American Gamers: Time to take a stand

Paul Jaquays

The ESA has launched a new intiative to organize adult gamers in the United States of America to defend their rights to buy and play the games they want to play without government interference. If you're an adult citizen of the USA, consider registering with the organization. Time to stop the snowballing anti-game legislation and vote the constitution-clueless politicians out of office.

http://www.videogamevoters.org/

Jeremy Lindstrom

signed and emails sent to my senators..

Rick Stirling

Go folks, go! Please make sure that if you do write a letter, make it intelligent.

Kevin Johnstone

I signed up and forwarded it to everyone at Epic.

r.

Weiser_Cain

Just interested, why do you care rick?

Paul Jaquays

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Just interested, why do you care rick?

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Anything that affects the Amercian game market is also going to affect developers based in other countries.

KDR_11k

IOW, he works for a company that would take a big hit and cut jobs if any anti-game legislation was passed because most of it would attempt to ban their flagship product.

Rick Stirling

The USA is possibly our biggest market, and we'd probably be the hardest hit of all developers.

HonkyPunch

If someone comits a violent as a "direct cause" of a video game, you'll have to wonder how long it would have been before they snapped otherwise. Sure, it may be changing the way some people think, playing games like GTA and such. If anything, you should get some kind of mental stability test before you can buy these, even though that would suck too. I'm 13, so I really shouldn't be posting here. But dammit, It's annoying. My parents say I can, as long as it's not too extreme. I agree that the government shouldn't interfere. If anything, I vent my anger THROUGH video games, not commit violent acts because of them. Violence may be getting a little out of hand, along with lewdness. Most games don't actually NEED these things, they just add them in to be "controversial". I don't mind the games I play being extremely violent or having tits everyhwere, but what i'm saying is that it just gets plain annoying after a while.
Violence and lewdness in games should be regulated, not the market of games.

Rick Stirling

Regulate violence and lewdness? Who?

Lewdness is a funny word, it's difficult to define.

Remember that different nations have utterly different views on those. USA: Violence good, sex bad. EU: Violence bad, sex good.

There is nothing in games that even comes close to the levels of sex and violence in film, books or comics, but games are new. Politicians grew up with film, books and comics so they understand those forms of media.

For many politicians games are an easy target to win votes - many of those lawsuits and investigations are purely policital, not just in the United States. They are easy vote winners - "These are evil and corrupt the children - vote for me and I'll protect you from them."

HonkyPunch

Gaming companies, I suppose. Meh, fuck it. My stance isn't even that great. As long as I can still purchase the games I want, i'm happy.

ebagg

I read over the "FEPA" guidelines and the only one that concerns me is:
"Government will collect complaints
Consumers will be given a clear path to register complaints about game content and ratings or retailers selling inappropriate games to minors. These complaints will be registered by the Bureau of Consumer Protection, an office of the FTC."

While I'm guessing this is harmless, the chance of some "over reacting soccer mom" actually getting a negative affect on the industry bothers me a little, but that portion of the act is extremely vague.

Otherwise, all the acts trying to be passed seem to be enforcing the banning of selling rated M games to minors. I don't see why this should be considered that big a deal, rated R movies are restricted, why not games? In all likelihood, minors can and will find ways to get these games regardless, just like they do with alcohol, drugs, sneaking into movies, etc etc. I know a year or two ago such a law was passed in Washington state, did it really affect the local game economy, if not the global game industry very much?

Zergxes

Done and done.

Congress should redirect the time and money to something more productive.

KDR_11k

I don't see why this should be considered that big a deal, rated R movies are restricted, why not games?

Common misconception. R rated movies are NOT restricted, at least not by law. Movie ratings are 100% voluntary, just like ESRB ratings.

I know a year or two ago such a law was passed in Washington state, did it really affect the local game economy, if not the global game industry very much?

These laws get smacked down by the courts every time someone dares to pass them.

Scott Ruggels

Done... and Done.

Scott

Mark Dygert

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Just interested, why do you care rick?

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I know this is going to sound crazy, but companies outside the US do make games and sell them to US citizens. If there is a ban on games, I'm pretty sure those compaines would be effected.

related to the thread:
YEAH! Bigger goverment that has more invovlement in my day to day life! =/

Sighed up and passed on. Lets hope this list doesn't fall into the goverments hands and we all are labled terrorists because we use "training simulators".

ebagg

KDR, the law was passed in Washington state...I talked with some game store employees and they were IDing anyone getting rated M game, at the time I was 21 and they IDed me for Far Cry. You didn't really address answer my question, did Washington state passing this law negatively affect the game industry or community by any significant amount locally or globally?

KDR_11k

I don't know, I don't live in Washington but I can tell you that the youth protection laws in Germany had a severe impact on the games industry. We got many butchered versions of games (usually with all kinds of blood and gore removed to the point where you were wondering WTF was going on in some scenes, some games replaced all enemies with robots, most notorious examples being Probotector (formerly Contra) and the C&C games) and some games were never even released here (God of War anyone? AZ seems to love that one).

ebagg

That's a more extreme measure, this looks like it is only about laws being passed so minors can't get rated M and above games. Does anyone really find that to be a big deal? I'm honestly wondering what the big threat is.

Paul Jaquays

KDR_11K's point is why this is an issue. If you make an enforceable law that restricts sales of games and punishes a retailer for selling adult-themed games, then retailers afraid of being sued for selling to a minor (and you can bet there are lawyers out there drooling at the prospect of this happening) will not carry adult themed games.

Currently, in the USA, our first amendment rights prevent the legal enforcement of laws restricting the sale printed matter, movies, art AND games. If you restrict speech or expression based on content (such as violent games), then it's an easy step to prohibiting speech that anyone finds offensive for any reason, or stops someone from criticizing the government (federal, state, or even local). Every time the political climate changed, what would be restricted would change.

Mark Dygert

That law was struck down last I heard.

http://www.igda.org/newsroom/press_060503.php

I don't think it was around long enough to make an impact. Places around here do card after the whole GTA hoopla. But it is by store policy (as it should be) and not by goverment mandate. The bill was horribly vauge and only fined developers $500. I would imagine at some point Microsoft and thier team of lawyers will have to step in and when that happens the war is over. It's like WW2 and we are waiting for the US to get off thier ass and finally help out.