Games on Trial
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I've noticed something.
Most people on the side of the gaming industry either know maybe two or three things about it (not really a bad thing) or are pretty much their guardians.
Most people on California's side are a bunch of nitwits and politicians who don't know one real thing about video games.
This battle really should have ended by now, but this is America, so whatever argument I can think of is invalid.
Most people on the side of the gaming industry either know maybe two or three things about it (not really a bad thing) or are pretty much their guardians.
Most people on California's side are a bunch of nitwits and politicians who don't know one real thing about video games.
This battle really should have ended by now, but this is America, so whatever argument I can think of is invalid.
Then it's the parents fault! Haven't people realized this?
My parents let me and my sisters watch Saving Private Ryan when it fist came out when we were kids, I think 8-12yo. They helped us understand the violence and what was happening.
Parents can do the same for games. If a parent lets their kid play the MoH campaign, and help them understand what is going on in the game, why there is violence, why we are at war against a terrorist regime, it will make more sense to them.
If you buy a game for your child, and that child does some violent action, you have no legal right to blame the game Jack Thompson style. YOU bought the game, it is YOUR fault. Just like if the kid saw something violent in a movie, and re-created it, like WWE or Jackass.
The United States is a country BUILT on violence! We've been a country for a little more than 200 years and we have a major war almost every decade! Children's toys are made and sold based on gender roles, so the women stay at home, and the men go to war!
My parents let me and my sisters watch Saving Private Ryan when it fist came out when we were kids, I think 8-12yo. They helped us understand the violence and what was happening.
Parents can do the same for games. If a parent lets their kid play the MoH campaign, and help them understand what is going on in the game, why there is violence, why we are at war against a terrorist regime, it will make more sense to them.
If you buy a game for your child, and that child does some violent action, you have no legal right to blame the game Jack Thompson style. YOU bought the game, it is YOUR fault. Just like if the kid saw something violent in a movie, and re-created it, like WWE or Jackass.
The United States is a country BUILT on violence! We've been a country for a little more than 200 years and we have a major war almost every decade! Children's toys are made and sold based on gender roles, so the women stay at home, and the men go to war!
Frankly, if the law were better written, and reinforced ESRB's ratings system with penalties for those who violate its standards, there wouldn't be much wrong with the law. As it stands though, CA's law would replace ESRB's relatively comprehensive system of ratings and descriptors with a binary "are you 18 or not" system.
One of the main reasons that I suspect that the compliance rates are stuck at 80% is because the ESRB ratings don't have much enforceable legislation backing them up. If there were a system set up similar to say... the film industry... there wouldn't be much wrong with the concept, but having looked over how the law was argued in the Supreme Court's transcript... CA's law was at best poorly written with good intentions in mind, and at worst, written to deliberately harm the game industry and ban as many games as possible.
One of the main reasons that I suspect that the compliance rates are stuck at 80% is because the ESRB ratings don't have much enforceable legislation backing them up. If there were a system set up similar to say... the film industry... there wouldn't be much wrong with the concept, but having looked over how the law was argued in the Supreme Court's transcript... CA's law was at best poorly written with good intentions in mind, and at worst, written to deliberately harm the game industry and ban as many games as possible.
Well no one else seems scared that Cali could succeed since its tied sooooo... i guess were going to win?
If it could help my good man.SilentHunter7 said:Why? So he could bore the court to death with Sixty-Page-Long rants?LarenzoAOG said:
Well I am pretty great, lol, seriously though, this is the first forum on the Escapist that I've seen anyone talk about Ayn Rand.-|- said:
I don't understand why there's such a big fuss. Can't they just say that games with 'obscene violence' are R-rated (Or whatever the American equivalent is) and can only be purchased by adults upon presentation of a driver's license or proof of age card? It works for cigarettes and alcohol. No major restructuring would be necessary on anyone's behalf.
What am I missing?
What am I missing?
"We do not have a tradition in this country of telling children they should watch people actively hitting schoolgirls over the head with a shovel so they'll beg for mercy, pour gasoline over them, and urinate on them... We protect children from that."
Yes, because there are just so many games where you can do that.
And this hyperbole is coming from the Chief Justice of the United States of America.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Yes, because there are just so many games where you can do that.
And this hyperbole is coming from the Chief Justice of the United States of America.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
I'm not really sure what you're talking about with "enforceable legislation" backing them up. The MPAA operates much like the ESRB. They're both private organizations that have voluntary industry compliance and enforcement. I seriously doubt those 80% success rates are significantly different from the rates for stopping 16 year olds getting in to see R rated movies. Heck, when I was 16 I was able to buy a ticket at least half the time, and when I couldn't there was virtually nothing stopping me from just buying a ticket for another movie and sneaking into the theater. Either way, the movie industry has its own enforcement problems, just like the game industry. This is irrelevant to the argument California made, though. What they're saying is that games and movies are fundamentally different, and thus that holding them to the same standard is not enough. Even if games were to have a 99% success rate of not being sold to minors, their argument would still be the same. They'd still be saying that government regulation would further improve that figure, and thus that it should be implemented.TheDoctor455 said:
I think you also need to take another look at the article here, because I don't see how you can conclude that there's "not much wrong with the law." This law seeks to put violent games in a category of censored material that will discourage retailers from stocking them. It won't guarantee that they stop carrying these games, but it will be a pressure on them not to do it. Because no matter what they do, they're never going to achieve 100% enforcement. Therefore, it's simply a matter of time before they face legal repercussions over this if they continue to stock the games. So they then have to answer the question "do we want to carry them and bother with that?" While Gamestop probably would still take the risk, what about the big mega-chains that don't rely on video games to turn a profit? Is Walmart going to take that risk? Target? Best Buy? To them it'll look a lot less worthwhile. And if they stop carrying violent games, that's a HUGE portion of the country that suddenly doesn't have access to them locally, not to mention what this kind of law could do to online retailers. And if violent games suddenly aren't as profitable as they once were because they're having trouble saturating the market, what's to stop developers from just saying "**** it, let's just make mario party 28, we can sell that everywhere." The primary fear here isn't what the law directly does, but the indirect effects it will have. This law could indirectly cause game studios to reduce the number of violent games they make, cut the budgets for them, or even quit making them altogether.
EDIT:
And don't get me wrong, the law does some pretty scary, terrible stuff on its own merit, but I think that it's nothing compared to what might happen in a worse-case scenario when developers end up having to respond to retailers who don't want to stock violent games any more.
This isn't really about minors playing games. There's a much bigger picture here. This has to do with Games First Amendment rights, i.e. are they protected by freedom of speech?VondeVon said:
Imagine what would happen if these laws pass. First of all, there will have to be strict definitions of what is and isn't acceptable. Then to complicate things more, these laws will be defined at the state level, meaning that you could have very different standards to follow when making a game. That severely narrows what a designer can do. Games with violence (and lets face it, there are a lot) become riskier to make. That could shake the whole industry, and set the whole medium back a generation. They would be regulated by people that don't know and don't care about games.
The biggest insult though, is that this isn't even a question for other media. The Godfather and The Great Gatsby both depict murder and other immoral behavior, but they're both considered great pieces art. But violence in a video game? That's not acceptable
What you're missing is the first amendment. Cigarettes and alcohol are not forms of expression. They are not speech. This law seeks to prohibit free expression of violent material in a way that is not applied to any other medium. It is not a crime for a movie theater to let an underage viewer in to see an R rated movie: it is the policy of the theater to comply with the MPAA guidelines. But that's not good enough for games, apparently - California wants to single them out and treat them differently. It also has some drastic implications for potential outcomes should it be implemented, which both this article and my previous post outline.VondeVon said:
Honestly, I still can't figure out what game they were talking about, I think they just made it up for shock value. Isn't that, I don't know, illegal?Stevepinto3 said:
On the bright side though someone could send them this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGVd8MOrWzk
The problem is that this is ENTIRELY a first amendment issue and almost goes to determining whether or not violent games can be considered obscene even though violent movies and books aren't.
A lot of people don't see that, and just think "well, kids aren't really able to buy M rated games anyway...". It's what I thought when I first saw it.
A lot of people don't see that, and just think "well, kids aren't really able to buy M rated games anyway...". It's what I thought when I first saw it.
The focus on freedom of speech in America always confused me. Canada drew its constitution much later than American, and our politicians qualified the freedom of speech as being preserved, so long as its use does not significantly restrict the rights and freedoms of the overall population.
For example, a Nazi subculture in Toronto decided it wanted to march down Queen Street some years ago. The police caught word of it and broke up the march under the premise that, freedom of speech or not, nobody needs nazism in their community. That restricting this use of free speech does not significantly impede the rights and freedoms of Canadians at large. So long as restrictions are applied responsibly (which I personally agree that they were in this case) there will be no real problems.
I only quote this as an analogy, not to compare video gaming to nazism. But, maybe there are some parts of the gaming products that should be examined, and that we should say, 'dude, seriously, that's wrong.' With its authority and scope of operations, so long as you can find good ministers maybe the courts are the best medium available for that.
For example, a Nazi subculture in Toronto decided it wanted to march down Queen Street some years ago. The police caught word of it and broke up the march under the premise that, freedom of speech or not, nobody needs nazism in their community. That restricting this use of free speech does not significantly impede the rights and freedoms of Canadians at large. So long as restrictions are applied responsibly (which I personally agree that they were in this case) there will be no real problems.
I only quote this as an analogy, not to compare video gaming to nazism. But, maybe there are some parts of the gaming products that should be examined, and that we should say, 'dude, seriously, that's wrong.' With its authority and scope of operations, so long as you can find good ministers maybe the courts are the best medium available for that.
I don't think many gamers would have too much of a problem if a new law was written that was made specifically to try to help enforce the ESRB's rating system to prevent minors from purchasing games that they shouldn't be buying. However, unless it's narrowed down to do exactly that and not this covert bullshit to censor gaming and screw over game companies and game consumers (heh, sounds like we eat them!), I don't see it passing.
This is both good and bad, seeing as how the judges were so evenly split. This worries me, but I'm going to try to be helpful.
This is both good and bad, seeing as how the judges were so evenly split. This worries me, but I'm going to try to be helpful.
"Does not significantly impede the rights and freedoms of Canadians at large." This is what I, and the writers of the US constitution, have a problem with. This is skirting on tyranny of the majority. Because the "average" viewpoint does not support something, should it be outlawed for everyone? "Canadians at large" may not have felt marginalized or threatened by the police's actions in that case, but you can bet the guys who got told they weren't allowed to express themselves freely did. Even if the only thing being censored nowadays are fringe Nazi groups, the concern is that, if these guys can be silenced, there is potential for the expansion of these powers. Where do you draw the line? It's completely arbitrary, and thus it's dangerous to use this as law, which is supposed to be precise. Canada has experienced more than one sticky court case over their limitation clause, and it's just going to keep happening so long as they keep that vagueness in there. If Nazis are being censored now, what's to keep some other group that is very similar to Nazis, but not quite, from being censored? And then a group just a little different from them, and one a little different from them, etcetera etcetera until you've moved down the line to, I don't know, anything, really. That's the problem with vague definitions and arbitrary limitations in law - it leaves the door open for things to get out of hand.Horben said:
The US constitution attempts to protect the freedoms of everyone with regards to speech regardless of their extreme views, up until the extent that their speech infringes upon other another person's rights. Restrictions such as "shouting fire" are in place only because they carry potential for causing immediate physical harm to other people. The one obvious exception to this general rule is the obscenity clause, which traditionally only relates to sexual material, and which is what California is currently trying to incorporate into its attempt to control the distribution of violent games.
EDIT:
And please don't get me wrong - I don't think anyone should be censored, even fringe Nazi groups. I don't care if the average person doesn't want them out expressing their views in their community. "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." To prefer censorship to confronting bad ideas and dealing with them in the light of day is just cowardly, and can't lead anywhere good. If people want to preach hate and ignorance, let them, and then go out and preach the opposite. If you dislike what they have to say, do something about it yourself, don't rely on the government creating a special exception to human rights so that people don't have to confront something like this. Imagine if they treated other issues the same way! No, having a clear, defined, and most importantly, UNIVERSALLY applied rule of law is vital, especially when it comes to guaranteed freedoms.