Stan Lee stands up for free speech, again...
mod
he goes on to say more.My memory has always been lousy and it's not improving with age. But it's good enough to remember a time when the government was trying to do to comic books what some politicians now want to do with video games: censor them and prohibit their sales. It was a bad idea half a century ago and it's just as bad an idea now. And you can do something about it.
http://www.videogamevoters.org/StanLee
Replies
Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft refuse to allow any AO rated game on their consoles, AO rating = death for most games, I just think we should get rid of AO and games can do whatever they want under a mature 18+ rating
Also movies can get away with a lot more than video games, and still get a pg13 rating.
The sale restrictions are only getting worse and worse.
http://spong.com/article/22483/USA-Ultra-Violent-and-Sexual-Game-Ban-Gets-Majority-Support
http://www.bostonherald.com/business/technology/general/view.bg?articleid=1280448&srvc=rss
But that's just a California problem. A dangerous precedent cascades down the hill like an avalanche. One or two states and a few popular poles and bam you've got a piece of legislation that is hard to get rid of. If people don't start creating counter points to the "save our kids" bills then by the time it gets signed into federal law, peoples minds will be made up, the time to engage the public and offer another side of the debate is now, not later.
Stan Lee's letter is more of a notification that he has teamed up with the video game voters network and that gamers and developers need to pay attention, stay vigilant for more crazy politicians looking to do the same thing, and vote for what they believe in.
Considering Califorina's case and that national elections are about to take place its a good time to take stock of what stupid things your lawmakers are doing, and let them know with your vote.
I'm all for enforcing the ESRB as it stands, all of the places I buy games at, card people. They started carding after the last round of legal battles and the stores stepped up their policy and said you know what, we're not going to be blamed for this. I'm not sure re-writing the ESRB, making it stricter and signing it into law is the way to go.
The MPAA is a voluntary system not enforced by law, as should the ESRB. The same treatment as movies, unfortunately you have to continually beat up politicians before they back off.
Once they have a punching bag, they'll go back to it anytime they need to score some points with the public. "oh crap I cheated on my wife... humm I'll save the kids one more time and everyone will forget!"
Video game ratings are far superior to the movies ratings. The real problem is way too many dump parents. Some of these parents buy the violent games their kids without even looking at the rating. Not to mention, they don't even ask what the ratings mean if they don't know.
And yeah, that's the point I was making. The parents aren't doing their job, and they expect the government to do it for them, by censoring games.
Anyone half competent could tear their statistics apart. But it doesnt really matter, because these cocks will do what they want evidence or none.
As with all things, parents should get involved, take some time to learn about the stuff they buy and bring into their home, know how to use it and spend some time with your kid(s) too. They just buy it, dump it on the living room floor and walk away. Explain why the controls are in place and when they can handle that stuff they can have access. Kids aren't stupid and they love it when someone takes time to explain things to them, they also like being able to work toward something, at least mine does... she's probably a freak tho...
Kids are a parents apprentice, the subject is life and choices. They need hands on day by day guidance until they can handle things on their own. The more time you put in early on, the faster they learn to handle things. When parents use controls and set boundaries its only half the job, sadly most don't even do that... If they did they would know about ESRB and the parental controls in consoles and TV's.
Parents need to be parents so their kids can be kids. Too many kids are just left up to their own devices, they're basically their own parent. It's hard enough being a kid they don't need to figure out how to parent themselves also... Parents need to step up and get involved. Too many take the easy way out and would rather leave it up to the government.
I'd prefer they put more effort in educating parents, who are obviously to stupid to do this on their own.
edit: Damn, cross post with Vig, but basically the same thing he said
http://kotaku.com/5641140/colorado-board-of-education-supports-the-california-game-law
I guess were not working hard enough yet...
I can only think of a few games that don't involve explosions or guns of some kind, and those games are usually kinda boring. Like Tetris (but then, you are destroying blocks in an instantaneous fashion, and it could encourage your children to brain other kids with bricks).
Perhaps we should go back to the Puritan days when any form of entertainment was considered sinful and our idea of fun was churning butter and all day Church services.
So the problem is not so much about wanting to keep kids from playing ultra violent ax murdering games, the problem is how you define a violent game. And of course the previous stated issue that the government wants to raise your kids for you.
From http://kotaku.com/5641140/colorado-board-of-education-supports-the-california-game-law:
Exploitation?:poly142:
I never understood why gambling was outlawed in some areas. I mean I can understand their reasoning, but what it did was try to keep adults from doing an activity of their choosing. As adults, we tend to have the option of doing harmful things - like unsafe sex. Unfortunately, it appears I am having trouble thinking of other harmful things we are allowed to do. It is against the law in some states to ride a motorcycle without a helmet. When you were a kid, your mom told you to wear a helmet when riding your bicycle. But then you were a kid. Now, that we are adults, our mother is the government, and we are still told to wear a helmet and buckle our seat belts. And if we don't, we get some of our allowance taken away... Granted it's a good habit to have, but it does not put others in danger when we fail to do it. (and god forbid they decide to ban something that could)
So now we have this game law thing coming up. Sure it's for kids *now*, but after it passes and becomes the norm, there will be several studies commissioned by lawyers and law makers that 'prove' the effects of violent games on adults. And pretty soon violent games will be the new pot.
If you play violent games you'll act crazy, drop out of school, get AIDS, and kill your mother.
That will be the message before long, and it'll be 'proven' repeatedly by several paid-for studies.
As for what we can do about it - I have no idea WHAT to do.
And err, what happens with guns? and films? we should prohibit series such as Spartacus and films like 300?
Blood and strong language can define a game. It seems like ESRB logos are not enough because they doesn't mean anything. The kids will ask for a game, and too many parents will buy them the game without taking care of what ESRB says. And it's a reality. Oher kids go to a shop, and the vendor don't say anything in most cases. So, Parents should bear the responsibility.
I will view that man as the best hue hefner ever
signed.
I don't have any kids, but I can speak from experience as a child in the 90s. My dad didn't care much about video game ratings. I played the same games he played. And that's a thing you cannot (and should not) stop adults from doing if they want to do it. Keep in mind, for many kids the games actually belonged to their parents... and I don't think there are many adults who lock their games up like their hunting rifles when their done.
If I were a mentally disturbed child, of course my parents would have paid more attention to what I played, but since I could seperate reality from fantacy, they trusted me. This is normal. You can trust your kids, and you shouldn't feel guilty about it.
As a teen I played some very violent video games with gibs and bad language - UT1 being my absolute favorite. But I didn't grow up to be a missile launching psychopathic steroid injected super-killer and neither did any of my UT fanatic high school friends.
Well, the whole gun legislation thing is an entire debate in itself, but the violent movies vs. games issue seems to be centered on the fact that television and movies are passive, whereas games are interactive.
Let's not forget that, as and when a horrific crime like a school massacre is committed, it's a normal reaction to ask 'why?' and to try and assign some semblance of reason to such a shocking crime, no matter how misguided the targets of that blame may be, whether it's games or Marilyn Manson.
It's impossible to prove whether a lifetime's exposure to news broadcasts and late-night cable TV has an impact on individuals predisposed to horrendous acts of violence, and it seems equally impossible for people to admit that some kids like Dylan and Klebold were quite obviously mentally ill to begin with, so it's easier to point the finger at Manhunt and GTA, again due to the interactive nature of the medium. Not that I'm picking on Rockstar or anything.
Also worth remembering is the fact that just because these politicians and lobbyists don't go after movies and TV with the same enthusiasm as games, doesn't mean that they wouldn't if it weren't such a monumentally-futile fight.
And when I single handily save the world and bring peace to the universe for a 2nd and 3rd time, you can thank video games for that too. Those who do not learn the valuable lesson that 'violence in video games will save lives', will be the nameless rabble of rotting corpses I'll have to bulldoze into a mass grave, while I'm tasked with the difficult duty of repopulating the earth with the hot side kick I picked up in the sewers and thought died trying to help me breach the enemies headquarters. If only more people had prepared more lives could of been saved...
World, you have your choice.
Video games taught me:
It's the little guy that always makes the difference.
Treat people with respect (especially stick up for school age friends who are bullied) otherwise they spend a life time plotting your downfall.
The counter terrorists can defuse a bomb while the terrorist are busy tea bagging in the name of Allah.
To do mundane tasks for very little reward, every rich bastard boss is happy for this.
That every enemy, zombie and or headcrab I can take out in the early stages of an invasion will save 2-3 more lives.
That when the world goes to shit, ammo will appear to be in short supply but I'll always stumble on some other poor bastards horded goods so I never really should worry about it.
Always talk to the crazy old guy, he has the goods and the secret to defeating everything, after all he kicked it all off before going into seclusion.
I have the uncanny ability to catch things if they're falling, even while drunk. It can never be triggered purposefully but when some idiot knocks over your priceless princess crystal statue and I catch it, don't thank me thank video games.
In my point of view, we work in a product, like films but interactive, and it has its rating. Not all the games are for all the audiences.
Movies and TV may be considered as passive, but one fact is that they may have impact on some individuals (and i'd say a lot). I remember perfectly when i saw 300, at the cinema exit, i found a few people saying: "i want to kill someone" and i said myself: "excited fools". And at the gym, i saw too many new faces, and in the background was the idea of: "i want to become a spartan", a casualty?
There's no doubt that if a child grows up in a environment with violence as something normal (we are too many hours with a TV or with a computer), there's a high risk to have a violent adult.
I've seen too many stupids here conditioned by games such as god of war, and not doing "cosplay".
In my country, the tv broadcasting of dragon ball and Zodiac Knights was stopped due to problems of fights at the schools. Kids can be easily manipulated and conditioned, they are like a paper in white, and without a good tutor (good parents)... they can be very conflictive.
And another thing, is that it's also very easy to see some strong young guys (very muscled, with tribal tattos and piercings) at the street for just picking fights, insulting and menacing couples and other young guys because they enjoy the violence and feeling stronger. Their social class is high, they drive mercedes and bmws, and we wonder why the heck they are in that way. At the end, it's very easy to point to their parents.
The past night i saw a tv program about a dog trainer helping families with their dogs, and my first thought was that too many people should have been trained like dogs. We had an agressive animal, and with training, education and discipline, woah magic! a submissive dog, educated and very very relaxed. It was totally transformed into another dog.
I really think you can't have your kids playing games with a 18 rating unless if you have plenty of confidence on them. Also, we don't let them to watch porn at the age of 12, or yes?. Some games are aimed for adults, some for kids, and i think all the responsibility should fall in parents, education. The blame should not fall on developers.
Dejawolf, as you well said, Hitler and Stalin didn't need video games to commit atrocious crimes, but... they needed a idealism, with ideas so stupid such as the super human of Nietzsche. Poor minds can be poisoned with ideas and Hitler had the ability to poison and move masses as silly sheeps. Mix a poisoned mind, with easy access to power (guns as example), and the recipe produces always the same, bad things.
Okay, but how many of them actually would go out and kill someone as a result of watching a movie? And would they have eventually done it anyway, if they hadn'tseen the movie - or any violent movies? These are the same kinds of assholes that come out with remarks like 'if someone got their head blown off right next to me, I'd laugh my ass off' during a war movie, when in reality they'd freak out and need years of therapy just like most people.
Okay, but how was the connection between the shows and the schoolyard violence made? I'd wager the same pseudo-science that the politicians and lobbyists are citing in this lawsuit. And after the shows were stopped, did schoolyard violence cease completely? Of course not. Then what should they blame? Heaven forbid that someone's little angel beat the crap out of some other kid because he's just a insecure, mean little shit.
I totally agree with what you're saying, but these types of censorship campaigns invariably neglect that, unfortunate as it may be, violence is in our nature.
I'm not advocating underage kids watching R-rated movies or playing Manhunt, but it seems that personal responsibility (of both children and their parents) is the only thing in danger.
Seems that some states are rallying against the law which is a refreshing thing to see. However this has bigger implications then what's on the surface. The big picture here to me is precedent. If this were to pass at what point does it end? While the argument was made that games are interactive as opposed to music or movies, it's not that much of a jump. How long until someone tries this on another medium once the precedent has been laid out.
This all seems to me to be a reaction from armchair parents who are too "busy" or just ignorant to pay attention to what their kids are doing. They can't be bothered to look at a rating that's printed on the damn box and in turn they have to pass the buck. However there's one line that really bothers me about this.
It doesn't even use the ESRB system. So who's to say what is offensive? Are we going to have some "Videogame Czar" dictating what can and can't be sold? After working for years in an electronics department in retail this bothers me greatly. How is the kid working for a few bucks around holidays going to know what can and can't be sold if you aren't even going to use the ratings on the box, and if he screws up what type of penalty might he get hit with?
Making a law so you don't have to take a stand on what you let your kid do is just stupid in my opinion. Because let's face it, we are not homogenic. There could be a young kid who is mature enough to play games thats rated above his age, as well as there could be the reverse.
The idea that we can make kids less voilent by locking off content isn't going to replace proper parental involvement. They still need someone to explain how to handle situations and help them as they make those first choices. Most of those violent rich kids you talk about are probably that way because they where left to raise themselves and the parents where not involved in their lives.
Violent kids are often more violent when surrounded by violent media but they'll still be violent kids unless someone takes the time to help them work through it and teaches them how to react. The longer the parents are hands off the harder it is going to be to correct the behavior.
So how much games should kids play? Considering they'll be raised by the strongest forces in their lives the time spent with the parents should probably be greater than the time they spend gaming with questionable content at least until they can be trusted to make good decisions on their own.
It seems like parents in general are too busy to do anything with their kids and that is where we get a lot of our problems. Locking them away from video games won't solve societies problems. Having parents do their fucking jobs, now that will take a few HUGE steps in fixing whats wrong. These laws tell parents, relax the state laws will correct your kids for you, and the schools will baby sit, you just keep on coasting through life with your nose stuck in your phone.
The saddest part of this rule is that it does nothing to wake parents up. The kids will still be able to get the games the same old way, the parents will buy it for them. Nothing changes, we have another worthless law on the books and it gives the government a foothold to start cracking down on other forms of entertainment and eventually free speech.
i think the same, but it seems like a high % of parents want to see actions taken by the government. It's the easiest for them.
It's the same with actual kids now. With our actual life style, both parents, are quite busy and they don't have enough time to dedicate in their children's education. In spain is very common to see both parents working, because with one salary they can't live very good. The kids, when they are not in the school, they are at their rooms alone, watching TV or playing videogames more hours than normal. It's quite normal to see teenagers playing mmos for more than 16 hours (wow as example), they skip classes and their parents don't know a shit because they are working. And the worst, is that they buy them all what they want, if the kid wants an iphone, iphone for them.
And Internet could be another problem ignored, because it's making anti-social and obese people (we have a 20% of obese childs in spain, really fat). In Japan there are the hikikomori. People tend to distance themselves from real life and they lock theirselves into their worlds. Many computer autistic are appearing now and they are more violent than previous generations non "autistic". Another fact is that is difficult to see a young showing respect nowadays, they are very disrespectful with all.
Anyone watched this? policemen teaching some lessons.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=575_1283915443
All this is like the dog trying to bite its tail, and may be very complex, but i think the solution could be with the parents.
BTW, games are now more realistic, and it's very understandable to see how parents react: we have stunning graphics and extreme violence with more realism than ever, they are "shocked" (gore, sex, strong language). With the oldest games (SNES) this could not have happened.
Yep, it's very sad, and i hope they don't win.
needs this part too:
http://videogamevoters.com/
Radiolab: Kiddie Morality
Blaizer: sounds like you're getting old. When I was 28 I was driving around and I saw some kids hanging out on a street corner and I thought "those kids are up to no good" and it immediately hit me "oh no, I'm that adult complaining about kids that I swore I'd never turn into!!" here's a quote for you
"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on
frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond
words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and
respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise
[disrespectful] and impatient of restraint" -Hesiod, 8th century BC
http://www.ftc.gov/reports/violence/070412MarketingViolentEChildren.pdf
so that you know what's going on and what information the gov't has presented.
thats pretty much the most misleading headline i've read in years.
we don't market violent entertainment to children, we market it to grownups.
I haven't read the whole thing (yet), but it seems that it's not as damning as the title would suggest.
From the first few paragraphs of the initial summaries of the game industry's marketing practices:
I omitted the paragraph on internet advertising, due to the inherent difficulties in regulating it and the inaccuracies in end-user data such as age that factor quite heavily in that aspect of the report.