Exile714 said:
Lawyers have a tendency to... exaggerate things. I should know, I am one.
But the argument is pretty laughable. I mean, the government regulates liquor and pornography... but neither of those has been stamped out of existence.
That said, as a constitutional law focused person, I really hope that this law is struck down by the Supreme Court. But if it's not, the video game industry isn't going anywhere.
Exactly. Lawyer is being lawyerish in the article. It's a common strategy to talk big before the ruling in order to do exactly this, get the media worked up about the ruling before it happens. If other countries have similar laws (and I believe Japan actually has this law too), then the US game industry will be fine.
Commander Breetai said:
El Poncho said:
Commander Breetai said:
Perhaps said:
If you are under 17 just get your parents to buy the mature rated games, problem solved.
...and idiots like you are why this is happening. Take a bow.
I don't see how it is because of people like him, he just knows a solution to what happens, the people who think video games are bad for kids is why this is happening.
Also, I am told that most game stores do not sell mature games to minors anyway.
Because mommy and daddfy byuy junior Super Killdeath Bloodshed Arena III which has an M rating (though they don't register this, it's "just what he wants") and happen to see him playing it and pop a cap.
Now who do you think gets blamed? Do you think they're going to say "Oh golly, this is our fault for buying this, because as we can now see this was a M rated game due to it's violent content?"
No; they're going to point a finger straight at the company that made it and scream bloody murder.
However, here's a bit of a counterpoint. The parents are definitely at fault for getting their kid the game. But in a way, the game company is also at fault. It's not the game itself. Developers are free to make whatever games they want, and should be free to do so. The problem is in the marketing. Let's compare the marketing of R-rated movies to M-rated games, shall we? With film, they make it abundantly clear that an R-rated movie is for adults. The rating is plastered nice and big on the back of the DVD box or on the bottom of the poster, and in many cases, that box or poster shows some scene with some indication that this is adult-oriented material. Do parents get mad at the movie studio for making an R-rated movie when they find their kid watching it? No, at least, not enough to make the news or a Supreme Court ruling out of it. Because they realize it's not the film distributor's fault, because they didn't
try to sell the movie to the kid.
Now let's look at video games. And well, we kinda did this to ourselves, guys. Parents have been buying their kids violent video games for a long time, not realizing what was actually in that game. Why? Because in many cases, in the marketing, video game developers try to downplay the controversial material in their games because then they know they will sell more. If the industry is being "threatened" by this law, then it seems clear that the industry has been relying on kids buying adult games for their sales. I am sure they have some marketing demographic researchers out there who should have realized that this was happening. I don't believe the industry can play dumb on this one. So when they got hit with the ESRB rating system, what do they do? Downplay that too, and go for a long time without such a rating system having any "teeth", if you will. Part of the effectiveness of the film rating system is that the industry and the government have a mutual respect for it, and in turn, the movie-going public does as well, and so that rating system is actually enforced at the box office. Nobody but the ESRB gives their rating system any respect, in a large part because developers know that kids are a large market for games like Grand Theft Auto (yes, I'm using the stereotypical example, sue me). So in effect, it seems this law is just trying to ensure that the current rating system is actually enforced. If developers don't like it because they're going to lose a lot of sales, then perhaps they should have been clearer in their marketing that these games are for adults, so that kids couldn't fool mommy and daddy as easily into letting their kid play the game. That, and in some cases, they shouldn't have actively tried to sell such games to children.
As I said before, this is not the downfall of the gaming industry. In fact, this could be a good thing for developers like Nintendo, who rarely produce anything T-rated, much less M. You can just expect your games to probably have some less blood, and we'll probably be shooting more fantastical space aliens or robots than zombies or enemy soldiers. The industry will adapt to save its life, and we will adapt our gaming with it. Kids will just have to wait until they're 18, or find ways to be more persuasive to get their parents to buy the game, in order to play Gears of War 7. That's just what happens. And hopefully, down the line, if the rating system finds more respect, maybe developers like Epic and Bioware will put as much effort into quality into T-rated titles as they do for their M-rated ones. Here's hoping that the best comes out of however the Court rules.
