Schwarzenegger vs. Interactivity

[snow]

Maybe if more people spent a little less time playing games and spent a bit more time...

Just gotta point out that that's a very bold statement to say on a gaming site, just because we're all gamers doesn't mean we're so stuck in our hobby that we don't know what's going on. The only time Fox news was brought up was some one saying that they're glad they didn't have that where they lived. If anything, if some one did try to throw blame to Fox news on this one, they obviously didn't read the OP correctly.

The rest of your post is fine, that last bit just seemed like an unnecessary stab at the community.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

On the bright side, California doesn't have enough money to pay anyone to enforce this law.

 

[fundayz]

Oh please, how about a little less fear mongering? In effect, all the Cali law is trying to do is add a fine to the selling of "M" and "violent" games to minors; calling that a chilling effect is plain and simple exaggeration.

Stores like Wall-mart "will have to restructure their entire business model" to abide this law? give me a break, all they will have to do is actually make sure their employees ask for IDs before selling any M games, like they are already supposed to do in many places.
Also, do you think games stores are actually going to stop selling M rated games instead of just asking for IDs? Seriously?

I agree that interactive media should be protected like all other kinds of media, but to claim that a law trying to uphold game ratings and their purpose is censoring is ridiculous.
What's next? Claiming that not selling porn to children is unconstitutional and that it uses a 'chilling effect' to oppress the people?

Paraphrase: Arny is a hypocrite

Just because someone is a hypocrite doesn't make their points invalid. In fact, Arnold might be doing this BECAUSE he's portrayed the violent role many times before and now wants to make sure children aren't the target of such films/videogames (or that's what he would say if pressed on the matter).

Except there's no law on R rated movies.

If there is no law against R rated movies being sold/rented then they should be pushing for that as well as there is little difference between a violent videogame and a violent movie. Again, I am in full support of treating all media equally, regardless of their nature(interactive or not).

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

On the bright side, California doesn't have enough money to pay anyone to enforce this law.

If Meg Whitman becomes governor there will be. She is now stated to cut 40,000 state jobs across the board and legislate to stop the construction of high speed rail in california. Also she is for more deregulation of manufacturing industry, support private industry jobs(which is odd because should she become governor her business should be the state and not private businesses) and for tougher boarder control. Honestly right now it seems that on both the state and national level we are having the GOP follow Hoover for a recovery and the Democrats follow FDR for a recovery.

I don't know which one of those you think is good but food for thought: FDR
Prolonged the depression
Had fore-knowledge of Pearl Harbor and did nothing to stop it because he WANTED to go to war
Attemted to dictatorially pack the supreme court who previously declared unconstitutional almost all "new deal" legislation

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I can't help but think it's a reasonable idea to prevent sales to minors of M rated games, and as for training, surely 'Hey guys, you know how you card people for Mature rated movies? do the same for video games please'. That's not $1000s of training to me.

I just think because people are crazy about the idea the kids playing violent games, if we don't as an industry keep them away from kids, the world will just go nuts and try to get them banned altogether.

Again tho, I think the main problem is parental responsibility, you buy GTA for your wailing 8 year old to shut him up, despite the clerk's desperate attempts to educate you about the games content, then you don't get to run off to FOX news because it taught him to call the family pet a ************, and reply to 'tidy your room' with 'what up, *****?'

The thing is, every game store that sells video games already cards people if they wish to buy M games. I know I've been carded multiple times after I turned 18 for buying an M game. Putting a law on it is a kick to the balls of all video gamers with a heavy, steel-toed boot with spikes on it.

This also opens the door for government to put laws on movies and stores. And it gets worse. What's to stop them from banning violence in all video games? What about political ideals? Heck, they could ban swear words from games.

That's why I like what the ECA/EMA is doing by fighting this. Our rights as citizens (Of the States since this is where it's happening), are being shot by a law like this.

I would suggest that simply making the guidelines about age restricted games a law would not in fact be a step down a terrible road, but a simple case of saying 'look, we're doing our part, we're being responsible, we're labelling and rating our entertainment products, we're restricting the sale to minors, we're done all we can'. If parent then go on to ignore all that and still buy mature rated games for their kids, the industry has legally covered its own back, instead of leaving it open to blame.
'My son played Modern Warfare and shot the pet cat, I demand compensation!'
'How did he get the game when it's illegal for him to buy it?'
'Um, I bought it for him because he was whining in walmart and he shuts up when I buy him things he isn't allowed'
'Well, I fail to see how it's entirely the video game industry's fault, ma'am.'

*case dismissed*

 

[fundayz]

This also opens the door for government to put laws on movies and stores. And it gets worse. What's to stop them from banning violence in all video games? What about political ideals? Heck, they could ban swear words from games.

Slippery slope fallacy bub. Just because someone takes action in a certain direction doesn't meant you can extend and exaggerate to prove a point.
There would have some serious changes to both state and federal law before any state could even begin to THINK of banning all violence from any media and even more to actually implement changes like that. Banning political ideas or certain words is the same thing.

People just love to live in fear eh?

 

[geizr]

The way this article is written, I find it to ring of propaganda . The way the article is written, it sounds like the author is trying to say that excessively violent games SHOULD be allowed to be sold to minors(so the game development community can make more money). I don't think that is the exact sentiment the author "wishes" to convey, but that's how it comes across to me. It is not unreasonable to restrict minors' access to extreme media, in much the same way as with R-rated movies, and it is not unreasonable to have some enforcement of that restriction as long as it is being applied universally to all media. But the way the article is written, it comes across to me as "mean ol' California/Schwarzanegger wants keep us from selling violent games to anyone, and so we can't make a lot of money."

Probably more what the author "wants" to say(or perhaps the way the author should have made the case) is that such additional laws as California are proposing are really unnecessary because a sufficient system and set of laws already exists to inform people of the content of games and restrict minors' access to the more extreme productions. The information exists both online and on the game box itself, if people would take the 2 seconds required to turn the box over and see the very prominent rating and content label. For many games, a big age-appropriateness label is already also printed on the front of the box. There is no need to encumber businesses with further restrictions beyond what would normally be done for any other media, such as movies, nor is there a need to apply further labeling(if people aren't going to pay attention to the big labels on games now, adding more is not going to do anything).

Also, restricting sales is not the same as restricting production, and this idea of a "chilling" effect on free speech is bogus because the only "chilling" effect there will be is on the sales figures each quarter(instead of being able to sell Hyper-Violent Head Rippers to everyone age 5+, Hyper-Violent Head Rippers can only be sold to those 17+ in age, in accordance with the already existent MC-17 or AO rating such a game would be given).

 

[Worgen]

This is the problem I have had with fence walkers. I agree with Arnie on a lot of things but he's been a social liberal and hypocrit on subjects like this for a long time. Very quick to jump on the "protect the children" bandwagon and attack free speech, and one of the Repblicans that seems to go consistantly cross party for this kind of thing. This makes him a hypocrit because he obtained his fame and fortune through very violent action movies, and many of those action movies had video game tie ins (albiet usually bad ones). I seriously doubt he ever turned down his share of a video game's sales based on one of his movies because it included violent content.

the protect the children bs is a socially conservative ideology not a liberal one

 

[wadark]

Definitely a good read. Well thought out and very to-the-point.

You are preaching to the choir a bit, but its a good read all the same.

Well said.

 

[InsanityRequiem]

This also opens the door for government to put laws on movies and stores. And it gets worse. What's to stop them from banning violence in all video games? What about political ideals? Heck, they could ban swear words from games.

Slippery slope fallacy bub. Just because someone takes action in a certain direction doesn't meant you can extend and exaggerate to prove a point.
There would have some serious changes to both state and federal law before any state could even begin to THINK of banning all violence from any media and even more to actually implement changes like that. Banning political ideas or certain words is the same thing.

People just love to live in fear eh?

How I live in fear when I expect such stupidity of the government? History class has taught me how our government can do horrible things. Just look to the McCarthy Era that sprung up after WW2. That was against mostly the movie industry, in which if you liked a movie of some sorts, or even did something that was labelled 'Pro-Commi' you'd be blacklisted, interrogated, etc.

As of now, video games really aren't considered protected under the First Amendment and until we have the higher tiers of the Supreme Court specifically say (And it gets recorded) that video games are protected, it gives officials in office the ability to bring in laws and such that can do to us like what happened in the McCarthy Era.

I for one do not want to lose my job because I enjoy playing video games.

Here's the link to McCarthyism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism

 

[Canid117]

If the state of California really wanted to keep violent games out of the hands of children they would do a damn PSA campaign explaining the ESRB rating system to retarded parents who somehow don't seem to understand what this means

and buy the game for their 7 year old son in the first place.

 

[Skratt]

The thing I hate most about any censorship argument is the duplicitous and often subjective nature of censorship. The tenets of law provide us with the freedom to choose what media we enjoy and yet there are those that actively seek to subvert that freedom based on their personal moral views.

Reducing or preventing crime is a very noble cause but to actively attempt linking media (in any form) to actual real-world crime is not only heinously ignorant, but seems to actually run counter to the progress of finding the root cause. Correlation does not imply causation, and yet there are (undereducated?) people who fail to grasp this concept.

 

[wickershadow]

Well I live in Canada and the law here is minors are not allowed to buy M games without a parent or gaurdian, and its been this way for quite a while now and I'm fairly ceetain our government isn't trying to ban all violence or curse words on video games. What I don't understand is how everyone seems to be against restricting the sale of games that were designed to be played by adults to kids under 18. I can understand that a full out ban wouldn't be right, given the diversity of the M rating (ie: Modern Warfare 2 to God of War 3)as for the online business you use a credit card or similar forms of payment so that is dependent on the parent. Telling people to check ID doesn't seem like 1000's of dollars in training to me does it?

 

[Breaker deGodot]

I try not to pay attention to California politics. There's some wierd, fucked up shit over there, and I prefer to save myself the headaches of trying to understand it all.

 

[Skratt]

If the state of California really wanted to keep violent games out of the hands of children they would do a damn PSA campaign explaining the ESRB rating system to retarded parents who somehow don't seem to understand what this means

I often wonder if it is not a problem with the parents, but only a problem with people who object to the content. I have yet to see a survey or some other data collection that says parents are overwhelmingly ignorant of the things they give to their children as far as video games, movies or music are concerned.

 

[theultimateend]

There is no credible evidence that violent video games make people violent. Nearly all the evidence available in what I like to call "The real world" suggests that it has no effect or an inverse one.

Violent Crime amongst teens has continually dropped as violent video games have become more and more violent.

One would assume that if they DID cause you to be violent, with millions of people playing games centered around combat and murder daily we'd have an entire planet engulfed in skirmishes.

But we don't, one could easily exaggerate and say "We got wars all over the place." but then you'd be forgetting that many of the places with wars running on endlessly don't have access to video games. They have harsh censorship laws OR economically cannot support the activity.

If you are a parent and you are so misguided as to believe that violent games will hurt your kids it is your decision. I'm not going to stop anyone from putting superstition ahead of actual reasoning, it never works anyways.

What bothers me, is people writing laws or enacting sticker systems that are literally based in the "Feel good" dimension. Where we take a bunch of evidence absent beliefs from a certain ideology and use them to support actual real world changes. It's a troubling prospect and one that does little more than stifle actual cognitive and cultural development.

 

[carpathic]

This strikes me as a curious choice for California. It does however epitomize the love-hate-fear relationship that the US has maintained for the better part of 100 years with its entertainment industry.

 

[Jamous]

Wait... Arnold Schwarzeneggar, the star of the first three TERMINATOR FILMS, amongst other HIDEOUSLY VIOLENT MOVIES is trying to prevent the publishing of violent media, simply because it's interactive? WTF?