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?
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.