Slashdot Mirror
Indianapolis Bans Violent Video Games
Dark Nexus writes "This article on MSNBC talks about how a City law restricting access to graphically violent or sexually explicit video games to those who are at least 18 or accompanied by a parent or guardian has been upheld by a federal judge." A ban on violent video games, more or less. It's important to note that this was just a preliminary injunction hearing; video game distributors filed suit to stop the law and the judge has refused to block enforcement of the law while the suit progresses. In theory at least, they could still win the suit. (In reality, the judge has already decided, of course.) If you want a dose of rhetoric to equal or exceed the DeCSS case, read the judge's opinion. Are video games speech? Is violence a new category of speech which receives no constitutional protections?
About time. You mean nine year olds can no longer run out, get Half-life, start fragging, and then get the idea to frag their friends?
Oh, I know, I'm an idiot, no nine year old gets the idea to do something irl that they see on tv or on the monitor. No, we never had any nine year olds kicking and punching each other because of the power rangers.
Ya know what? If you can deal with violence, just talk to your parents. Simple as that, no?
Hell, it'll probably cut down on llamas. Now if we could only get them to restrict violent and exually explicit networked games to those who don't use AOL, unless they have consent of a person with a regular net account...
Guys & Gals-- This law is no more a 'ban' on violent video games than a movie theater's policy on upholding the MPAA ratings system is a 'ban' of violent movies. We all know children are impressionable, and while the majority of Slashdot readers were articulate children who were mentally and emotionally 18 long before their bodies caught up, this law will help parents. Currently, the default is that a kid who can get a minimum wage job can save up his pennies and buy whatever he wants, including violent video games. What he can't do is walk into a theatre unattended with a ticket for an R-rated movie. The ticket takers and the ticket sellers both card. As for video games, if you're an intelligent kid, a really brilliant blossoming genius, and you have a burning need to play a violent gory game, talk to your parents. They'll buy it for you. If they won't... oh, gosh--the law has forced you to rely on parental supervision. The law doesn't limit your rights, because, sadly, minors don't have rights. In the case of exposure to violent content, well--it should be up to the parents, and now it is. I don't see the problem. --Jurph
Thats got to be the stupidest law ever. I hate how everything is age regulated. Skydiving.. driving.. and now video games.. they better damn well reverse that law. If violent gamess were actually "murder simulaters" as theyve been called I wouldn't have major suckage problems at paint ball, because I've been playing doom2 since I was 9 or so on old 486 and very heavy quake2 playing. I could run around and send a rail gun slug through anything, but boy does my aim suck with a paintball gun.
This will have the effect of a ban, because rather then try to police who goes in and out of the arcade, most arcades will just get rid of "violent" games. Considering the state of arcades right now, looks like all that will be left are racing and skiing games.
This thing might be spreading. There have been discussion in the last few months on a similar bill in the St. Louis County, Missouri area. A Post Dispatch (the local newspaper) article said this about the law:D /1232542731D4B56186256977002F30FC.
"Under Wagener's bill, videos with "graphic violence or strong sexual content" could not be sold or rented to people under 17 without parental consent. Those with mild violence or mild sexual content could not be sold or rented to children under 13 without parental consent."
The "videos" statement is a mistake and should be "video games". There is some more information on the topic at http://www.postnet.com/postnet/stories.nsf/ByDocI
My first slashdot comment. I felt compelled to post based on both the error in the story itself (18 year old restriction != "ban"), as well as Sir_Winston's understandable, but off the mark reply. I am currently a reasonably successful engineer, and while going through HS and college I spent 5 years working for a local (non-chain) arcade.
For starters, it was a massive editorial mistake to headline this article as a "ban" when it was obviously not. Otherwise, one could say that violent and sexual movies have been "banned" since as far back as I am able to remember.
One must actually give some credit IMHO to these folks for targetting violence, and not sexuality. One of my biggest peeves is the hypocrisy of an american culture that deems television programs depicting the slaughter of arbitrary numbers of people is safer for children, than the vision of a woman taking her top off.
But I digress- It is merely unwritten rules and unstated politics that has prevented us from seeing video games which almost everyone would consider bad for children to see (think violent racist rape, with the nazi rapists considered as the heros of the plot for a good example). Due to the nature of american culture, in which we give our children a fair amount of FREEDOM by allowing them to go into public places (malls, arcades, movies, etc...), it is no wonder that a system is in place to prevent them from seeing movies (and now video games) involving heroistic nazi rapists.
The fact of the matter is that I would die for the right to freedom of expression, including depicting heroistic nazi rapists. Without "bans" such as this new one, or the movie rating system, the political powers that be that truly do want to
prevent free speech, would have a MUCH EASIER JOB OF DOING AWAY WITH THE FIRST AMMENDMENT. The only other alternative that I would see in a world without R ratings or "bans", is a world in which most children would be kept locked up within their homes, finding upon reaching adulthood that they were totally unprepared to deal with the freedoms of adulthood. In america we have a fairly decent system of easing children into the freedoms of adulthood.
There is fundamentally _nothing_ different between this "ban" and the "R" ratings of movies. If you want to fight your fight, start at the beginning, don't bitch about a special case of old rules being imposed on new medias.
-dmc
BTW I can attest to the fact that arcades are dying without the help of such "bans". The fact of the matter is that the industry fucked themselves by trying to screw the arcade operators. What happened was that the market divided itself starting with games such as SF2 (boy those were the days...). Games such as that could be profitable, even at twice their price (thats the price of the machine). The industry then decided to double the price on all games, only to find out that by doing so, arcades were no longer profitable, and that without the arcade environment as a whole, even those killer games could not be profitable. Thats just one off the cuff factor. Another significant factor is that 10 years ago, the high price of the arcade machine allowed for truly ground-breaking technology and custom hardware. Now an arcade machine that can outperform a $300 console is hard to find. The arcade needs (and I hope will) transform into a business model closer to that of the movie theatres. I.e. you will have an arcade 40-plex, with 40 "playing areas" which are nothing but the top-of-the-line consoles playing "premier release" video games which will not be released to the home market for another 3 - 6 months. This model is promising IMO as a path to better Q&A. For instance, instead of releasing games like Q3 and UT (and others I'm sure) which need to be patched half a dozen times within the first 3 months after release, the game developers can use the limited arcade release for the final Q&A polish.
I love the arcade, and the first ammendment, but sir winston you were off the mark (perhaps you are under 18 is my guess?), and "ban" is a word with a certain definition that doesn't apply to the law in question.
peace out all...
-dmc
Whose values? Why, like you said.. the values of the majority of the land owning taxpayers in the city. The values of the VOTERS in the city especially. If the mayor and the city council put into place a ban on homosexual relationships in San Francisco for instance, they'd probably be ousted come the next election. If you disagree with the community values implemented by your local government, you need to exercise your vote. If the majority of people agree with you then the people that put the values into place will be gone and they can be changed along with the laws. If not, then you are SOL and simply need to deal with it. That, or move to a more liberal town like San Francisco where you can do whatever you want and no one cares. ;-)
That's a good observation. Kids shouldn't be going to arcades and throwing their money away on blatantly violent coin-operated games. There's no reason that shit should be allowed in public. If their parents want to buy them a violent console or computer game then so be it. Why is this even an issue? Children don't have any rights that their parents don't give them.
You wrote "This law still gives the parents the right to raise their child[ren] as they see fit." As far as I know, parents currently have the right to raise their kids as they see fit. And those parents that are interested in monitoring their children's use of video games are already doing so. I suppose you might make the argument that this gives law gives parents an easy way to make sure their kids aren't buying games that they might not approve. However, perhaps a labeling system that requires 'parental advisory' on the packaging and game box gives the parent's the same abilities without restricting kids rights, and when we get down to it, this restriction or censoring is probably worse than any violence the games might portray. This response is not intentionally argumenative.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
The declaration of independence /does/ give us the right, as much as our founding fathers had, to incite rebellion against the government. In fact, it is our duty to do so if the Government is not meeting the needs of the people. We haven't reached that point yet, as prudence dictates, and I hope that we never do. But, I will not allow the government to take away what I consider my basic rights.
One key thing to remember is that Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness does not include the right to not be offended by anything. I think that's one of the greatest problems, is that people think that they have the right to never be offended by anything they hear or see. They're wrong.
-30-
However, there is a difference between a game, or television show, or movie, or (ad infinitum) AND reality. Anybody who cannot handle the fact that taking a head shot in Team Fortress and splattering somebody's brains on the wall isn't real should not be part of society as a whole.
To put it as R. Heinlein did, "Censorship is like forcing grown men to live on skim milk because the baby can't handle steak." (The Man Who Sold the Moon).
-30-
hey im all for free speech and rights... but uh come on.. they are just getting seriously strict on something that should happen anyway... blocking access to violent material to those who are deemed unaffected by it. Namely adults. You could argue all day long that if you are 16 it doesn't affect you. Ok thats great but it will other 16 year olds. Our country has said that anyone under 21 shouldn't drink. Would slashdot get in an uproar if some lawyers trying to challenge that failed? There is a line on free speech and what is decent and moral. I am not a religious bible thumper either. God can bite me. But I think we all need to refrain from becoming rabid at everyone trying to enforce a little bit of law.
Games say mature on them.. 17+ so the law just says "yeah you aren't sposed to sell it to younger people... and we back this rating". Maybe them saying 18 in this case is kinda dumb since the rating says 17 i think. Anyway there is a right and wrong. And we need to fight against the wrongs and let the rights happen.
"well, I ain't got that, but I sure got some powerful pills!"
It has been shown that children are more vulnerable to these things than adults
"It has been shown...." Have you seen the study? Or is it more like second or third-hand evidence? As "obvious" as this conclusion may be, I won't believe it until I see something more concrete than "It has been shown."
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Many of the founding fathers were Diests, with Ben Franklin being the most vocal about it. They believed that god created the universe, established a set of natural laws (as in Newtonian mechanics, not rules of morality), and then stepped out of the picture completely.
Thanks for the info. The "poor peasants" comment was a poorly thought out jab at the elitist notion that the people shouldn't be trusted with guns.
Do you have anywhere online I could read more about this practice? I'd love to have details and numbers available to me. Does the higher murder rate involve the state-issued firearms, or are they privately held?
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Yeah, let's let the firearms only be possessed by sentient robots, like in Terminator!
Oh...ummm...nevermind.
It's a hell of a reach from "People own firearms" to "It's OK to shoot my classmates". Before I accept your logic, you'll have to explain to me why Switzerland doesn't erupt in bloody havoc every week. You see, each household is equipped with a very nice Heckler & Koch 7.62mm NATO assault rifle, and somehow the poor peasants manage to not turn them on each other, well, ever.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Note that I am not a parent, so I am basing this on my experiences from being a kid not too long ago (I'm 19 now).
If you deny your children violent video games, generally they will just go to a friend's house and play them anyway and may or may not lie to you about it. It's likely that your children will be exposed to it no matter what. I know it is a lot easier to have government write legislation that will make it seem like you don't have to worry about it, but you will just wind up neglecting it. And that is even worse.
Instead, be a good parent to your child. Make sure they know the difference between right and wrong, and when violence is appropriate and when it is not.
Wild Eeep!
Actually if you follow the case history this eloquent judge shows in his reasoning, you will see that previously Video Games have not been understood to be protected under the 1st. Specifically:
He goes on to show that the issue was skirted in the 90's (thus in reality leaving them unprotected) an only again now are they being examined. This is how our courts are supposed to work. This is how we determine that something qualifies for the rights of free speech under the law that was written so long ago. So now Video Games have come forward: 80's no rights, 2000 some deserve protection, 2xxx all deserve protectin. I mean it is not a short leap to go from some to all. It just is going to take a good argument.
None of this affects the issue of minors however, as the government/society has consistantly (and in my opinion correctly) ruled that a minor does not neccessarily enjoy the same rights and priviliges as an adult.
Get a grip folks. This is not a ban on free speech or anything else. This says that if you're under 18, you need your parents' permission. I think that is pretty reasonable. Like it or not, parents really should have a say in the upbringing of their kids. Too many parents don't give a damn and that is really sad. But those that do, shouldn't have their hands tied behind their back while the State raises their kids and decides what's good and what's bad. As soon as you turn 18, you can go out and do whateverthehell you want. No questions asked. Total and complete freedom to frag away. But if you're under 18 and living with Mom and Dad (or Mom or Dad or Mom and Mom or Dad and Dad or...you get the picture) your legal guardians (yep, their job is to guard and protect you the best way they see fit -- whether you like it or not) should have a say in what you can and can't do. I'm really sick of the "new slashdot liberalism" that says "Parent's have no rights and kids can do whatever the hell they want." Should a parent let an 8 year old drop out of school and smoke crack because he wants to? Should they let their 12 year old daughter give blow jobs to earn a little extra cash 'cause she thinks it's cool? You've got to draw the line somewhere. The USA is one of the most free societies in the world (I know, I've lived in some of the less free) and when you turn 18 you can do almost anything you want. (Of course, with a Libertarian president, we could do even more...). The good decent moral people of Indianapolis aren't trying to take away *your* freedom but they are defending the freedom of parents! Stop getting bent out of shape every time someone supports the rights of the parents. If you wanna watch pr0n and play Quake IX -- Battle of the Sexbots, then you can -- as soon as you turn 18!
Actually the problem is that neither you, nor most of the other posters, have actually read the article. Hint: it doesn't have anything to do with buying video games.
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Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
Well, since the article doesn't have anything to do with purchasing video games, I'm just watching a bunch of people shoot their mouths off without reading. It's kind of funny, actually.
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Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
Story doesn't have anything to do with buying anything. Read, then comment.
If I posted a story as ignorant as most of the comments on this story, I'd be flamed unmercifully. Should I be nasty to all the people who posted without reading?
(Prediction: this posting will attract 2-3 nasty posts from anonymous cowards.)
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Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
Who said the arcade doesn't have the right to refuse service? This isn't about the arcade having the right, it's about a city law forcing them to.
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Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
But the biggest joke is the judge comparing playing a violent video game to being trained as a sniper. Yeah right. Maybe someone has, but I haven't seen a game yet that includes a realistic sight, gives the gun actual recoil, weight, etc. Not to mention most of the shooters I've seen penalize you for killing innocents.
Whatever. The law's a joke if you ask me.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
A friend of mine happens to own a video store and he says he's losing a lot of revenue (aka money) because of the law. Thanks Mr. Sunquist (our govenor)
We in the bible belt will suffer, but everyone else is okay. We still can't buy beer on Sundays or have court without prayer first. Some things just take a long time to get rid of. The south, if anything, wants its roots, and keeps them.
Obiwan
misterorange.com - It's like a wonderful movie...poster.
I don't think this ordinance was meant to affect all medium of video games. The judges opinion appears to only affect 'coin operated' video games at arcades themselves, not deeming who can play what at their own house.
Although, the judge does get bonus points in my book for using the word 'tugid' in the opinion.Perhaps I missed something, but it seems that the operators are merely being forced to display "harmful" games separately from "non-harmful" games. The last time I visited a video store, the adult section was totally separate from the non-adult section. In fact, my local video store has the adult section in a separate room with a self-closing door. Why do we not decry this breach of our "freedom of speech"? *smirk* Are video games more "speech" than film? Certainly not.
Actually, it's 17.
My opinion:
in my state at least you can moved out at 17, and I at 17 am about to graduate, why should I need my parents permission to see a specific movie, or play a specific game? Or for that matter, listen to specific music?
Derek Greene
These laws should also not exist. However, in the case of alcoholic beverages it's not an issue of free speech anyway.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
Shouldn't that be "... who are not at least 18 or accompanied by a parent ..."?
Apart from that, I don't understand why this is such a big deal. This only applies to public places where they have video games, but not to the private use of games, right? And come on, who still plays arcade games when you have the latest GeForce 1024 XYZ+ at home?
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
First of all, I think this is a troll, given this statement: "When the Constitution was drafted, if they'd have realised the threats that children face everyday, I'm sure they'd have realised that sometimes, freedom of speech is not an abolute concept."
But I'll reply since it got modded up to 5. Taking away childrens' responsibility causes them to be what? Irresponsible. If kids aren't allowed to make any kind of decisions for themselves about what to do and what not to do, do you think they are going magically acquire that ability when they turn 18?
--jbWinston,
I'd send this by private email, but you don't have one listed. Just wanted to thank you for summing up the issue so succinctly. +5, Insightful in my book.
Zak
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
what about the age? to me 16 seems more appropriate.
hahaha, nice sig =)
Crime is going down.
Please reduce your crack intake which hopefully would reduce your hyperbolic waste output.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
The never learn
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
And HOW does this differ from R rated movies? Not allowing children under 18 to see R rated movies is actually MORE restricting, because the parent has to physically go to the movie with the minor. With video games, a parent can just buy the game and let their child play it at home. I don't see anyone going around screaming that the movie rating system is "A ban on violent movies, more or less."
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
This seems like a JonKatz story in disguise. Couldn't /. get Jon to lay claim to all the stories in his genre and post them so that my JonKatz filter eats them?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Do you really think violent video games (or violent media in general for that matter) contribute that much to the violence in our society? A simple look at humanity's history disproves that. The human race has been cheerfully slaughtering each other since its inception, and it didn't need video games, movies, or music to drive it.
Yes, video games are entertainment and an expression of the creative thoughts of their developers, but they are also made because they make a lot of money. Violent video games make money for a very simple reason. We like playing them. It's not conditioning, it's hereditary.
If your goal is to stop violence from being considered a "socio-economic tool of advancement" or "cool", then I am afraid you are very much too late. It doesn't really matter, though; you lost that battle before we climbed out of the primordial ooze. These laws will do nothing but force many of the coin-ops out of business, and that will be a shame. If you make all violent games illegal they will simply go underground. If there is anything to be learned from organized crime it is that society will always find a way to buy what it wants.
Granted "freedom of speech is not an absolute concept" IS an argument for debate! However, to compare it to a debate worthy of only high-school debate clubs is simply a sad argument itself.
If what you say is true I would ask you to reflect back upon any one of numerous cases invloving freedom of speech. Then ask yourself how did the final decision in the case affect you? It's not important to pick a specific case, what is important is the impact of any of those cases on the American way of life and it's liberties protected under our constitution. No I maintain the argument of freedom of speech is worthy of debate in the highest court of the land NOT just for high shool academia.
As for "dissent in the ranks" I must point out the obvious here. A soldier must follow orders. I believe this to be true in any army regardless of political views or period of time in it's history. However, the right to question authority is based upon ones individual right to free speech and free expression. Defying authority and questioning it are two very seperate things. And after the bill of rights were ratified a soldier could and I suspect did question authorities of superiors.
And some serving officials did support the King during colonial times. They were permitted to do so given their appointments by the English monarchy. As soon as the Colonial government took power away from London I suspect those political positions were filled by persons whom held similar ideals as the implementors of democracy. BUT, they still had the freedom to believe whatever they choose to believe. Not everyone in the late 1700's supported breaking with English rule.
Although I don't have a specific example from the "colonial armies of the 18th centry" I can point you to the whole era of the Vietnam conflict. Both civilians and soldiers alike had opinions as to the reason and legitamacy of the Vietnam conflict. Soldiers did take an oath to protect from all enimies foreign and domestic. Questioning that authority is/was allowed. Disobeying was/is not allowed under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice ( which is different that Civilian laws, but still incorporates Constitutional rights and liberties )
Your comeback that "This is a high-school debating society argument, which is pretty weak even in a high-school debating society. Of course flatpack is free to publish his opinion; it's not remotely objectionable. So what?" is what really makes the point for me. Weather or not it is questionable is the issue. Had laws not been passed protecting free speech regardless of it's objectionability flatpack could very well have been censored or worse yet persecuted for his ideas and beliefs.
This is the genius of the 1st amendment.
As for evidence to the contrary I would point you to the bill of rights itself. I don't have readily available the case number but the landmark trial in Dayton, Tennessee involving the teaching of creationism by a local teacher and the School boards not wanting creationism taught involves several constitutional issues such as Separation of Church and State, Freedom of Religion and yes the 1st amendment Freedom of Speech!
Murder has nothing to do with the rights to free speech. To attempt to cast this as an "obvious example" as you put it, is simply insulting and detracts from the credibility of your argument.
So in conclusion I can say Freedom of Speech IS an absolute right guaranteed to citizens of the United States in the 1st amendment to the Constitution. Without this most important amendment the Constitution itself could not stand the test of time in our ever changing society. There is a reason this amendment was the very FIRST amendment.
I will conceed that what constitutes free speech is the ambiguity here. But Freedom of Speech itself IS absolute!
Integrity is what you are when nobody is looking.
**on soapbox on topic**
As an Indianapolis parent of three children I agree age limits are a good thing. However as a citizen and law student I believe governmental intrusions into parental issues should be held to extremely limited and well defined circumstances where a childs safety is at risk and parental guidance is non-exhistant. Parents should determine whats appropriate for their children!
On another note our fair city-county has a curfew law that was just deemed unconstitutional. That sounds promising right? Well the government watered it down just enough to pass constitutional review. So what you end up having is social and parental policies determined by folks who may or may not have a clue what rearing a child is all about.
What this city ( as may others ) need is NOT government intrusion into parental issues but suport to parents in the form of fair and appropriate taxation, choice in which school your children can attend, and an end to miles and miles of money eating red tape in big government. Modernized infrastructure to the city/county to spur economic growth, not patchwork construction that only guarantees county highway workers some sort of job security.
If your government really wants to make things better they should implement term limits, campaign finance reform and clean up thier own political house before passing laws that infringe or impugn my authority to rear my children as I see fit.
And before some clown who doesn't have any kids pipes up I have a statement to make. As part of my work study ( yes I am a 34 yr old student ) I tutor reading to "at risk" 6th graders at a local middle school on the west side of Indianapolis. On my first day I witnessed one of two vice-principals threaten a 6th grade student with "being placed in hand cuffs and sent to the principals office" for being in the hall way about 2 minutes after the bell rang for class. Too bad this boys parents do not know how their kids are being treated in the 6th grade.
Now, who would you want to trust to protect your kids from violence? Parents or government?
**off soapbox on topic**
**on soapbox to flatpack**
As for Flatpacks comments that "freedom of speech is not an absolute concept" I commend you for your own opinion. However, I remind you that you have the ability to publish your opinion for the very concept you claim is not absolute. And furthermore our founding fathers and mothers DID realize freedom of speech IS an absolute concept. The wisdom of this amendment is perhaps the most significant of all. And I really don't see it being changed or abated anytime soon.
Flatpack also stated that "These kinds of laws, whilst perhaps not being strictly Constituional, are very necessary." and is sadley mistaken. By your own words you proclaim that unconstitutional laws are necessary! THIS IS SIMPLY UNTRUE AND DANGEROUS. Again I would like to point out to Flatpack that because of laws that are Constitutional he can post this without the fear of being tracked down and imprisoned!
** off soapbox to flatpack **
Integrity is what you are when nobody is looking.
As if it is okay to kill the alleged bad people. I have noticed that the way information is presented on Slashdot is becoming increasingly inflammatory. Perhaps next we will be arguing for beer to be served in the arcades and that they include peepshows, so that no form of entertainment is kept from our kids. We sure would hate to infringe upon their "rights".
I worry about free speech as much as anyone, but it seems that as soon as kids become old enough to be influenced by advertising and peer pressure, parents start letting them make their own decisions. Not to knock kids but they are not adults, and since it has become apparent that parents lack the time or ability to really be involved in their children's life enough to exert influence (as opposed to mere discipline), it increasingly becomes the society's job to make sure that kids are safe from certain material and situations. You know, like the fact that they aren't allowed in bars or strip clubs. Kids can't buy guns etc. In a public place like an arcade where minors are allowed to be unsupervised, it makes sense that there should be certain restrictions on what is allowed there.
Hey, you think your house is cool?
But I don't think so. After all, we're not restricting the game companies from producing their games, nor the strippers from dancing - so whether or not you believe that video games and bouncing breasts are actually protected speech (dubious), even then we're not abridging their right to speak. Minors _DO NOT_ have Constitutional protections! Even if they did, there's no right to see porn or play violent games in the Constitution. I checked!
Bottom line: Michael, you need to calm down a bit.
(And if anyone has anything to say in response to me, please e-mail me... i don't read slashdot very much anymore)
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How absurd, I doubt that judge has even held a real gun. I've shot plenty of rifles and handguns I will be the first to say that if you aren't either lucky or have damn good reflexes already, you won't have a clue how to shoot properly if all you've played is a video game. Games like Quake and even arcade shooters don't give realistic kick and that means that some schmuck who's been "training" by Quake is going to have a nasty surprise when he fires that real shotgun or 9mm. Frankly the only weapon that these games remotely teach you how to use is something like a hatchet in Quake.
Because too often, parents WON'T decide. Most of the people I grew up with, did pretty much whatever they wanted to do in their formative years. Why? sometimes (most of the time..) they were from single parent homes, where the mo/fa -ther didn't have time to figure out what the kids were doing. Sometimes the parents simply didn't care, and other parents were too wrapped up in themselves to find out.
To provide an ever useful (not) anecdote, in high school, I friend of mine used to have sex regularly in his own bed room. His parents would've shot him if they had known, but they never cared enough to find out what their son was in to.
I concur that the government shouldn't have govern our children like that-parents should. But if parents (in my expereince, this is mostly true) don't govern their children, SOMEONE has to take responsibility.
But perhaps it would be better to pass more laws that force parents to take responsibility... 'course that won't work, because then parents (aka voters) would have to take responsibility for solving the problem theirselves, rather than shove it over on the "evil" game makers who are merely giving the market what it wants...
Fish
Ever seen a two year old not cry when you rapidly remove the knife from his/her hand?
Fact is, the kid WANTS to play with the knife. if it didn't, it wouldn't have picked it up. so if you take it away, the kid's gonna let you know it didn't appreciate it-by crying.
Let underage kids play with violent video games. Let two year olds play with knives. See the point? You are told "no", because:
a. You will get hurt.
b. You don't even know you will get hurt.
c. The elders who make these decisions have been hurt enough by knives (or whatever, GENERALIZE) to know you will get hurt.
so they say "NO!" and don't ask your permission. If they did, the two year old would say yes to playing with a knife, and the 16 year old would say yes to playing violent video games.
"Well then, explain the situation, and THEN let us decide" you say? try explaining to a two year old that a knife will hurt it.
Fish
Being that I'm only 22, I can speak with a similar amount of authority here.
It depends on how you raise your kids, as to wether they will do things behind your back or not. I personally did many things behind my parent's back, but I know of a few "good eggs" from my youth, that seldom stepped out of line, parents around or no. They understood the trust issues involved in their parents choosing to let the kids out of their sight. Great people those kids are now, and I'm glad I know them.
However, even with kids that are just unruly (ie the strong-willed, non-compliant, my way or no way ones (me, for example)), there are things that can be done. Primarily, community involvement. That's how my parents knew what I was getting into most of the time.
They would frequently get to know my friend's parents, and communicate with them, so that they could keep an eye on me, even when they weren't there. They even told my friends' parents what kind of medical conditions I had (allergies mostly), what I was allowed to watch, when I had to go to bed (no one enforced bedtime, but they were told), etc.
Some would call this spying, but I don't. I call it getting involved in a kid's life. It takes a community to raise a child right, and my parents knew it.
I played violent video games, and watched R rated movies, lots. -Even though my parents objected (call it rebellion). But just think of how much worse it could have been, had mom and dad not been watching over my back all those years. And now? I make my own rules, live my own way, but guess what. My rules are amazingly similar to the ones mom and dad tried to raise me with.
Fish
It was an incremental process to the level of violence in today's game. Programmers were faced with the difficulty of what to do with an enemy graphic and what the player can do to it. Sending a moving missile graphic at it then erasing it from the screen and memory upon collision turns out to be the least challenging. From there its a short walk to "Shoot" and "Kill". the shoot and kill concepts stuck so as videogames' capabilities advanced the depictions of these concepts were depicted with more realism just like most other types of human behavior in videogames (speaking, playing sports, driving cars, etc...). Working the shoot and kill concepts in reverse, one could make the argument that older videogames were actually worse in their depiction of violence. How many beings died horribly in the vacuum of space in the game Space Invaders? How many innocent pellets did Pac-Man indiscriminately eat, how many times did he bite those poor ghosts (certainly more times than they did violence to him). And look at the violent beating the ball got in Pong, bamb, bamb, bamb, bamb, bamb, it just never stopped till the ball was dead, then another ball was slaughtered. All of this violence and without consequence. You never saw blood or dead bodies, heard screams or pleas for mercy. All this taught a generation of children that they could commit violent acts and there would be no messy blood to clean up, dead bodies to dispose of and no voices to haunt their conscious. How many of you, right after Columbine, managed to play Quake (or Doom, or Goldeneye, or some other game with realistic depictions of violence) without hearing your conscious? Less than those of you who played videogames without realistic depictions of violence I'm sure. So which game is worse, the one that let's you kill with or without hearing your conscious? As for water pistols and nerf swords, politicians would really have a fit. Don't you remember when water and nerf guns were banned? Imaginary violence has always been an easier target than real violence. Politicians have tried (and in some cases succeeded in) banning videogames and toy weapons, why would they sit back and allow videogames about toy weapons? Plus such a game would probably not sell very well. Witness Wolfenstein 3D and Super Noah's Ark 3D . THE EXACT SAME GAME with graphics changed to remove violence. Well over 250,000 copies of Wolfenstein were sold, but WisdomTree is still trying to sell their remaining Super Noah's Ark 3D cartridges and CD-ROMs.
You are speaking of larger issues which this particular case is not about. Unfortunately the facts of this one case is not what people will see, they will see it as support or disapproval of a ban on videogame violence as a whole. Its not, no matter which way it turns out. The suit is based mostly on "Graphic Violence" not being clearly defined in City-County General Ordinance No. 72-2000, amending Revised Code of the Consolidated City of Indianapolis and Marion County 831-1. It looks like they don't have a case since the definition of "Graphic Violence" in the ordinance is quite clear: "Graphic Violence means an amusement machine's visual depiction or representation of realistic serious injury to human or human-like being where such serious injury includes amputation, decapitation, dismemberment, bloodshed, mutilation, maiming or disfiguration". They filled the wrong suit, or used the wrong objection, because this 'unclearly defined' argument is baseless. They should be claiming they can't be charged with parenting every child Indianapolis, or undue financial burden, or something other than unclearly defined. But for them to do so, they would have to attack the entire ordinance. That would look bad for them since the ordinance includes: "Strong sexual content means the visual depiction or representation by an amusement machine of nudity or explicit human sexual behavior by any human or human-like being in one or more of the following forms: deviate sexual conduct; sexual intercourse; or, fondling of genitals" and "Nudity means an amusement machine's visual depiction or representation of human male or female genitals, pubic area or buttocks with less than fully opaque covering, or of a female breast with less than fully opaque covering of any part of the nipple, or showing of covered male genitals in a discernibly turgid state.". If they were to dispute the ordinance (as opposed to the definition of graphic violence) then the moralist groups would be crying "They want to put fondling, genitals and intercourse in video games for children!". It's a no win situation. Politicians have been doing that a lot lately, tacking on twice as much stuff no one will object to, to the unconstitutional law they really want to pass
They also made an argument for the First Amendment, but recent politics and the judge's own words would suggest that minors are not protected under the First Amendment.
That being said, if politicians just have to legislate then this is the lesser of evils. This ordinance is almost a good message for parents, almost telling them they must supervise their children at arcades. I hope they keep rewriting the legislation in that direction as opposed to censorship
No arcade owner is going to remodel his building with a new room for violent videogames nor pay more people to supervise everyone nor bar anyone under 18 entering the arcade period. The only economically sound solution is to not have an 'violent videogames' on the premises. The ordinence becomes an effective ban. It's a twist on the old catch 22 trick of 'you have to have a permit to do that, permits cost $1,000,000'. Only now it's 'you have to do this, this, this and this before you do that and we don't care how much money it costs you' Which somehowornuther was once upheld by the US surpreme court.
Arcade owners should close up shop and leave. When crime rises and parents complain their kids have nothing to do the city will beg people to open arcades again.
>I have not read the full text of the law, but I supposed it to be intended to prevent teenagers from purchasing video games without parental consent. I doubt it contains a provision to throw the kids in jail if they play such video games. If it does contain such a provision, then I stand with you in disagreeing with that position.
The ordinance say nothing about purchasing. It specifically says minors can not 'operate' machines. So yes, playing the game is a violation. Operators seems include the owner of the arcade and all his/her employees and the customer playing the game. An owner of the arcade and all his/her employees are either registrants or exhibitors (as defined by some other ordinance, but basically if your not a customer your either a registrant or an exhibitor. Doesn't really matter I think, penalty is the same effect) The ordinance skips over the possibility that an employee might also be a minor. "Violations of the Ordinance are punishable by civil fines under Section 103-3 of the Code. The minimum fine for a violation is $200. No more than one violation may be assessed on any one day. For multiple violations, a registrant or exhibitor may lose the right to make available to the public any machines that are "harmful to minors." The City may also suspend or revoke an amusement location's registration in some circumstances. See 831-5(k-(l), 831-6(i), 831-9". Since there is no special mention of further punishment for the minor-customer I presume they could eventually end up in juvenile detention for multiple violations the same as any other city ordinance. Though I'm not sure of Indianapolis code in this matter. Someone who knows could help out and tells us?
Well it is ironic that you need a license to drive or a permit to change the size of a window in your house, but there are absolutly no legal requirements for being parents. It is a fact that some people shouldn't be parents. How about this, anybody who has a child must pay $10 to the IRS. That would probable deter the worst of the lot.
Barring all minors from entering will cost a lot of profit.
Not every child will show up with a parent so the owner will have to take precautions. The law is more of "Thou shalt not have violent video games with in 10 feet of non violent ones." (that's 75-314 square feet that must be cleared, that means less units, that means less money)
"And thou shalt put a divider between violent video games and other" (cost money to remodel)
And thou shalt not allow minors access violent video games (post a guard to keep minors away, he gets at least minimum wage)
The only economical option is to not have any violent videogames at all. Hence violent videogames are effectively banned.
Children should be neither seen nor heard if at all possible. Keep them locked in school, home or handcuffed to a parent. But when they turn 18 they are instantly responsible adults and can be let loose on society.
But they are! Haven't you heard. Try searching for "laws against pedophilia" at this site here. You will note the search successfully defends children (and anybody else) against all those harmful "laws against pedophilia"
OH MY GOD YOUR RIGHT!!! We must act quickly and ban, I mean restrict, knives. They must be kept 10 feet from the other kitchen utensils and blocked from view. A sign must be posted that clearly states knives are present beyond this point!
He! The Sims! I guess you weren't aware that The Sims lets kids experiment with same sex couples. You've suceeded in corupting your little sister, what will you tell your parents?
Age discrimination (for those under 18) is not only allowed but encouraged in the US. Witness restricted driver's licenses, curfews, different blood-alcohol standards and the fact that some sates don't require employers to pay minimum wage to minors.
Yes age is important. Your impressionable, irrational, irresponsible and incapable of making your own decisions. Then seconds later, after you've officially become a year older, your unimpressionable, , rational, responsible and entirely capable of making your own decisions. This is how the government defines things so this is the way it is and no parent or demonstration of maturity will substitute for arbitrary marking of passage of time.
>Do you want the movie theater ratings to go away too?
>Do you want the movie theater ratings to go away too?
Yes, their somewhat useless. Sure I see R on the poster. But what does that really tell me about the movie and what I may or may not want my kids to see? Is it R because the words "Shit" and "Fucking" appear, maybe a lot more bad language? Is it R because off in the distance on a beach there is a quick glimpse of a woman's bare breasts, or a long look up close? Is it R because a married man is seen suckling his wife's nipple, or maybe they are unmarried, do the just fondle or are they in gauged in intercourse? Is it R because dozens of people get shot, or aliens, or animals, or a criminal, or a suspected criminal, a police officer, or they riddled with 3600 bullets, or burned or thrown outta windas? Some of things can be tolerated for some children depending on their level of maturity. Others are unacceptable. But the R gives no clues as what to expect. The Ratings PG, PG-13, and R don't specify much other than tell you what the MPAA has decided is acceptable for your kids see (they can see this but not that and we don't say why exactly). I've seen movies rated R just because of one pair of bare breast but PG movies with full nudity.
Ya, no one in your country is allow to see the word "Ninja". Ninja, Ninja, Ninja, Ninja. Now you must report yourself to the police for five violations.
Check recent history of Fort Lauderdale Florida. In 1985 city officials made it quite clear that college students were not welcome back ever again and should find another place to vacation. Their economy plummeted businesses declared bankruptcy and unemployment skyrocketed. They had thrown out bathtub and baby just to rid themselves of the soapy water. City officials quickly decided to rewrite history, and declared that 1985 was the start of their new tourism plan. The not welcome policy is ignored by all now. Today they claim the newly built upscale condos and hotels are for upper income families and European tourists. While it's true the they had about 6.7 million visitors last year, they refuse to admit any of them are college students.
>This is great news. Anything that prohibits the sale of dangerous material to children is a briliant idea.
This ordinance does not restrict the sale of anything, if you'd read the article you'd know that. So your saying no minor should buy, say, dishes for their mother? (dishes, glasses and knifes can be used as weapons) or a stereo (drop it in a bathtub it's dangerous). Or perhaps they have parents to inform them how to use these products safely?
>Hopefully, this will cut down on the number of shooting incicdents that are occuring across the states involving minors. If they can't use these "games" to practice target shooting, they are not going to pick up a gun and go after their school friends. Anything that saves lives is a good thing.
Violent crimes by minors are down. The average age of killers has been rising each year(more adults kill, less kids kill), the number of violent crimes committed by kids are falling each year. These trends started in 1994 when Doom was released and is now 46% lower.
>If they can't use these "games" to practice target shooting, they are not going to pick up a gun and go after their school friends
Why? If they don't have access to toy guns then that only leave real guns for them to play with. And they don't shoot friends, the don't have friends, they shoot kids who taunt, exclude and shun them. Why is that issue not addressed? ALL OF THESE SHOOTINGS WOULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED IF JUST ONCE THE KILLERS HAD BEEN INVITED TO A PARTY BY ONE OF THE POPULAR KIDS! That's the cold hard fact.
>Now, if we can get violent programing and films restricted (Or banned altogether), we may be able to get back some semblance of normality and morality in this once Great Country.
Before videogames and movies there was no violent crime? Once again I point out that violent minor crime is down since Doom and the movies Pulp Fiction, Timecop, True Lies, Children of the Corn III, and Natural Born Killers.
But you forgot the 10 foot zone between 'violent' games and others. Also there must be a divider. Videotapes are fairly small so video stores can waist a little space and still have thousands of movies. Plus videos can be stacked compactly since the viewer does not need room to operate it (they only need to read and perhaps remove it from the shelf). Plus the law (in most cases) does not mandate a buffer zone so Barney cartoons can be placed on the opposite side of the adult section wall (where one would be unaware of the other section's existence unless they went all the way around and passed through the curtain with the "adults only warning"). The 10 foot zone this ordinance calls for works out to a minimum of 75 square feet of wasted space where no unit can be placed. That's if one violent unit sits the corner of a corner room. If the arcade cannot be engineered in this design (because of cost, building structure, or fire ordinances or other such restrictions and/or regulations) then this space increases up to 314 square feet. Don't be fooled, this ordinance is designed to make it extremely costly and difficult to have violent games at a site. It is an effective ban
>there are also many communities which have local ordanances against showing NC-17 movies to minors, whether or not they are accompanied by an adult.
The MPAA says "NC-17", "No One 17 and Under Admitted". So saying "whether or not they are accompanied by an adult." is a mute point for NC-17. The voluntary rating of NC-17 excludes minors period. You may have meant the "R" rating, "Restricted-Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian". Sometimes the MPAA includes the disclaimer "(age varies in some locations)". For many years I have always presumed this meant some local ordinances lowered the restricted age (this was the case were I lived, 15 was the restricted age) and some increased the restricted age. But since MPAA revised the NC-17 (formally X, and having nothing to do with XXX or 'adult films' believe it or not) I have never seen the age variation disclaimer on it.
The ordinance is not based on ESRB ratings. Rather it 'restricts' games that are "Harmful to Minors" and that is defined as "Graphic Violence", "Sexually Explicit" and/or "Nudity". Those terms in turn are also defined in detail. If the blood were removed from Goldeneye (and it was converted to an arcade unit) it would not be restricted. Kids could be 'trained as snipers' as the judge puts it, and the ordinance would not protect them. Games that are rated E on consoles, (Maniac Mansion is E right?) could be restricted under the nudity definition. (Maniac Mansion has a visual depiction of Michael Angelo's reclining nude sculptures). Ironically the game could not be restricted (under this ordinance) for containing the phrase "Muff Diver" (Muff Diver is a parody arcade game within the Maniac Mansion game placed their in protest to videogame censorship back when it wasn't 'an issue'. Just think, all this censorship and rating carp might have been stopped right then and there, but no one payed any attention. Such is the way of history)
>(like when jr & the gang are dropped at the mall for hours)
If the kids won't behave themselves then why the **** are the parents dropping them off at the mall for hours!!
Every comment posted by Indianapolis residents has ranged from hesitancy to condemnation. No one from Indianapolis has come forward in support of this ordinance.
Every child should be free play any video game...regardless! Even if the goal of the game is to rape, mutilate, dismember, kill jews, blacks, whatever...ALL CHILDREN SHOULD BE CONSTIUTIONALLY PROTECTED TO PLAY ANYTHING RENDERED AS A VIDEO GAME!!!!
As far as the government is concerned, YES! Restrictions for every videogame concept you mention is the responsibility of parents and not government.
Virtual violence (as opposed to real violence) is quite possibly protected speech, in some cases may be art and is most certainly a protected form of protest. (publically burning a dummy with a picture of Joe Lieberman on it, for instance, is legal)
Get this:, Goldeneye, minus the blood and made an arcade unit, would not be restricted by this ordinance. So this ordinance would still allow 'that same boy to train to become a sniper at the local arcade without his parents' permission.' I wonder if the Judge did the same as most slashdot readers, read the title but not the text of the ordinance.
If any of these polititions have ever played any videogame I'll eat my hat. This hat right hear, I'll eat it.
Holy carp! Pete Wilson (former gov. CA) said nearly the same thing when he banned video poker and other electronic gambling machines from all Native American lands in California (in violation of at least 50 treaties).
Not even his speech writers ever had an original thought!
The average videogame player is 22. Certainly some games are targeted at minors but not all and it is ridiculous to restrict and entire industry because some products might possible cause harm to a group that the industry is not only not targeting but actively trying to avoid (with ESRB ratings). Especially when it's parents responsibility in the first place.
I understand that you may not agree with "Community Values" arguements, but this is not intended to impose any person's values on any adult in the community. The purpose is simply to give parents the same choice in a video arcade that they supposedly have in the movie theatre (not that those regulations tend to be observed since the people selling the tickets are often not even old enough to see the movies they are selling the tickets for). I am very much against censorship, but sometimes people should be allowed within their community to impose restrictions that they see fit. If you don't live in Indianapolis, why are you concerned about this: It's a _City Ordinance_.
"Life is tough but we're tougher. You only get what you give, so give all that you've got." --Tony LaRussa
There is such a thing as tyranny of the majority; just because voters have the power to e.g. segregate the schools does not mean that we are incorrect in unequivocally stating that this wrong. Might is not right, and criticism of injustice -- even when perpetrated through legal means -- is essential to any society. We must not accept what seems to be your implication, viz. that because a majority supports it, it is just. A majority can be as unjust as a dictator, and should not be exempt from criticism merely by virtue of being a majority.
__
I don't think this word exists. I just checked in the OED and it is not there. Are you sure you spelled it right?
The streets shall flow with the blood of the Guberminky.
The declaration of independence is not the constitution. They are totally separate documents that were written at different times for different reasons. The Declaration of Independence is a great document, but it is a break from a government, not an establishment of a new one. The Constitution is the document that should govern our laws (though, mostly, it doesn't anymore, which is sad).
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>>You can say, "I will kill the president!"
Say that in the privacy of your home, and nobody will care. Try publicly threatening the president, or try writing him a note informing him that you intend to kill him (which you should sign so as to better make your point about "free" speech, something you neglected to do with your post), and see how far your supposed rights will take you.
>> You can also incite rebellion against the gov't. That is a right specifically delineated in the Constitution!
For your convenience, I have printed below Article III, Section 3 in its entirety. Please point out to me the section that specifically protects rebellion against the government. >>Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
>>Why is it reasonable to tell a teenager, "If you play a violent video game, I will lock you in a cell with criminals!" That seems like a terrible thing to me. Why do you want that? Even if violent games really are a bad influence, isn't prison a worse one?
I have not read the full text of the law, but I supposed it to be intended to prevent teenagers from purchasing video games without parental consent. I doubt it contains a provision to throw the kids in jail if they play such video games. If it does contain such a provision, then I stand with you in disagreeing with that position.
>>Hitler decided that Jews were not to be caught breathing. Is that a limitation or a ban? What the hell is the difference?
Neither. If you check your trusty dictionary, I believe you will find that under "genocide." Limiting video game purchases without parental consent is not even close to genocide. It is a limitation.
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I agree with you on most points. It is the parents' job to raise children, and parents who do not intend to raise their children have no business having them. I'm about to have a daughter in a very few weeks, and the last entity I want raising her is the federal government. It's important enough that my wife recently left her job so that she could be home to take care of her. This is not an issue I am shaky on. I am also a huge proponent of individual responsibility, and I agree that it is something that is often lacking among our populace. As I said before, I believe this law would give parents another tool to help them out. You obviously disagree with me on this, and I respect your right to your opinion. It was at least more intelligent than some of the other responses I got.
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The editors may also try to learn a little bit about the constitution they cry about every time someone "infringes" on one of their "rights". The right to free speech, included in an amendment to the constitution, is not an all-sweeping, all-inclusive right. For example, I am not "free" to make threats against the president, I am not "free" to incite rebellion against the government, I am not "free" to aid or comfort foreign powers considered to be enemies of the goverment, and furthermore, "obscenities" were never intended to be protected under this right. Of course, the "obscene" classification has become almost non-existant by this time, but it seems reasonable to at least restrict teenagers (under 18, i.e. not a legal adult) from obtaining this kind of trash without their parents' knowledge. While it is true that you cannot trace the increasingly brazen violence going on to a single source (such as video games), there is a definite trend towards violence in our society, and I don't think it's unreasonable to give parents a little help in keeping tabs on what's going on in their homes. Perhaps you could check your vocabulary and realize there is a difference between a limitation and a "ban."
I used to enjoy reading slashdot, but that was because I thought it was supposed to be a tech forum, not a propoganda page for inflammatory pseudo-polotics. Go back to reporting tech news. Leave political misinformation to the politicians.
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It also makes for "easy (or easier) parenting".
Either the parent can take the time to objective look at the material their child wants to play, read, watch, listen to, etc. or the parent can just "trust" that "the man" will inform them (the parent) as what is good, non-good and bad.
Also it is not only deciding what is acceptable and non-acceptable for their child, the parent now can also take a "relaxed" appoach to enforcing the access or lack of access to good, non-good and bad material that has been pre-decided by "the man"
A parent can slack off and play the "good guy" in the game of parenting. "Sorry hon, I wish you could watch or listen to this music, but the man says it is unacceptable for your age, if It where MY choice I would let you", when in reality, it IS the parents choice, but they choice not to decide or take a firm stand with their childern.
That is what makes me so fucking sick about this country and society. We are willing to GIVE UP FREEDOM for the sake of a less "demanding" life. We are so willing to give up freedom because we as a society are so fucked up in the head that we can't make simple choices for our selves and for the people we are resposiable for.
THOUSAND if not millions of people have DIED for the pursuit of FREEDOM in this country, and for the most part they did not die in vain. Though their blood, sweet and even deaths, a large amount of freedom was obtained, for further generations, for us right now, they gave us freedom.
What do we do with this freedom? The freedom that cost so many fucking lives?
We piss it away because we lack the back bone as a soceity and as a parent to say "No Bobby you can't buy that video game, the volient is to gory for your age, wait till you are older"
People bitch and complain that "The Goverment and `the man` has to much power". You want to know why the Goverment has so much fucking power? Did they take it forcefully, did they use mind control on the masses, did they kill all the "non-beilviers"?
No. It is because we GAVE THEM THE POWER willfully, and in some cases actucally WANTED them to have the power.
It basically comes down to this
"Uh excuse me Mr. Goverment, I am a US citizen, but you know what I am so fucked in the head that I can't run my own live or make my own choices, let alone raise these childern, kid thingies, how bout you help me out a little"
"Umm, the Federal Goverment isn't here to run your life, we are here to provide protection and defense against hostile forgein countries, but hey listen, give me controll over EVERY aspect of your life and I will see what I can do"
"Oh golly thanks Mr. Goverment, I will do what ever you say, just don't make me think for myself, it hurts my head to much"
Please read the consitution (sp) and tell me where the GOVERMENT has power of what I eat, what I put in my body, what my hobbies are, what I post to usenet and/or restication on movies and video games I choice or choice not to watch and/or play. Please show me that part of the constition (sp) and I will stop ranting.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
I don't think it's unreasonable to give parents a little help in keeping tabs on what's going on in their homes.
I think it is VERY UNREASONABLE to ban or limit material like video games from kids. It is the PARENTS job, not the goverment job to RAISE THEIR CHILDERN.
If the are incable or disabled in some way of spending time raising their kids properly, they should NOT have or had kids.
If they have kids, it is THEIR responiablity to take care of those kids and to raise them into well adjusted members of society. This is NOT the goverments job, this isn't the department store's job, this isn't video game companies jobs, this is THEIR job.
I wish this country would get off it's lazy ass and own up to our indivaul rights and responiablies as humans instead of looking for a lacky to pawn all our duties off on to.
If you can't take the time to properly raise childern, then do NOT have kids. If you have kids and don't have the time or knowledge to properly raise them, you better own up to yourself and learn really fucking quick.
This is not a job for the goverment, they should be busing themselves with their own responiablies (defensive and protection against hostile enties) and not playing parent because the parents of this country don't want to own up to their responiablies.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
not to be anal, but The Sims is rated by the ESRB "T (for teens)". Accoding to the box, it has "Comic Mischief, Mature Sexual Themes, Mild Animated Violence"
... lets remove restrictions from restricted movies, guns, explosives, cigarettes, pornography, adult "toys", etc.
Right people? I mean, come on, our kids should be able to buy this stuff without parential consent.
And another thing, these arcade games haven't been "banned", they're just being made so that parential consent is required for the kids to play. So don't use such misleading headlines. I guess I should be used to it by now but still!
This makes me wonder if all the slashdotters really are whining children under 18, or if there are someone moderately adult here as well. Stop whining Michael, you will be allowed to play when you grow up!
I have never ever recuperated from the severe psychological trauma of watching pacman get killed by a ghost. Or the humans turning into mutants while playing Defender. And of course playing Space War (Oh god, im and old fart - i played that in an arcade as a kid) gave me an overwhelming need to engage in mass destruction)
These stupid legislators that keep trying to protect everybody from themselves need to be engaged in some retroactive abortion.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2
Every child should be free play any video game...regardless! Even if the goal of the game is to rape, mutilate, dismember, kill jews, blacks, whatever...ALL CHILDREN SHOULD BE CONSTIUTIONALLY PROTECTED TO PLAY ANYTHING RENDERED AS A VIDEO GAME!!!!
(In the voice of comic-store guy): Worst article ever!
All the overprotective parents in indy might think this is great for their kids, but we are forgetting about what the guys who WORK there have to do. Get a telletubbies game? This is absurd. I live in indianapolis and there are TONS of arcade joints around...this bill is going to kill the income of these guys and alot of people are going to loose their jobs. Parental supervision? What good is that going to do? If I see a guy get shot in the shoulder, is that any better then when mom is over my shoulder? We've had a history of making dumb laws (dumblaws.com) and actually enforcing them, but this is too much. ::
-Swift
-Swift
Kids are already protected from violence in films, interactive violence is more likely to affect kids (not that I think it does, but any reasonable person would admit it is more likely than passive images as in films), so should be subject to at least the same levels of access.
Game dev and music blog
Ah it's been a while since I've heard a 'Brave New World' quote on slashdot, nice to see.
Matt
Don't take life so seriously; it isn't permanent.
It is 16.
Icebox
While I agree with you in an ethereal sense, I do think that a community majority should be able to decide what is and is not permissible in a community, so long as they do not infringe on any of our federal rights. Mind you, I also think that the Federal government should be in the buisness of protecting as many of our rights as possible.
In the end, if you disagree with the mores of your community, it's time to relocate to a different community. This is true of geographical region, or a social group. While the former introduces more hardship than the latter, I don't see why you'd want to live among a group of people so morally different from yourself.
I might add that this particular decision is very reasonable to me. If I were a parent, I'd appreciate every bit of assistance in keeping my children away from material which I might find objectionable. If I believe in their ability to get their hands on such things, then I should be happy to accompany them when they purchase it.
I think that the fault in treating our children as second-class citizens lies with the parents, however. Personally, I would not be the type to keep my progeny away from violent video games (As I don't believe in a causal link between video games and violence, though I do believe there's one between bad parenting and violence) but I might want to keep my kids who are too young to understand what objectification of a person is away from pornography, until they're old enough to understand the concepts. By the same token, you might have entirely reverse views, or want to keep your children away from both; It's not a store owner's right to sell your children whatever they like, making money off of your inability to watch your children every second.
And if you want to provide your children with sex and/or violence-oriented materials, this particular statute does not prevent you from accomplishing either. It only helps you avoid doing so, if you so choose.
Finally, as to the potential argument that this is just another step toward banning such material entirely, that doesn't have to happen. As easily as you can vote such a statute in, you can use your vote to make sure it never passes in the first place.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They don't really have games like that there, do they?
Let's have a round of applause for another step towards a risk-free society. It doesn't matter where it's cemented, once the mortar dries clever monkeys will cite this as an example whenever/wherever they feel something similar is needed in their own communities. Remember, feeling isn't rational, it's a highly subjective form of thought that only matters to monkeys with inflated egos.
Like every step taken to keep people(tax-paying cattle) safe, in and of itself, it's a worthless, petty restriction. It will give police(suuuuu-ee!) in that state a reason to push-around (extort, threaten, bully) arcade owners, and in general chill the arcade industry in that state. I wonder how many more playstation's will get sold because of this law? The more the merrier...that litte box rocks!
Although it would be nice if this kind of well-intentioned restriction could make the world a better place, my money is on the unhappy monkey's in the cage who jerk off and throw their shit at the audience. No matter how nice the cage is kept, they're going to do whatever it is that makes them happy. It's one of the few things I enjoy in a species...besides their corn-fed flavor.
I'd also like to remind any tax-paying cattle reading this that just because someone with buttloads of official power decides that an expensive form of violent entertainment is a risk to society(the illusion of a working set of rules when applied to tax-paying cattle) doesn't mean that it is. If the reader has any experience with classical mechanics, then they also have experience with the illusion of intuitive solutions.
So when someone(a tax-paying bovine who was created more equal than the others) passes a law based on assumptions (yep, saying videogames are bad is an assumption) they're probably doing so to appease a local/vocal group of idiots(the ones on the greener plots).
If a law is not based on genuine fact then it's based on politics. Remember, when you're not right, but you want to seem right, use politics.
And if you're just not patient enough to kiss all the required ass to repeal a law (it's easier to lose your freedoms than to win them back), you should plan on breeding enough voters to use that other political tool, nepotism. Because if you have to play politics, it helps to hold all the cards.
Good luck, and drive like a maniac. Me, I've got to go rip the spine out of some idiot who thinks being a 12th level paladin is going to save his dumb ass. As an added bonus, he's wearing +3 robes of anti-gaming ordinance. Bruahahahahah! Where's your laws now, little man!!!? Rip/crumple/TEAR.."Yes, those ropy bits hanging off the spine are nerves you little devils! Throw whatever is left to the suffering!! Sss'Blood you maggots! I'll learn ye to gust!"
My kids love when I do that!
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
Got a link for this? Any reference. I didn't think so. No creditable study has shown the results you assume. The closest thing to a controlled study, the comparison of current crime rates and crime rates from the 80s, when violent video games didn't exist, shows that as violent video games have become prevalent, crime has decreased. This of course, means very little, but it makes it hard to make the blanket assertion that violent video games beget violence. If you don't like violent video games, don't play them, and take an active role in ensuring your kids don't play them. But stay out of everyone elses lives.
On another note, if a law is not Constitutional, it is not a law. The Constitution was written with the philosophy that personal freedom is of the utmost importance. Proof: The founding fathers were probably of the unamimous opinion that non-Christians were Satan-worshippers. Did they ban non-Christian faiths? No, because they believed everyone had the right to do as they wished, provided it did not affect others. Should we ban video games? Do they affect you? No.
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose
18 is typicaly used because it is the age at which a person obtains their majority. IE they are legally an adult. Driving, consent to marry and so on have no bearing on this. The constitution recognizes 18 as the age of majority in many rulings at various levels of the justice system.
Simply put, we shouldn't be telling people when they can see porn and when they can't. The complaint is, we have enough stupid laws now. We don't need any more.
In fact, the percentage of households with guns in them in Switzerland is rather lower than in the USA.
There are in fact very few "poor peasants" in Switzerland; most of the population is employed in either financial services, pharmaceuticals or precision engineering. Switzerland has the highest standard of living anywhere in the world. It is also surprisingly non-urbanised for such a small country, creating far fewer opportunities for crime; neverthless, it still has a higher murder rate than France, Germany or the United Kingdom. If anyone wants any other facts about Switzerland, just post your question here.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
This is a high-school debating society argument, which is pretty weak even in a high-school debating society. Of course flatpack is free to publish his opinion; it's not remotely objectionable. So what?
And furthermore our founding fathers and mothers DID realize freedom of speech IS an absolute concept First up, "and mothers" is a piece of posthumous PC here; there were none. Second, are you trying to imply that the Army of the Revolution permitted dissent in the ranks? Were serving officials of the United States permitted to stand in support of the King? Has incitement to murder ever not been a crime in the USA? To name but three obvious examples. Freedom of speech very definitely isn't an absolute concept and the founders of the USA never thought any such foolish thing. Unless you have evidence to the contrary.
"absolute" means absolute. It's not just a random word hanging round in the air for you to pick up to show us all how much you support freedom of speech.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
It would be nice to see some leadership from the people we vote for, instead of the sychophantic following of opinion polls. Saturating your mind with violent images probably would have a negative impact on your psyche, but are violent video games the root cause of the violence in our culture? What about gangs and drug wars? What about the lack of education and jobs in some of our inner cities? I would think that the lack of education and a crushing poverty, coupled with the lure of easy money from drugs and gangs would be a much more direct cause of a greater scope of violence than access to violent video games. Why isn't more attention given to supporting adequate community mental health services to help people who have probelms that could lead to violence? Why isn't there more attention on expanding school programs in music and arts (which have been proven much more effective at saving "at risk" youth than any other program)? These people are simply missing the boat on this issue. A real leader would stand up and say to the community, "You want to reduce violence in our community? Then we need more funding for school arts and music programs. We need better community mental health services." Instead the pols just read the polls, talk to some suburban soccer moms and fly off the handle in the indicated direction. It's a waste of time and energy (not to mention my money).
Are you...Are you some kind of genius?
No, ma'am, I'm just a regular Slashdot reader.
You know, 90% of young violent criminals
Moo
Well I read the article and this has to do with video arcades.
"The law requires coin-operated games featuring graphic violence or strong sexual content to have warning labels and be kept at least 10 feet from nonviolent game machines. The machines must also be separated by a curtain or wall so minors cannot see them."
Who defines graphic violence or sexual content? Might as well use the front door as this curtain or wall.
"The law bars people under age 18 from such games unless accompanied by a parent or guardian."
It seems you can't just give your permission to allow your kid to play you actually have to be present. So seems this would be really inconvenient so it effectly bans violent video games for people under 18.
"but give that same boy a constitutional right to train to become a sniper at the local arcade without his parents' permission"
They are talking about a game called Slient Scope. The game basicly has a sniper rifle and you shot and bad guys trying to shot you. Of course these bad guys always have a indicator surrounding him so they are easy to find, also the sniper end is like 1 foot away from the screen. How this will help in being a real life sniper I have no idea.
I personally don't want any future children I may have to be playing quake 3 at 10 and 11. And if they insist it's sure as hell gonna be on a linux box =)
Better yet, let's make it into an educational experience. Don't let you kids play Q3 (or the equivalent game in the future) until they can set up their own Linux box and compile/install the game from the source!
On a more serious note, I'm happy to see the large amount of response on /. that distinguishes rights from privileges. Most people forget that while children do not have a full set of rights, they are also held responsible for only a limited set of obligations (for example, they are judged differently, more leniently, in a court of law). There is nothing inherently wrong about curtailing some access to "speech" to minors as long as the "speech" is made available once they become full fledged adult members of society.
I should say, at the same token, I find it disturbing how society (government to be exact) has begun to impose more responsibilities on children while curtailing their rights: for example, in some states in the U.S., there is a growing trend toward trying more and more kids as adults ... part of that political "get tough on crime" phenomenon. Columbine has also lead to a similar response. Curtail the children's access to potentially harmful infuences but at the same time crack down hard on potential trouble-makers in school. You can't say "kids don't know what they are doing so need to be controlled" on one hand and "kids need to be held more responsible for their actions" on the other.
The problem with "Community Values" arguments is that they undermine individual freedom to self-determine one's own values.
*Whose* values are those of the "Community"? Not likely to be "mine", other than in some vage abstract sense of me belonging to the community and therefore subject to "its" values. Which, no doubt will be the sort of values that favor the members of some city council made up of wealthy, old people who aren't moral philosophers and don't have much of a clue about cutting edge cultural developments, and not the community itself.
In reality, do communities (or any group of people) *ever* have total agreement on *anything*? NO. So therefore, the *real* "community standard" should be one of agreeing to disagreeing, of minding one's own business, and cherishing one's own personal freedoms. Anything less is an invitation to totalitarian fascism.
If I'm a shopkeeper running a video arcade, the temptation is strong for me to define my store and its clientele as a "community". In effect then, we can define for ourselves whatever kind of behavior we want to do, and to hell with Indianapolis.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
didn't she even look at the ticket? the box? i haven't been to toys r us in a while (years) but iirc they still put game descriptions up next to the tickets.
it sounds to me like she didn't read anything about what she was buying.
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
i'm just wondering when we're going to get something similar to Ender's Game... Ender thought he was in a training sim but they were actually remote-controlling real military forces in a battle.
:)
Put some of these Counterstrike/Quake players in front of a computer which remote-controls a sniper bot or Johnny 5 unit...
eudas
Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
This makes those games seem way cooler to the kids, way more sinister than they really are. That means they'll be much more enjoyable when they get their older friends to buy them!
And a plug: you can make violent games of your own with Blitz Basic!
http://www.blitzbasic.com/
http://www.blitzbasic.com/
Graphics3D 640, 480
After all, a gram is better than a damn, and look at what biological parents tend to do: refuse to let their children have their state prescribed ritalin so that the state must step in and force the parents to allow their children to do their patriotic duty.
However, I do believe that violence should be committed only for the good of the state, and so the makers of violent entertainment should be government controlled so that children can learn to kill in order to contribute to the glory of the state, rather than to foment disorder and suffering.
Sex is for pleasure and furthering of the state. It is a shame that parents believe that their children are their own and not of the state. Although I support the government stepping in with new bills requiring state parenting, I think their are better things to do than ban violence for children. For example, we could teach patriotism through having kids destroy illegal aliens in quake.
Actually, I did - did you? Presumably you did not, otherwise you would not have claimed that this is a violation of freedom of speech et al (hint - how long has it been since children were permitted access to X-rated movies at the cinema, Michael?)
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
My dear chap, the article doesn't have anything to do with infringements of freedom of speech, but that didn't seem to stop you from "shooting your mouht off", as you so elloquently put it...
:/
How I wish for a return to the older days when Slashdot articles were rather more accurate and rather less sensationalised than of late
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
Restricting the sale of explicit material to those under the age of 18 - since when has that been censorship, Michael?
Presumably, Michael, we can look forward to you abusing your position in slashdot to further your campaign by highlighting other "abuses of freedom of speech" such as the disgraceful laws which are designed to prevent those below a certain age from seeing certain types of explicit films at the cinema, right?
Will you then follow that up by highlighting yet more censorship in the form of the refusal to allow minors to purchase alcohol?
Jeez, what the heck is UP with you Michael? How the heck do you equate a simple restriction of kids having access to explicit material with "banning"?
/me shakes his head.
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
I have never seen anyone ANYONE who was under the age limit support one. Im glad you think you know whats right for me, but if only you really did.
"Cornflakes are not the innocent critters they seem"- Sterling Morrison
I'm not exactly sure by whom you mean "we." These sorts of viewpoints are widespread and have nothing to do with any sort of outdated, archaic mentality. It also has nothing to do with "close-mindedness," or anything like that... it has to do with fear. It has to do with the fact that people see this looming, and apparently growing problem, and can't find an obvious solution to it, and thus feel compelled to point fingers at the easiest thing that comes to mind, in this case violence in video games. It's a matter of people attempting, once again, to legislate morality, which is one of the biggest dangers that I feel this nation is facing. This decision was undoubtably backed by parents, because as parents, they feel that their children are being overexposed to certain things that they don't approve of, and have little control over.
I'm hardly supportive of this kind of legislation. Personally, I think it's one more step towards removing our Constitutional rights in the name of "family values" or some other meaningless phrase.
The upsetting part of all of this, isn't that people feel this way about violent video-games, especially in our society, with the sorts of twisted misconceptions people have about violence, but as you say, it's the fact that such a decision was upheld in the courts that upsets me. The government's job is to prevent this kind of biased legislation from ever being recorded as law, and in this case, they have failed us in their duty. Hopefully this will be taken to higher levels of appeal, and seen as the blind witch-hunting that it is.
"Cut word lines. Cut music lines. Smash the control images. Smash the control machine." - William S. Burroughs
I don't know how it works in the US, but here in the UK we have laws like this already for videogames, videotapes and DVDs and they seem to work OK. If a parent doesn't want their kids to get a particular film or game, it just makes it that bit more possible for them to exercise control.
I would be a paid subscriber if Taco and Hemos weren't such cunts
I can see the value in reducing a child's exposure to violence. What concerns me is the permissive attitude towards "idealized violence" where the realistic reactions are quickly swept off the edge of the screen (i.e. spurting arteries, shattered bones, immense pain and suffering, wrecked lives, inconsolable families, pointless death). Children who watch sterilized attacks on disposable victims learn that violence is okay because the ramifications are insignficant. If someone gets shot in a movie, I want the director to show him drown in his own blood. Naturally, I don't want my children to see this at all until they're old enough to deal with it. But I definitely don't want them to watch PG-rated death where the consequences are quickly out-of-sight and out-of-mind.
- Tekken Tag Tournament -- Teen
- Soul Calibur -- Teen
- Silent Scope -- Mature
- Crazy Taxi -- Teen
- House of the Dead 2 -- Mature
- Hydro Thunder -- Everyone
- Time Crisis -- Teen
- Marvel vs. Capcom -- Teen
- Cruisin' World - Everyone
So, of these games I've just listed, only two have been ESRB categorized as "mature," and that makes sense, too. Silent Scope and its sequel has the player sniping enemies, giving extra points for head shots. Hell, the last enemy in Silent Scope 1 must be killed by a headshot; anything else results in a loss. House of the Dead, of course, pits the player against your various crock of zombies and things, and you basically blow said zombies to peices with your little pistol (that somehow you can reload by merely shooting offscreenIt's not a damn shame that people who want to get some sniping/zombie goring actions have to go behind a gimpy little curtain or into a back corner to play these games. Once again, slashdotters are wigging out over the smallest "injustice."
-- ~Can money pay for all the days I've lived awake, but half asleep?~
For states that have the graduated licensing system, it's 17.
A 17 year old must have parental consent, unless legally defined as an emancipated minor, to join the military. An 18 year old is legally able to make the decision sans parents (doesn't mean he/she is mentally mature enough to really make such decisions - he/she isn't - but you have to draw a reasonable line somewhere).
Recent research has demonstrated that the frontal lobes of youngins' all the way into their low 20s are not fully developed. The frontal lobes play a critical role in judgement. Since the frontal lobes of youngins' are not developed, as a rule, to full adult extent, they are simply not de facto capable of making rational judgements as a general rule. The law has NOTHING to do with biological reality. The law precedes the latest biological information and it is subject to inertia even greater than that of the real world and physics. The law wont change (properly) to accomodate the latest facts of biology. Hence, kids who have no full capacity to make rational judgements, are given the LEGAL right to make them anyway, regardless of reality.
A little restriction on the obviously judgementally challenged teenager/preteen is not a problem at all, and is common. Parents DO have certain rights and powers that trump the unthinking desires and impulses of children.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
I won't go into the "it isn't banned; it's a restriction" issue; other people have made the point better than I can. I will address the supposed violation of free speech.
First, the seller has the right to refuse service. Remember all those little signs back in the 80s? "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone"? The seller can simply refuse to sell you product because s/he chooses to, unless it's a clear cut case of discrimination.
Second, you have consumer rights. However, there is no constitutional right of "A seller must sell me his product" as this is covered above. You can expect to receive product in good condition, though.
Personally, I believe that code is not "free speech". A game, for example, has little speech involved. Clicking, yes. Pointing, yes. Talking, rarely. However, it is freedom of expression. Hence, they're allowed to develop the game however they want to. But, that doesn't mean that people have to sell your game.
What it comes down to is this: Developers develop the games, sellers sell the game, consumers buy the game. If the seller refuses to sell the game, s/he only hurts the store's revenue. I don't see where the constitution comes into this at all.
I responded prior to reading the article. My fault...
I still feel my points above still stand. The arcade still has the right to refuse service. Game makers, developers, and kids can complain all they want, but, ultimately, the person in charge of the arcade can still refuse your money. It's still the arcade's loss of revenue; it doesn't violate any constitutional rights at all. Unless playing video games do fall under the realm of freedom of expression. In which case there shouldn't be any regulation on games at all.
First, I apologize. I misinterpreted the message. The City-County Council voted this through with or without the aid of the arcades themselves. I can see what you're attempting to say in the story.
However, I still don't believe that this is a constitutional violation. When the ESRB was created, it allowed for something like this to happen. Personally, I agree with the ESRB system, in as much that parents should be aware of what their children are up to. At least to a certain point.
Our local EB, for example, follows the ESRB fairly strictly as well; again, I agree with that. If the local Council chose to pass a city law forcing arcades to adhere to the ESRB as much as retail outlets, then, again, I agree with them. Note, however, that I agree if they follow the ESRB; if they decide, for example, to ever start restricting games for the fun of it, then I'd reconsider where I stand on the issue. By specifically stating graphically violent and sexually explicit, then, as noted in other posts, this is no different than renting movies or buying magazines.
However, teenagers can still get their fill of the Q3 engine; "Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force" is rated "T for teens"; the reason being that there's no gibbing, just vaporizing. Also, they can download the classics; the entire DOOM series can be zipped up into 16 MB, and Quake1 is only 40MB. Wolfenstein is now freeware, and can fit on a floppy disk.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Also, the many school shooting incidents (Paducah, Jefferson, Columbine) were motivated by one thing: thinking that guns can solve all problems. That's why there's conflict counseling; to let people know that discussion is a better tool to use than firearms.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
"The law requires coin-operated games featuring graphic violence or strong sexual content to have warning labels and be kept at least 10 feet from nonviolent game machines." OK... so we now have 2 classes of games as far as the law is concerned "violent" games, and "non-violent" games. And these must be kept 10 feet away from each other. What goes in the middle?? If its either of these types of games, thats a violation of the law. So now the arcades have to have 2 sections, seperated by 10 feet of void?? Hmmm... I don't think they can spare that kinda space, and even if they can, thats where other games COULD have been...
As a resident of Indianapolis, I can assure you this is indeed a knee-jerk reaction, but not in the way one would think. This is political posturing. Bart Peterson (mayor) couldn't give 2 sh*ts about the welfare of the children. The Democrats have broken the Republican stranglehold on this city's government, and they're going to push all sorts of crazy laws like this down our throat before the next election "for the children"
Of course, Indy was one of the first cities to repeal the 4th amendment. Compared to the roadblock (and our jack-booted thugs of police, but that's a different story), this story is nothing.
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end communication
Another key difference is that the enforcement of film bans is voluntary, and government doesn't levy fines or jail time for letting a 12-year old into an 'R' rated film. Any time government talks about enforcing film ratings with criminal penalties, the movie industry has a collective stroke and starts screaming its guts out about how voluntary compliance is just fine and dandy. Of course it can't be because they know a substantial portion of their revenue comes from underage kids getting into these movies. No sir. Uh uh. The video game industry's problem here is that they aren't large enough, nor can they muster a bunch of movie stars, to fight a ban like this.
??? Sounds like maybe the Republican 'stranglehold' was actually a good thing. I don't know how the idea got started that conservatives are the ones making all of these laws. Democrats seem to have a greater propensity to meddle in people's lives than Republicans. Two Democratic Senators, Feinstein and Biden once authored a bill that would have imposed a $250K fine and 20 years in prison for publishing bomb-making instructions on the internet. Two laws, the Communications Decency Act and Children's Online Protection Act, both with Democrat co-sponsors and signed with great fanfare by the Clinton administration, have been found unconstitutional. Carnivore is an invention of the Clinton Justice department. The list goes on (but I shan't).
How many people reading this post absolutely /detest/ shows like 'Teletubbies', 'CareBears', 'Barney', 'pokemon', or 'PowerRangers'? Now, how many of those same people /do not/ allow thir children to watch them?
Also, how many people reading this post didn't have any problem with their kids watching "G.I. Joe" or "Transformers: Robots in Disguise" or 'The A-Team'?
Also, shows like M*A*S*H had violence occasionally...but not very often.
Anyone remember the televised going-ons in Vietnam? (I don't...I wasn't born till 1983.) How many of you watched them without having your parents bugging you? (Assuming that they knew you watched them.)
Anybody remember the shouts about D&D? (Again...I plead the age excuse.)
What about shows like 'E.R.', 'The Practice', or, most notably, 'COPS'?
Anybody here allow their kids to watch movies/TV shows with Chuck Norris in them? (Think about it.)
I'm pretty sure that a good number of you went to see 'The Matrix', and then allowed your kids to go ahead and see it.
Don't forget the plethora of James Bond movies--They combined all three of sex, gore and violence. I didn't notice Clinton giving speeches when 'Tomorrow Never Dies' or 'The World Is Not Enough'...
I don't remember the date, but, IIRC, the worst school-related mass-murder in Michigan occured when someone blew up an entire high school a _/long/_ time ago.
If my understanding is correct, children during the fifties were highly violent(though without weapons.), though nobody thought anything of it since 'boys will be boys.' That brings to mind the fact that a disturbingly large percentage of the American population has been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. Guess what...I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of three, and wound up taking 20mg of methylphenidate(Ritalin) three times a day by the time I was seven.(And methylphenidate is considered a potent drug.) When I was fifteen, I was diagnosed as having 'Aspergers Syndrome' which isn't even a _subset_ of ADD. It's a branch off of PDD, as ADD is as well..
I'm not a conspiracy theorist....but there seems to be an awful lot of misinformation, misunderstanding, misleading, and down-right lying---all of which seems to be contributing to the 'decay' of 'society'.
There's a high probability that you'll see a huge number of historical exceptions--both recent and old--to the age-oriented generalizations.
What's this Submit thingy do?
By the way, I think Westwood censored the game voluntarily to get an ages 16+ rating (18+ games can't be sold publicly in Germany, so almost no one buys them plus most stores won't sell something they can't put on display).
Similar things happened to C&C: Red Alert (C&C 2 in Germany), C&C 2: Tiberium Sun (C&C 3 in Germany) and other games (Soldier of Fortune, Tomb Raider). It did *not* happen to Starcraft, Diablo and Diablo 2, which is strange, considering the amount of violence these games contain (they got a 16+ rating).
Btw, you *can* legally import the US version (or buy it if you find a store that has it) if you live in Germany, but it's expensive and most Germans prefer the translated (and censored) versions anyway.
--
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Misspellings and grammatical errors in this document are intellectual property of the author.
But now that we are moving to ban violent video games there will no longer be a need for parents to talk to their kids about violence. Can't you see that these rulings just make parenting easier and protect the children by keeping them ignorant and sheltered?
Penguin Trivia #46: Animals who are not penguins can only wish they were. -- Chicago Reader 10/15/82
Is that children from past generations have experienced worse. The US of A used to force children to work 12-14 hour days in very disgusting work places. Children were given no quarter in any war fought between armies during the Middle Ages; If they were in the way-- too bad. Recent examples of children IN violence: Vietnam. Children carried explosives to GI's to kill them.
This shit is not going to stop or change anything. Why do we insist on trying to shield our children from the world? They will still find a way to see it, and when they go through that rebellious time, they will go around their parents and laws- and will embrace it. If the worst my children have to suffer through is playing a violent game on the computer, then I am fine with that.
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
"Thou shalt not play them without parental supervision."
In other words:Thou shalt only frag when thou father and mother fraggest with thou?
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Not to mention the fact that say, Germany, did not even allow the sale of the first command and Conquer until the color of the blood had been changed to green. I mean, the fact that they decided to ban Wolfenstein can be understood, but how's that for banning games. And this was for all ages.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
These are quotes from the Slashdot story Tetris Study Reveals Dreaming's Role In Memory:
From comment 11:
When I worked for Walmart, I would dream about UPC symbols because I was a stockperson for awhile. When I took calculus in college, I constantly dreamed about math. And now, I dream about programming and routing.
From comment 44:
It's pretty funny actually, I get the same thing while cramming for final exams. The night before the exam I usually end up having a nightmare about solving problems...
From comment 64:
When I was taking a lot of math in college I had a dream about wrestling an equation like it was a snake.
From comment 156:&l t;br>
I loaded in Quake and played for the first time in years yesterday. When I went to bed that night, I couldn't get any images to sit still in my head - they were all "jumping" like you when running around in Quake and moving around like crazy. This was before I even fell asleep. I had to keep opening my eyes to get things to settle down.
From comment 170:&l t;br>
Heh recently I started playing FF8 - and once again i remembered why i don't play many games. I start to dream about them (esp when a 6 hour session of sitting there after work playing is the last thing that I do before bed).
And my personal favorite, from comment 118:&l t;br>
I remember when I was hooked on X-Com Apocalypse once. When I started involuntarily getting confused about people in real life moving around when they shouldn't have movement points left, I stopped playing.
Okay, folks. Here's the deal: everything has an effect on you, whether you like it or not. Some concerned people have decided that people under 18 (who don't have full rights as citizens yet - like voting, drinking, etc.) aren't mature enough to make the decision about whether or not they want deal with the effects of violent games.
How about we drop the teenage "I should be able to do anything I like no matter what it does to me or anyone else" attitude and think like grown-ups, here?
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
But, really, it's the notion that violent video games are the problem. It's not the root, and I doubt if it's even a major contributing factor. Maybe graphic video games *do* cause kids to be more violent. Then again, maybe they don't. I think the evidence is far from clear. What is far more clear, for instance, is that kids who grow up watching dad get drunk and smack mom around are more likely to be violent, drunk, etc. Or kids who grow up without fathers at all. And the list goes on -- the list of things that could truly change a child drastically.
It also seems unlikely that graphic video games would do more than simply aggravate the problems of a troubled kid -- I doubt that they "manufacture" a bad kid where there once was a good kid (if you like to use such gross terms as "good kid/bad kid").
The bottom line for me is, even if it is a good thing to "protect" children from violent video games, it's far from the most important thing. If the same amount of energy was spent on attacking the root problems (i.e. most often family issues), you wouldn't have to worry about little Johnny playing some bad ol' video game. And I think that the reason that this subject comes up a lot is that many here see the hypocrisy of parents/educators/legislators on this -- "you and your video games are our problem; if not for you we could beat our kids all day long and they wouldn't have fantasies about using a flamethrower on us because they wouldn't know about them".
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If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, forget 'em, because man, they're gone. -- Jack
Okay, here's the thing: Are video games speech? Maybe. Is violence free speech? Um, no. If violence was free speech, shooting someone would be an acceptable way of disagreeing with them. As far as the smaller issue (whether children should be allowed to play violent video games), it's a much more sticky question. Yes, parents should be able to control their children's activities. However, what if some parent doesn't exercise reasonable control, and allows his or her child to play violent video games which the child (for whatever reason) cannot distinguish from reality? That child could subsequently blast your child away. So I think there are limits to what should be allowable. Possibly something like what we have with movies right now: Under a certain age, children don't get access. Period. At another age (say, 13), a child gets such access with parental consent. This would keep idiot parents from giving Quake to their 5 year old and expecting the child to have a grasp on the abstract concept of play violence.
Everybody is getting worked up over another trendy issue. Videogames are an easy target for government and parents groups in this already horribly violent society. I mean has anybody tried to take a shot at cable television lately? How about those NRA infomercials that come on at night? How about our daily dose of footage of war attrocities coming in every night on the six oclock news? Videogames are a tiny component of a much larger picture, and are just being targeted because most people over 30 don't understand them. I could only care about this case if I lived in Indianapolis. BTW my little brother DID get carded at blockbuster trying to rent a resident evil game or something once. Anyway humans always were and always will be prone to violence...deal.
I have a better idea. How about we find a way to keep those who are obviously unfit for and uninterested in decent parenting from being parents? We have far too many people in the world today, and far too many "parents" who are incapable of taking care of themselves, let alone a child. Sound a bit Fascist? Well, I assure you, it's a far cry from what I would like to see happen. Besides, it's not like the government has been paying any attention to the constitution or the bill of rights anyway. I'll stop here, as pretty much everything I have to say has been said better, or would earn me more enemies than I have time to deal with. Thanks for your time.
When adults want to exercise Constitutional rights, children are cited as to why this would be bad. But, ironically, children do not get Constitutional protections in this country.
Why do judges & lawmakers always thing they can decide what is good for our children? Isn't that for parent's to decide?
City leaders need to consider the implications of their actions. Indianapolis is trying to attract high tech jobs into its predominantly low tech economy. Increasing the number of high tech companies is probably the #1 economic development priority. Then the city goes and does something like this, which simply turns off the majority of people who would work in the tech field. It feeds the image of Indiana as a repressive Bible Belt state that free thinkers ought to leave ASAP. They'll suffer for this more than they know.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
OK, go _read_ the article. It says that to purchase violent video games (for example, rated 'M'), you need to be over 18 or accompanied by an adult. This is nothing new. Game stores in my area have been doing this forever. All it means is that a parent needs to be there.
Most kids in the 13-16 range can't drive anyway, and that's the people they sell the most too. Parents are already there.
Ban? Oh please....
Windows 2000: Designed for the Internet. The Internet: Designed for UNIX.
While the MPAA rating system itself is independent of government influence, they are de facto backed by the rule of law, which I'm sure courts are aware of. Local Zoning laws are often written as to forbid the showing of NC-17 movies on certain property, and there are also many communities which have local ordanances against showing NC-17 movies to minors, whether or not they are accompanied by an adult.
The key in these laws is that they cannot forbid such material from adult use in all places. Thus, it is possible to restrict NC-17 movies from being shown downtown in the MegaPlex, but not uptown in the middle of the manufacturing district.
Actually, the "harmful to minors" part is the big loophole, and which is actually probably the hardest to overturn. Since this type of law rests on what the Supreme Court has defined as "community standards", the definition of "harmful to minors" does not have to have any scientific backing - merely a majority of local residents have to agree on what it means. And this standard usually is defined as to what the majority of your current local representatives in local government vote for. So you're not going to get it overturned on this.
The final point here is something people seem to continually miss: local governments in the U.S. can restrict minors rights in virtually any way with the consent of a majority of local adults, provided the restrictions do not unduly burden adult's access to the restricted material/behavior. If the law does not remove an adult's rights, well, then, it's fair game. That's the way it is.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
Interestingly, here, even though you cannot vote at 16, you can however, being in the age of reason, be an electoral official (those who supervise voting and count votes) at 16.
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Americans are bred for stupidity.
This isn't a ban on video games.. oh how the /. authors love to use that word. It's an age restriction. If it were a ban then Indianapolis would be exporting all violent video games out of the city, am I correct? THAT would be ridiculous.. but this is just parents watching out for their kids. If you want your kid to get the latest game out by id, go to the store and buy it for them.
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If Americans under the age of 18 DID vote, there wouldn't be so many laws making decisions for them and discriminating against them for their age. Instead politicians would be appealing to their vote early, and our government would have an attitude that was much more youth friendly, as opposed to a "Damn youngin's" attitude.
The problem with any ban such as this is that parents who have no problem with their children playing violent video games get screwed. When I was a kid, once I was mature enough, my mom had no problem with me seeing rated R movies. In order for me to see the movie though she had to actually sit there and watch the movie with me. Frequently she didn't even want to see the movie so in theory I would miss cool movies because she didn't want to go. In reality I snuck in of course but that's another issue entirely.
Okay, so here's the trick. How do we empower parents to control their children properly. The way you do this is rather than basing a restriction like this entirely on an arbitrary age, you base on the parents desires (and age should they conflict). Set up a system where a parent can go to a federal agency and identify themselves as the parent. Then they can sign a document allowing their child to see R-rated movies and play violent video games without them needing to be in attendance.
The child is then issued an ID card which is effectively a permission slip. They can go to theaters, etc, and the ID will get them in those places that are deemed to be parentally controlled.
Ideally this system would use a smart card that was hooked up to a centralized system run by the government which would allow parents, once identified and registered, to adjust their childs permissions as necessary (through phone or web site?). So, if the mom decides that little johnny should be punished by not being able to go see the new violent movie, she turn off his movie permission. Furthermore, if she restricted video games for a while and then decides that they are okay she can fix it with a few clicks. It would certainly be worth the investment by theaters and arcades to hook up a smart card reader at their entrances.
The other nice thing about providing a centralized database like this is that if a law is added you need not worry about reissuing a bunch of ID's to accomodate it. You can give parents the option on the card as to what their default permission is.
Laws like this are annoying because it makes three assumptions. The first is that a parent is willing to sit through the video games or movies that they deem their child to be mature enough to see (which considering how many more two income families their are now this is obviously ludicrous). The second is that the age of a child is directly correlated with the maturity of the child. The third is that a child, upon reaching the age of 18, magically develops the maturity to handle these horrible things that they didn't posess before. We've got the technology, why don't we make a system that puts the power back in the hands of parents? I mean personally I prefer a country where there aren't laws like this and people have the time and motivation to keep an eye on their kids but we don't live in a world like that anymore.
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This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
One thing that seems to have escaped some people is that video games have actually gone a bit forward in this. By that I mean, before various courts have found that video games did not enjoy protection under the 1st. They were simply modern pinball machines. Not expressive enough in art or message to gain those protections. Now in his decision we have the following quote:
So while this decision may be viewed by some as violating the right of expression, well before now it had been almost always ruled in court that video games had no right.
I am not sure I would support a ban like that in my own area, but then I have voting power and the power of civil disobedience to make my opinions known.From another side of the issue, the courts have consistantly ruled that the government may impose more restrictive laws regarding minors and the 1st amendment. in support of that: porn mags, admission of minors to clubs, movies etc etc...how is this so different ? Because it is an industry that is targeting minors ? That's really the only difference I see. As the judge notes in the decision:
One minor nit - the courts have tossed out "restrictions" that have the de facto effect of outright bans. E.g., a restriction that a strip club must be located at least one mile from any residence, school, place of worship, or bar when the no location satisfying all those requirements exists.
However, this restriction appears to be no more severe than those imposed on adult entertainment (theatrical movies, porn movies, strip clubs, etc.), alcohol, guns, etc.
We can argue that the law is misguided (e.g., it bans a 17-year-old who's already signed up for military service from realistic games), but not its Constitutionality.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
As is stated, they are restricted for those under 18 to purchase alone. That's even less of a restriction than is placed on cigarettes.
If they were banned, you'd not be able to purchase them at all, at any age. The slashdot post has been very heavily 'politicized' to make it look like things are more drastic than they truely are, since the general slashdot audience is bound to get quite in arms about this.
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Well, anyway, this woman comes into the store with a big chip on her shoulder because her son wants a SNES. This woman's attitude was pure hostility, she said, "I don't want any of this violent garbage," and pointed to a copy of Sonic Blast Man which had apparently offended her eye. (I wouldn't have categorized that one as particularly violent... but then, who knows what is violent under the "offended mom" standard?)
Basically, she was upset because she believed all video games were evil, but her son was feeling peer pressure to get a console. Well, I knew what I had to do. "I guess your son wants one of those Mario games huh?" She agreed with me. I cheered up, "Well, you don't need a Super Nintendo for that! Do you have a computer?" She said yes, and I sold her a copy of Mario Teaches Typing for her PC.
I was sooo happy to get this woman out of the store without a SNES. You see, I got that if someone like this had bought a console for her son, pretty soon we'd see nasty letters to the editor about how Sonic Blast Man was corrupting our youth, soon followed by government action.
I really could care less if underaged kids with overprotective parents get to play video games. My problem is when the content of video games I like to play gets censored because of these same parents.
For example, I can go to one of Tampa's many gun shops and buy an actual, honest to goodness handgun. However, when the Dreamcast came out, you could not get the actual plastic gun for House of the Dead II with it... and of course HotD II would, I imagine, suck with a joystick (I wouldn't know, not owning a Dreamcast. HotD one, for my PC, seems to work OK with a mouse.
Of course, House of the Dead will be targetted, but Soldier of Fortune is protected, even though it is the more "violent" of the two. Why? Because it is a PC game rather than an arcade cabinet, and because it uses a mouse instead of a light gun.
Oh, it goes without saying that none of the school shooters were big HoTD fans, people don't normally get into that game as much as Quake. This censorship is entirely arbitrary, and it's having an effect.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
The First Amendment, which has been on the decline since the 70's, was finally dealt its coupe de gras with the recent Supreme Court decision City of Erie v. PAP's A.M.. Basically, this case affirms a doctrine proposed by the court in a previous case, called "secondary effects." The Secondary Effects doctrine basically states that the First Amendment no longer applies if it can cause the "secondary effect" of a crime. The court, in making this ruling also stated that no proof is necessary, the authorities merely need to assert this. Of course, all speech that anyone has ever wanted to restrict has been said to be leading to "moral decay," crime, and other negative effects. So, it's open season on the First Amendment, and a significant number of the poster's to Slashdot today seem to think that this is a good thing.
(Causing me to come up with my own, "Slashdot sucks on weekends" doctrine.;-)
The practical upshot of this is that only a massive public outcry will prevent anything from being censored in this country. Of course, except for a few really brutal dictatorships this is the rule throughout the world anyway, there's nothing particularly special about America on this. (I'm still going to have to hear, ad nauseum, what an incredibly free country America is of course. American hypocrits love to pretend they live in a free country while restricting everyone according to absurd, intrusive rules. If you dare speak the truth, that there are many places in the world to live that are more pleasant and more free than the US, you get shouted down by these people.) It also provides a massive opening for Organized Crime, which I hope they will take advantage of. "Speakeasy" arcades could be a source of easy money, and they don't have the traditional distastefulness of dealing heroin. I mean there is money to be made here, look at what's happening in Indianapolis:
When legitimate businessmen are driven out of business by prohibition, that's the time when the underworld should move in. If La Costa Nostra needs a business model, just look at the People's Republic of China, where video gaming parlors are banned... but enough of a payoff to the party leaders and they'll look the other way.Of course, it isn't just video games that are being targetted, look at Louisiana, where a skating rink playing that eeevil Rock and Roll was targetted:
Of course, a court said that the rink owner couldn't be arrested again for the crime of playing music: Federal judge orders Louisiana sheriff to return confiscated musicOf course, soon it will be too much of a headache to allow your business to have any appeal for teenagers (you know, 16 - 18 year olds). I suggest that all the arcades in Indianapolis restrict minors altogether, until the law is repealed, including the laundromats. If you aren't 18+, you can't come in. I do that before I'd allow the government to come in and tell me which games I could stock and which I couldn't. It would take a lot of courage to do this though, and I doubt that the arcade owner's will be able to take the hit they'd be required to take if they opposed this disgusting law in this way.
After a while, of course, I'm sure that the good city council of Indianapolis would pass a new law requiring arcades to serve minors. Remember, this is about banning video games (getting votes from the Bible bangers who want them banned), not about protecting minors.
If you are voting age, and you think this sucks as much as this 31 year old does, I suggest you express yourself by voting. (Libertarians won't stand for this garbage, voting Democrat is like playing Russian roulette, and voting Republican is like playing Russian roulette with six bullets.) If you are still a teenager, and can't vote, I suggest you try your local library while the forces of ignorance are trying to turn you into the Junior Fascist Brigade. Ayn Rand, Robert A. Heinlein, George Orwell, and Ray Bradbury are a good place to start. (Though, of course, you may not be able to find any of their books in an Indiana library.)
Fight, don't be sheep like the generation proceeding you turned out to be. There are some really awful people that are trying to return the US to the age of The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible, but they haven't succeeded, yet.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
I'm glad the Slashdot editors were willing to call this what it is, and you can go to Hell.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
What First Amendment?
The main point I want to reiterate here is that one arcade owner was talking about removing Tekken(Tekken for God's sake!!!) and Area 51 from his arcade. My guess is his arcade was probably too small to comply with the 10 foot rule required by the ordinance, and that meant he couldn't keep these games in the arcade. This is the same dodge that the Christian Right is using when they target strip clubs with distance requirements, and clearly comes from the same source. If the club is too small to keep people 6 feet away from the dancers, well, then it has to close. Even if it is big enough, it takes a hit from the smaller seating capacity in the club. (After all, six feet around the stage has to be empty space.)
The goal of all this crap is to make it too inconvenient to keep these games available in the arcade. It's got nothing to do with "having parents present," its a law designed to harrass arcades out of business.
Here's the thing, if I were to get my creaky, 31 year old body into an arcade in Indianapolis, chances are I'm not going to be able to play House of the Dead or Tekken. It's got nothing to do with me not being old enough, it has to do with the arcade owner being unable to keep those games in stock and still comply with the ordinance.
Of course, these kind of attacks are not just going against video games, check out banned books week at your local library some time. Or look at the fact that getting Harry Potter books out of the library also now requires parental permission in this country.
This stuff isn't about "protecting children" or "empowering parents." It's part of the Culture War, which is about destroying any part of American culture which is not right-wing religious lunatic-compliant.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
Am I missing something? How do you equate "You must have your parent's permision" with a violation of free speech?
Should we allow our children to view some of the "darker" pornography as well? After all, not letting them see it violates the producer's rights to free speech, right?
Gee, shame on us for allowing parents to raise thier kids.
Don't get me wrong - I think the violence in games issue is blown way out of proportion. I just think that the parents should make the decision, not their immature kids, or the public. In a perfect world, all parents would be making sure their kids lived up to their own standards. This seems to only force parents to step up to the plate.
I sent my 10 year old sister into a computer game store to buy a copy of Q3. They would not sell it to her. They said it was too violent for someone that young.
This is more a question than a statement, because I don't know how the law deals with such a situation. Are the store owners required to sell something like Q3 to anyone unless a law says otherwise, or are they allowed to say who can and can't buy a game? Obviously I couldn't open a store and every time a black person came in, refuse to sell them a certain product. But does the same thing go for age?
Hellborn elfchild roadhog mountain fortune hunter man beheaded her.
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
The problem that the author of the story has is that kids can't just go out and buy violent games on their own. The problem is that the author has resorted to the usual knee-jerk reaction about censorship, banning games, and children's rights, possibly without realizing that kids can still play these games -- they just need their parents to buy them for them. But the major difference between this law and, say, movies, is that the movie industry is fairly self-regulating. The government doesn't put the ratings on the films, and the government isn't the one disallowing children from seeing Saving Private Ryan in the theatres.
This is pretty much what I wrote when this was up on Metafilter yesterday, the judge's reasoning is ludicrious. You think he'll give me a pilot's license if I put 40 hours into MS's Flight Simulator? Is this guy so fargone that he assumes violence = behavioral changes and videogame interface = military training?
He uses porn because he needs to compare games to something that's already has a huge taboo. This is conservative America at work for you.
The worst part of this ban is that I've seen more than my fair share of posts of people saying, "Well I'm 18 now so I don't care." You really have to look at legislation aimed at minors and think back to how it would have affected you back then and how you would have reacted along with the facts of the case. Its just like that Simpsons were the senior citizens eventually put on a 5pm cerfew.
I am tired of being around kids when I game since they are immature and these games are inapproriate to them. I know people's kids who are playing violent games (i.e. Quake) in their elementary school age. Same goes for watching TV shows (i.e. X-Files, The Simpsons, etc.). Parents need to watch their children more. I would if I had kids. That's my two cents...
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Hm, doesn't sound any different from Movie ratings, why isn't the Slashdot Podium Brigade arguing against those?
Anyone else notice that whenever the Slashdot editorial crew likes something, and it gets restricted, they spin it off as an issue of free speech?
I'm just glad they're not advocating cocaine usage as freedom of self-expression, although I'm sure that's soon to follow!
Keep up the good fight guys!
The problem isn't that parents are not attentive enough (they might not be, but some are). The problem is that someone ELSE decides for them what they should deem 'bad'. If responsible and attentive parents do not find violent games 'bad', then they shouldn't need to accompagny the child when he/she plays them. Suddently the law decides what is good parenting and not the parents. That is 'bad'!
The article said:
This article on MSNBC talks about how a City law restricting access to graphically violent or sexually explicit video games to those who are at least 18 or accompanied by a parent or guardian has been upheld by a federal judge." A ban on violent video games, more or less.
I respond.
A whole lot less then a ban. A ban would make it unavailable to anyone, and probably a crime to own. The book "Satanic verses", for instance, is banned in Iran.
Our society has a logn standing precedent of restricting access by minors to certain forms of entertianment produced for (at least in theory) adults. When was the last time you saw a 12 year old buying a playboy? Minros enjoy special privledges and special restrictiosn udner our laws-- thats the way it is.
I have to follow on with this comment...
People tend to use loaded terms loosely (or totally incorrectly) on slashdot to try to convince others of their point. This makes our arguments sometimes look an awful lot like the Xtian right, folks. If you dont believe me, try a side by side comaprison. Different loaded terms, different assumptions, same propaganda style.
The problem, in my mind, isn't so much they';re banning it for young people, but that they always assume that the cut-off point should be 18 years or 20-21 years old. Wouldn't something like 16 be far more appropriate?
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ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
Actually, having worked in retail, I can tell you... If I didn't want to sell something to someone, I didn't have to. There's nothing that says I absolutely HAVE to sell anyone anything. Sure my managers would have gotten rather pissed if I didn't have a good reason, but something like the situation above would most likely be a 'good reason'.
-- Dr. Eldarion --
this is a topic that i covered in my sociology class in college. basically what was said is that we (as a society) today are trading in our authority to allow the community to regulate the activities of our children rather than take a pro-active stance and do it ourself. You can see many examples of this with after-school programs and community programs that are there to 'keep your kids out of trouble'. It is quite interesting to see this in action.
If you read the full text of the bill, it also contains provisions such as:
(c) It shall be unlawful for an exhibitor or the exhibitor's employee to allow a minor under sixteen (16) years of age who is subject to the compulsory school attendance laws of the state and who is not accompanied by the minor's parent, guardian or custodian to operate an amusement machine in the exhibitor's place of business between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. on a day when such minor's school is in session.
Effectively making it aiding and abetting to allow an unsupervised kid to play ANY video game during normal school hours. [ignoring the fact that schools have half days/days off, and not all at the same time, making this law difficult for employees to really patrol]
Now, the problem I have with this is not so superficial. I used to work at an arcade doing repair [I was in high school, and had early dismissal, getting me out before noon], and I know I saw my fair share of kids where I worked that should have been in school. Most of them were completely unsupervised [ie: their parents were no where to be seen... EVER]. When asked about this, their story changed every time, although their theme was generally the same: "My parents don't care if I'm here."
You might call me naive for generally believing this point, but even if they didn't know that their parents didn't care, the mere fact that they are at the arcade instead of school on a regular basis is a testament to that.
Schools already take attendance, and if a child doesn't show, they call the parents. If the child is skipping, then the parents are generally aware of it (and if they are not, that is the school's fault). At this point, if the kid is habitually skipping, then the parent is the problem, and the school has a legal responsibility to intervene.
Now, one could argue that under these circumstances, I should have contacted the police, or some other authority to report that this kid was suffering from a limited form of neglect. Perhaps now, I would [at the time, I was younger, and never really thought about it]. But that is really beyond this discussion, because the law makes no requirements for reporting violating children, only kicking them out.
Many of the errors and misleading headlines here definitely look like the work of people who are smart but sometimes inexperienced/misguided. A committment to quality on the part of the editorship would go a long way to reducing the negative feedback you guys get.
Don't get me wrong, I love slashdot and I know its hard work to put out a fast moving site like this. I am only offering this as constructive criticism. Get a copy of "Elements of Style" by Strunk and White. Make a commitment to avoid basic errors like duplicate stories, and READ the articles before you post. Avoid overly sensationalistic headlines.
You don't HAVE to print story submission text verbatim, remember that an "editor" is supposed to clean stuff up.
Anyways, you guys do run a cool website, and I hope you decide to take it to the next level of quality so you can gain the respect you deserve.
How did you get from "under 18 must be accompanied by parent or guardian" to "banned"?
This does let parents parent, by enabling them to make this decision with (hopefully rather than for) their children. Personally, I think 16 would be a better cutoff than 18, but other than that this law is not problematic any more than theatres that exclude childen based on MPAA ratings (less so, perhaps).
One would hope that we had gotten out of the dark ages and opened up our minds a bit. It's upsetting that such a decision could be upheld. It's been said before; the government should not be doing the parenting, the parents should be.
Matt
Don't take life so seriously; it isn't permanent.
- In Wednesday's ruling, U.S. District Judge David Hamilton said, ``It would be an odd conception of the First Amendment
... that would allow a state to prevent a boy from purchasing a magazine containing pictures of topless women in provocative poses, but give that same boy a constitutional right to train to become a sniper at the local arcade without his parents' permission."
I have a strange feeling this judge has never shot a gun or played a recent video game. The experiences are completely different. The notion of "train[ing] to become a sniper at the local arcade" is ludicrous.Secondly, how can he equate certain video games with porn?
As it stands, it's not really a ban.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Read the Judge's paper; It's quite fascinating and an in-depth description of the 1st Amendment, written remarkably clearly. The section on how games are produced is a better description than you will ever find in Game Developer's Magazine.
From what I gather from reading the article, courts are not so concerned about whether or not it has been proved that video games can cause harm to childen; It is more concerned with the possibility of harm. While I can imagine many arguments both for and against, and personally believe that violent or sexual video games do *not* harm children (I would cite Japan's media history as a primary example, as well as the Brother's Grim for the European history), the courts hold that as long as there is a possibility, that it is sufficient to allow communities to regulate.
Note that if the focus of the game and the primary value derived from the game was a political idea, a specific message, or artistic value, that violence and nudity are both allowed, and the game is protected under the 1st amendment.
I highly recommend reading the judge's well informed "opinion", and making your own mind up after having read it in it's entirety.
Having formed your opinion, make a contribution to the comic book legal defence fund.
No, it's not just you - the title is EXTREMELY (and deliberately?) misleading.
:(
Seems like a certain person round here (you reading Michael?) has decided to sink to the levels of the gutter tabloids and use sensationalism to try to boost interest in stories
Hopefully someone will give him the slap he needs and normality can be resumed.
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
Iirc (since this was big news much further back in the summer), it is meant as a restriction of video ARCADE games, not computer games in general. This new law is to stop "children" from being subjected to "violence" where their parents may not have control. (like when jr & the gang are dropped at the mall for hours)
We've had a few stores who have carded kids for years when purchasing computer games, but that is & was voluntary. Anyway, Stompfest (large LAN party) probably would have seen some media hype if the law had incorporated computer games as such.
Tirla
P.S. Just for the record our permit age is 15 & our (very restriced, but that's another law story) license age is 16.?. (Something like 16 & 2 months or so...)
I believe that parents are the ones who should ultimately decide what level of violence is appropriate for their children to view. This law just reinforces that position by making it illegal for a minor to purchase a mature themed software title without the consent of an adult. What's the problem with that?
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
Everyone who has mentioned the word "buy" in their comments is confused (except maybe the guy from Utah). The ordinance in question covers "the operation and display of currency-operated amusement machines". They're talking about arcades! This has nothing to do with being able to buy Quake III (e.g.) at EB.
Massive riots have begun due to the restriction that the government has put in place. It was previously believed that *everyone* was granted the right to vote, but as it turns out, US legislation believes that young, impressionable minds are somehow different than adults.
It is completely within Constitution to restrict access to questionable materials, precedent in this area is well-established. Before complaining about this as a violation of "constitutional rights," please read the body of law regarding the limitations to the right of free speech.
Free speech is about censorship, and censorship implies "prior restraint." In this case, the material is not in any way prevented from being distributed, except a case where it is considered to be in conflict with local community standards (which is a provision applicable more properly to pornography), and even in that case, a legal adult can purchase the material, as can a minor, if accompanied by an adult.
What does this mean? It means that this has nothing whatsoever to do with censorship.
Please, save the angry protestations for true cases of prior restraint, where we actually have a real leg to stand on, as in the DeCSS case.
---sig---
this is the same as saying "R Rated Movies Banned in the US" , since access to an R-rated movie is prohibited to those 17 and under unless accompanied by an adult.
another typical slashdot headline that continues the trend of slashdot being emotional and inflammatory at the expense of accuracy, and not to be taken seriously by the outside community.
The cut-off should be 16. I'm not sure what the driving age is in Indianapolis, but the ability to drive is a significant venue toward independence and freedom. And it's often granted at age 16.
18 is chosen as it is the usual age of high school graduation. But it's often silly and overplayed. I, for one, graduated high school at 17, not turning 18 until after my first semester at college. I couldn't go to clubs, and, had I just started at school in Indianapolis, I couldn't buy a lot of games.
The (much maligned on these pages) movie industry gets this right, using 17 as the cut-off. Could you imagine the life of a college freshman who cannot get into an R-rated movie?
Whatever happened to allowing communities to determine what is morally permissible in their respective areas. There are cities/counties where strip clubs are banned, alcoholic beverages are not served, movie theaters refuse to show certain films, etc. and this have been upheld by supreme court decisions as the rights of the communities to set their moral standards.
My question to jamie is this, "If a community/country can decide that people have to be a certain age to passively view violent behavior on a television screen, why shouldn't they be allowed to make the same decision for when the violence on screen is interactive with the user and not merely passive?"
Second Law of Blissful Ignorance
The key point here is that it's the ARCADE business which is suing to stop this law. This is about ARCADE games, not about BUYING games RETAIL.
:-(
Let me repeat, since 99% of the people below, who are moderated up to 4 and 5 for pointing out that requiring a parent to buy a game for a child is not a ban, don't seem to have READ THE BLOODY POST and associated material. Here it it: THIS IS ABOUT ARCADES!!! NOT retail.
I hope we've cleared the confusion now, and I hope the people who misunderstood what this was all about get appropriately moderated down again. People shouldn't moderate something up if it completely misses the subject, whether or not it's an OPINION the moderator agrees with.
You see, this *is* a ban on arcades. It is not a *de jure* ban, it is a *de facto* ban. That is, the law itself does not ban arcades; the law does, however, made the business of running an arcade completely untenable, thus causing, in effect, a ban on arcades.
Here's why: The majority of those who frequent arcades are minors--mostly high school students, though this varies by location and type of arcade. As such, minors are an important, the most important, customer demographic in the arcade business. Without minors, arcades would go the way of the drive-in movie theater.
This law effectively prevents most minors from going to arcades. Let's face it: high school students, and most junior high students, are not going to arcades to play the latest mind-numbing soul-killing consumer-drone-creating Pokemon franchise. They play the good stuff, the Area 51s and the Mortal Kombats and the House of the Deads and the VR Gunfights. Keep them from those by this law, and arcades shrivel and die--and that's what these freaks want--the same freaks, BTW, who were with Charles Keating and the Moral Majority, who had no TRUE morals whatsoever (umm, can anyone say S&L scam?), when they tried to prosecute a certain respected art gallery for obscenity for exhibiting the photographs of a a certain controversial but respected artist. Brownie points for anyone who can name the artist AND the gallery (hint: Showtime recently made a film about it). Oh, and these were the same people who tried to ban the sale of HUSTLER which, while not always the most tasteful magazine, is protected speech. Anyone who thinks that Thomas Jefferson wouldn't defend HUSTLER in this day and age, should immediately read some of his writings, or preferably leave this country altogether for someplace more to your morally censorious liking, such as Iraq or Libya.
But, I digress. Back to the main line of reasoning, this is a *de facto* ban because there is no effective way to implement a system whereby under-18s are prevented from accessing such machines without parental consent, while still allowing parentally-consented (yes, I know, but I'm too tired to think of a better term) minors to freely access them. What, is a parent supposed to accompany Little Johnny and Jake to the arcade every time they want to play Mortal Kombat? Let's say a parent does; she goes up to the attendant and says "Let my kids in to the back room" while she shops. Johnny and Jake go get a drink 'cause they're thirsty, or go anywhere for a change of scenery--kids don't like staying in one place for long periods--come back to the arcade, and they can't get in. Different attendant, or attendant doesn't remember them, or maybe the policy is a parent is needed *every occasion*. Oops, sorry. Better yet, most teens drop by the arcade while doing something else. My friends and I would stop by after movies or while hanging out in the mall or after dining somewhere. Oops, sorry, no parents with you, can't get in, you'll go hang out somewhere else. Needing parental consent all the time adds up to a lot of lost revenue, most of which is from kids whose parents would have let them play any game. Fact is, most 16 year olds, a lot of 15 and 14 year olds, and almost all 17 year olds, are very mobile, but without their parents. They're teenagers, YOUNG ADULTS, with lives of their own. Mommy and Daddy don't accompany them everywhere, and don't need to because they're trusted, independant. What a great way it is to teach teenagers to grow into responsible, independant adults, to make them bring Mommy and Daddy with them everywhere they go.
The upshot is, it would kill the entire arcade business in the area except for 1 or 2 locations. Thus, it would be a *DE FACTO BAN* on arcades. If the authors of the legislation had mere reasonable regulation of arcades on their minds, they would have implemented a one-time system whereby a parent could give Little Johnny permanent permission to play whetever games he wants, with say a registration card. Of course, doing that would smack of America as a show-me-your-papers totalitarian sort of place--not that it isn't already...
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
Soryy, but you misunderstand where I'm coming from. For starters, I'm well into my 20s, not under 18. This is important, becaue I'm old enough and well-educated enough, having graduated from one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the nation in a mere three years--a feat no one at my college pulled off in any professor's memory, the requirements are so thick--to come from a mature and thoughtful perspective, rather than one tinged by being too young to do something. Just as importantly, I'm not so old that I can't remember my high school years clearly, along with the culture, behaviours, and attitudes which were commonplace a mere five years ago. The older one gets, the more divorced one is from the state of today's youth, in most cases. This taints viewpoints, because what was inappropriate teenage behaviour in 1962 is very, very far removed from what is appropriate teenage behavior today. Having children oneself also often makes one entirely unqualified to make a rational and impartial judgement about what is appropriate for young people, because parental emotions make one lose objectivity much of the time. Objectivity is important, because we're talking about the development into adulthood of another human being, not our own selfish wants and desires which sometimes conflict with what is most healthy.
/. story day before yesterday.
That being said, the important misunderstanding lies not with my age/youth, but with your characterizations of this particular law. You see, the very same people have made this law, who have tried to censor Mapplethorpe's artwork from being displayed in public museums in their city, and who attempted to get adult magazines such as HUSTLER banned for being "patently obscene." This is the same city, and these are the same public officials. Given their history, it is more than reasonable to infer that their motives are not regulation, but eradication--in fact, it's not just "more than reasonable to infer," it's bloody obvious.
I have no objection to regulations, per se. I have numerous objections to this one, as well as others which have come along in recent years.
Regarding your example about movie ratings, I'm sorry, but it's not at all on-point. In fact, the entire movie ratings system as it stands today is successful precisely because teenagers can easily circumvent it. If you're 18 and your friend or girlfriend is 16, well, just buy her ticket while she waits out of sight. I have only once in my entire life run across a movie theater that wouldn't sell two, three, or half a dozen tickets to anyone who is old enough for the movie's rating, and then have no questions for the under-17s when they roll into the theater. The only other exceptions I've seen to this are regarding films which are unrated, or which are garnering direct protest right in the area.
This is what makes the MPAA ratings system fairly successful: it gives conservative parents warm fuzzies in their ignorant bliss that their 15 year old darling can't see some nasty sex-and-violence romp, while simultaneously giving teens the ability to see whatever films they want behind their parents' backs. This isn't of course applicable to very very young children, but is 100% true for teens.
Now, this arcade system on the other hand is an abomination, not because it actually works unlike the movie ratings system which is usually easily circumvented, but because it's clearly designed to kill all violent arcade games/arcades as we know them within its jurisdiction. The "violent" games must be segregated in a separate physical area from the rest of the games, with means to prevent unauthorized minors from accessing them. In other words, they have to be put into a "back room" as if they were hardcore pornography. There is no mechanism for giving teens a clear and easy way to have access to these games--as I said, much of arcade playing is done on impulse, to kill time, or otherwise by teens who are at the damned mall to get away from their parents and be independant in the first place. How is a parent who gives his teens enough independence to, well, be a healthy young adult, supposed to give this permission? It's unconscionable to expect a teenager to have to hold Daddy's hand every time he wants to play a HARMLESS VIDEO GAME. If you don't think they're harmless, I refer you to the statistics given by Jamie's
This is part of an alarming trend in the U.S. to artificially and unhealthily extend childhood. For example, if an 18 year old is an adult, why can't he drink alcoholic beverages? Well, the sole reason is that Elizabeth Dole and her conservative groups complained that 18 year olds being able to legally purchase liquor caused it to get into the hands of other, younger high school students. Even Ronald Reagan was initially against raising the drinking age--after all, it was lowered in the first place based on the premise that someone who is an adult, who has the right to vote in our Republic, and who has the responsibility to fight and die for it in time of war, should naturally be extended every right including the one to drink alcohol. That makes a lot of sense--either you're an adult, or you're not. Either you have rights, or you don't. But, raising the spectre of younger high schoolers drinking caused rights to be rescinded and taken away from supposed adults. Well, the result is that use of alcohol by high school students has increased many times over since the rise in drinking age--it simply didn't work. Rights were taken away, for nothing. And in the end, it probably contributed to the rise of underage drinking, because teenagers will very often do things just because they;re told not to.
Even more important and damaging, how is it that an 18 year old is an adult, when in certain locales purchase of sexual videos and magazines is restricted to those at least 21? Where I happen to live, the age is 18--but in many places it is 21. Now, no 18 year old can be prevented from making sexually explicit materials and being the subject of them, because he's an adult and has 1st Amendment rights to participate if he wants to in the adult materials industry. Any law restricting the age to 21 and over would be immediately called unconstitutional by the Court. And yet, if I am an 18 year old or 20 year old in such a jurisdiction, I could not legally purchase the sex videos I myself have starred in. This makes NO SENSE whatsoever. "Adult" and "age of majority" thus have little real meaning, and rights are rendered arbitrary in such examples.
But laws have been getting ever more restrictive on young people, especially 14-17 year olds. First a smoking age is set at 16, and then it's raised to 18--it hasn't stopped teen smoking, in fact after a brief decline it's on the rise once more. It just succeeds in making older teens, who are not children but really young adults, feel more boxed in, feel like they have fewer and fewer rights, feel like they're being treated with no respect and have no rights. And they're correct. And this comes from someone who HATES cigarettes and has NEVER smoked any.
Curfews are being set in more cities and towns all over the country, curfews which affect older teens and not just young children. Talk about the State interfering with the development of a 16 year old into a healthy adult, well, it may make the old people feel safe not to have a few young hooligans running about after dark, but it makes every teen under such tyranny feel like he or she has no rights and no worth as a person, no free will and no respect. Talk to young people about such issues. It demeans them, and the parents who should have a say instead of the State mandating curfews.
Even a basic teenage right of passage like learning to drive is under fire. Thanks to a media which plays up any incidence of teenage car accidents, especially if they involve alcohol, moves are underway in many states to raise the driving age to 17 or even 18 for an instruction permit. Of course, the DOT's own aggregate statistics show that 21-25 year olds are more likely to drive drunk than 16-20 year olds, but facts don't count when people go by gut emotion fed by an irresponsible press. Of course, 16-20 year olds DO have more accidents overall than 21-25 year olds--it makes perfect sense, because you're ALWAYS going to have more accidents on average in people's first few years of driving than after they've already had a few years of practice. Well, duh, but no one THINKS any more.
Even the most fundamental part of oneself, one's body, is a subject of much legislation and loss of rights in the last few years. Ages of consent have gone up, even though ages of sexual maturity (physically) and of first sexual contacts have been going down. Before the health and nutrition advances of the 19th century, average age of first menses hovered between 14 and 16. Today, it is listed as 12 in most textbooks, but the most recent studies have suggested it has been dropping swiftly, as low as 9 for African American girls in certain cities, and 10-11 for Caucasian American girls in some cities. A majority of middle school children now engage in oral sex, according to an article which recently appeared in the Washington Post Magazine. And yet, ages of consent are being raised and prosecutions are on the rise--not prosecutions of older perverts who deserve to be prosecuted for inappropriate contact, but rather prosecutions of young people for having consensual sex with members of their own peer group. One would hardly say that a boy who just turned 15 was out of the peer group of a girl who's almost 14, and yet such a boy was prosecuted, in Michigan if memory serves, for consensual sex with the girlfriend. Prosecutors called it "statutory rape" since the age of consent was 15 and he'd reached it but she hadn't, but most of us would call it a "normal teenage relationship." Now, even five years ago, much less 10, no prosecutor in the country would have prosecuted. But these days, no one uses common sense, and no one thinks of the real emotional health of our young people. Not just the boy--who is now, thanks to Megan's Law, a registered sex offender--but the girl will probably never develop into a normal adult with normal sexual behaviours. I can recount many similar cases, and even find URLs if you want. In my own state, the age of consent is still technically 15, but a new law makes it a serious crime for someone 18 or older to have consensual sex with someone above the "age of consent" but under 18. Not only is it confusing, it's been used to convict 18 year old high school seniors for having consensual sex with 16 year old high school juniors. Teenagers who are really young adults, now have not even basic rights over their own sexual development with members of their peer group.
We make our young people, kids as young as 12 and 13, responsible for upholding the responsibilities of adults. If they harm someone, they can be tried as an adult for assault or murder. Yet, we give them none of the rights of adults. How is it that we treat them like adults when they do evil, and like children when they do good? How can they have all the bad and none of the good that comes with being an adult? Why is it, at the exact moment we're treating teenagers more and more like children, taking away more of their rights, that we can simultaneously start punishing them as the justice system has only punished adults before now? I think it's because our society is selfish, and doesn't care about our teenagers. We want them to do as we say, and if they don't they get punished, but if they do they get no reward. We have lost sight of our teenagers. We treat them as objects, not human beings.
Not to mention the fact that we drug our young people like no other ntion does. We put them on Ritalin for just about everything--it's scary, the percentages of kids and teens on this stuff. And we put them on Welbutrin and Zoloft for depression--which is merely a usually harmless symptom of being a teenager. Most teenagers are naturally depressed from time to time--it's part of growing up. And we drug them for it. Do you know how many prescription drugs the Columbine shooters were on?
Everything for teenagers has been growing progressively worse. They've been given fewer and fewer rights--had more and more taken away. Is it any wonder, then, that some of them have felt so trapped, so put upon by external pressures, that some of them have snapped like at Columbine? Columbine was a wake-up call, not that teens are more violent than they've ever been--which stats show is untrue--not that we need to censor their films and video games, but that we're censoring them to death. We give them so little freedom that they don't value their own lives, or those of their classmates. We put them under so much presure to succeed, to get good grades, to get into college, to have cool friends and be in the right cliques--many also need to have jobs, too--and we have taken away their only freedoms and rewards. We have taken away all their fundamental rights.
And this is just another piece in that big puzzle. It's just another brick in the wall. And it's a very wicked thing to do to our teenagers, our supposed young adults. They get all the responsibilities and none of the rights. This is a small part of a much, much larger wrong. But it should be stopped. It all needs to be stopped, and thought about rationally.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
it would make a video game based on classic Warner Brothers cartoons (eg: Road Runner, Bugs Bunny, etc) illegal for kids to watch/play without parental consent. Of course, that is probably why those of us who grew up watching those graphically violent cartoons turned out to be so warped.
Personally, I think the violent and sexual content of video games could be MUCH more intense, graphic, and sickening than it is now.
Game designers are being held back by the perception that kids might play their games, and the game company would get sued by parents.
With an adult rating on the game, it's the parent's responsibility, and the retailers, not to let kids get the product.
Then, game developers will turn up the violence and sex content (hopefully a horrifyingly grotesque and realistic mixture of the two) for a more thoroughly satisfying "first person shooter" experience.
I call on all developers to alternately watch "The Cell" and "Caligula" at leasdt ten times before desinging anymore boring games. Maybe that would get something throughly disgusting and enjoyable into the stagnant gaming industry.
After all, long before the moronic do-gooders of America had video games and TV to blame, people were hating, killing and raping each other. Who was to blame then? Newspapers? Books? Radio?
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Is it just me, or is this title extremely misleading? It makes it sound like *no one* may purchase them. Something like "Indianapolis prohibits Violent Video Games to Children" would be more appropriate.
I'm trying to see how restricting explicit video games to those under 18 (unless a parent/guardian is with them) is any different than doing the same thing for explicit movies. Alright, I give up... how are they different? This is not a ban on violent video games. It's not a free speech issue and it's not censorship. A 2 year old is allowed to play a game rated mature so long as [s]he has his/her parents' blessing.
If I had a 13 year old kid, I'd buy him Halflife or Quake3 if he wanted it. My parents let me have access to whatever video games I wanted, and I never walked into school with a shotgun. Why? Well I think it has something to do with the fact that I was raised well. This law still gives the parents the right to raise their child[ren] as they see fit.
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
Well, here in good old Salt Lake City, Utah, this sort of thing is already happening to a certain extent. Not with arcade games, there's no regulation on that at all.
But a while ago I did a test. I sent my 10 year old sister into a computer game store to buy a copy of Q3. They would not sell it to her. They said it was too violent for someone that young. I had to go in there and buy it.
I'm not sure if it's a law here, but with the conservative attitude this state has it just sort of happens by itself.
I personally don't think it's that big of a deal of parents want their kids kept away from violent, bloody, whatever games. There's plenty of "rated E, for everyone" games out there. Take rollercoaster tycoon, the sims, the ever-classic simpsons arcade game. Non violent, fun, even addicting.
I personally don't want any future children I may have to be playing quake 3 at 10 and 11. And if they insist it's sure as hell gonna be on a linux box =)
My understanding is that the system would be unconstitutional were it legally enforced. Since movies are regularly cut down to make the R rating (or else face basically no market for an NC-17) the government would essentially be saying "censor your movies, or we'll not let you have a market for it", which seems like a pretty blatant violation of the First Amendment. It would be blocking speech between adults.
This ordinance though... The "harmful to minors" part is probably the week link. Can the city prove violent games harm minors? No, years of psychological research has still registered a big "inconclusive" on that. For any study the city commissions, the plaintiffs could cite 10 more that say the opposite. The likening of violence to pornography is the culprit here. It's pretty obvious that porn isn't nessesarily healthy for five year olds, but violence? Besides, even the most realistic arcade game is stil protraying something not quite realistic...and still something a kid could see far more of on television.
The ordinance itself is aimed at removing the machines, making them uneconomical to operate, not nessesarily keeping them from minors.
The wording of the ruling is also frightening. The judge comes very close to saying that video games aren't speech, or at least not protected speech. Does this mean that, in the future, if the government wants to censor something all they have to do is rule that it isn't protected by the First Amendment?
You'd think these politicians would be a little afraid. I mean, gamers are all trained snipers that have an insatiable appetite for blood, right?
For an accurate and more factual report, check out this article from the Indianapolis Star. It is extremely bad form for Slashdot and its readers to continue to mislead and be misled about the facts.
Please, let's discuss the merits of what actually was proposed. Unless people are giving their kids money to go out and buy a coin-operated machine, this story is totally off-base and incorrect.
Unfortunately, parents don't tend to take the time to understand what their children are playing. The more info we can give them on the subject, the better they can prolly understand what their children are up to. I worked for Toys R Us in their video game department for two and a half years, and I repeatedly informed parents of the rating system. It was very rare that I found a parent who didn't think it was a good thing.
I guess the best analogy I could give was this one time I was working at the game booth itself. This woman in her mid-30's came up to me, holding a ticket for a copy of DOOM for SNES. I got her the game, and as I got her to sign the ticket, I casually asked her who it was for. She smiled, and said it was for her five-year-old son. I just looked up, and asked her if she knew what the game was about. She said no, and I proceeded to describe the game in detail. When I was done, she was noticably paler and wanted to know where she could get a refund (the cartridges themselves weren't handed out until the game was paid for). I'm firmly convinced that a lost sale is better than a refund later and an irate former customer. I guess my point here is that parents don't know about a lot of these games, and that at least this way they have a chance to take a look at what it is their kids are buying/playing, and gives them a say in it.
I really fail to see how anyone can argue that age limits on violent and explicit material are anything other than a sane policy. It has been shown that children are more vulnerable to these things than adults, and so limiting their exposure to these kinds of materials is nothing more than caring for our future.
When violence becomes a part of society that is tolerated, then we must make sure that it does not become accepted. Currently American culture, such as it is, tolerates violence as being an inevitable consequcne of allowing firearms to be possessed by people, but it hasn't gotten to the stage yet where people accept violence as a tool for getting ahead in life. So, in order to make sure that people don't begin to perceive violence as a valid socio-economic tool of advancement, we need to make sure that children don't perceive violence as being "cool".
These kinds of laws, whilst perhaps not being strictly Constituional, are very necessary. We cannot let our children fall into the trap that violence is good, and nothing shouls be allowed to stand in the way of ensuring this. When the Constitution was drafted, if they'd have realised the threats that children face everyday, I'm sure they'd have realised that sometimes, freedom of speech is not an abolute concept.