The US already has a rating system, and I believe 99% of retailers follow those rules concerning sales to minors (including Walmart). So what you are talking about is already in effect. The problem that the industry has is the fear the government will take over their rating system, which right now is not government run. That is why they are fighting it. The rest I have discussed is about First Amendment rights.StriderShinryu said:Thanks for the effort, and I figured that's what you may have been referring to though I was kind of hoping you had something else up your sleeve that I was missing as what you're pointing out has already been dealt with.PoisonUnagi said:Ugh, looks like I have to do this for you. Hang on a moment.StriderShinryu said:
I'm sure NZ is a beautiful place but I'm really not sure how many games get made there though, especially without intent to sell them in the US. As others have already said numerous times, if the case Yahtzee is talking about goes through then there will be a legal age restriction in the US, which I'm taking it you get. What you don't seem to be considering is what sort of company that puts videogames in with. Stores, especially big American ones with the type of economic placement like WalMart, will almost certainly not carry something that is legally age restricted (like, say, pornography). If stores don't carry legally age restricted games then they will not be made and, on top of that, this case would set a precedent that would allow the type of material considered restrictive to be decided upon by people who don't actually play or care about games. It would start with easy targets like Postal or Manhunt type ultra violence, but just look at how riled up non-gamers got over the "sex-scene" in Mass Effect or just the option to attack police officers in GTA and so on.
If you're still left wondering why yourself, a happy resident of NZ, should care just consider the size of your native market compared to the US. The US is the biggest market in the world for games, and it includes many of the biggest game development companies. As I stated above, if US companies can't sell their own mature games in their own country they're not going to make special versions with all the mature stuff that can be sold elsewhere, they're just going to water everything down until it can be sold. If game companies in Japan or the UK can't sell their mature games to the dominant market that is the US then they will either restrict foreign development altogether or will be forced to edit their content to match US standards. Also consider that once a ruling like this goes forward in the US, governments outside of the US will have even more ammunition to crack down further on mature games in their own backyard.
Right now M rated games are sold almost everywhere, and not sold to minors. The video game industry simply wants to control the rating system and they mask it under First Amendment rights issue. Now, for me, many people in the US, and the Supreme Court that is the issue. Yet the group being promoted here is about controlling the system, not video game or First Amendment rights (although they will certainly mask it that way to get more support).
