Slashdot Mirror
Indianapolis Restricts Display Of Violent Games
Darren M. writes: "This CNN article talks about a new law passed in Indianapolis. Apparently, starting the 1st of September, arcades will be required to place games with violence or strong sexuality away from non-violent games, separated by a wall or curtain. They will also be required to only allow persons 18 and over to play them. I cannot imagine how this is constitutional." This seems like a thin excuse to harden and extend the age stratification that passes in many areas of life for "common sense." Remind anyone of jamie's story about age restriction on Soldier of Fortune in British Columbia?
Most of all, kids.
I have seen this sort of political pandering before. The same sort of thing was tried in Longview Washington almost 10 years ago. It lasted a couple of months and then people forgot about it.
It accomplished nothing.
These sort of "quick fixes" get proposed all the time. You see much more of them during political prostitution season. The various leaders need to show that they are "doing something for the community". Of course, the electorate is shallow enough to not question if this will have any effect on youth violence.
If you can find it (and it has not been banned by the local authoritarians), check out back issues of a small press magazine called ""Murder Can Be Fun". They do research into the more morbid parts of history. One of the issues was on youth violence. What they published goes counter to everything we are told about the causes of todays violent youth. The nasty little monsters of yesteryear would give any of the current gangsterbrats a run for their money.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
I personally am not so sure as you about whether or not violence in the media leads to violence in the real world, but let's assume that it does. What right does that give us to restrict access to violent videogames? The answer to societal problems is not increased govermental regulations. This can only lead to disaster. I mean, look at the tax code. Now if something as simple as taxation can be made so complex by the government, then imagine how impossible it would become if we relied on the government to regulate every aspect of our society! This example seems silly, but I think that it does make a point. The answer to societal problems (if there is an answer) is not to build up mountains of legislation. The answer is to attack the root of the problem: our society. Now everyone has their own opinion of what is wrong with our society, and that is a debate that I don't want to get into right now. But I think it is pretty obvious that the government simply doesn't have the power to stop the problems that we face. And if it did have that power, that would be a bad thing also, because then the government would have too much power... and absolute power corrupts absolutely...
This law will inconvenince those of us who like violent, etc. games. However, I do think that it is a good idea. Some will argue with me that we have a constitutional right to view any content we choose, play any games we choose, and shall not be prohibited from those choices. I do not disagree. The day the Government tells me I can't play Marathon because it has guns and blood will be a sad day. However, I also believe that those of us who enjoy content like that should think about this for a few minutes.
Those reading this who have children under the age of 10 will most likely admit to having taken steps to prevent their children from viewing, participating, or otherwise being exposed to violent or sexual content (if parents do not, that is their choice, and I am not one to make a judgement on that). Certain movies are not rented, certain shows are not watched, certain web sites are not visited, etc. Now, imagine that this particular family goes out to dinner at a pizza pit, or other place where arcade games are readily available. The child wants to play a video game to pass the time. The parent(s) have a choice: either let the child go to the arcade to play PacMan (or other non-violent game) and be exposed to Mortal Kombat, etc., or do not let the child play in the arcade.
This law would require a visual barrier to be in place between the violent and non-violent games. Yes, this would require another few steps to be taken by the player to get to the machine. But, I think that players need think about others in the arcade, not just themselves. Regardless of what psychologists say, a child seeing violence does effect the child. Also, as pointed out in the above example, it allows families to choose whether or not to expose their children to such content. Think of it like the password lock-out features of digital cable or satelite TV - those who want it willingly take a few more steps to access their violence and porn in order to prevent the little one from stumbling across "Debbie Does Dallas" and asking "Mommy, what is that man doing?"
If we are in a society that is so concerned about choice, why is it that we are so adamant about denying choice to others?
-er
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
First of all, this law is more than likely constitutional. I don't see how its a violation of free speech or free association. If that were unconstitutional, then not allowing minors into porn theaters would be unconstitutional. It's best to actually read the Constitution and have at least a working understanding of it before using it as a blanket defense.
That being out of the way, I belive that this law is probably doomed to a quick death. Simply put, it will kill arcades throughout the city. Games like Mortal Kombat and its ilk are the bread and butter of these places. Denying the vast majority of the customers access to those machines will seriously hurt the bottom line.
Even should that first supposition be wrong, having a roped off section behind a curtain with a big bouncer not allowing kids in is sure going to be a great draw for families, isn't it? Who in their right minds would have their kid's birthday party in a place like that? Even those who don't play those games will be effected by this asinine piece of legislation.
Personally, if I were an Indianapolis arcade owner, I'd tell the city to frag themselves and move to the suburbs out of the way. Consider the lost tax revenue plus the cost of enforcing the law would be rediculous. There's no way that the city can reasonably expect this law to stay on the books without it having a negative and demonstratable effect on the city. This law is doomed to failure, and anyone with half a clue should have been able to figure it out.
If I were an Indianapolis resident, I'd seriously thinking about a recall petition.
If you think violence in videogames doesn't affect children, then you are living in a fantasy world. Media, of which videogames are one facet, have an incredible effect on children.
Personally, I don't dispute this. Children exposed to violence at an early age probably turn out to be a little more screwed up than others.
However, the question is whether you are willing to gradually give up more and more personal freedoms and allow censorship in order to prevent this from happening. I am not. You can either decide to take personal responsibility for protecting your children from that which you feel they should be protected from, or let the government dictate to you how things should be. As everyone knows, freedom of speech is not meant to protect popular ideas. It it to protect the unpopular ones -- or in this case, the politically incorrect ones.
The games are put behind a curtain? Doesn't that seem a little ominous to anyone else?
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Whats the difference between not allowing minors to view R or NC-17 movies, and not allowing minors to rent violent video games? No one complains when a movie gets an R rating and minors are not allowed in, so why complain about video games?
The difference is that restricting minors from video games is new. Whenever there's change, there will always be people to complain about it. So how long until people see the similarities between games and movies? The line between movie and video game realism is slowly being ereased.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
This is going too far. I get carded trying to buy an R-Rated movie, get carded to buy Soldier of Fortune in BC, get carded to play video games in Indiana but don't get carded when I walk into a bar. Go figure where our priorities are.
kwsNI
Fsck that. How 'bout the early 80s bloodfest "The Bilestoad" on the Apple ][?
Pictures of a 3-D port to the Mac
I have fond memories of hacking limbs off in the original version, in glorious 280x192 resolution at four real colors and 8 pseudo-colors. It was the bloodiest thing I'd ever seen at the time :)
I first found out about Bilestoad in a full-page print ad in Nibble magazine. I believe the phrases "graphic violence and bloodletting" and "suitable for adults only" were used. I don't think the game was ever released where I lived; I never saw it on the shelves.
One of my happier gaming moments came when someone in our user group got his hands on a copy from some warez BBS in the States. It spread like wildfire. It was bloody, shocked the parents, and more importantly after the first 15 minutes, featured really good gameplay.
Your irony for the day: From the Bilestoad Manual:
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Double irony: This is the first time in my life that I'd actually read the premise of the game - a society held together by the use of virtual violence as catharsis. I'm doubly impressed by the designers' insight.
1983, folks. The original came out in 1983.
Don't want to sound like a troll, but how is this unconstitutional? I don't know if video games could be considered protected speech, but even if they could they're not really restricting them (unless you lack the mental ability to pass through a curtain, in which case you probably would have trouble putting quarters in the slots anyway)...
Yeah, I agree. It's foolish to say that children won't be affected by violence, since a young child is about the most maleable thing in the universe.
But by the time that child is 16 (or 14 or 12), if he or she doesn't have a firm grasp on the difference between reality and fantasy, and on the tragic consequences of real-world violence, then it's too late. On the other hand, a 16-year-old 'child' with this fundamental comprehension will not be adversely affected by violent videogames such that they become more violent in real life.
When I was 14 and playing Wolfenstein, there was zero danger of me taking that violence out of the context of being a game. Were I to have played at age 6, that would not have been true.
Does a hard limit of 18 years of age make sense? Do we really need a law to keep 6-year-olds from playing games at arcades? What is necessary is slow exposure over time as the child becomes ready for it, and this is something the government has neither the time nor the competency to do.
Unfortunately, the same can be said of many parents.
The enemies of Democracy are
But then we still allow grown men to beat each other senseless, and occaisionally die or suffer permanent brain damage, just for people's entertainment on Pay-Per-View.
Remember though, people who play football are always A-OK, especially when they are violent sociopath's (people figure that makes them more likely to be winners). All non-violent gaming (by this I mean, gaming that doesn't include actually doing violence to a fellow human being) is considered suspicious and evil.
Oh, and bad, tasteless games are becoming ever more violent because of all this media insanity over "violent games warping our kids" (free publicity, they'd never sell on their merits as games. Remember, the people making Soldier of Fortune set out to make the most violent game of all time so they'd stand out from all the similar, better games out there.) while more mainstream games are routinely censored, even if the censorship is of the most ridiculous thing you could think of.
I'd give a source on that, but since a majority of people posting to slashdot these days seem to be trolls or fascists, I won't bother hunting down the URL. God, this place has gone down hill...
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Well you're mostly right. All of Greece didn't exactly join forces to fend off Xerxes. Something like half of the Greek city-states sided with Persia. During the course of the Greaco-Persian wars Athens and Sparta were the most powerful of the Greek city-states and bickered alot about the best strategy for defending greece. Athens being a port city was in alot of danger of being invaded by sea, blockaded or backed up against the ocean by a land force (in fact Athens was evacuated, captured and burned twice during the persain wars) Sparta on the other hand was landlocked and pretty self reliant, lots of good farming land on the Peleponese (sp?). So they disagreed on the best strategy, Themisticles, leader of Athens for most of the period, wanted a united greek navy commanded by Athens. Sparta wanted a coalition army to hold up on the Pelelponese at the ithmus to wait for Xerxes to attack and defend from there.
;->
The Spartans also had a problem with slave revolts. They're slaves wern't happy, and in fact the only thing that kept them under control for the most part was the massive standing army Sparta kept at home. So for politcal reasons they didn't embrace the Athenian strategy. That is not to say that the Spartans didn't play a crucial role in the war. Their most famous battle is Thermopylae, a narrow passage near the sea where 3000 allied greek soliders (300 Spartan hoplites, 700 from other allies, and about 2000 support personal, archers ect...) held off Xerxe's entire army (over 100,000 men, 1,000,000 by some accounts) for 3 days. It could be thought of as the Alamo of ancient greece. Anyway the death toll was astounding, Xerxes lost something on the order of 10k men. Anyway that holding action disrupted Xerxes supply chain and ruined the tight integration between his land and naval forces (the navy could not operate with out the land forces) and likely supplied the edge Athens needed to spank the Persian navy soundly at Salamis and elsewhere.
A couple of good books I recomend about the Persian wars are:
The Greco-Persian Wars by Peter Green.
and
The Gates of Fire by Stephen Pressfeild.
The Gates of Fire is a fictional account of the Spartans involvment at Thermopylea, takes a few liberties but overall is a very good piece of historical fiction. I recomend reading Green's book first (it reads like a novel not a text book) for an overall picture of the war and then reading Gates of Fire for a first person perspective of warfare in ancient times. History was never more exciting
I should also note that shortly after the wars, Athens essentially started extracting protection money from her naval allies and sacked a few island cities that refused to pay dues to her defense coalition. This growing Athenian empire is what led to Sparta and Athens fighting (with Athens losing) about 100 yrs later.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
Fundamentally, I have no problem with restricting access to certain materials for children. However, I'd love to see our imperfect system replaced with one which truly reflects the philosophies of the child's parent.
The current US system has two major flaws:
In order to allow parents to exert some degree of control over their children's intake of material, yet at the same time allow them to customize the access based on their personal views and reading of the child's maturing, I propose the following system for all media (TV, print, videogames, video, movies, etc.):
I know this is simplistic, but I do think there are some reasonable ideas that we could use to replace the current botched up system.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
The historical justification for allowing the regulation of zoning for adult businesses is that such businesses produce detrimental secondary effects like increases in prostitution and drug dealing and the like. "Adult" video game establishments can't be said to produce such effects any more than other places that cater to teenagers, like coffee shops. There's no comparison.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Likewise, just because minors do not have the full constitutional rights of adults, that does not mean they have no constitutional rights at all. One of the classic cases upholding First Amendment rights of minors is Tinker v. Des Moines.
I'm not saying the Indianapolis ordinance in question is necessarily unconstitutional. The rights of minors is a very murky area of the law. I'm just saying that the /.ers who are saying "clearly this is constitutional, minors have no rights at all" are just as mistaken as those who are saying "clearly this is unconstitutional, it violates the First Amendment."
Never take moderation advice from sigs, including this one.
Typical zoning laws do not all adult businesses in all but the worst part of town, in the industrial zoned areas, far out of the way of everything, and certainly far away from schools, malls, and kids. Arcades may be forced to get rid of the violent games or see their business licenses revoked.
If they boot the games, arcades may see their customer count dwindling. So wheather by zoning laws or simple fall off in profits, arcades could find themselves forced out of business.
See what a tiny piece of legislation can do?
legislatures cannot restrict access to information, even to minors.
Interesting. I can't recall seeing any cigarette ads on television lately, can you? And whatever happened to that delightful smoking camel?
I'm also a little disappointed that, for all those years, I'd been abstaining from reading the articles in Playboy for apparently no good reason at all.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Errr...no. There is no age interval for citizenship; anyone born in the United States or of American parents abroad is a U.S. citizen from birth to death or renunciation of citizenship. Furthermore, the constitutional protections of basic human rights apply to all persons in the U.S., not just citizens (you may dispute this one in practice based on a few human rights abuses committed by U.S. authorities unto its own citizens, but it's the legal truth).
The issue here is not that the right to play violent video games is protected by the constitution but does not apply to children, but that there is no constitutional right to play violent video games. The vast majority of "rights" in this country have been constructed by the courts or the lawmakers based on the principles of the Bill of Rights and the ninth-amendment protection of "unenumerated rights."
Do, indeed, the constitution or the laws of the land mention anything about the freedom to play violent video games? No. The legal question is not whether children have constitutional rights, but whether a municipal government has the power to prevent children from accessing games it finds objectionable in a public place.
The inevitable lawsuit will be a very interesting one to watch, because the current standard for deciding if objectionable material can be restricted by government decree is whether the offending material is totally devoid of either artistic merit or social value. Certainly this is not the case with (most) violent video games, but it will be fun to see the city's arguments to the contrary!
Maybe the law should be - no police are allowed to play violent video games; and no person who ever played a violent video game should be eligible to be a police officer, or server in any military capacity.
The effect on civillians is obviously not hazardous. The effect on the storm troopers, however, is.
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
change how people behave? Are you nuts? Have speed limits changed how people drive? For the most part, no. Not until they pull every speeder over, every time, and pull their license - and incarcerate for driving on suspended licenses, will behavioral changes occur.
Sorry, but you're wrong about this. When California raised its freeway limit from 55 mph to 65 mph four years ago, average speeds dutifully rose from 65mph to 75mph. Drivers, on average, drive at 10 mph over the limit. Even though only 1 in 700 minor driving offences (speeding etc.) are prosecuted, most drivers stay close enough to the limit. The threat of being caught is part but only part of why the vast majority of people obey the law.
Sailing over the event horizon
Please tell me you are not suggesting that violent video games are the cause of the Yugoslav wars or the dozen or wars activly being fought in Africa at the moment. I'd like for you to point out a single war caused by violent video games.
Or maybe you are suggesting that local communities should pass anti-war laws, making it illegal for anyone to wage war in their cities, so as not to expose kids to the kind of brutal violence that could really disrupt their lives and cause them to be deviant violent punks.
Ok maybe your not suggesting that violent games are causing these wars, but perhaps suggesting that the effects of violent video games has the same affect on children as growing up in an active war zone!?!?
Your comparison's have no absolutly no basis. Have you ever been in an actual war? Or even a riot like the above poster? Didn't think so. Neither have I. Games are just games and always will be. Every gamer knows that they always have an extra life and no matter how many times they frag their buddies they'll come back for more. On that same token the vast majority of humans know that death is final, and can seperate violence in games from violence in real life.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
If it's constitutional to slap an age restriction on drinking that occurs after the age of citizenship and voting, it occurs to me it would also be constitutional to slap an age restriction on anything else. For example, the government can constitutionally say, "No one under the age of 75 has protection against cruel and unusual punishment."
Isn't that weird?
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Restricting the display of violent video games for minors is no different than restricting the display of sexual things to minors.
Neither is right, both go against the 'constitution'. Both are bad.
1\5Athis is no worse. I'm sorry.
Wow, when I first read this I was amazed and outraged. I why I hadn't heard of this before. Then I realized that I had. The big protests around the WTO meeting in Seattle from Nov 30 to Dec 3. The CNN coverage is here. Suffice it to say this is not as cut and dry as the previous post makes it seem.
To summarize, some of the protestors on Nov 30 were violent. They crowded the meeting participants when they left and even pulled some of them into the crowd. It was a serious security problem. The crowd was forcibly dispersed using tear gas. Baton wielding riot police retrieved the delegates who had been pulled into the crowd by the militant protestors. On all subsequent days the police enacted a secure no-protest zone. Anyone attempting to enter it was tear gased. Most of the people were non-violent protestors, but the police couldn't take the chance on them turning militant and threatening the delegates safety again. They also warned the protestors to disperse before they gassed them. The protestors should have been expecting it by Dec 1 (the day mentioned in the post) because it had already happened the day before.
The problem is violent media doesn't really effect the victims, it effects those who commit the crime. Many serial killers talk about commiting their crimes "as if it was a game." Soldiers also talk about killing this way. They shoot someone and are amazed at how easy it was -- "just like training." The most common phrase that came up when Mark Bowden was interviewing soldiers involved in the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia for his book Blackhawk Down was "it felt like we were in a movie."
Still think the media has no effect on us? Granted much of the relationship is actually reversed. The "experts" look at the data and say "violent offenders listen to violent music so its the musics fault." Actually, violent people like violent materials so they are more likely to possess them. Quite a difference. Its time parents in this country start doing their jobs though.
So far I've gotten all my Karma from telling people they are wrong... :)
I don't know if this weak curtaining thing is mandated by Australian censorship -- sorry, classification -- laws or whether it is self imposed, but I suspect the former. There's no requirement for the game to be set apart from other games as mentioned in this particular law: the machines with the curtain rails poking out oddly from the body of the game stand right next to the ones with the exposed screens.
The article in question quotes someone as saying "the law's not going to do any good." Well, duh! It's political grandstanding, same as usual, and the only "good" it's meant to do is to increase the popularity of its proponents with the moral majority -- and it will work in its own small way. It's also yet another law in the ever increasing pile of the stuff that most Western democracies are miring themselves in. That fact, more than "restraint of free speech", is what I find offensive.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
Are you kidding? Has anyone been to the Arcade's recently, I know the big arcade near my house has at least a few games that basically boil down to tetris with a nake woman in the background as the prize to eash level. Those kinds of games should definately be set aside, and so should violent games if you believe in the rating systems used for Movies.
Joseph Elwell.
However, abusive parents and poverty have an even greater effect. Yet we let ANYONE have a kid.
Q.
Ah, much like anti-sodomy laws. I'll thank the government and the mob to keep their morals to themselves, thanks.
I believe this law doesn't go far enough! We need to protect our children from board games which teach them that enough money will solve all your problems.
Consider Monopoly, for instance. The object of the game is to get as much money as possible and bankrupt the other players. Children see that it is okay to financially destroy other people! And look at the high amounts of money used when playing it. Exposed to routine use of those incredibly high sums, children will see the high sums of money in the drug trade as no big deal!
It doesn't end at board games either! Games like jumping rope and basketball teach children that it is okay to exclude the handicapped. That intolerance is unacceptable! Ban those games and let the eggheads figure out how to make hopscotch ADA compliant!
Violence, as all rational people know, should receive scrutiny. I'm glad that the focus is on violence rather than sex. Now before you all get your panties in a bunch, this is not about video games. It's about gratuitious violence in videogames that desensitize children. If you think violence in videogames doesn't affect children, then you are living in a fantasy world. Media, of which videogames are one facet, have an incredible effect on children.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
I can think of a couple.
There's "Bust a Move", which wouldn't be very violent if you were to take out the graphic of tiny dinosaurs being squashed to death.
Ummm...
Then there's that "Pro Skater" game. It includes vandalism and skating, which are both crimes in most cities, but very little physical violence.
"Pole Position" isn't terribly violent, although emulating it would certainly be more dangerous than emulating "Mortal Kombat".
And, once in a while, there are trivia games, although why someone would pay to play a trivia game is somewhat beyond me.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
I am not sure why anybody would think that this is shocking. You have to be 17 (legally) to see and R rated movie. You need to be of age to look at "adult material" (ie porn). Why should a video game this is violent or sexual in nature be any different? I am not endorsing this kind of law. I do not think that I should have somebody tell me what my kid can and cannot see. However it is not a surprise to me either. J
What amazes me is that people think that by obscuring or forbidding access to such things, we will remove their influence upon those who we assume are impressionable (i.e. children). Children may not see rated R movies alone, but they do. Children may not view pornography but they do (and did long before the Internet ever existed).
Why is it that the solution to bad parenting isn't to improve parenting, but rather to make lots of hard-to-enforce laws?
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I fail to see how limiting access to stuff like this is such a big deal.
If the community deems that these things are offensive, and should have a restricted audience, what's the problem? You're still even allowed to take your kids to the arcade, if you don't mind them playing. It merely moves the decision to play that sort of thing into the parents court theoretically, rather than letting possibly uninformed, immature kids make the decision on their own.
I have yet to see any strong advocacy movement on slashdot to allow children of all ages to see XXX porno freely. It's about the same issue.
There is a fairly long standing acceptance of movies being rated PG, meaning that a parent needs to guide the kids to see it. It's about the same issue. It's not really a constitutional issue as far as I can see.
The Constitution protects the expression of speech. And the game companies are still allowed to express the game however they want. They are merely being limited to who their audiece is, to a group that possibly is more mature, and better able to deal with it appropriately.
Now, if you want to discuss the futility of a measure like this, I'm on board. I don't see this changing anything in terms of what kids play. Not significantly. I went to R movies long before I was 18, and I fully expect Indianapolis kids to skirt this with impunity. And I do feel for the arcade owners who have to deal with this stuff. It's a hassle for them, and they can't win either way. Either the customers will get pissed at them, or the law will be all over them.
It's a stupid law, I think. But far from a meaningful one.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
-rant-
Shoot the kids. Or send them off to some island until they're 18. Just enough with the "save the precious children" BS laws. Passing a law like this isn't going to do anymore for kids than passing a law dictating that all children will grow up happy and healthy. It's not like there aren't things that could be done to do all the "save the precious children" BS. I'm not saying that kids need violent video games - I'm all in favor of depriving the little brats of anything good and fun until they're 21. But really, couldn't we (for those of us who live in the US) get our legislators to do better things with our time and money? Like trim the fat out of the budget, get some of that social change action going, and make the world a better place? Bleah.
-end rant-
itachi, who thinks that idealism is a downer
The government is taking the role of the parent for today's youth. Being 19, I know what it's like to have gone to an arcade to play "violent" games. I was a Street Fighter II (and all various flavors) player and my parents knew it. They allowed me to play such games and trusted me to behave myself after playing such games. I find it hard to swallow that the parents of the city of Indianapolis are having that hard of a time controlling their own children. This not only puts a "taboo" effect on violent games as "the games to play" in the eyes of the little rebel wanna-bes. This also puts strain on the parents of the children. How many parents trust their children enough to go to the arcade alone in the mall for an hour, leaving the adult(s) to do as (s)he pleases? I know my parents did. This will get on the nerves of parents as well as make children and teens frustrated at the fact that they can't spend their own money the way THEY want to.
The 14th Amendment has been held to extend the same prohibition to the states.
Notwithstanding the whinging from some "conservatives" (the bogus types who are skeptical of government except when it does something they like, as opposed to the genuine article who maintain this skepticism consistently), it is clear that this is the original intent of the 14th Amendment's writers.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
They will also be required to only allow persons 18 and over to play them. I cannot imagine how this is constitutional." Um how is this un-constitutional? Kids in the USA do not have constitutional rights. If they could, they would have the right to vote. They do have basic human rights however. And playing viloent or objectional games is not a right by any means.
-Sid
Ok, let's see. Bad video games have to be 10 feet from the good ones, behind a black (we would assume) curtain, and (we would assume again) an employee of the arcade would have to have some way to make sure no one sneaks behind the curtain.
Walk into an arcade (or better yet, local pizza joint), take 10 steps from any game, and imagine where the curtain would be. Then imagine what would need to be done to make sure an employee had the opportunity, at all times, to check ID before allowing someone inside the curtains.
Now, those games that are on the "bad" list are still legal, and you can still get a license for them. But you have to spend extra money to rearrange your arcade, put up curtains, possibly have another person on staff just to watch those machines...which won't make as much money if no one knows they're there, because they can't see them...
Yeah, those machines are still legal. But it quickly becomes so uneconomical to have them, that they disappear.
Of course, the Mayor's office didn't ban them. This is the land of the free, remember?
They just "restricted" them.
That's why this is something to worry about.
Restrictions that become so common that they are
accepted get worse.
Karma only matters to me now and zen.
Tetris is a dangerous product and as such, I believe it should be kept away from the children!
The danger from computers is not that they will eventually get as smart as men, but we will meanwhile agree to meet them
We might as well combine all the evils together:
:)"
"Yeah, give me a fifth of Wild Turkey, a copy of Debbie does Dallas, a box of condoms, and... what the hell... throw in that copy of Quake III. To go please...
But seriously, this is just another attempt to avoid having to actually talk to your kids about something other than their day at school. Sickening....
Do you have Linux and a DotPal? Click here now!
Or is British Columbia the only place in North America being overrun by retarded reality-based Japanese videogames?
Wah!
Feh. This merely increases the glamour/attraction of these games for the kiddiez. Just like sneaking into R movies, forging ID's for bars, etc. we now introduce yet another opportunity for kids to see how ridiculous age limits laws are & thus reduce their respect for all of society's laws. If only our society had a sane, gradual ramp up of introducing possibly harmful ideas/substances/tools to children instead of the current "You're a child - no no no" vs. "You're 16/18/21 - do what you want" gate functions (cars, guns & booze respectively; sometimes I think we have the order exactly wrong there)....
I mean, it's not like anyone would be hippocritical enough to claim that American Football isn't violent.
Oh wait, it's US custom to shove football down the throats of all males. Nevermind.
see the comic
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Why? Because the constitution only applies to citizens. To be a citizen, you need to be 18 or older. Sad, but true. And so the "moral majority" decided that in the best interests of the children, they should shield them from all the nasty things like.. the real world.
Want to make a difference? Stand up for your kid, parents.
> I'm sure ACLU lawyers are cleaning their guns as we speak
Errr...
If a company like Blockbuster wants to make it its policy to prevent those under 18 from renting rated-R movies, that's their decision. If the GOVERNMENT wants to make Blockbuster prevent people under 18 from renting rated-R movies, then it has become everyone's problem.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Everybody is going to bitch about this. It's all talk. If you want to make a change instead of just spouting hot air WRITE Mayor Bart Peterson and criticize him for the step backwards he has taken.
k .htm
Bitching on Slashdot doesn't make anything happen.
http://www1.ci.indianapolis.in.us/mayor/feedbac
Mayor Bart Peterson
2501 City-County Building
200 East Washington Street
Indianapolis, Indiana 46204
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Wouldn't I like to know? ;) I think there's a rogue moderator out there who has it in for me... show your face if you dare!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
I live in Indy. Although I'm 23, this really sucks. What is a recall petition, and where should I start to put one together? Any info you've got would be great.
Thanks!
Violent Media is Good for Kids
Children will feel rage. Even the sweetest and most civilized of them, even those whose parents read the better class of literary magazines, will feel rage. The world is uncontrollable and incomprehensible; mastering it is a terrifying, enraging task. [....] Through immersion in imaginary combat and identification with a violent protagonist, children engage the rage they've stifled, come to fear it less, and become more capable of utilizing it against life's challenges.
food for thought...
"The importance of it is that it's an effort to begin to attack the culture of violence that I believe surrounds our young people these days virtually from the day they're born," the mayor said.
So I take it this guy is planning on going after TV next? All those cop shows and what not? Heck, he should watch some old cartoons. Maybe he'll go after our government and the "culture of violence" they practice that helps keep gas prices low.
Sorry, but I just can't help but laugh at people who say things like "We must attack the culture of violence." Shouldn't you be making peace with it?
This attitude (Which also comes into play with the drug war, Kill the Drugs, liquor and cigarettes) of trying to hide the bad things and act like they are not there, only adds to the "cool" factor of accessing them. The motivation for a teenager can be quite simple. q:"Why'd you do it?" a:"You told me not too." and attitudes like this play directly into it. These types of laws also help to marginalize certain individuals, and in this case, it is those individuals that perhaps shouldn't be marginalized any more than they already are.
--
+&x
So, is this another example of society trampling all over the feelings of geeks? Do you suppose that everything that geeks love to do will be deemed "unsafe for children?" Will geneticists develop a laboratory test to determine if a baby will grow up to be a geek? All this and more, in a Jon Katz article coming soon to a browser near you!
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Being born outside of America and only having been here for a few years, the amount of violence in American entertainment from music and movies to video games and television has left me stunned.
,3 , 4 , 5 , 6 and 7 is their constitiutional right. Now I do not claim that violence would not exist without violent games nor that video games cause violence but even a blind person can tell that we (in America) are extremely disensitized to violence. Nowhere else in the world is so much violence consumed by the public nor is it as easily accessible to minors as in America.
In a country were the average youth (especially minorities) is disenfranchised, ignored by their parents and has easy access to mind altering substances it is in my opinion a deadly combination to combine that with the current cocktail mix of easy access to firearms and constant daily diet of violence in all forms that children get.
That Americans are desensitized to violence is no longer news, but it amazes me when someone claims that a diet of gratuitious violence and entertainment that consists of 1, 2
In my opinion until there is a movement to curtail the excessive amount of firepower in the community then moves like this are a stop gap measure on the journey to ridding our communities of violence. Yes, I know violence goes beyond violent video games and is more likely due to other factors (abuse at home, poverty, feelings of persecution, resentment) but the fact is that violent video games are not blameless. But two wrongs do not make a right (allow violent video games to minors since they have access to other violence), after all, the Columbine kids didn't play long games of Pokemon before going on their killing spree.
PS; If you've ever lived in a neighborhood were you go to sleep hearing gunshots and wakeup to sirens you'll know where I'm coming from. Lakewood, Atlanta, GA.
Now, from what I understand, the governments are trying to "protect" us by separating us from violent games. However, they don't seem to have a problem with TV, where people get killed all the time, or (even worse), cartoons where characters "should" get killed (eg fall off cliffs, get shot in the head, etc) walk away without a scratch - or at worst a cast that stays on 'til the next scene.
Let's not forget the evening news. For example, school shootings. When there's a school shooting, every station covers it. Not just for a news clip, though. We have to see every detail - where the shooter stood, how he did it, etc. A few days later, there's another one.
If it wasn't for the sensationalism that the media puts on these things, there wouldn't be such a large problem. If you want to "control" everything, start with North America's babysitter - the TV.
Or, an even better way. Parents should supervise their children. Period. If the parents don't like what the child is watching, change it. If the parents don't like what the kid's playing, uninstall it.
Oh, I forgot...that would require parents to have some involvement in their childrens' lives. As a person who works with children, I know how often that happens.
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
I thought of that shortly after posting. No, really, I did.
Still, for every constitutionally-protected right we have, there are many more that are not granted any protection at all. And age minorities are a very easy target since everyone makes arguments like "Oh yeah, I went through that. You'll get over it when you turn x years old."
I think it's just disturbing that the government could, for example, prohibit fishing to people under 25, or ownership of a car to people under 30, and they'd be well within their constitutional boundaries. I'm not even sure anyone would fight it too hard, since those under 30 rarely have political leverage, or even vote.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
It's placing ratings on all games, similar to the ones used to rate movies.
c
If the laws are passed, you will need to show ID to rent or buy games with restricted ratings.
Now, honestly, isn't this redundant? The video games industry already has a rating scheme in place, the ESRB, and other such rating systems for PC games, etc. Why do we (or at least BC) need another rating system? Why not just enforce the existing one?
For more information, check out http://news.exci te.com/news/r/000717/16/tech-leisure-videogames-d
J
Umm. How are these games aimed at YOUNG MALES specifically? Also, these games are rated. Both Xatrix's "Kingpin" and Raven's "Soldier of Fortune" are rated by the ESRB.
Young male, in the game industry sense, is up to 25.
Democrats: Indiana is going to hell because of all the fucking conservatives
Republicans: Indiana is going to hell because of all the fucking liberals
Me: Indiana is going to hell because of you two!
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Yes, I do understand the purpose of government. I also understand that once most laws are passed, they are never repealed. And the longer they are on the books, the more open they are to interpretation. What you get is a long term "solution" to a short term problem. It called a knee-jerk reaction, for lack of a better term.
The government is not in charge of speech, or expression. They are not even in charge of "pretty", though many city governments have begun to think they are.
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
This is great, and will allow untold freedoms just like the V-chip did!
Now, in all places with similar laws in place we can have XXX games with mega-violence in the partitioned "adult" sections, right? Right?
That's not what they had in mind? Oh. Perhaps there is some other agenda involved, then.
Mojotoad
Agreed! As my government teacher in high school was fond of pointing out, in most ways, the Constitution does not protect minors in the same way that it protects adults. Over the years, the set of people to whom which Constitutional rights have been extended has grown, but still, not everyone is protected equally. To wit, in the first years of the Constitution, only white male landowners that were 21 years old or older could vote, for instance. Over the years, Constitutional protection of freedoms has been extended to women, people of all races, and people 18 and over, but really, the Constitution protects adults and not minors.
In any case, I don't see how the Constitution factors into this, even if minors vs. adults are not involved. At most, this is a "freedom of expression" issue, but expression hasn't been completely muted here, it's just been moved to the back room.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
There should not be an age requirement on anything, but rather a maturity requirement. In a perfect society, the society would judge the individual's maturity level, sort of like the coming of age in indian tribes. After you had passed certain tests you were a man and a full member of the tribe.
-- Ad Majoram Dei Gloriam
This will teach our children that when someone is shot, they don't bleed or cry in pain, they vanish painlessly. This can only have VERY BAD effects on kids.
This law hurts children.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
This is simply yet another example of unjust and unjustified age discrimination.
I doubt that anyone actually believes it would hurt someone under 18 to play these games. But it is an effective way to put them in their place and show them who is boss.
Human beings seem to have this psychological need to subjugate others. Any excuse to do so is latched onto and played for all it is worth. Things like race, sex, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, and of course age, these are all used as justifications for the mistreatment of others, especially the systematic mistreatment of them as a group.
But what sets age discrimination apart in my mind and makes it doubly reprehsensible is that its victims become it perpetrators. The things that older people do to younger ones today are the same things which were done to them when they were younger.
There also seems to be a double standard for older people and younger people. When an older person flips out and shoots a bunch of people, his actions aren't blamed on what he watches on TV or what kind of music he likes. He himself is held accountable for his actions. At most he is declared insane. But should some teenager do the same thing then any number of supposed causes are fingered from the clothes he wears to the fact that he knows how to use the internet.
Make sense to you? It doesn't to me. These kinds of things didn't make sense to me when I was a teenager and they sure as hell don't make sense to me now at 27.
Kids aren't stupid and their psyche's aren't so fragile that we need to protect them from much of anything. But the myth which says they are "impressionable" and so forth gets perpetuated because its an effective excuse to step on them and punish them for being young.
Sounds like a simple case of jealousy to me.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
This is no different than keeping pornography away from children. Ultimately, not everything that is good for adults is good for children. At the very least, parents should be able to choose what their children are exposed to.
As video games grow as a medium, don't be surprised when it begins to recieve the same kinds of scrutiny as other mediums: movies, magazines and television.
This gets into the hairy area as to what is acceptable for kids and what isn't. But I don't think an eight year old should be able to buy a copy of Hustler or go see Pulp Fiction unsupervised. The fact that some games may be inappropriate for children is a sign that the medium is progressing past being just for kids.
But to tell you the truth, I suspect the "adult" video games are some of the most juvenile in the arcade. Getting your jollies from buckets of blood is not the most sophisticated type of gaming, IMHO.
HipNerd
Hipnerd
First, for my original posting, c/Albania/Afghanistan/
... because what we get is going to depend a lot on what we do with our children.
Second, your response:
I say that the brain habituates to violence, just as it habituates to anything else; and that children's minds are particularly pliable, such that viewing violence will affect their social skills as adults. Read on:
Games are *NOT* just games to children.
When you play "peek-a-boo" with a baby, it's not a game. When you disappear from view, *you do not exist* for the baby. Your repeated coming back teaches the child that out of sight is not out of reality.
When kids play dress-up and house, it's not a game. They are learning about real life, based on the models they experience at their home, others' homes, stories and television. Their play teaches them to become adults.
Children's play wires their brains for adulthood: what they play is, in large part, what they become.
The brain takes a long time to fully develop, if it ever does. Take morality, for instance: there are moral conundrums (is it wrong to steal a drug that will save your dying wife, when you can't afford to buy it?) that children will *reliably* respond to in different ways at different ages.
It's not until *well* into the teenage years that children will provide the same response that most adults provide.
The brain is still struggling even into the late teenage years, trying to develop a moral structure that will allow the child to become a useful and surviving adult.
What is also true is that our brains learn to accept what we frequently experience. It's part of surviving: if we were startled by the sunrise every morning, it'd really make for a long day.
Viewing realistic violence *undoubtedly* builds a tolerance for viewing violence. A lot of people are really squeamish when viewing SoF the first time. Play it for a week, and it just sort of becomes background noise: the violence is acceptable.
Just to make sure you're following me here, let's review:
1) The brain doesn't just automatically know reality from fantasy. (peek-a-boo)
2) Games aren't just play for children: it's how they learn to become adults (playhouse, clubs, teams).
3) The brain is still developing well into teenage years (morality response test).
4) The brain becomes used to what it frequently experiences.
Can you connect the dots now? Can you see how repeated depictions of realistic violence becomes seen as 'normal' by the brain, with the inevitable consequence that, for children, it becomes a model for adult behaviour, seen as acceptable?
Games are *NOT* just games, when it's children playing. Up to a certain brain maturity level; children *can not* distinguish the fantasy from reality (and that age is certainly into the mid-to-high single digits); children *learn* to accept violence as normal, acceptable behaviour; and children *learn* to become adults by what they experience.
And once again, it comes down to this final point:
What kind of society do we want to live in fifteen years from now
Feed them a steady stream of realistic violence, and you can *bet your life* that the daily carnage we see spewed on the newscasts will be getting a whole lot worse.
Myself, I'd prefer to see children taught that human lives are sacrosanct: that there is no greater wrong than to take someone's life without their permission.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Librarians have taken the position of unrestricted, unfiltered access to the web, even for children. If children under 18 found violent games on the web and played them on library computers, could Indianapolis libraries be in violation of this ordinance, or does this only apply to businesses? If the latter, how can the city justify penalizing private companies for what is allowed in public buildings? If the former, will librarians denounce this ordinance as 'censorship'? Interesting questions.
...that they're only going to breed a new wave of youth with pent up aggressions and such. I play all sorts of violent video games, and I maintain high honors in a private Catholic high school. Sometimes, a good round of Unreal Tournament the night before is the only thing that keeps me from going insane in that long, dull mass. And now I would like to relate all this to slaughtering cattle, if I may...
Fight crime, shoot back.
As for violent video games, to say that a game would cause a child to be any more violent than before is rather rediculous. A child who is so taken by any game to follow a game to any harmful extent is mentally unbalanced anyway. Even children with the most imaginative imaginations know the difference between what you can do in reality and games. How often do you see children jumping out windows because an Angel could fly in a movie?
The 2nd worst part is that this Mayor probably did little to squat research into the actual psychology of the subject, and is making the law to placate a group of lobbyists, or voters. If he wrote a 10 page essay, citing all the evidence he had found reguarding the topic, and carefully examining the views presented, both sides, then I might accept a law like this.
The worst part is, as usual, the only people this law affects is people who have absolutely 0 say in the making of the law. What was that about Taxation without Representation? Should Censorship without Representation somehow be better because it reflects extremist Puritan ideals that have affected our country? Anyone who has been out of this country, i.e. Europe, knows that it isn't simply religion or morals that is a reason for this. Dern the Puritans. Dern the Censorship.
Give me 1 good reason why *anything* should be censored, and I'll give you 10 reasons why not.
- Wedg the Disgruntled
Jake
Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
And chew on this, also:
In Vancouver, BC, three sets of teenagers in seperate high-end sports cars were racing down one of roads at speeds in excess of 200KMH late at night. One struck a pedestrian in a crosswalk, throwing the body several hundred feet.
They snuffed someone's life because their fantasy ("it's okay to race our cars in the city") didn't jive with reality.
They fled the scene, because their fantasy ("we don't have to take responsibility for our actions") didn't jive with reality.
Will "Grand Theft Auto" make children into irresponsible murdering teens like the pack that was racing in Vancouver?
Hell, no. It won't *MAKE* them do these things.
But the question you want to ask yourself is will it make it easier for their brain to *allow* them to behave in such a manner? Will their brain disregard the real risks (the risk of hitting someone because you're moving too fast to see them) because it has been taught by the realistic violence of the game?
Every day, someone in the country is shot to death, deliberately, by a stranger who "made a mistake."
Will playing "SoF" *make* our children want to kill other people? Hell, no, of course not.
But the question you want to ask yourself is: will the realistic violence teach their brain accept that shooting people carries no real consequences? Will repeated depictions of realistic violence teach the brain that violence is acceptable? That it solves problems?
Quite simply, the consequences of our decisions today are going to smack us in the face fifteen years from now. It's going to be a shocking wake-up call... but it's going to be too damn late to do anything about it.
Let's make the right decisions, right now.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I remembered the day when I reached 18.
It was amazing. In a sudden flash of enlightment, it was clear to me what is wrong and what is right. The Moral Code materialized in front of me, and a booming voice read out the wonderful ethics engraved upon it.
I knew....I KNEW......what is GOOD for me and what is BAD for me. I knew GOODNESS and I knew EVIL.
It was the most soul-blasting, mind-blowing, gut-wrenching experience of my life, when I turned 18.
(Now, I talked to JC and tried my very best to ask my young friends to WAIT....WAIT UNTIL YOU ARE 18!)
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
Ahhh, hate is a good word. You see, America, which is almost the youngest country on planet Earth in terms of government and social policy, is also the most ass-backwards in terms of social policy. You believe that it's the laws responsibility to protect and educate your children so that you aren't faced with the awful burden of having them ask too many questions that your Roman Catholic upbringing made you unprepared to answer with any serious reply (explain to your child "God says it's Bad! Don't do it!" Hahahahah).
/Azure Khan/
The point is, if Americans (and I am an American), weren't so totally backward in every respect socially, to the point where we are the rednecks of the free world, then we wouldn't HAVE to protect our children from seeing violence and sex, because they would UNDERSTAND it. They would respect it.
Worthless cattle.
--- I'm going sane in a crazy world.
IANAL, however there is plenty of basis for barrier restrictions. Minors can be restricted from buying alcohol, going to "R" rated movies, buying guns, etc. We hold the suppliers responsible when parents make a reasonable effort, expecting them to do the same.
We have been telling parents to stop complaining about the environment concerning music, movies, video games, etc. for a long time. They are told to "PAY ATTENTION" you are "RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR CHILDREN".
They are now setting the same expectation across all adult activities. If we are watching our children do not drink, we feel the bar up the street has an obligation not to solicit there business. If this is an "adult" movie, or video game, or activity we do not want them providing it to children either.
This is just common sense, the laws get made because a few people fail to use any. It is not radical or exteme or new.
As everybody knows, when you try to ban something, people get more interested in it and do it even more... This is especially true for teenagers... While it might have been merely fun to play violent games at arcades before, now it's even more exciting because you're doing something you're not suppossed to.... And this law seems pretty hard to enforce.. I doubt that police officers are going to be actively patrolling arcades.... While this does pose a threat to constitutional rights (in theory) I don't think it will really affect most teenagers who want to play violent games.... $.02 11oh8.
If only they had this policy when I was a child. Instead I was allowed to play fighting games all I wanted. As a result I ran away from home and joined a cross dimensional martial arts tournament run by an evil wizard. I was forced to fight and decapitate burly marines and thong clad women in order to protect earth from invasion. In the end I had both legs broken by a large speedo wearing Russian dude. The cops found me in the hospital and sent me back to my parents. I am sadder, wiser and crippled and I wish that I had never been allowed to play video games a such a young age.
This law is needed.
--Shoeboy
I love violent video games. I grew up playing Street Fighter (in all it's incarnations), Final Fantasy, Doom, etc. Although I tend to dislike violence in games for the sake of violence, if it's a good game, *and* it's violent? Hell, I'm interested...
Now, that would mean that after uppercutting, shooting, stabbing, slicing, and kicking digital people my whole life, that I'd be desensitized to violence, right?
Wrong. On December 1st, 1999 in downtown Seattle, I was engaged in a peaceful march with locked-out steelworkers. As we marched, we chanted "Assembly Is A Right!" with peace signs in the air, and moved towards the "no protest zone". About two blocks outside of the designated zone, we found ourselves trapped by urban control vehicles and black-clad riot police. And then the tear gas came.
Oh, but this wasn't regular tear gas. They had run out of that stuff, this was military grade tear gas. It didn't make you cry. It fucked you up. Potentially, it could have killed somebody.
I did my best to evade the gas, running down alleys, kicking canisters back at the police. My adrenaline was pumping, so I wasn't doing much thinking, until I saw this guy sitting on the sidewalk...
He was around 55 to 60 years old, and he looked anything like a typical protestor. He looked homeless. He was sitting, slumped against a parking meter, almost completely comatose. He was spitting up a kind of mucous that definitely looked unnatural. People were trying to wash his eyes out with water, and see what was wrong with him. He either was having a major allergic reaction, or he had gotten a full-on dose of military grade (CN gas, I believe) tear gas.
I turned around, and saw a group of people running past me. Two more urban control vehicles had moved up to us, and I heard three or four loud bangs as more tear gas was being shot at us...
A canister fell right at my feet, and I ran down an alley faster than I ever have before. On the other side were people being pushed towards Pike's Market by riot police. Among them was a woman with a baby in a stroller, desparately asking a private security guard where she could go to be safe...
I started crying. Sobbing, really, like a little kid. The kind of uncontrollable sob you remember from when you were six, where even talking isn't an option. I don't know how long I was crying and wandering in and out of the police riot (as best I could), but eventually this young woman (and I wish I remembered her name) came over and calmed me down. We took some time to help people who were injured, but eventually decided it was time to find a way out of there.
We walked through Pike's Market in order to escape, and on the way out, I saw a woman with her hands out, sitting on the curb, bleeding from the mouth, her chin burnt from what I can only assume was a tear gas canister that had hit her directly in the face. The only thing I could do to stop myself from crying was to repeatedly hit a stop sign with my bare fist...
I grew up watching violent television, movies, playing violent video games. And when I was attacked with chemicals, when I saw people being beaten and terrorized, I couldn't take it. When I was finally confronted with real violence, Mortal Kombat didn't mean jack shit.
Michael Chisari
mchisari@usa.net
This is a laughably simplistic legislative "band-aid solution" for a much deeper problem -- as if throwing up artificial barriers will rid the adolescent mind of all vestiges of promiscuity and anger.
To the child, Curtains and Walls only further interest in the prohibited.
When I was a smaller Vergil, I was fascinated by what lay beyond curtains/ walls, and schemed endlessly to circumvent such barriers. To me, the object locked away was incidental to the gratification I received by overcoming the obstacles containing it.
I can imagine my younger self entering a video arcade and staring, entranced, at the bells and whistles bleeping and blinking from behind the black curtain.
Even more interesting is this proposal's attempted segregation of video games according to violence. What 13-year old would want to squander a quarter on a non-violent arcade game, anyhow?
Vergil
Insects and Grafitti Photos
I cannot imagine how this is constitutional.
Oh, get off it.
<rant>
I don't know what the deal is these days, with Slashdotters and seemingly everyone else, but it seems like if someone doesn't get to do what he wants when he wants with no consequences or restrictions at all, this person starts to scream about the United States Constitution, and all the rights it gives him.
How about the right of the general public to see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear? That right (which, as far as I'm concerned, should be given equal footing with freedom of speech) is looked down upon as oppressive and shallow-minded. Hello?
What if somebody wanted to open a p0rn shop near a very religious suburban area, and the general consensus is that the people don't want it there? Do those citizens have a right to control what goes on around them? Should they be able to kick that (I'm sure) well-meaning business owner off, and get him away from their community? I hope so.
The problem is that people have lost touch with the central idea of government - that it's supposed to be an extension of the will of the people. (I don't know why we have to polarize ourselves against the government all the time.) If the people in general decide that they don't want their kids doing something, shouldn't they be able to enforce it?
The consequence of living in a governed society is that you have restrictions placed upon some of your actions to keep you from infringing upon other people's rights. This is the crux of the idea we call censorship. If you don't like it, find a desert island and live in your own little happy anarchy.
</rant>
Be nice to your friends. If it weren't for them, you'd be a complete stranger.
As much as I hate to admit this, some companies in the game industry have seemingly been working toward making regulations like this occur. Some notables in this regard include Xatrix (Kingpin), Raven (Soldier of Fortune), and Virgin (Thrill Kill, which was cancelled). With all of the anti-game press swirling about, releasing games that use *extreme* violence as entertainment for younger males is completely irresponsible. Note that I'm not referring to Quake-style frags here, but games that go to great lengths to make horrible, realistic deaths a reward for the player. Did the developers really expect these games to go unnoticed in the current video game crackdown? It's like an artist, protesting the objection to public funding of weird fetish art, taking a crap on the steps of the white house and claiming to be artistically inspirred.
Yes, freedom of speech, blah, blah, blah, but repeatedly trying to push your luck is just plain stupid. I don't know if the developers of the aforementioned games were trying to profit from controversy, or if it was just an example of the juvenile attitude that the game biz is getting to be known for, but it showed poor judgement.
The problem with this law and most other policies that attempt to shield children from violence and sexual content is that it uses age (and usually 17 or 18) as the meter stick for determining maturity. Even from a common sense standpoint, it is clear that this is a poor way to go about things. I know that there are plenty of 12 year olds who can deal with violence and sexuality maturely and plenty of 30 year olds who cannot. While I will agree that very young children 10 or so are more susceptible to the influence of pop culture and the portrayal of violence in it, the differences between a seventeen and eighteen year old are based not on age but on background, parenting, education, and other factors. What legislation like this does is actually more harmful to young people because it stereotypes young people, teenagers in particular as irresponsible and immature. More importantly, however is that it absolves children and teenagers from having to deal with the ills of our society maturely and responsibly. Legislation like this lulls parents and society into a false sense of security. The key to responsible children is to teach them accountability for their actions and to teach them to understand the repercussions of their actions and the real world implications of violence and sexual impropriety, not to futily attempt to shield them from the aforementioned evils. We can never control what children are exposed to, we can only temper their response.
Movies are restricted by age, porn is restricted by age, tobacco is restricted by age, alcohol is restricted by age. As the video game generation grows up, some video games are going to fall into the catagory of "adult". What has been done here is not illogical, but perhaps a bit extreme (and expensive), considering most people who frequent arcades (IMO) are under 18. It is really too bad the many americans think that video games are the problem with our society.
-- Moondog