Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Videogames
- Thread starter Greg Tito
- Start date
A victory for logic and common sense over idiocy and scare-mongering. It's a good day to like videogames. As M. Bison would say:
Aw man, and I was so looking foreward to exploding Fox people. I have my popcorn ready and everything. Guess i'll have to go play some violent videogames then. 
It can, though typically once the Supreme Court tells you something, you say "Yes Your Honor".The Dark Umbra said:
Ok, I'm from the UK where we have the BBFC rating system and most violent games can only be brought by people over 18, and I'm now really confused as to how it works in the US.
So it's not illegal for retailers to sell R rated games to anyone, but they have the choice to refuse the sale, right? So instead of your elected government being in control (by proxy, whatever) of what content children can access, some random at Gamestop is? Sounds pretty odd to me.
Our system seems to work fine. I was playing 18+ games when I was younger, as my parents would buy them for me. Essentially this means that parents have much more control over what there kids play/watch etc, which is surely the way it should be? Kids are not born rational and responsible, they have to learn it, and most of that comes from parents.
Sorry to use the go-to example, but look at the airport level in MW2. Personally I felt a little sick playing it, and was very impressed that a game could have that much of an impact on me, but I don't know if I would want to expose a kid to that. They have their entire adult lives to explore the darker parts of humanity, childhoods supposed to be about fun!
It seems to me that the majority of people think that babies pop out the womb fully formed rational human beings, they are not! They are blank slates affected by everything there senses take in, look at the Mozart Effect for example. Of course being exposed to violence at a young age has an effect on people, I don't claim to know how much, or really in what way, but that's because of the massive amount of conflicting research that I can't really be bothered to sift through, that's for someone else to decide, thankfully we have the BBFC.
I don't really know where this rant came from, but I hope I managed to make my point at least vaguely clear.
So it's not illegal for retailers to sell R rated games to anyone, but they have the choice to refuse the sale, right? So instead of your elected government being in control (by proxy, whatever) of what content children can access, some random at Gamestop is? Sounds pretty odd to me.
Our system seems to work fine. I was playing 18+ games when I was younger, as my parents would buy them for me. Essentially this means that parents have much more control over what there kids play/watch etc, which is surely the way it should be? Kids are not born rational and responsible, they have to learn it, and most of that comes from parents.
Sorry to use the go-to example, but look at the airport level in MW2. Personally I felt a little sick playing it, and was very impressed that a game could have that much of an impact on me, but I don't know if I would want to expose a kid to that. They have their entire adult lives to explore the darker parts of humanity, childhoods supposed to be about fun!
It seems to me that the majority of people think that babies pop out the womb fully formed rational human beings, they are not! They are blank slates affected by everything there senses take in, look at the Mozart Effect for example. Of course being exposed to violence at a young age has an effect on people, I don't claim to know how much, or really in what way, but that's because of the massive amount of conflicting research that I can't really be bothered to sift through, that's for someone else to decide, thankfully we have the BBFC.
I don't really know where this rant came from, but I hope I managed to make my point at least vaguely clear.
I find myself agreeing with Scalia? Wow, not only has hell suddenly popped into existence, it also completely froze over...
But good decision regardless of who voted for what. Games should be protected like any other medium.
But good decision regardless of who voted for what. Games should be protected like any other medium.
Life is good.
Is this an end to these kind of laws though? What's to stop them from slightly changing their argument to try to pass this asinine law again?
Good to hear this ended in our favor with little to no middle ground in the result.
Is this an end to these kind of laws though? What's to stop them from slightly changing their argument to try to pass this asinine law again?
Good to hear this ended in our favor with little to no middle ground in the result.
even living in australia, this is a huge win for games and it will have effects worldwide. at least now everytime someone accuses me (an independent developer, planning on uni next year for game development) of harming children, i can say that the supreme court in America disagrees with them.
It won't be the end. but hopefully it will be a bit of a shield. At least for a while.mikey7339 said:
OT: Great! Glad to see that at least some of the stupid stuff going on in this country gets shot down.
And while, as another poster pointed out, "awesome decision is awesome", and legally, this decision makes much more sense than the alternative, the fact that California felt they needed such a law does highlight a problem with the game industry (not with the games themselves) today: the fact that many game publishers (looking at you especially, EA!) will often even blatantly and heavily market M-rated games to kids as young as 10, showing blatant disrespect for the ESRB, and those kids are legally able to buy such games, and if they go to certain retailers, nobody will be there to stop them from doing so. Yes, yes, I know and have heard a thousand times that ignorance and neglect on the part of parents are problems, but it doesn't reflect well on gaming as an industry or a responsible art form that its ratings board gets essentially no respect from producers, retailers or consumers, at least in the US. I mean, think about how developers reacted to the case when it was first presented. They had a conniption fit, essentially fearing for their business, because kids all of a sudden wouldn't be able to legally buy M-rated games. They weren't just fearing for their art, which is a completely understandable fear in this circumstance, but for their business, which if they were running a responsible business, shouldn't have been a concern in this case. What I mean is, they weren't just not caring if kids bought their M-rated products, they were relying on it. They needed it to happen. That does tend to show a blatant disregard at least, leading up to full-on abuse, of the ratings system. And that's something that, amidst this victory for the art form, the industry behind it can take a lesson from and work to change. I don't think this issue is going to go away because of this case, and I don't think it should. I feel that the industry, from developers to retailers nationwide, needs to give the ESRB the respect it deserves if we really want to present ourselves as truly in the right on this issue, as we should be. If we want to enjoy Mature-rated games without "moral guardian" groups breathing down our necks, we have to show that we can be mature about them, and that means doing more as an industry to ensure that such games end up in the hands of proper consumers of those games. No, none of this is the fault of the games themselves or gaming as a hobby or art form, but gaming as an industry does have some of the blame to share for this, and this decision does not completely justify the marketing and sales practices of many games outlets today.666Chaos said:
Basically most distributors agree not to sell games without an ESRB rating and not to sell M rated games to minors. There is a voluntary system of regulation by the industry and associated distributors and those distributors have a higher compliance rate then other industries with similar systems. Scalia's decision says basically that this system is sufficient for parents who wish to restrict their child's access to violent video games (Scalia notes that not all parents necessarily have such wishes)and additional regulation is not necessarily.Lawz said: