deus Ex. Those were a far cry from the M rated games of today, and are games that I would gladly hand off to any of today's teenagers as classic examples of how mature themes should be handled. Today, I bet a lot of those would be evaluated as T rated games by the ESRB.

Hmm slight difference alright

I've played thief n deus ex too, loved em both.

The main thing that would stop me from letting somebody play a game, is pretty much the same as a film. Something like terminator 2 has plenty of guns explosions and people being killed in it, what it doesnt have is torture people howling for their mother while bits of them are hanging off etc....

Or like my brother found out when he was baby sitting the cousin I was on about earlier. If you start a new game in Max Payne you come home to find your family (mother, baby) murderred. Even I thought it was pretty disturbing when I played it, my cousin was only about 8 at the time and while he didnt have nightmares he was like o.o when he came downstairs and told my brother about it haha. He promptly changed games for him :/

Best of luck with being a responsible parent, games coming out in the future are to be so mental your going to have a hard time coping with the 'I WANT IT' that inevitably going to be coming your way =P

 

[hitheremynameisbob]

I'm not sure if anyone has commented on this yet or not but reading through these post i realized, 'Schwarzenegger is head lining this campaign (from what i can piece together(i.e. Schwarzenegger v. EMA))'. does anyone see the irony, or maybe just the W.T.F., in this. Schwarzenegger. the Terminator. Conan the Barbarian. (insert big 80s-90s shoot first ask questions later hero here) Schwarzenegger is going against violent video games. Am I wrong? Does this not seem like a double standard here. He made his money off of violent movies and related video game merchandise.
IDK just a thought I had.

I don't think Schwarzenegger is really "headlining" anything here. He's the governor of California, where the law whose repeal the Supreme Court is reviewing started. Their state legislature passed it, and Ahnold signed off on it, but the law was presumably crafted in the legislature, which is also where interest groups will be spending most of their time and money on lobbying for it, so that's where the real support for it lies, I would imagine. I don't actually know the specifics on how this entered appeals, but I would guess that Schwarzenegger putting himself as the primary defendant in the appeals process, as governor of the state where the law was passed, is just standard procedure, and doesn't really say much about his support for it. That said, I'm sure he's at least backing it up a little bit, since his state's legislature passed it, signifying that it's probably a good political move to show some support.

But with that said, I still can't see his name on ANY official political paper without laughing a little.

 

[KunkMast3rFl3x]

I'm not sure if anyone has commented on this yet or not but reading through these post i realized, 'Schwarzenegger is head lining this campaign (from what i can piece together(i.e. Schwarzenegger v. EMA))'. does anyone see the irony, or maybe just the W.T.F., in this. Schwarzenegger. the Terminator. Conan the Barbarian. (insert big 80s-90s shoot first ask questions later hero here) Schwarzenegger is going against violent video games. Am I wrong? Does this not seem like a double standard here. He made his money off of violent movies and related video game merchandise.
IDK just a thought I had.

Uh.. Just because he plays a killer cyber organism doesn't mean he actually is one himself. So yeah, you're wrong. I believe its called understanding without condoning.

I don't think I'm wrong just not educated on how the court system works or how any of that political stuff works. However I like what you said there "Just because he plays a killer cyber organism..." etc and so forth (its all up there). In essence actors portray violent characters now and again. That doesn't mean the guy who plays Jason or Freddy is gonna go around being a psycho killer. The same way the average, level headed gamer isn't gonna go around repeating what they do in a video game. In a sense we are actors of interactive entertainment.If you're messed up, you're messed up and even a book would have the same effect as a video game.

 

[Darkauthor81]

How about if a parent doesn't want their kid to play a game they tell them they can't?

That would be responsible.

The problem is that this law is writen to "protect" parents that do not review what their children ask for. The parents that walk into Game stop with scribbled christmas lists and ask for games without understanding the ratings system or even looking at the ESRB designations.

The CA law only affects kids who walk into gamestop and ask to buy games. If a parent buys violent games for their kids it's still legal.

No it doesn't. If it passes, given time parents won't be able to walk into GameStop and buy the game for their kids because GameStop won't stock the game. Neither will Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and so on.

That makes no sense.

For starters those companies all ready don't sell M games to minors (or at least gamestop doesn't) as their company policy, even though it's legal to sell them those games.

And besides Wal mart and Target all ready stock things that are illegal to sell to minors. Alcohol and cigarettes.

They still stock them because it's profitable enough to risk the fines. If mature games aren't deigned profitable enough for the risk, then they will stop carrying them.

 

[hitheremynameisbob]

They still stock them because it's profitable enough to risk the fines. If mature games aren't deigned profitable enough for the risk, then they will stop carrying them.

OR, they may still stock them, but at the same time they may apply pressure on developers to make less objectionable games and more that won't be able to be fined. Like any good business, these guys are profit maximizers. Even if they're still making plenty of money off of violent games, they'll be making more (percentage-wise) off of products that they never have to pay fines for, so it's in their interest to try and shift demand more towards the watered-down sort of game that won't be regulated by this sort of law.

 

[JDKJ]

I'm not sure if anyone has commented on this yet or not but reading through these post i realized, 'Schwarzenegger is head lining this campaign (from what i can piece together(i.e. Schwarzenegger v. EMA))'. does anyone see the irony, or maybe just the W.T.F., in this. Schwarzenegger. the Terminator. Conan the Barbarian. (insert big 80s-90s shoot first ask questions later hero here) Schwarzenegger is going against violent video games. Am I wrong? Does this not seem like a double standard here. He made his money off of violent movies and related video game merchandise.
IDK just a thought I had.

I don't think Schwarzenegger is really "headlining" anything here. He's the governor of California, where the law whose repeal the Supreme Court is reviewing started. Their state legislature passed it, and Ahnold signed off on it, but the law was presumably crafted in the legislature, which is also where interest groups will be spending most of their time and money on lobbying for it, so that's where the real support for it lies, I would imagine. I don't actually know the specifics on how this entered appeals, but I would guess that Schwarzenegger putting himself as the primary defendant in the appeals process, as governor of the state where the law was passed, is just standard procedure, and doesn't really say much about his support for it. That said, I'm sure he's at least backing it up a little bit, since his state's legislature passed it, signifying that it's probably a good political move to show some support.

But with that said, I still can't see his name on ANY official political paper without laughing a little.

I suspect that Arnold signed it into law because to do so was more politically sound than a veto. That doesn't mean it was a good political move to support it, just that a veto was a much worse political move. I think he simply took the path of least resistance.

And there wasn't and still isn't much interest or lobby group support behind the law. I suspect that Leland Yee came up with and pushed the idea all on his own. He probably sees it as way to get his name and face in the news and score brownie points with voters (he's recently been talking about running for Mayor of San Francisco).

 

[hitheremynameisbob]

I suspect that Arnold signed it into law because to do so was more politically sound than a veto. That doesn't mean it was a good political move to support it, just that a veto was a much worse political move. I think he simply took the path of least resistance.

And there wasn't and still isn't much interest or lobby group support behind the law. I suspect that Leland Yee came up with and pushed the idea all on his own. He probably sees it as way to get his name and face in the news and score brownie points with voters (he's recently been talking about running for Mayor of San Francisco).

What makes you think there hasn't been much interest group support for it? The fact that it was passed by the state legislature in the face of interest group opposition pretty much guarantees that support was there. Politicians don't typically make a move that may cost them campaign contributions or other forms of interest group support without the promise of gains from an opposing side. Particularly on the state level, interest group activity is virtually invisible to the public unless they choose to make it known, but it's a pretty safe bet that if a law is going to put you at odds with interest groups that have a lot of vested interest in your state (which the computer entertainment trade associations most certainly do in California - probably more so than any other state), you're not going to support it unless you stand to gain something that makes the loss worthwhile.

As for the "better of two evils"... Well, yeah. That's how politics always works. You can't do anything, really, without pissing SOMEONE off. It's always a game of maximizing gains and minimizing losses, but there are very rarely choices you can make that will be wholly positive, so of course that's what Arnie was doing. What I was trying to get at was that the legislature passing the law signifies that it's probably not going to do any significant damage to his party, vote-wise, so there's really no reason to veto it. Arnie doesn't need to worry about special interests because he's about to retire (and governors are more insulated from them generally, anyway), but he likely is still concerned about leaving on good terms with his party, which means he'll be making the right moves for them through the end of his term. Since the legislature, no matter the interest group presence, isn't going to pass a law that guarantees they'll all lose their next re-election, cooperating with them on fairly popular bills at this stage just seems the smart move for him, if he is set on maintaining his relationship with the GOP. This is especially true given the nature of the law. This was never going to be a law that quietly passed, and everyone who voted on it knew that. There had been almost a dozen similar laws from other states in the past, and every single one was taken to court. So the fact that the legislature passed it is very, very telling in regards to how the representatives anticipated their constituencies would react to its passage - they all thought it was either going to help them with votes or not do any significant damage. Well, either one of those, or California just has an absurd number of safe, gerrymandered state rep districts whose representatives can do whatever the hell they want no matter what, but that's probably not the case, hehe.

 

[JDKJ]

I suspect that Arnold signed it into law because to do so was more politically sound than a veto. That doesn't mean it was a good political move to support it, just that a veto was a much worse political move. I think he simply took the path of least resistance.

And there wasn't and still isn't much interest or lobby group support behind the law. I suspect that Leland Yee came up with and pushed the idea all on his own. He probably sees it as way to get his name and face in the news and score brownie points with voters (he's recently been talking about running for Mayor of San Francisco).

What makes you think there hasn't been much interest group support for it? The fact that it was passed by the state legislature in the face of interest group opposition pretty much guarantees that support was there. Politicians don't typically make a move that may cost them campaign contributions or other forms of interest group support without the promise of gains from an opposing side. Particularly on the state level, interest group activity is virtually invisible to the public unless they choose to make it known, but it's a pretty safe bet that if a law is going to put you at odds with interest groups that have a lot of vested interest in your state (which the computer entertainment trade associations most certainly do in California - probably more so than any other state), you're not going to support it unless you stand to gain something that makes the loss worthwhile.

As for the "better of two evils"... Well, yeah. That's how politics always works. You can't do anything, really, without pissing SOMEONE off. It's always a game of maximizing gains and minimizing losses, but there are very rarely choices you can make that will be wholly positive, so of course that's what Arnie was doing. What I was trying to get at was that the legislature passing the law signifies that it's probably not going to do any significant damage to his party, vote-wise, so there's really no reason to veto it. Arnie doesn't need to worry about special interests because he's about to retire (and governors are more insulated from them generally, anyway), but he likely is still concerned about leaving on good terms with his party, which means he'll be making the right moves for them through the end of his term. Since the legislature, no matter the interest group presence, isn't going to pass a law that guarantees they'll all lose their next re-election, cooperating with them on fairly popular bills at this stage just seems the smart move for him, if he is set on maintaining his relationship with the GOP.

Putting aside the fact that your typical, feel-good, "for-the-sake-of-the-kiddies" legislation is usually the brain-child of some silly-ass legislator who thinks it's a good way to garner constituent votes and media attention with little downside of alienating anyone likely to actually vote, you need only count the amici briefs filed in support of Yee's law to get a sense of the organizational support behind him -- which by that count looks slim to non-existent. And the old saw that all politics is local is quite true. Don't look at the State as a whole. Look to Yee's district and his constituent base therein. He doesn't run out of Silicon Valley or somewhere else with a pronounced interest in gaming or related industries. He's out of San Mateo County. Nor, I suspect, if you check his campaign finance disclosures will you find much evidence of contributions from the wing-nuts who usually support this kind of nonsense (e.g., the Parents Television Council, the Family Research Council, and the other "culture war" groups of crazies). I could well be wrong, but I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that Leland can up with this one all by his lonesome.

And it's California. There's hardly anyone out there who doesn't have a safe seat immune to attack from a contender. Just ask Fiorina how far dropping a hundred-plus million of your own dollars will take you in a bid to unseat an incumbent. Not far. No one's much concerned about "losing their next re-election" in California. Ninety-nine percent of all incumbents get to keep their jobs. It's party machine politics all the way, my man. Most elected officials there are more concerned with term limits and finding the next elected position they can run for once they're termed out of office than they're concerned about actually getting beaten at the polls. That's why Jerry Brown has now come full circle back to a job he once held 20 years ago. Musical chairs. And that's why term limits was passed by a ballot initiative in the first place: the fact that once they got into office, it became damn near impossible to ever vote them out of that office. Technically, Schwarzenegger didn't "retire." He got term limited out of office. But for the term limit, I'd imagine he'd still be running for the Governor's mansion. And probably winning.


And your argument about Arnold cooperating with the Legislature because he doesn't want to alienate himself from the GOP would make some sense but for the fact that he's a Republican and the California Legislature is, and has been since time immemorial, dominated by Democrats. In fact, Yee's a Democrat. That and Arnold's already notorious for whipping out the veto pen, particularly to apply it to California budgets passed by the Legislature. He's done so numerous times (which kinda sucks because it takes a two-thirds super-majority in California to pass a budget in the first place).


And you keep saying Yee's law was "repealed." Technically, it wasn't. More accurately, there's a court-issued injunction freezing it. That's not the same as a repeal.

 

[hitheremynameisbob]

Oh, I'm sure it was some "silly-ass legislator who thinks it's a good way to garner, ect..." who first thought up the thing, no doubt there, but by and large the rest of the legislature needs to see some sort of gain from passing it to give it their support, is what I was trying to get at. These things almost always start that way, regardless of whether interest groups are involved - if they aren't, then those are the only people who think it's a good idea to try something like this, and if they are, then they know exactly who to go to when they want to get the ball rolling, that same guy. If all you were saying is that this one loon is who started it, then I'm sure you're right; that wouldn't surprise me at all. I was talking about support for it in general, not just from its author.

It's all those OTHER reps that make me think interest groups are playing in this ballgame, because you can't pass a bill with just the wingnuts on board, you have to get a good chunk of the middle of the road to go along with you. These are the ones who need a little extra incentive to participate, these are the ones who are going to ask "what's in it for me?" Maybe some of them will be able to get some earmarks or something added on in committee (or on the floor, I don't know how California's state legislature works in regards to that), but many of them probably won't, and it's these guys who will be looking for favors from the people who want to see it passed. And the fun thing about interest groups is that they don't even have to directly contribute to your campaign to help you out. 527 organizations running attack ads don't have to disclose support (because technically they're not really supporting any one candidate), and then there are non-monetary favors like just calling in a tab from someone else who owes them one. But regardless, I'm sure those groups will be on record as having contributed to more than a few of the people who voted for this.

I know Cali had some fun this year with incumbents for the Senate, but is it really that problematic on the state rep/senate level? Seats there are generally safe in any state, true, but only so long as they're not making waves, which is why I think the default vote on something like this would have been "no," unless they thought it would go over well with their constituency or unless they had some other incentives to do so. But anyway, maybe Cali really is just that gerrymandered, in which case,

And yeah, I know repealed isn't really the right term, no law has been passed saying that this one is stricken from the books. I wasn't thinking that through, and didn't really care enough to look at exactly what the circuit court had done, though I suppose injunction should have been the obvious answer. meh

 

[JDKJ]

Oh, I'm sure it was some "silly-ass legislator who thinks it's a good way to garner, ect..." who first thought up the thing, no doubt there, but by and large the rest of the legislature needs to see some sort of gain from passing it to give it their support, is what I was trying to get at. These things almost always start that way, regardless of whether interest groups are involved - if they aren't, then those are the only people who think it's a good idea to try something like this, and if they are, then they know exactly who to go to when they want to get the ball rolling, that same guy. If all you were saying is that this one loon is who started it, then I'm sure you're right; that wouldn't surprise me at all. I was talking about support for it in general, not just from its author.

It's all those OTHER reps that make me think interest groups are playing in this ballgame, because you can't pass a bill with just the wingnuts on board, you have to get a good chunk of the middle of the road to go along with you. These are the ones who need a little extra incentive to participate, these are the ones who are going to ask "what's in it for me?" Maybe some of them will be able to get some earmarks or something added on in committee (or on the floor, I don't know how California's state legislature works in regards to that), but many of them probably won't, and it's these guys who will be looking for favors from the people who want to see it passed. And the fun thing about interest groups is that they don't even have to directly contribute to your campaign to help you out. 527 organizations running attack ads don't have to disclose support (because technically they're not really supporting any one candidate), and then there are non-monetary favors like just calling in a tab from someone else who owes them one. But regardless, I'm sure those groups will be on record as having contributed to more than a few of the people who voted for this.

I know Cali had some fun this year with incumbents for the Senate, but is it really that problematic on the state rep/senate level? Seats there are generally safe in any state, true, but only so long as they're not making waves, which is why I think the default vote on something like this would have been "no," unless they thought it would go over well with their constituency or unless they had some other incentives to do so. But anyway, maybe Cali really is just that gerrymandered, in which case,

And yeah, I know repealed isn't really the right term, no law has been passed saying that this one is stricken from the books. I wasn't thinking that through, and didn't really care enough to look at exactly what the circuit court had done, though I suppose injunction should have been the obvious answer. meh

It is absolutely gerrymandered like that. It's hard to find a district (on either the state or federal level) that hasn't been twisted into some geographical absurdity in order to ensure that its make-up is overwhelmingly either Democrat or Republican. And even then, it's often gerrymandered to ensure a racial or ethnic majority within a party (there are black Democrat districts and latino Democrat districts to ensure that black and latino Democrat candidates don't have to compete against each other -- and can't, even if they wanted to). That's why party machine politics rules the day. It's all about the primary. Win the primary and you've won the seat. The general election's just a formality. And who wins the primary is more a function of who the respective Party decides is going to win the primary than a function of the voters in the primary. Once the Party's made that decision, the primary is just a formality.

 

[briankoontz]

Gamers may wish to address the issue of killing in video games at some point.

50% of amateur games (statistics from Newgrounds.com) and 80% of mainstream reviewed games (from Gamerankings.com) feature killing as the primary mode of gameplay. Whole genres (FPS, RTS, RPG) are about killing first and foremost, with everything else secondary.

Consider instead if 80% of video games featured dolphins, or lobotomies.

Even if dolphins featured so prominently in games could not be objected to based on content, it would be indicative of an industry creatively bankrupt.

Hollywood for example is often criticized for gratuitous sex and violence, but it has far less violence than the video game industry.

Compare the average Hollywood movie to a Hollywood movie based on a video game to see the difference in violence.

Gamers, on the rare occasion they bother to think about the issue, excuse the violence by saying it's "fun". If it's fun in a game then it should be fun in a movie or a book as well - so perhaps 80% of all books should be about killing.

Gamers have never addressed this issue in a meaningful way, which leaves them ripe for attack. Then instead of making a positive point on the issue they dismiss their attackers for being ignorant.

 

[Baralak]

So.. it's been almost half a month, do we have any updates on the case?