Games on Trial

[haaxist]

I'm not sure if American law works the same as Canadian law, but up here we have a community morality test. Basically, if someone brings something to court on charges of it being obscene, the court will perform a test that determines whether the community finds it to be too obscene for them. If the majority of the community accepts whatever it was, and only a few people object to it, the court rules in favour of the majority. It seems to me that the majority of California is in opposition to this law. I'm sure the government gets complaints about violent video games fairly often, but I can pretty much guarantee that if this law is passed, they'll be having much more trouble with game developers challenging the law every time they make a new game, which would become extremely costly extremely fast.

Not that I have much say in this, since I live in the Great White North, but I side with all the people who think this law is unjustified and unconstitutional. Good luck to you all!

 

[Baralak]

Might be a little off-topic, but why do you guys hate postal 2? It's not such a bad game. And it certainly isn't as bad as some movies, like Saw and it's sequels(and definitely not as boring). It's true that you can make someone suck your .... at gunpoint, pee in his/her mouth (most of them vomit at this point), cut off their head, watch the stream of vomit fly, kick the head and play fetch with it with a dog. But it isn't realistic, it's silly. It may not be in good taste, but it still has some value. And it's not the most important part of Postal 2. Have any of you seen the levels of the game? They are filled with satire and poke fun at a lot of stereotypes. Some examples: protesters chanting "Save a tree, burn a book" then burning down a library, other protesters chanting "Games are bad, they make you mad" before whipping out guns and shovels and going on a rampage (it sounds quite funny when you think of the supporters of this law), the gunfight between Muslim terrorists and catholic priests, the redneck rapists, the police brutality ("Get together in a flammable place").
I think that Postal 2 has some artistic merit after all...

I agree, Postal 2 is great for some fun, slapstick FPS action. I'd equate Postal to the Jackass films. Half the point of them is to make you laugh while being tasteless and offensive.

Plus I'm a genuine fan of the movie. It's a genuinely funny movie, and easily the one film Uwe Boll made that isn't total crap.

 

[Alar]

*snip*

It's speculation of the worst case, but considering that's a scenereo mentioned on the first page of this article, it's not an uncommon speculation. And no, the ESRB does not, as far as I know, have an equivilant to PEGI 16+. Yet. Of course, you can argue that M is the equivilant to 16+ and AO is equivilant to 18+, but considering AO is pretty much the same as if Germany refused a rating on it, it's a poor arguement.

Ironically, AO is also (currently) the only ESRB rating AFAIK that is legally binding. Hence the aforementioned worst case if California gets to legally bind the M rating as well.

No ESRB rating, from "E" to "AO," is legally binding. A wholly private regulatory scheme cannot, as a matter of law, be legislatively granted the force of a public law. To do so is unconstitutional because it effectively replaces the judgment of elected legislators with the judgment of some private entity who is in no way beholden to the electorate. You can call this some sorta Tea Party argument, if you'd like, but to me, at least, it makes perfect sense.

Didn't the IRS start in a similar way, though? They were a private company and they were granted special rights by the government. I don't know exactly how it would work, but couldn't something similar happen here for the ESRB?

 

[Baralak]

Delete, double post.

 

[Genixma]

Smart move, Gulivornia.

Yep, we elected an actor to be our governor. We impress the Hollywood dream on some places in the world and we are stereotypically blond haired and blue eyed. Smart, even sarcastically, isn't a word that can even describe my state right now. -_- I need to move to Ohio I hear it's nice.

I'm going to start calling it Gulivornia now. Thank you.

 

[Sebo Sebastian]

Besides the whole parent control thing, I think this story makes a good point:
http://www.bitmob.com/articles/my-four-year-old-son-plays-grand-theft-auto

 

[MadGodXero]

We can only hope the law fails, gets the BANHAMMER, and we forget this mess altogether. Back to Fable 3!

 

[RebelRising]

I'm not sure if American law works the same as Canadian law, but up here we have a community morality test. Basically, if someone brings something to court on charges of it being obscene, the court will perform a test that determines whether the community finds it to be too obscene for them. If the majority of the community accepts whatever it was, and only a few people object to it, the court rules in favour of the majority. It seems to me that the majority of California is in opposition to this law. I'm sure the government gets complaints about violent video games fairly often, but I can pretty much guarantee that if this law is passed, they'll be having much more trouble with game developers challenging the law every time they make a new game, which would become extremely costly extremely fast.

Not that I have much say in this, since I live in the Great White North, but I side with all the people who think this law is unjustified and unconstitutional. Good luck to you all!

In short, yes, they have, the only problem being, of course, that nobody can ever agree on what is actually "obscene." Here are just a couple of standards the Court has tried to implement over the years:

-as the general, overall community can come to a consensus on;
-as reasonable, broad-minded individuals can interpret;
-as concerning material of an especially offensive nature;

And each time these definitions have been dropped on the grounds of being too vague and ill-defined. So far, the only forms of expression that are expressly unprotected by the Constitution seem to be ones that manifestly evidence an actual crime having been committed or a crime being committed, like child porn or snuff films.

Based on this precedent, I'm fairly confident that this case will the go the way of the dodo as well. I'm not too overly fussed.

 

[internetzealot1]

It scares me that even one of the justices on the Supreme Court would side with this law.

 

[JDKJ]

*snip*

It's speculation of the worst case, but considering that's a scenereo mentioned on the first page of this article, it's not an uncommon speculation. And no, the ESRB does not, as far as I know, have an equivilant to PEGI 16+. Yet. Of course, you can argue that M is the equivilant to 16+ and AO is equivilant to 18+, but considering AO is pretty much the same as if Germany refused a rating on it, it's a poor arguement.

Ironically, AO is also (currently) the only ESRB rating AFAIK that is legally binding. Hence the aforementioned worst case if California gets to legally bind the M rating as well.

No ESRB rating, from "E" to "AO," is legally binding. A wholly private regulatory scheme cannot, as a matter of law, be legislatively granted the force of a public law. To do so is unconstitutional because it effectively replaces the judgment of elected legislators with the judgment of some private entity who is in no way beholden to the electorate. You can call this some sorta Tea Party argument, if you'd like, but to me, at least, it makes perfect sense.

Didn't the IRS start in a similar way, though? They were a private company and they were granted special rights by the government. I don't know exactly how it would work, but couldn't something similar happen here for the ESRB?

The short answers to your questions are: no, that isn't at all how the IRS was started and therefore, no, something similar cannot happen for the ESRB.

 

[Mr. Omega]

Besides the whole parent control thing, I think this story makes a good point:
http://www.bitmob.com/articles/my-four-year-old-son-plays-grand-theft-auto

1: Welcome to the Escapist!
2: Read it. And now I think that the guys at the Supreme Court need to read it. Very interesting find. And shows that proper parenting is better than any government regulation.

 

[SpinFusor]

So then it goes back to the arguement of movie=alright, game=SPAWN OF SATAN

The fact that there is a Postal game, and a movie is just such a perfect illustration of the problem here. I mean, what if the movie had a scene where the main character beats the snot out of a schoolgirl with a shovel, burns her, and then takes a wiz on her? Are we, as Roberts claims, telling children they should watch that? Would there be anywhere near the same concern that it will end up in a child's hands?

Absolutely not. We are quite comfortable with films having mature content. They've been tackling some extremely mature themes for decades without much fuss. Videogames on the other hand can't handle a brief, tasteful love scene, between two responsible, committed people without all hell breaking loose.

And to me, that's the issue here. It's not that I'm wildly against enforcement of rating systems. I'm just extremely against the game industry being singled out, and treated as a lesser, child corrupting, or more base form of entertainment.

A decision for Arnold might not spell disaster for gaming as a medium. It might not severely stunt it's growth, or cause irrevocably harm the industry..... but it certainly won't help it grow, and develop. It won't help it on it's road to becoming an established, and respected form of media.

It certainly won't do much to remedy the double standard that mature films are alright, and mature games are the spawn of Satan.

 

[JDKJ]

So then it goes back to the arguement of movie=alright, game=SPAWN OF SATAN

The fact that there is a Postal game, and a movie is just such a perfect illustration of the problem here. I mean, what if the movie had a scene where the main character beats the snot out of a schoolgirl with a shovel, burns her, and then takes a wiz on her? Are we, as Roberts claims, telling children they should watch that? Would there be anywhere near the same concern that it will end up in a child's hands?

Absolutely not. We are quite comfortable with films having mature content. They've been tackling some extremely mature themes for decades without much fuss. Videogames on the other hand can't handle a brief, tasteful love scene, between two responsible, committed people without all hell breaking loose.

And to me, that's the issue here. It's not that I'm wildly against enforcement of rating systems. I'm just extremely against the game industry being singled out, and treated as a lesser, child corrupting, or more base form of entertainment.

A decision for Arnold might not spell disaster for gaming as a medium. It might not severely stunt it's growth, or cause irrevocably harm the industry..... but it certainly won't help it grow, and develop. It won't help it on it's road to becoming an established, and respected form of media.

It certainly won't do much to remedy the double standard that mature films are alright, and mature games are the spawn of Satan.

What confuses me is the double standard within the movie industry. Kiss an exposed teat on film, get an "R" rating. Cut off a teat with a machete on film, get a "PG-13" rating. Huh?

 

[thepyrethatburns]

It scares me that even one of the justices on the Supreme Court would side with this law.

While I realize that this was a New York Supreme Court Justice, this story pretty much sums up the state of the U.S. legal system.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20021342-504083.html

So, no. It isn't all that surprising anymore.

 

[captainwolfos]

...imagine he is a torturer and impose gratuitous, painful, excruciating, torturing violence upon small children and women..

Why is it whenever someone wants to make a point like this, they immediately veer towards women and children? Is is not so different with men?

...people actively hitting schoolgirls over the head with a shovel so they'll beg for mercy, pour gasoline over them, and urinate on them...

Where can I get a game like that? Seriously; you people really need to brush up on your video games. Quotes like this show a serious misunderstanding of the media.

 

[JDKJ]

It scares me that even one of the justices on the Supreme Court would side with this law.

While I realize that this was a New York Supreme Court Justice, this story pretty much sums up the state of the U.S. legal system.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20021342-504083.html

So, no. It isn't all that surprising anymore.

How so does it sum up the state of the U.S. legal system? You might have missed the all important fact that "and their parents" can also be sued was what the Justice decided. This reflects nothing more than the age-old legal concept of vicarious liability (i.e., a parent can be sued along with a child for the harms caused by the child even if the parent was nowhere around when the harm occurred). Despite the obvious spinning of the facts so that it reads as if the children are the ones primarily being sued, the more meaningful subject of the suit are the children's parents (the ones who I have to assume are in the position, unlike the children, to actually pay any monetary damages which may be awarded to the plaintiff). If you take the time to search for similar decisions among those of any Anglo-Saxon-based civil law system, including that of the UK's, I'll bet you'll easily find a number of similar decisions. This decision is neither unique nor peculiar and hardly serves as some sort of negative commentary on the state of the U.S. legal system.

It's generally a good rule of thumb to believe half of what you hear and nothing that you read in the news.

What I think is a much better commentary on the state of the U.S. legal system is the fact that the second the California Governor signed the law into effect, a lawsuit seeking to block it was filed and, by all accounts, looks as if it will succeed in shooting down what by any stretch of the imagination is nothing more than a foolish attempt at censorship. Say what you want to about the Americans, but you can't say that there isn't a vocal contingent of them who just happen to think that the right of free speech is an important right and who will go to any lengths to protect that right against government interference. For better or worse, many of them also feel that way about the right to own a gun.

 

[RicoADF]

As to the suggestion that it has worked alright in other countries, without big retailers limiting their stock on these games: most other countries aren't the US. I seriously doubt that any other country has such a strong interest group presence arrayed against video games. The reason things may be different here will be that we have dozens of parents groups, religious organizations, ect... who legitimately do want games to be censored. Even then, I'm sure other countries have their fair share of these groups, but they likely don't have the sort of legislative clout that they do in the US. These groups are the driving force behind laws that restrict games, and if emboldened by a victory, there's really no telling how far they're willing to push this.

One word, Michael Akiston (however you spell his name). Bloody stoping R18+ in Australia, why I outta....
But the point is that regulation of ALL media is needed, not censorship, but regulation. As in 10 year olds shouldn't be allowed to buy GTA4 from the store anymore then SAW III etc. You can't blame the parents all the time if the kids go behind their back and buy the item and hide it, by regulating it then it gives the power to the parent to decide if their child is ready and mature enough to watch/play/read/listen to whatever media tital they want. Right now the kids can buy it without the parents say so in the USA.
It wouldn't effect whats on the shelves at all, if the stores are already upholding the ratings then theres no difference, if their not then the law is clearly needed.
And I'm against censorship 100%, however this isn't censoring free speech from the public, its stopping kids from seeing things they shouldn't since their not ready, no different to alcohol etc, theres an age at which it's appropriate.

 

[Iron Mal]

Wait, there's a game where you beat innocent schoolgirls to death with a shovel, pour gasoline on them and then urinate on them?!? 0_o


....pics or it didn't happen?

Also, I think this could pretty much be summed up as a situation involving parental supervision and responsibility; if you're "too busy" to make sure the game you got little Jimmy (or what he borrowed from a friend/is playing in general) isn't about beating up hookers, you should probably get help with your poor parenting skills or, to be more specific, your lack thereof.

I'm reminded of the generic video games you always see in cartoons or TV shows (that usually go by names like 'GOREKILL VII: FLAMING CHAINSAW HOOKERS FROM HELL' or 'BLOODSTORM: RETURN TO MURDERDARK'), in short, for that example they probably just thought of the most senseless or psychotic act of violene they could imagine and limit a game to just that.

And this law does seem to be giving irrisponsable parents a way to get off the hook, it is literally saying 'you don't have to be vigilent and oderate what your children see and do, we'll do it for you'.

When I was young I played a lot of violent games (and I still do, although anyone who knows me knows that I'm a very passive and peaceful person, not exactly the frothing at the mouth psycho I'm supposed to be) but my parents were responsable enough to actually monitor what I played (every time I got a new game they would sit down and play it the night before to judge whether they thought it was acceptable for me, I can only think of two games that they thought wouldn't be ok for me).

Like others have said, this strikes me as being an issue with the responsability of parents (or the lack thereof), they are the true problem (although telling that to people is likely to draw a lot of criticism, not many people can tolerate being told something is their fault).

The game devs have done their part, they put up warnings, they include them in TV adverts, over here the sale of underage games is prohibited to minors (if not outright illegal).

It's time for parents to quit bitching and pointing fingers and actually act like responsable adults.

 

[Terminate421]

Well no one else seems scared that Cali could succeed since its tied sooooo... i guess were going to win?

I wish it were so. If the Head of the Supreme court is on our side, then I think we can win for sure. (I forget her name)

 

[FungiGamer]

Wait, there's a game where you beat innocent schoolgirls to death with a shovel, pour gasoline on them and then urinate on them?!? 0_o


....pics or it didn't happen?

Also, I think this could pretty much be summed up as a situation involving parental supervision and responsibility; if you're "too busy" to make sure the game you got little Jimmy (or what he borrowed from a friend/is playing in general) isn't about beating up hookers, you should probably get help with your poor parenting skills or, to be more specific, your lack thereof.

I'm reminded of the generic video games you always see in cartoons or TV shows (that usually go by names like 'GOREKILL VII: FLAMING CHAINSAW HOOKERS FROM HELL' or 'BLOODSTORM: RETURN TO MURDERDARK'), in short, for that example they probably just thought of the most senseless or psychotic act of violene they could imagine and limit a game to just that.

And this law does seem to be giving irrisponsable parents a way to get off the hook, it is literally saying 'you don't have to be vigilent and oderate what your children see and do, we'll do it for you'.

When I was young I played a lot of violent games (and I still do, although anyone who knows me knows that I'm a very passive and peaceful person, not exactly the frothing at the mouth psycho I'm supposed to be) but my parents were responsable enough to actually monitor what I played (every time I got a new game they would sit down and play it the night before to judge whether they thought it was acceptable for me, I can only think of two games that they thought wouldn't be ok for me).

Like others have said, this strikes me as being an issue with the responsability of parents (or the lack thereof), they are the true problem (although telling that to people is likely to draw a lot of criticism, not many people can tolerate being told something is their fault).

The game devs have done their part, they put up warnings, they include them in TV adverts, over here the sale of underage games is prohibited to minors (if not outright illegal).

It's time for parents to quit bitching and pointing fingers and actually act like responsable adults.

Well said, I completely agree. Responsibility is the bigger issue here, unfortunately it might just fly over the heads of everyone in this case.....