Supreme Court ruling on "violent" video games...
polycounter lvl 18
The most sanity I've heard on this most political of days:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2029095,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2029095,00.html
Replies
i hope they dont cencor it, i think that would majorly effect the industry.
besides iv been playing violent games since i was a kid and i havnt killed anyone yet
Then after that, I used my shrink ray to shrink an entire village and stomp them to death, followed by freezing the president of a small foreign nation before slowly thawing him by breathing on him after eating some rather spicy curry.
Why would it be a bad thing to stop selling violent games to minors?
I can't name a single product (including our own GTA game on the DS) that's been adversely affected by an age rating in terms of sales. 18-rated games smash sales records routinely, Modern Warfare/2, GTA etc etc. Can someone with a grasp of the US economy fill in why this doesn't/wouldn't happen over there?
We're worried about the puritanical views of politicians interfering with the industry: see Australia.
This whole thing is about censoring *every* violent game because parent's are far too stupid to look at the ratings, and will buy little billy gears or war or GTA because he asked for it.
Or giving them the "AO"(generally reserved for porn) rating that would make it impossible to even release the game on certain consoles.
the purpose of all this hubub would be to make "violent games" a controlled substance [in California, and potentially Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Texas and Virginia], and in effect controlling media - ie censorship and first amendment violations.
Reading the transcripts of the hearing makes me happy the judges are really backing free speech & artist rights & freedoms.
AFAIK, Gamestop carding kids for violent games is completely voluntary on their part, no laws involved.
dansher: Technically, yes. But if the rating boards refuses to give a game that rating for being too offensive it basically won't show up on store shelves, right? Hence the Australian version of Left 4 Dead 2 being heavily censored.
im not really sure, i know there was a game a few years back that got banned. not sure what it was called but you were a mental patiant or something and you could go round cutting peoples heads off and stuff. im pretty sure that game actually came out and was on shelves for a little while before it got banned
im not sure about left for dead iv never played it. they were on about bringing an R rating so that ones like gta wouldnt be censored or anything, but they never did it i dont think, atleast iv never seen a game with an R rating
but really if there was a scene that was really grafic or something then they could just do like what they did in modern warfare 2 with the airport scene and put in a skip option
No actual ruling has been made yet, so there is no way to know for certain what side the Supreme Court is going to come down on. It could still go either way at this point.
It's a slippery slope here, and this is all just speculation - but if you were making a game that you knew would be above the rating of whatever the 'limit' was - to a large part of your targeted regional market - why would you even bother making it (above that rating)?! if its just going to be censored - your wasting a lot of man hours, time and money to produce something a lot of people will never see/experience. especially if thats a main feature of the game.
Look at MGS 5 trailers. Raiden slicing through shit looks pretty sweet! I can only (obviously) say that I'm pretty sure that feature isn't made to only slice some watermelons [then pull out the tea set and have some tea and mellons with all raidens little friends].
I consider that a pretty neat new feature of its game play. And the things that could possibly span off of that and take it further (other games made by other developers in the future), only to evolve to an even better new feature (maybe in some other way) are potentiating what drives the technological evolution of games.
what I'm trying to say is those possibilities wouldn't have existed - and that 'adult only' feature could have been a large stepping stone to something even greater that would have otherwise never existed.
Violent kids play violent games.
because bad parenting/environment made them violent in the first place.
It's just another excuse for parents to feel like its not there fault there kids are bad behaved and out of control.
...anyways.... umm yah .... I think I'm done ranting....
Smith did a great job arguing his case I felt, cant say the same for the California attorney as he tried to skip around answering questions a few times and his answers seems weak enough as is.
It seemed though that the judges were slightly favoring Smith (aka the video game industry) as I think even they could see the slippery slope this could be and where it could lead. Hopefully in the end they support our industry instead of censoring it but we will have to see.
Not every child has a parent. And for those who have parents or guardians...not all of them are necessarily responsible or think about the welfare of their kids.
(This comment not siding with either opinions re: censorship. Just stating a fact in society.)
Hasn't it always been like that?
Worth reading:
ESRB enforcement
The impact of the "Z" rating on Japanese retail games
cue the annoying youtube Big Brother
[ame]
The problem is, there is already a ratings board that does an effective job, coupled with the fact that all current gen consoles have parental controls = what the fuck is the problem? I understand that many parents don't understand this "newfangled gadgetry" but fuckin man up and learn about what your kids are doing. Take an active part in their lives and quit raging on violent games your little snowflake is playing when your the damn person that bought it for them.
You know, to an extent I know this must be hard for parents to keep up with. We all grew up playing with Mario and were relatively eased into graphic games as we got older, whereas kids now are seeing commercials on TV for some pretty violent shit. It's something that most of us probably don't think about how different it was when we were starting out. I just feel that if you feel you're ready to start popping out kids you need to be ready to educate them and yourself as the world changes and rather than force your beliefs on everyone.
Carding people, and only selling games to people of appropriate age, I am for. Censoring them, ala Australia, I'm STRONGLY against.
We say it's up to the parents, which I agree with, but there's so many parents who just don't care. They wanna be their kids bestest buddy, not their parent. Or they don't care what happens to their kid. So leaving EVERYTHING up to the parents is not the best idea in my view. Taking away control from the parent is not something we can stand for either. But if that kid has to get his parent to buy the game for him, then so what? I had to do that with music when I was kid, and my parents didn't mind (as long as it wasn't "fuckin bitches" and "kill whitie" music, that is).
It's a touchy subject for sure, and probably a slipper slope kinda deal, considering even if they do card, that's no guarantee the kids won't get ahold of these violent games, just like with everything else we card for...
"The rating system is strictly voluntary, however nearly all video games are submitted for rating because many retail stores prohibit the sale of unrated video games and the major console manufacturers will not license games for their systems unless they carry ESRB ratings."
"$800 fee for development costs under USD $250k $4,000 fee for development costs over $250k"
and all 3 current console manufactures wont allow AO rated games to be released for their consoles.
How many of you took those influences to heart and carried out the same violence against others in real life, killing and maiming other human beings? I'm guessing none of you. In fact that is how our entire generation of 18-35 year olds are, minus a very tiny minority. And the members of that tiny minority all have been proven that video games were not the root cause of their violence.
But as this generation, some of us are saying we should have the government restrict what we once had freely, because of the fear that next generation won't be able to handle what we were able to? What does that say about our generation as parents?
Bad parents are the root of a lot of society's problems today, particularly youth violence. This whole video game regulation controversy that has been going on since the first pixel of blood was shown is completely moot. Where are the laws holding parents responsible if their teen commits violent crimes? Why aren't the parents of the killers from Columbine in jail for allowing their children to arm themselves to such a degree and slaughter innocents? Maybe if we held parents to a stricter standard when their children are violent, there would be more parents doing the job right and less kids being violent and causing us to use entertainment art as a scapegoat for parental shortcomings.
Put me in this category.
Let the responsibility fall on the parents