hillary clinton introduces new bill
polycounter lvl 18
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=7341
okay seems she wants to make it illegal to sell m rated games to kids(like boose or ciggarettes).. doesnt seem that bad.. but the esa is against this..so i am thinking there is more to it.. i am wondering what other guidlines she is planing on hiding in the bill..
thoughts??
okay seems she wants to make it illegal to sell m rated games to kids(like boose or ciggarettes).. doesnt seem that bad.. but the esa is against this..so i am thinking there is more to it.. i am wondering what other guidlines she is planing on hiding in the bill..
thoughts??
Replies
Controlling what kids see and experience gives adults the freedom to see more.
Of course, it still doesn't stop irresponsible parents buying Death Murder Kill 6 for little Billy so he stops whining.
stupid cunt
make sure you wear protection. perhaps a handerchief tied around the 'old man'
I thought you were saying she had a new fella with the same name.
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Me too, I was very much expecting a humorous article and/or video.
There is NO WAY she will end up being the democratic candidate for president, though she may try for a while.
I hope she isn't the democratic candidate in 2008.
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Me too, although only because of the fact that she doesn't stand a chance at winning the presidency.
What we're dealing with here the US is a serious problem of cultural myopia. Specifically, the complete misperception of what media is "for kids". We have grappled with this problem for decades, as it's been applied to different media at different times. The general public will think that one or another type of media is 'for kids', and then public outrage, or fascination, will follow when it's discovered that 'they' put adult-level material in something that's supposed to be 'for kids'.
Like comic books. Twenty years ago, you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a news article about how this guy Frank Miller made this Batman comic that was really... R-rated! Gosh, the journalists could be heard echoing across the landscape, comics aren't just for kids anymore! As if people over the age of 17 had just recently started reading comics. And did you know, they would say, in Japan they have comics that adults actually read! That kind of gee-whiz-no-duh perception became boring in its repetition.
One of the best examples of this is the fact that clueless parents have routinely taken their pre-teens to see the 'Child's Play' series of movies, because it has a little doll in it. Never mind that it's Rated R to begin with, never mind that the doll in question gets possessed by a homicidal maniac -- it must be for kids, because "it has a little doll in it."
Video games have the same problem. There was an ABC news blip yesterday morning about how the video games ratings are under scrutiny, and they essentially got it right, that the ratings are good, but enforcement terrible. However, the way Barbara Walters teased the blip ahead of commercials played right to the 'video games are for kids' belief, portraying the item to come as a report on what NOT to buy your kids for Christmas -- as they played a snippet of a blood-gusher scene from Stubbs The Zombie. Which completely mischaracterized their own reporting, and fed into the popular stupidity. Oh, an irresponsible news media? Sorry, that's an American tradition, too. (Here's the video clip -- watch how the on-camera guy calls himself a 'so-called adult', as if video games mark you as immature -- as opposed to, say, football?)
I think this kind of political uproar based on misperception is one of the primary motivators behind the game ratings legislation, and that's not good. Because the foundations of these opinions are just plain wrong.
Practical idea toward a solution: The MPAA gets into it and loans out their ratings system to the ESRB, whereupon Mario becomes rated 'G', and Halo, Half-Life, and GTA become 'Rated R', and a system that most Americans understand goes into use. Dumb as hell, but it would help fix the retail problem, in the same way it now influences movie theaters.
/jzero
- Mother: "oh look dear, a bill that makes us less involved in our childerns lives and less responsible. We should vote for it!"
- Father: "Whatever makes my life easier!"
- Mother: "I doubt our childern will be less psychotic, and little Timmy will still kill all his classmates like he spelled out in his blog last week."
- Father: "True, but they won't be able to sue us hahahah!" "Now if you'll excuse me I have to leave my gun cabnet wide open before I go to work"
If kids under 17 can no longer buy M-rated games, that means that their parents have to buy them for them. Where are the grounds for a lawsuit agains devs/publishers/retailers if someone is claiming that a kid commited suicide or killed someone from a game that they had to have thier parents buy for them? It actually places the responsibility back where it belongs in the first place - negligent parents.
"Thanks for letting us all your a cunt. Too bad we already knew that you dumb whore"
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=7343
Oxynary : Political connections? Here's the most chilling thing I've read on the matter yet. This is Allen varney writing in a past issue of The Escapist:
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First, the industry must quiet the "Hot Coffee" noise while it crafts a new image. Some politicians occasionally take stands on principle, but fortunately, the current anti-game demagogues are routine opportunists. Buying legislators grows more efficient (if not cheaper) with each passing administration. Publishers can shut off the Congressional heat with campaign contributions to the noisiest grandstanders.
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"Buying legislators..." Oh my God. What he's talking about is not only legal, but workable, and actually commonplace. Oh, the humanity.
/jzero