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GTA and Rating of Video Games
Gamer writes "There is an interesting debate on Grand Theft Auto and rating of computer games going on. It started with Lawmeme's Paul Szynol wants 'distribution control so that minors don't get access to inappropriate material'.
Greplaw's Mikael Pawlo has a reply saying 'Computer games are art and should be dealt with accordingly, without any references to the prohibition tactics of the 1980:ies.'
Would the world not be a better place without the violence in GTA? I don't understand Pawlo's art argument, although I love gaming. I agree with Paul Szynol. Kids should not get violent games." I really don't have a problem with regulating violent games- its when the government tries to outlaw them that I have a problem.
and if it was a game that involved raping and killing 3 year olds very accurately depicted?
Art, eh?
;)
I would agree, the splattering of 6 Hare Krishna's on the pavement certainly is an art form
Check out this movie called Bowling for Columbine. Its in alot of the bigger theaters and looks at the issues of violence in teens as well as adults. http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com Games arn't the reason either.
I started playing it to blow off steam. As an adult who can drive, I find myself getting urges to just ram idiots who get in my way off the road, or to drive up on the sidewalk to get around them and mow people down if they happen to be walking there. Kids can't drive, so those urges won't affect them. Well, until they get their learner's permit. :-)
I personally agree- Kids should not have violent video games.
Great, so they're already rated. Every game these groups are worried about has a big Mature rating on it. Tell stores to stop selling to minors or tell parents to stop buying them for their kids.
The creators of the games have already done their job.
I don't even think outlawing them is a worthy conversation.. that's just ridiculous.
"'Computer games are art and should be dealt with accordingly"
Rubbish.
By that argument, all films are also art and should be unclassified...
I see nothing wrong with a classification system for games so that they are played by appropriate audiences, and so that parents can make informed desicions when buyiong games.
Sounds pretty responsible to me.
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
I don't believe in the "violent video games make you do violent things" theory. If this was true, then how come the "sports video games make you a better athlete" theory isn't?? I play Madden almost nonstop, but I'm not what you'd call an NFL player. In fact, I can safely say that Madden has not made me better one bit at actual football. So, why would Grand Theft Auto make me more violent? I believe that violent video games should be kept out of the hands of kids under 14, but after that age, they should be able to handle it.
Distribution control however might be a bit much. Only allowing sales in certain stores? Better that the stores enforce their own sale-to-minor policies, although it was proven over the christmas season they do not. (A figure in the high 80% range of how often underage kids were stopped when buying ESRB 18+ games)
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When I grow up, I want to be a kid again.
By banning them, They increase demand exponentialy.
These games are costing ~$45+, do you really think little timmy is buying this himself? Of course not, His parents buy it for him. So who really cares if they'll sell it to minors?
Personaly, I used to play plenty of M-rated games when I was 7+. Never tried to perform a fatalaty on anyone. No mental scaring, either. Shielding children from content is just going 1)Make them want it more 2)Increse effect when they finally do get it (they will).
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
" 'Computer games are art and should be dealt with accordingly, without any references to the prohibition tactics of the 1980:ies.' "
You could say the same about movies, but we use "prohibition tactics" to stop "underage" people from seeing them.
Parents need to take a more active role in what games their kids are playing. Instead of just pulling the box off the shelf, paying for the game, and giving it to their kids they need to understand what kind of material they are allowing their kids to view. Rather then try to put more restrictions on games, wouldn't the effort be better spent educating parents so they can make choices for their own children?
"No Comm, No Bomb"
Well, I think that like any other medium there is the potential for art. In the written word, there are tabloids and there are novels like War and Peace. On the screen there is Lawrence of Arabia or there is Dude, Where's My Car? Some is trashy, or just designed for entertainment but some is art. As a relatively new medium video games don't have many axamples of "art" yet, but there are some exceptions. ICO for instance, on the Playstation2 was a mind blowing experiance, not because of snazzy visuals or any particular aspect of the game, but the overall love that was put into the game was above and beyond what one normally sees. Other contenders could be the Myst series, some role playing games like the better Final Fantasies or Bungie's Marathon series. Of course the last 2 examples are mentioned mainly, but not entirely because of their storytelling. Thing is, Games can tell stories but as a medium they're capable of a lot more, and it's a great opportunity for us to watch it evolve. Anyway, back on the topic at hand, I love GTA but it's hard to say it's art. Then again, it is a very satirical work and even the visuals are intentionally caricatured. It's content is questionable, but it is something more than trash. I'm against censoring, but I do think they need an adequate ratings system that really explains itself on the package, so that parents buying things for their kids will not just see "M" but the reasons for the rating. I think this is one of the main issues here, parents buying games for kids. They control the pocketbook, they are usually above any age limit set by ratings, so really the only option is to inform them.
Yup...
what about free expression? Dont the politicians care about that?
Okay anyone remember Columbine shootings?
Apparently the kids involved were known to play FPS game, mainly Quake comes to my mind.
So several victims parents sued the makers of the games.
What amazes me is that one of the parents of the kids who were shooting everyone admitted they had not been in their kids room EVER!
Personaly I think most of what we see still comes back to the parents doing the job of a parent! If you want kids then have them and raise them right, if you dont have time for them then get fixed and do not pollute the world with your gene pool!
Not saying that anything wrong with regulating games, but shit we can not even regulate cigarettes and keep them out of kids hands so what good will it do!
and I'll say it again.
The answer is not regulation, the answer is parents getting off their lazy butts and paying attention to what their kids are doing. I grew up with violent video games, just like most of the rest of you. For the most part, we turned out alright. Granted, they're getting more violent, more realistic, more graphic, etc... But you know what, so is everything else. Video games should be like the movies. Kids cant get into Rated R movies without their parents, and they shouldnt be able to but Rated M games without their parents. That's the only acceptible way I can think of to "regulate". Really though, I think it should just be done the way it's always be done, and try expecting parents to be responsible for a change.
You remember how politicians are always saying that computer games promote violence. Why not let them put restrictions on the types of games that children can play. It would open the field for games that are even more violent / gorry which are built for adults :)
and I thought games were already restricted by the BBFC with age certificates that have to be adhered to by law (eg the big red circle with the white 18 on it) and are not just recommendations. So what would they do now that hasn't been done already? (In the UK at least)
I'm so sick of this bullshit.
GTA is rated M for mature.
Content may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. May contain mature sexual themes or more intense violence or language.
Why isn't this enough?
Boy, that list is just bursting with violent games.
Thanks for ruining my morning with your idiocy.
And I think that most people who haven't been poisoned by the media think the same.
Smoking tobacco causes lung disease. Every single person who smokes tobacco, no matter how much, will damage their lungs to some degree. The more you smoke the more you damage your lungs. This is a fact.
Playing violent video games does NOT cause violence. In fact, most people who play violent video games do not commit violent acts. The same goes for violent movies and tv shows.
Now, there are some people in this world who should not play violent video games. These people are really disturbed people and really immature people. Really disturbed people were probably going to commit a violent act anyway. The violent video games they play do not cause them to be violent, but it gives them the idea of HOW to be violent. Some disturbed person who is going to kill someone might decide that instead of just shooting someone that they will take out their heart and hold it aloft after playing mortal kombat. Because they are disturbed. Then the video game gets blamed because some guy happened to be a nut.
Really immature people will act out anything they see. They have a difficult time telling the difference between fantasy and reality. Not being able to tell the difference between fantasy and reality is actually part of the definition of insanity. Some children CAN play violent games. I played violent games when I was little, yet I am very adamant against violence. But I still play counter-strike, because I realize I'm not actually killing anyone.
Legislation against violent video games is just a continuation of an ongoing american trend of the government forcing stupid americans to do things that they should. Social Security forces people to save for retirement (even though its not working so well). Curfews force parents to not let their kids out at night. Violent media laws force parents to not let their 5 year olds play GTA. This is ok because all the stupid parents who have immature kids are now forced into being slightly better parents. The problem is that some parents who teach their kids right lose the freedom to allow their children to do things that they are mature enough to do, but not old enough. Just like someone who is smart enough to save for their own retirement shouldn't have to pay social security.
Tobacco causes lung cancer. Violent video games dont' cause violence. They give violent people new ideas. They were going to be violent anyway. If anythign it draws these loonies out so we can lock them up. All anti-violent video game legislation infringes on the rights of parents to let their 8 year old play GTA if that parent is a good parent and the 8 year old is indeed mature enough. Instead we should fund schools on "how not to suck at being a parent". Parents these days all go to work, leave kids home alone, and let the television and the video game console, and not the internet, be the parent. This is where the problem lies. It should be a crime not to bring up your children properly. It shouldn't be a crime to play counter-strike.
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Since the content of games is driven by the largest market, perhaps America can look forward to games with less violence, and more sex. With games such as Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament being directly responsible for the Columbine massacre, I think this change in emphasis could only be a good thing. I've always been puzzled by our American morality whereby it is perfectly acceptable to show a person being violently physically assaulted, and yet to show two human beings making love is completely censored by our prudish tv networks.
Games were directly responsible for the Columbine Massacre? I consider myself a very ethical person (it is my beleif that killing a person is one of the worst things you could ever do) and I cringe at the thought of hurting another person, but I play all those games you listed about (as well as some others) The reason I play those games is because they're fun, and I can tell the difference between something on a TV screen or computer monitor and something in real life. Playing Grand Theft Auto for an hour everyday is not going to make you become some insane car jacker. The people who do horrible things like what happened in Columbine have problems, problems that have nothing to do with games. What sickens ME is that in this day and age people never want to take responsibility for their own actions, and blame it on things like video games, and movies. God willing, they will never discover books, or they'll have ratings too.
My parents used to put a lock on the power cord to the TV. I think their solution here would be to lock the PS2 in a file cabinet and run some sort of check out system so that they could monitor what's on the screen when I'm playing. I can already hear the whining from parents who let the PS2 babysit their kids, but I don't see how their incompetence should affect my ability to get a game.
Furthermore, I'm adamently against government regulation. If they created a simple enough ratings system, stores can police themselves.
Nor do draconian restrictions like attempting to ban something completely. The Prohibition experiment in the USA should have told us that if nothing else. Of course, no one has paid any attention to that example when it comes to the "drug wars".
If something exists then it is available. If an attempt to ban it is made it becomes even more widely available.
Look at alcohol. When it was banned it was available to anyone. Since the demand was great enough to create a large supply irrespective of any penalties, then there was no reason to worry about whether it was available to kids. There was no greater penalty attached to giving kids booze.
Once it was legalized - and controlled - then several things happened. The quality improved because suddenly you could be put out of what was a lucrative business if it made people sick. And just as suddenly you could go to jail for sellling it to minors (which, coincidentally, also put you out of business.)
Whether or not this game is "art" seems to me to not be an issue. There are some well-known artists whose works depict nude children and no one is advocating that his shows be open to elementary school field trips. There are clearly some things that affect immature minds in adverse ways.
The only really pertinent question is: "If we choose to control who gets it, how do we go about it?" Computer games aren't like bottles of whiskey in that they can be made available to anyone via a download. Just how does a society "control" this? By assuming that anyone with a credit card is an adult (like the on-line porn industry)?
If these are available in stores then how would we ensure that the store personnel keep them away from children? Lock the CDs up with the cigarettes?
And what sorts of penalties would be attached to not following whatever rules society thinks up?
It does seem clear to me that the gaming industry has gone too far with this particular game. There is an outcry now and even if it's unjustified it will result in "something being done". They had better hope that it's the right "something."
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Its a bit like global warming. There's no direct evidence to link greenhouse gasses and global warming, but if we wait until we have cast iron evidence, it will be too late to save the planet.
Its the same with Columbine style incidents, and violent FP Shooters. You cannot possibly believe that exposure to all that blood and violence has no effect on our children, can you ?
I just hope you are never caught in the crossfire as some deranged Quake player decides to live out his PC-based fantasies.
This is all overgeneralising, us Europeans (i'm in the UK btw) play FPS games as well as the US, but the reason there are no high school shootings here is because you can't get guns.
I am 15, and play voilent and nonviolent games, yet I do not end up fighting with people. To be influenced by a game you have to be stupid (or at least highly impressionable), and if you can't distinguish real life from a virtual creation then you need help rather than censorship for all people under 18.
I don't have a problem with rating video games. It's like rating movies, it keeps the games in the hands of the people who can appropriately deal with the violence and/or sexual content. Video games are not just for little kids any more, the government and yuppie voting America just wants to think it is. Mario is no longer the biggest video game icon. Now we have Tommy Vincetti to deal with. Video games are becoming a huge market, and with that growth will be the people who try to limit it. Like I said, rating is good. But we let videos like Face Of Death sit on rental shelves, and those are okay? Those trouble me more than some silly video game, because nobody pays attention to that kind of stuff. Maybe because it's not interactive. But the same reason that movie is rated for only adults is the same reason the GTA series has always carried an "M" rating. Because the people who would otherwise be exposed to that, don't know how to handle it. They don't understand that it's just a game, it's just a movie. Instead of trying to ban the video game because it's violent, look at the parents. Do the parents know, or even care, that their children are playing something that is wholly inappopriate for them? They just want to lay blame on the video game company. They want to absolve themselves of any responsibility for raising their children to be sane, productive people. These are the same people that blame schools for behavior problems and put their kids on ritalin because they are more active than the other kids. We are all a product of our environment. If you don't like the product, change the environment. It's not up to the people who make games to raise other people's children.
"The image is a dream. The beauty is real. Can you see the difference?" -- Richard Bach, Illusions
What ever happened to parents acting like parents? Having one gaming child below the age of 12 (my others are older), I make sure I know what my kids are playing - both in my house and at their friends house. My kids know that "No" means NO!! And no amount of whining is going to get them a game I don't think is appropriate for them. Our decision to purchase of a GameCube over the other systems was made after reviewing the types of games that were available.
We've since lightened up a bit on the gaming violence (example: Star Wars Bounty Hunter), but my wife and I always make sure we know what's going on, and keep the game playing in balance with other activities - sports, music, etc.
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"I'd never want to join a club that would have me as a member" - G. Marx
I have yet to hear of an actual incident where a store checks the ID of a kid to see if he's old enough to be purchasing a game. But, IMHO, it's still enough. I doubt that kids are ID'd when they buy that copy of the latest Vin Diesel movie either.
Who cares? Just because they're kids doesn't mean they're fucking stupid.
and if a kid wants to play it, then I say let him. What makes it any worse for a kid to play a violent video game than an adult, other than the fact that a kid is supposed to be able to have fun and an adult should be working for a living?
Besides, games don't kill people. Guns don't kill people. People kill people.
If the problem is that kids are becoming too violent, the solution isn't to sanitize the world, it is to teach kids that violence is bad.
Personally, I'm sick and tired of people looking for excuses for bad parenting.
CitrusTV (http://www.citrustv.net): the Nation's Oldest & Largest Entirely Student-Run Television Station
How about concerned parents petition the government to fund non-profit educational software development? How about people who don't think kids should be playing these games do something to provide an alternative? Saying "don't" without a "do" to replace it is ineffective and possible worse than saying nothing. I've always felt that the government should spend more on encouraging good social policy in soft ways rather than enforcement. The U.S. Army put out a wildly successful video game. Why can't the U.S. Department of Education? Why can't the Library of Congress develop tools to teach kids how to do research (as opposed to clicking "I'm Feeling Lucky" on google)?
Worse is, our politicians know that playing to fear, prejudice, and hate is a much faster ticket to politicial success than carefully developing and explaining thoughtful, informed public policy to a increasingly stupider population. Look at the drug war. Success results in more people in prison. I thought the point of good long-term policy was to keep people out of prison! In my more cynical moments I think that most people want to see drug users behind bars instead getting clean and competing with them for jobs.
In America, it seems that they have a rating system, Everyone, Teen, Mature, Adult. I think it appears from time to time on the boxes over here too.
Personally, unless a game is really, really, really unsuitable, it should be allowed to be made. It's an entertainment medium, the same as film and music, and should be treated similarly. It seems that you can sell porno, racist songs, and violent movies, so why not a violent game?
Oh, and I doubt that computer games have _ever_ been the direct cause of a killing. Lack of parental care and common sense are much more likely. It's much easier to blame a bundle of polygons than to admit you're a terrible parent that should never have been given reproductive organs.
That's why they have parents
Parents should be the ones responsible for a childs behavior. It is up to them to decide what the child should and should not do and take the neccessary steps to make it so.
This is not, nor should it ever be the responsibility of government.
And yes, that means no minimum drinking age. I am not responsible for your children, the government is not responsible for your children. You are responsible for your children.
If you father/mother a child, you should be required to oversee their actions until they turn 18... Maybe purchases should require the same as an R-Rated movie... A 17-year-old is admittedly going to understand the premise of GTA3 better than a 5-year-old.
Last I checked there is a big M on the cover of gta and you must be 18 to purchase. If you didnt live under a rock you would know that already. These kids parents really need to monitor what they are buying for their children. Parents that just buy games for their kids without paying atention to what the game is piss me off. They dont even look to see what the rating on the game is then bitch about the content of the game. All I Have to say is What the hell did you think it got a mature rating for?
The art argument is quite a novel approach and the more I think about it the more i like it. If you accept the premise that games are works of art based on the creative effort that goes into their creation, then if follows that they should be treated as protected speech, much as any art form such as paintings of nudes, displayed in galleries, or the work of war photographers, who try to capture the horrors of war (and sometimes exteemely violent scenes) on film.
Art is perhaps the most carefully protected speech, so if it's possible to successfully argue that video games are a form of art, this represents a powerful protection for the games themselves.
As for preventing children from playing such games, this responsibility should most definately lie with parents, much as the choice not to take a child to an art gallery exhibiting nude photography, or the choice not to place marble statue of a nude female (or male) in the bedroom of a small child.While these art forms are not inherently objectionable, and are in many cases quite beautiful, it would be bad parenting to expose a young child to some of these works, until he/she has developed an understanding of the artwork and it's place in society.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
I don't care if they rate games, but I don't want to get carded when I go out to buy Doom3. It's rediculous. Video games have to be played somewhere. It's not like a movie theatre where you go and see the movie on the business's premise, you have to bring the game HOME in order to play it. At home, there is this concept called parenting. This parenting process involves censoring your child of whatever you see fit. Ratings are a great tool that a parent may choose to use in the interest of censorship. And that's all they should be: a tool for parents.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Idle hands are the devils playground. I would rather kids play these violent games while their parents explain to them the difference between a game and real life, then have the kids out on the street bored and getting in to trouble.
I don't know about you, but when I was a kid I got in to the most trouble when my and friends and I were bored.
Why does the government always insist on censoring things, when educating the kids to know the difference between a game and real life is the real, long term answer? It's the parents responsibility not the governments! Not to mention you would have to be pretty naive to think that little Johnny isn't going over to his friends house to play the violent games that a older brother bought.
Open Source Time and Attendance, Job Costing a
Video games don't make kids kill. The fact is that whenever kids go crazy and shoot up their school, people want to find something to blame for it. It's much easier to blame video games than it is to take a real look at what went wrong. Besides. Everyone knows that Ozzy, Judas Priest, and Marilyn Manson are responsible. Hahaha!
All this violent video games bullshit is getting right on my tits. If the people working at the game shops can't ID the kids, then it's their fault. If the stupid mothers can't check the damn boxes, then it's their fault.
I'm sick of idiots. I'm sick of parents that don't know what their kids are up to, the parents that let their kids go out at 12 years of age and come back drunk on cider. I'm sick of parents that are too scared to stand up to their 5 or 6 year old children:
"Oh mummy I want this, I want that!"
"Don't worry, I'll get you anything you want"
What is your fucking problem, you scared your children are gonna hate you if you teach them a little about the value of money and about selfishness? Get with the fucking programme, stop buying your scum offspring more trash that they're gonna play with for 5 minutes and throw to one side.
I'm fed up of scum parents who teach their kids to be violent by beating them and swearing at them when they're naughty. Hello, you fucking idiots, they're just gonna copy you. SCUM BREEDS SCUM. You're just polluting the gene pool.
Now these kids will go off and buy these 18 certificate games using fake ID's they bought with money from mugging old women or selling drugs at school. The politicians then have the nerves to say the games cause the violence, the games cause the muggings, beatings, shootings and murders.
Wake up and smell the scum. This country (the UK) needs to be purged of all the scum that is breeding rapidly. I think that armed robbery, even mugging old women should result in the death penalty, as should murder and child abuse.
Why not? After all, these people are only draining our resources, like sponges, sitting there till we've spent every penny.
I'm sick of the legal system. I'm sick of burgulars suing their victims when they get shot for trespassing into someone's own home. They get legal aid, wasting the money honest decent taxpayers put into the country.
Well, I live in the United States. In my country we have something called the First Amendment that gaurentees the freedom of speech.
/. and that it shouldn't be published in the first place? Its a slippery slope once you start censoring material.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion. In fact, if you feel strongly enough, I would urge you to write to the publishers of such violent video games and request that they stop marketing such products. You could even organize a political group and boycott the companies that sell or market the games.
My personal opinion? Its a game. If someone wants to play a game where they steal cars and murder people, its a whole lot better than actually doing it. So if that's fun to someone, all the more power to them I say. So, if I were so inclined, I probably write to them in favor of more games if that's what sells.
Besides, what's to stop someone from saying that they don't like what is said on
CitrusTV (http://www.citrustv.net): the Nation's Oldest & Largest Entirely Student-Run Television Station
Please. Ever seen a video game as violent as 'Scarface'? What would happen if a mainstream video game came out with virtual sex as hot as in '9 1/2 Weeks'? You would see politicians lining up from here to Zimbabwe to condemn it. Stores would fall all over themselves to be the first to refuse to carry it.
Expect video games to continue to be scape-goated on TV, in magazines and in newspapers as their content matures and they begin to encroach more and more upon the domain of Hollywood (aka Sex and Violence'R'Us) and as more of our entertainment dollars go to game publishers rather than movie studios.
Games are threatening Hollywood's control over the cultural discourse and as ever that cannot not be tolerated (at least until control of video game production, promotion and distribution is safely nestled in Hollywood hands).
When Hollywood controls video gaming, then and only then will it be recognized as 'art'. Then and only then will the sex and violence flow like honey and not a word will be raised against it.
Glin
I see the most realistic violence in the News.. Sure, I think that it is important to realize what's going on around the world, but do we really have to hear every detail about the latest suicide bombing, including close-ups of bloody bodies? But few people will go out and kill or bomb someone from this, because it is so graphic. That is not to say that no one will ..
Maybe if you make the games realistic enough, and if we show enough blood and gore, people will be so turned off that they won't kill people. A far fetched argument, but you never know.
The world would be a better place if PARENT'S PAID SOME DAMN ATTENTION!
Sorry to yell. But a warning like "Mature: sexual acts, graphic human-like violence, profanity. Age 18+" on the back of a game should be clear enough to anyone but your common moron.
Whoops! If the parents are too burnt out on valium to flip over the game box and read it before buying it for junior, a video game is the least of their worries.
I have no problem with warning labels and ID checking as long as consenting adults are not prohibited as well.
What is music when you despise all sound?
I had violent video games when I was growing up, and I haven't killed anybody... yet.
One thing that is so often forgotten, or even presumed by all sides in discussions like this is that kids are stupid.
They aren't stupid. No more stupid as a class than adults are. As a class, their brain chemsitry is a bit different from adults and is still more flexible. But this doesn't mean that any old idea that comes along is going to inexorably pervade their thought processes until they dedicate their lives to slavishly carrying out some twisted schizophrenic directive.
Kids are perfectly capable of dealing with violence and sex in movies, games and books without becoming permanently drain-bamaged. Please, don't bother with the anecdotes about Columbine and the Menedez brothres and the like. If the adult population were so lucky as to have as few aberrant members as the anecdotal freaks are to the kid population our prisons system would be the size of just one hotel and the murder rate for the whole country would be less than that of just Los Angeles.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I refuse to do your homework for you, freshman!!
Some of the Vice City missions are evil (like the "wipe the wife" one), and this game probably shouldn't be at Walmart or Fred Meyer. There are, however, many good distribution channels for adult materials. My wife and I have puchased non-porn-but-adult items at the local porn shops; they have DVDs now... is the placement of video games there really such a far stretch? I think most of the resistence will come from Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft though; who wouldn't want to be the first system to offend soccer moms' sensibilities. On the other hand, the system that does open this door will have an advantage in the market in the future (methinks).
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
I think problem with games is that parents aren't exactly aware of them enough.
Older people just didn't get to have any games.
Adults know, that some art material is inpropriate for kids, but they aren't aware about games, because they had no computers in their childhood. And therefore no memories about mom denying playing with computer to kid. No model to follow.
Time will heal those wounds.
How about concerned parents petition the government to fund non-profit educational software development? How about people who don't think kids should be playing these games do something to provide an alternative? Saying "don't" without a "do" to replace it is ineffective and possible worse than saying nothing. I've always felt that the government should spend more on encouraging good social policy in soft ways rather than enforcement. The U.S. Army put out a wildly successful video game. Why can't the U.S. Department of Education? Why can't the Library of Congress develop tools to teach kids how to do research (as opposed to clicking "I'm Feeling Lucky" on google)?
What the hell??? Have you looked at the list of Nintendo games recently? There are hundreds, if not thousands of "alternatives" for kids to buy and play with, and not just Nintendo. There's plenty of educational and kid-friendly software and games out there to act as competition to the likes of GTA.
The fact of the matter is that kids like violence and they don't want to play those kid-friendly games as much as they want to beat up hookers. Is it appropriate for them to do that? I don't think so and that's why our democratically elected government is trying to do things to help parents have more control over what their kids play with. If the parent wants to buy an "R" rated game, let them, but don't let the 8 year-old buy it him/herself if it's labelled as a "mature" game.
I am against the government outlawing these types of games outright, but I am for them regulating them. It's completely appropriate and draws a good balance between "child protection" and the freedoms of adults. And yes, "protecting the children" is a valid reason at times like this, even it it's become a cliche.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Isn't prevention better than punishment? Perhaps a system that stops crimes is better than one that punishes them? 100 criminals in prison better than 100 would-be-criminals-who-didn't-commit-the-crime on the streets? No victim, no investigation/prosecution/incarceration/rehabilita tion (cough cough) costs.
On the other hand, banning violent games isn't going to stop the violence. I've got the sneaky feeling that if the German vets of World War I had access to combat and strategy games, their taste for violence and warfare would have been sated, denying the National Socialists their basic appeal to the masses "Violence and the Volk".
Now I can boot up my computer, install GTA, and... control a bunch of pixels driving over other bunches of pixels. Wow.
The phrase 'yeah, right' comes to mind.
OTOH, parents should be aware of what their kids are playing... but that's hardly a lot to ask, now, is it?
Gun CONTROL nuts shut up. This has very little to do with your pathetic lost cause. America doesn't buy it and never will. OK got that off my chest :).
Ratings for games already exist don't they? GTA is rated M. What is the deal?? Isn't watching/monitoring/talking to your children about violence part of parenting? Violent games and movies have existed for YEARS, but parents have taken (now take a DEEP breath...) RESPONSABILITY for the children that they are RESPONSABLE for. Funny how some parents want to off load this responsability to everyone but themselfs.
I keep thinking about this statement
"Build a machine that is idiot proof....
and they will build a BETTER idiot!"
The linked article calls for a third party to rise up and implement distribution controls similar to those used for movies.
In the US, the government has no role to play in the movie ratings system. For it to do so would be unconstitutional. There's nothing illegal about making a film that would be rated R and not controlling it's distribution.
So how does the system work? It's controlled by the MPAA. The studios are affiliated with the MPAA, and so are the cinemas. To show those movies offered by MPAA studios, cinemas must agree to enforce the MPAA rules about not letting minors into certain films. Likewise, studios must obtain a rating from the MPAA before distributing the films to cinemas. Some "art-house" cinemas that don't play MPAA movies don't use or enforce the MPAA's ratings system, and they're under no legal obligation to do so.
The movie ratings system only works because the vast, vast majority of the industry is under MPAA control. What the article's calling for would require, say, a Computer Games Association of America (CGAA). The industry already generates more revenue than Hollywood, so it's not like they couldn't afford to form it.
Given the effects of the centralisation of the record and movie industries, do you really want another xxAA?
The answer is not regulation, the answer is parents getting off their lazy butts and paying attention to what their kids are doing.
The issue of mandating ratings and the like has nothing to do with either. The main reason the government is getting involved in this industry, is that politicians can't help but notice the money it's making. If politicians can wedge themselves into an industry by threatening legislation for this, that, or what have you, then it opens up a brand new channel for payola from the companies to the politicians.
The videogame industry could stop putting out games with guns in them yesterday, and if the market stayed as large as it currently is, the politicians would be holding congressional investigations on the effect videogames have on teenagers, and reckless driving.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
If so many video games are violent and the European video game market is groing faster than in North America, that begs the question "What video games are the Europeans buying?"
It seems to me that the Europeans are eating those games up like cake. After all, you pointed out that sales in Europe started to increase about the time games started to get more violent. And on top of that, they're buying them faster than they're selling in North America (how else can they be set to become the world's largest video game market?)
Now if you'll excuse me, I have some shines to find.
It all really comes down to one issue. Who is really responsible for the raising of our children? Is it the government's job to set the rules and standards by which our children are raised or is it up to the parents? That's the issue at stake in many, many things. A hundred years ago, the state stayed out of the role of raising children. The have at the same time taken away much of the responsibility of the parents to raise children. Giving information to parents on the violence levels of games is a good thing, but to keep the parents from having the right to choose what their children will play or do is wrong. Whenever possible, more freedom is better than less.
Let the kids play all the violent video games they want. There is a thing called imaginaion, and a thing called reality. Those who cannot tell those two apart already have a problem to begin with. Video games don't cause kids to be violent, if anything they let kids take out their anger in a non destructive fashion.
Being European too I hadn't heard of Columbine - but what about Dunblane? No guns there but still kids killing other kids. I don't believe games are responisble either anyway.
The real problems I see with GTA 3 are the kids that are too young to play it, but somehow get enough money to buy it. Shame on parents who don't take take enough interest in their kids to know if GTA 3 is too violent for them before they go and buy it.
The only item that is never mentioned in this dicussion it where are the friggin parents? Who usually bought the game for little timmah? I did seen GTA being played on a PS2 by my 8 year old nephew and thought the game was prety cool but way inappropriate for him. I asked his parents and the game was bought for the dad who was clueless about it's content until shown. The mom freaked and called it X-rated which is overreactionary. The game is not that bad but a game for mature people only.
Alright, the obligatory rant. Really, the media is becoming more and more of a scapegoat for things like Columbine etc. The thing is, the number one influence in a kid's life is his parents. It's a parent's job to teach their children right from wrong, and I think in a lot of cases, the kids most likely to pick up a gun and go postal in their school, are the ones whose parents don't really give a damn about them. Long story short, when parents use the TV or videogames to babysit their kids, of course bad things can happen. Is that a video game or TV show's fault? Not entirely. If a parent has done their job well, most will know the difference between fantasy and reality. We have a ratings system in place. I don't think banning violent video games is going to solve the problem of violence in schools, or whatever else the government is worried about. If someone's going to go psycho and kill people, I think the reason is a little deeper than a video game in most cases.
Regulating Computer Games
Over at Yale's Lawmeme, editor Paul Szynol gives his opinion on violence in computer games. Szynol wants an effective ranking mechanism but conclude that computer games may exert a negative influence on kids. Excuse me, but who used the time machine? Computer games are art and should be dealt with accordingly, without any references to the prohibition tactics of the 1980:ies.
The contents of games like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City should serve well as starting point in any discussion on the ethics of computer games. It appears Lawmeme's Paul Szynol is not alone in his views on violence in computer games. Washington Post columnist Mike Wilbon put it even more clearly than Szynol in the ESPN TV show "Pardon The Interruption" stating in respect of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City:
"The people who put it together should be stoned in the street."
I think Wilbon is on thin ice when he wants to punish the artist. Computer games are the result of a creative process not different than other objects of arts, such as paintings or music.
In the 1980:ies in Sweden we had a very intense debate on violence in computer games. The most outspoken opponent to violence in computer games was Margaretha Persson, then representative of the precedent to the Children's Ombudsman (Barnmiljoradet / Barnombudsmannen). Any Swede with good memory can recount the events when Persson made the game distributors remove a plastic shuriken (ninja star) from the game box before selling the Commodore 64 game Last Ninja 2. Persson also wanted a ban on other games. The debate looks very silly in the light of today, especially since Last Ninja 2 then was considered to be a photo-realistic game with animated movie qualities. The graphics were worse than the graphics provided in latest Ericsson cell phones. The individuals beating people up in the streets of Stockholm in the 1980:ies most likely had others and more severe personal issues to deal with than playing Last Ninja 2.
I do agree with Paul Szynol that computer games should be rated. That is already done, as observed by Szynol. Rockstar's game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was rated by Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) and there is no active marketing for the game targeting players that are less than 17 years old.
Personally, as a constantly immoral and bad person, I would probably play games with three skulls rating, but that does not imply that I think kids should do it. Parents must have a chance to understand and grasp the difference between BMX Kidz and BMX XXX. Yes, the latter is a game for Xbox, PS2 and Gamecube sold today where you can run a BMX bike with a topless female biker. The former is a old Commodore 64 game that would hardly be detected on the rating radar.
I believe society and the individual are affected by culture. That does not mean that I believe that anyone would place his wife in the trunk after listening to Eminem's song Stan. In accordance with most modern psychologists I think the individual is affected both by his heritage and his environment. The importance of the environment, of which the culture is a vital part, is most probably more significant during the early years of an individual's upbringing. If the individual is exposed only to extremely violent games and movies the individual may maintain a different approach to life than an individual that gets a more varied cultural diet. In either way, the parents must have the possibility to choose whether the kid should be exposed to a varied or strict video game diet. in practice, that is not the case today. Most parents can not efficiently exercise their guardianship because they lack knowledge of the contents of the computer games. In respect of movies, parents rather easily can decide whether the kid shall be allowed to watch a certain movie or not. There are effective rating mechanisms and it is easy to actually control the content by watching the movie. When it comes to computer games it is hard and time-consuming for the parents to learn that you may actually have intercourse with prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and subsequently kill your sex partner. This particular part of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was removed in Australia following a ban of the game in the land of the kangaroo.
To be fair, Paul Szynol did not crave a direct ban on certain computer games, but distribution control so that minors don't get access to inappropriate material. In my opinion, the computer game vendors should treat sensitive material in the same way video stores do - comedy in one corner, violence in another corner. A sticker on the box with an independent rating of the content would further add to improve the situation. Then it is up to the market - that is you and me - to decide whether we want to have the violent games or not. Voting with the wallet is often extremely efficient and would supersede any attempts of regulation.
There are opponents to rating as such. In my opinion there are good and bad ratings and good and bad computer games. How ratings as such would be bad I find hard to understand. The market would benefit from getting more information.
Would it not be great if a certain association of parents make a list over computer games it considers dangerous to kids? I am sure there are several such lists in the loop. Any parent or grown-up may choose whether to consider the recommendations made on such a list or just ignore it.
Someone may want to buy only computer games that are rated by the Church of Scientology, someone may settle for ratings from Nation of Islam and a third for ratings conducted by the Catholic church. I have no problem with that as long as we all, individually, are able to choose our own filters and prejudices. But the debate run a risk of returning to the prohibition propaganda of the 1980:ies where we tilt towards apprehending the Swedish Last Ninja 2 uproar and the recent experiences from Australia. It is indeed hard to defend certain parts of the contents of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Paul Szynol's call for distribution control and review of the rating system are less tasty dishes on the smorgasbord of the computer rating debate. Some of the arguments should be placed in the time machine and sent back to the appropriate decade.
Computer games are art and should be treated with the equal respect we treat Rembrandt's painting The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis. The painting may bear witness of a coming extreme violence in the uprising lead by Julius Civilis, but I gather few today would demand on moral grounds that the painting should be removed from the National Museum in Stockholm. Why should we treat computer games any differently?
Mikael Pawlo
Pawlo.com
If you outlaw violent video games, only outlaws will have violent video games.
"Look! There! Evil, pure and simple from the Eighth Dimension!" --Buckaroo Banzai
I personally agree with the classification of video games. I feel the arguement that games are art are therefore should be free from classification is flawed. Movies are considered an art and recieve classification.
Ignoring extremist views from die hard gamers and over-protective parents, what do people feel the difference between letting a 12 year old kid watch Pulp Fiction and playing Grand Theft Auto is?
Would you say that watching a graphic movie is more likely to traumatise a younger person than them playing a game?
I find GTA fun, that giddyness you get when you first get your mits on a big gun, the compelling storyline and then there is the fact that your an active part in the story.
With a movie however its different, you take a more passive role with only the story and action to keep you hooked. Remember that scene in Pulp Fiction where they guy gets his head blown off in the back of the car? What was your reaction to it? Did you laugh or get a fright or were you just not bothered by it? If something similar was in a game then should it be free from classification?
Well it seems like I can argue my point by asking more questions.
That's bull. I, for one, have seen the ESRB's influence first hand. They've done a GREAT job of keeping me from renting games. I can drive to the rental place, but i can't rent Resident Evil once i'm there, because i'm not 17. I can't rent ANY of the "mature" games there. The various incarnations of Silent Hill, Resident Evil, certain FPSes, etc., are all off-limits for me, even though i personally own many of them, and have played them millions of times. I can turn on Fox and see more questionable content than i would playing Resident Evil (Silent Hill is another story, heh). I can see the logic in the system, of course... but this guy's argument is bullshit.
* Based on the ranking mechanism, I'd like to see distribution control so that minors don't get access to inappropriate material.
For the most part, already in place. All the big chains bar minors from buying/renting games below their "age group". Wal-Mart, Target, Blockbuster, and most of the regional chains i've been to, won't allow me to rent or buy "mature" games unless i have a parent with me. There are, of course, small and/or independent shops where i can walk in and they'll pretty much sell me anything, regardless of my age or the content of the game.
* I do believe exposure to some of the content of some video games is prima facie problematic. This seems to be the point where I part ways with most of the people who responded, but so it goes. I don't think video games are inherently "bad", but I do think some of them can exert a negative influence on some kids some of the time.
And of course, who can criticise video games without playing the "games influence kids" argument? I'm sure everyone on Slashdot already has their minds made up about whether or not games influence kids. I'm sure anyone that has ever heard the argument does. However, he says himself that they exert a negative influence on SOME kids SOME of the time. Why stop with video games? Let's regulate TV shows (because no, they are not regulated to any great degree). Let's regulate driver's licences. Let's have everyone participate in a psychological evaluation before we allow them to legally have access to a car, because hey, cars contribute to road rage. I can walk into Target and buy a giant fucking knife, or a box of kitchen matches. Why don't we regulate those things? Why don't we regulate baseball bats? Lumber? Nails? Screwdrivers? Boots?
I'm being facetious, of course. The fact is, games are already regulated as much as they need to be. There is no need to get any more anal about it. Once again, everyone thinks it should be up to somebody else to take care of their kids. Let's see THE PARENTS take some responsibility, instead of blaming video games, movies, and music for their poor child-raising skills.
Excluding very small children (i.e. ~8 and younger), games don't influence people that aren't already fucked up in the head. Small children like that aren't going to be able to rent/buy games anyway. One, where will they get the money? Two, how will they get to the store/rental place? Three, what moron would sell a violent game to a little kid like that if they did happen to get past the first two hurdles? Those are the kids we needed to be worrying about with the game ratings, and we don't have to anymore. They're covered. The only problem now is the psychologically demented people that play Quake and then go out and shoot people. Mainstream society shouldn't have to suffer because there are screwed-up people in the world.
PS: I think Grand Theft Auto (all four versions of it) is a retarded and extremely overrated game.
That parents work too much and don't have enough time to monitor what their kids are buying, listening to and playing. Unless they're a single parent working 2-3 jobs to support their kids I have no sympathy. If you're going to have kids then you're going to have to interact constantly with them and keep them safe.
As one poster on FreeRepublic about the overwhelming tendency of people like this and the media cartels to resort to extremist tactics, the only solution is to keep the ammo dry and the guns oiled.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
actually dunblane wasn't kids shooting kids, it was one rather disturbed adult shooting kids.
Hmm... We have to take care of this situation right away:
1. Sims Expansion Pack: The Ripper
2. Harry Potter 2: Street Quidditch
3. Roller Coaster Terrorist 2
4. Zoo Tycoon: The Jurassic Park
5. Sims Vacation: Pakistan
I was in my local EB last week and saw a woman in line with a child of about 10 yrs. (she looked to be his grandmother). She was attempting to purchase Vice City. The guy at the counter asked her who she was buying it for. She said it was for the small child with her. Counter guy asked if she was aware of the content of the game, and when she said she wasn't he explained the gist of the game to her. She put it back and walked out of the store. Why the hell do we need legislation when we've already got the co-operation of retailers?
do not read this line twice.
I don't know about you, but when I was a kid I got in to the most trouble when my and friends and I were bored.
amen...8 counts of criminal mischief's worth of trouble. and then the DA had the balls to say "i grew up in West Virginia and i NEVER heard of 'mailbox baseball' until i moved up here"...scumsucker.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Sorry, I stand corrected.
There are psychopaths out there who will get ideas from violent games, but they are more likely to get violent ideas by coming into contact with street gangs, caught up in drug trafficking, or by being abused by their lousy parents.
At the moment we have a legal system which, perhaps rightly, insists that people cannot be locked up until they commit crimes, or parents and institutions cannot have children removed from their care until the child has actually been abused. Because of this, we are constantly being asked to regulate access to things that could do harm. Society is being designed on the basis that it contains a hard core of psychopaths and so no-one must be issued with sharp objects.
Past attempts to remove dangerous people from circulation have usually been carried out by governments in which the psychopaths are in control - liberal governments do not like to infringe civil liberties. Meanwhile, the percentage of dangerous people seems to be going up, if the prison population is any guide.
I don't have any solutions, liberal or otherwise. Our choice seems to be somewhere between the Roman Empire solution (which might well be to kill every teenager and adult male in violent inner city areas, and spread the women and small children around into culturally alien areas)and the Japanese Imperial solution (completely disarm the entire non-military population and control tightly their access to unwanted ideas.) The debate is, where on that spectrum should we be?
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
When I was 16, I went to see Hollow Man at the theater. Since it was rated R, the attendent would not let me in without a parent. My mom came with me to the attendent, and told her that I had her permission to watch the movie, yet the attendent still wouldn't let me in. The conservatives, who think that a nipple in a movie automatically makes it inappropriate for those under 18, had won. They had effectively imposed their (in my opinion rather twisted) world view upon my mom and me. What was sad was that the government helped them do it.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Let me see if I have this straight.
...this is the same government which claims to want to protect my child (yes, I have one) from the implication of violence?
The government that brought us arms sales to Iran's Ayatollah, supported al Queda et al when it was Russia they were fighting, funded CIA-trained death squads in South America, that has killed a million-plus Iraqi children with their embargo (and noted "we think the price is worth it"), who have so far provded Turkey with $15B (yes, billions) worth of weapons and training to fight the Northern Kurds (who the U.S. claims to be protecting from Saddam)
If I want to keep my daughter away from violence, I think my best bet is to turn off the nightly news and give her permission to skip history class.
My
Limekiller
I think Frank Zappa effectively summed up my major concerns whenever the government and/or "public interest groups" start talking about how private business "must" do this or that to their product because it's perceived that it's "upsetting" a percentage of the population.
The comment I'm referring to is when he asked the PMRC "All I want to know is who's going to pay for it?".
All too often this is a very overlooked factor. My personal opinion is because the people pushing for the changes realize that if they say "oh, and everybody who is allowed to buy this product gets to pay extra for the labeling that does a shoddy job of making sure little johnny doesn't see 'bad stuff' on the shiny screen in his room" that all of a sudden the folk who at first react emotionally with "you know, maybe little johnny shouldn't be seeing this stuff" would all of a sudden react rationally with "why don't I just keep my money and let little johnny's parents worry about his emotional adjustments".
RFC2119
And in any case, there was violence before there were video games... so how can you blame them? Its not like its had a DRAMATIC increase! Get a life! And stop using my pass time as your scape goat!!!
Again we're in the discussion of games make people kill. PEOPLE kill people, and playing a game doing just that is usually a big factor of letting some steam off for me. Mind you, I have never held a gun IRL, and wouldn't do so if I ever got a chance. Why? I'm opposed to violence in the real world. It is a downward spiral all the way. But what would be fun in a game where you would run around in camouflage gear and use foam webbing to neutralize your opponent?
Take an analogy: why are cartoons so much fun? It's because it's "everyguy" down in "everytown" on his trip to "everybeach"... is a very common person. Yet at the same time this guy does not have limits. If the cartoonist wants to make him fly, he does... If he wants to make him a giant in episode #21, he does... Things you might want to do in real life sometimes (imagine telling your pointy haired boss off a la Dilbert) but are just unimaginable to most of us, are perfectly simple in a cartoon. Yet there always are a few people that take some things too literally, and the government acts to "protect the masses"...
Aah... if only all the lunatics that take everything literally were on an island with a huge tower with a "jump" sign at the top...
The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness.
In fact video games may well be one of only a few new art forms to come out of the nineties. (Yes I know there were video games before then, but they were amateurish compared to the games that started coming out in the mid-nineties.)
/. articles on the various FPS vendors making sure their game engines are easily available to modders. But we need the other types of game engines to do the same thing. And we need some way for modded games to get into the console market. This will put many of the big gaming houses out of business though, the surviving vendors will be those that produce the best game engines and do the most to encourage third-party development.
But they are 'art' in the same way that cinema is 'art'. In other words they are 'collaborationist' art, requiring the efforts of many people to create. Because of this fact it requires a great deal of money to complete a decent video game, and no-one will put up that money without expecting a return. So video games must be commercial. You must make, or at least attempt to make, video games (and films) that will return a profit.
This results in many comprimises. One of these is the fact that sex and violence sell. Don't believe me? Count the number of R and PG-13 rated films and compare them to those PG and below. Or just go see 'Adaptation' (in theaters now) and try to catch what Charlie Kaufman was really trying to say with that script...
The danger is that the governement will find excuses like this to use in an attempt to control the video game market -- and will be able to get such controls past the courts because of public opinion. For this reason one of two things must happen; either the video game market implements its own system akin to the movie rating system, (which it has done) and puts out an equivalent effort to enforce it (which it is not doing). Or, my preference, someone produces tools that allow people to create video games on their own quite easily.
This last is coming to pass, we have all seen the recent
I suspect the game vendors will prefer the first scenario. But I think the second will result in things that few people would argue are 'art'. They may not be games as we now know them though...
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
Why not have all of these parents (I'm one) who are concerned about their kids seeing "inappropriate stuff" on the computer, in games, the movies, on TV, etc. take an active and responisble role in raising their kids? As an adult, I should be able to decide what I want to buy/view/etc - and as a parent, it is my responsibility (not the governments or anyone elses) to turn off the TV, computer, etc. when it starts showing something I don't want my kid watching.
Ok, persons who I entrust my child to (schools, etc.) should also be responsible, but only while they have my kid. You should hear some of the lectures I give my mother about what the kid is allowed to have/do at her house (that strongly affects her behavior here at home).
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
This sort of discussion always seems to have te ability to piss me off. Please dont misinterpit i dont mean your comments but the wery thought behind this story existing, There has also been some discussion about this game in particular in my country recently (iceland) about age restrictions of video games or even banning them. Of course GTA:VC was used as an example, seeing hookers run down on the news now happens daily with outraged mothers screaming for the dev team of the games to be burned and its source code to be condamned along with judas 'n co. Well not quite, but almost but lets get back to the thing that pisses me off shall we and that is that nobody really knows if computer games CAUSE all those murdering and rapes (fortunetly none of that has been happening around here) are these people just plain stupid or what? it reminds me of those killings in the states some time ago where some guys slaughtered their school buddies because they had subjected them to some horrific mental violance but no, nobody thougt to care about that all they could see was that they were manson fans and listened to rammstein even G.Bush came on TV and called them cowards. They may have been but the fact is that what would have stopped them was not banning their copy of Doom but their classmates being nice to them for a change. But that's off topic. People tend to find stupid resons for things like that, because its easier than facing real problems and real issues. I would like to end my comment with a quote i found before reading this story today: "Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music." - Kristian Wilson, Nintendo VP, 1989 P.s. Sorry for the bad english, i do live in an egloo:) plus i haven't slept for 24h
Next thing you know you look like Tom Cruise but it doesn't do you any good because you're wearing a hat from the best episode of Logan's Run, screaming for tech support while chilling out in a vat of liquid nitrogen with a little red wooden ball which people eventually come to mistake for a metaphor for the futile external search for that internal font of happiness lost in a simpler more innocent time.
Oh and some crazy old coots seemed to think that it's better for ten guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to suffer unjustly.
If you're going to start banning games, how about starting with games that reward reckless driving, with decent graphics and bad physics to say nothing of the ability to play again when something goes horribly wrong.
(I'm a master of run-on-jitsu)
what's even stranger is that Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament were directly responsible for the Columbine massacre, despite the fact that neither of the games existed at the time of Columbine.
let this be a lesson: any of your actions can be dictated by a video game that has yet to be made.
For more details, consider Fact Checking a Polemicist which reviews many of the factual lapses in the movie.
"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
Or even better, regulate parents.
There is a lady who pays drug addicts in exchange for sterilizing them. I think this offer should extend to all adults. $200 bucks and you relieve society of the potential fallout from your perilous breeding and parenting.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Mikael Pawlo wrote: "Computer games are art and should be treated with the equal respect we treat Rembrandt's painting "
*****
Pawlo's argument, and all other arguments like it - namely that 'art' (something that is essentially without definition) deserves a status that gives whatever art happens to be at the moment special status - is bankrupt.
Essentially, this is a free speech issue, and will be resolved one way or the other as individuals argue the right, or not, of certain individuals (namely, children of impressionable age) to have access to games that promote violence.
'Art' exists within the context of community - period. It's absurd to claim special status for something that has no more redeeming value than any other activity (a good example would be creative plumbing, or assembly-line work [yes, it's possible]) that exist as one of a number of necessary functions that give individuals a sense of purpose and contribution to community.
The sooner anyone who calls herself an artist begins to understand that, the better off we'll all be - especially those who define themselves as artists.
I'm not opposed to the idea of restricting access to violent content to minors on pure principle. I 'm opposed to it because it's a band-aid on a bullet wound. It simply doesn't work. A fascination with violence can exist quite well with or without video games, and the government would be a better servant of the people (its true role, IMHO) by working to facilitate parents, teachers, etc. to develop people of character who do not desire to beat on hookers, rather than focusing on controlling people's actions. Enforcement of laws restricting things people want doesn't work (prohibition, drug war). If you want that behavior to change, you have to change what people want.
I would much prefer to live in a society where sick, violent, awful things are readily available and people choose not to partake of them rather than one in which access is restricted by the government. Look what happened the day the Taliban fell in Kabul. Everyone went crazy, shaving off their beards, music, dancing, etc. Not that those were necessarily bad things, but the iron hand of the Ministry of Preventing Vice and Promoting Virtue was only able to push those things to just beneath the surface. They didn't promote anything but superficial conformity.
Today I am 25, I have a job, degree, girlfriend, etc. I'm not violent, I'm not a pervert, etc. According to many advocacy groups, I should have snapped by now. Why didn't I crack up? Good Parenting, it is all about how a child is raised. Great parents can even raise children in terrible surroundings and wind up with fantastic well adjusted children. Unfortunately, there are no advocacy/lobbying groups for ensuring good parenting and probably the biggest problems is the people who are least qualified to be parents are having the most children! My grandmother use to call it, Devolution.
When my younger brother (who still lives at home) remarked on how our parents were giving him the business about GTA3, I scoffed at the thought. I mean, it's just a video game, how lame and old are my parents anyway. Then later on that day I saw GTA 3 in action and I think my parents have a point. There is no doubt small impressionable and sensitive children are exposed to that shockingly violent game, a game which normallizes mass killings and all sorts of other bloody crimes.
I'm really surprised people would even want to make a dehumanizing game like this in such a hyper-deteriorating society in the U.S.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Amazingly, no one seems to ever get this. At least, not people as a whole. We're basically divided up into 2 camps: those that think 'really bad' stuff should be outlawed, and those that think it should be available, but *not for children*, as if children are some retarded semi-race of people incapable of making decisions for themselves, or evaulating material on their own without becoming violent/perverted.
As always, anecdotal != evidence, but come on now: most of us who grew up in the 70's and 80's watched one hell of a lot of violent movies as children (Friday the 13th, anyone?) and yet managed to somehow deal with it. Most children are exposed to insanely graphic literature (Shakespeare, anyone?). Hell, read the Christian Bible sometime (insert most any other religion here I'm sure, but it's the one I'm most familiar with). Death, revenge, glorified violence, sexual deviancy, you name it. Yet somehow children manage to absorb all this without society turning into one massive kill-fest every 20 years.
Every single new media or art form that comes out is inevitably looked upon as something we should somehow keep away from children (let's see, so far we have books, television, movies, comics, music, video games). When will people figure out that by and large, children are perfectly capable of dealing with this, at LEAST as well as adults are?
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Even once-vocal-critic Senator Joe Lieberman now praises and acknowledges the gaming industry's adoption of the ESRB ratings, and notes that they are above and beyond what any other similar industry provides.
How is this "insightful"? The poster has not even read the article he's flaming... neither have the mods apparently. Bleh. Mikael Pawlo is clearly arguing that video games *need* to be rated to allow parents to make informed choices.
What he is responding to is the suggestion that the makers of GTA should be "stoned in the streets." Pawlo is saying that parents can hate the latest KISS album or Jackass The Movie or whatever the latest "think of the children!" threat to society is, but they do not have the right to forbid creative people from releasing such things in a free society.
I'm sure that unless the governments do something really incredible the controls on games will be pathetic and very easy to get round. I'm not supposed to be able to get GTA3 (I'm 16) but I have - if I couldn't get it legally I'm sure it could be pirated. And I have always been able to get into the cinema to see films I'm "too young" for. And I have got very drunk at the agee of 15, 3 years below the minimum age in England, where I live.
What makes anyone think the government would have any more luck controlling games?
I think it's very simple: Parents who don't want their kids playing violent games should regulate their activities. It's that simple. I'm reminded of my early years growing up.. Most of what I learned about sex, swears, and every other taboo I learned on the school bus. Regulation of one area is easily nixed by another medium.. The RIAA found this out with Napster. I don't know why everyone wants to make such intrusions into our lives. If I want my kid to play GTA he'll play it.. If I decide not to, he won't! Sounds pretty simple to me. Parents just need to be more responsible. I've been playing violent video games my entire life and I haven't killed anyone yet. Haven't even come close.
www.lonseidman.com
It could be argued that kids are less violent after playing games like GTA3, because it lets them get rid of the violence tv, or just being a teenager has given them.
"I really don't have a problem with regulating violent games- its when the government tries to outlaw them that I have a problem."
What happens when the government decideds to regulate something that you want, say a video game, but decideds that a group that you belong to should not have access to it. If the government came out and said that the game can not be sold to African American's because they are "high risk," people would be outraged.
It is one thing to label media so that one knows what to expect before they consume it, and it is another thing to control who the media can be exposed to. The real problem is that different people have different views on what is acceptable for a child and what is not. Instead of passing laws that govern the entire country we could let local comunities decide what is acceptable. BUT WAIT! The closer the law is associated with an individual, the more likely the law is to be assoicated with a general public view. No one wants to suggest that they support underage violance - even if they doubt the connection - and so laws are passed to make the it harder for children to get the games they want. Instead of Johny buying GTA he is pirating it from his friend who is old enough to buy it. Ah, problem solved.
Pretty much any other game is more 'arty' than GTA3. Call a spade a spade, GTA3 is what is it is - a violent game designed to earn a few bob.
Just on the principle of it, I don't believe that games or anything else for that matter should be regulated at all by the government. The government has no place in peoples' bedrooms, they have no place in peoples' living rooms, nor do they have a place in peoples' houses. Why do some people find it neccesary to look to a higher form of authority outside their own judgement to place regulations on themselves? I've never seen why some people are in favour of a governing body regulating what they can or cannot do. Christ people, think for yourselves and enjoy doing so. Don't mindlessly look to some big brother to think and make decisions for you!
If children are free to purchase such games, so be it. If the parents don't want their children to play them, they will stop them. Confiscate them, whatever. Any parent knows what's going on in their living room. If their 14-year-old is hiring a prostitute and then killing her for her money in a gem like GTA3, odds are the parent will hear this and catch wind of it. If the parent is rational and realises it's just a game, then so be it. If the parent makes the decision that this is not acceptable for their child, then that's ok too - I guess. Who am I to judge?
People: be your own regulator. Those who are in favour of a government deciding what you can or cannot do are sheep.
If people were influenced by videogames, how come people playing Pacman in the 70ies didn't go around eating small round pills finding themselves lost in mazes in psychedelic colors?
I'll give 1 oz of free swedish air to the one who tells me the origin of that joke.
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.
Who's making the next moon patrol? DigDug? Tradewars 2002 3d massive multiplayer universe?
also, for a great gaming platform alternative, goto Ticalc.org The TI86 is awesome for gaming
Where's the next Decent IV? where's Out of this World?
If everything were open source, these propriatary really cool games would still be out there,
I think we are fed these violent games because they are new, and greate revenue for the gaming companies. They convienenty stop marketing the really cool games that won't sell... and start filling us with crap
If we had better games we could avoid these violent games. But I think they shouldn't be illegal or restricted.
the minute that I have to have an ID to buy anything... Is the minute that I start thinking about revolution.
I'm more worried about this Police state stuff causing the pain (restriction of freedom) without the violence.
Please use [ informative / summarizing ] SUBJECT LINES
Flame me here
Why does America worry about porn and computer game violence when they allow ordinary people to buy guns?
There are hardly any shootings in Britain because you cant get guns, hell in Britain you have to be over a certain age to buy a butter knife. I tihnk that the only reason guns haven't already been banned over there is that no politician dares say the he or she thinks they should, as the backlash from a vocal minority would be huge.
I don't think you can generalize this issue like you are. You have to take government control one issue at a time. In this case, like I said, I don't agree with the governmnet outlawing something for everyone. However, I do agree that they have the power to restrict what is available to minors, so that it then becomes the choice of the parents to determine what their kids have access to, allowing them to better develop their children into mature human beings who can differentiate between right and wrong. Just as minors shouldn't be exposed to addictive substances, such as tobacco, alcohol, cocaine, etc., they also shouldn't be exposed to excessive and immoral violence, *unless* their parents determine that it is appropriate. I agree with the government giving parents more control over what their children can access on their own. If it goes too far, then we can put up lawsuits to challenge it, but I don't think in this case that it's too far to limit a child's access to games like GTA.
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Have you ever tried writing a decent 3D engine? or creating soundeffects/music for a game?
You could even say that one single game is a collection of different arts:
show some respect to these people who spend hours on hours creating masterpieces in their own area
"The majority is always sane, Louis." -- Nessus
http://slashdot.jp
Let's end this debate once and for all. Who says the government needs to moraly be our parents? Why can't parents be the ones to police what their child does? With all honesty the last thing I want is someone else telling me what i can / can't do. I say this as a 27 year old adult. To often we think yes let's give the powers that be more power to protect our children, when to often that power we give is more power to restrict what we all do. Think about it for a while we are only gonna make things worse for all of us if we keep pandering to theese notions of censorship, or restriction. All you people are touting free software, copyleft, freedom. Well damnit who here actualy means it?
Have you played online lately? [Sarcasm]Little dirty mouthed brats are invading everything. They whine, the team kill, they cry, they yell and those are the one's in their twenties. The one's in their teens/preteens can be even worse![/Sarcasm] Can you tell I'm an old fart? Damn it where are my teeth? Reguardless I still love to game, and will be one of many in the years to come that will demand a pretty nurse and 100gbs transfer rate in my nursing home room. Back on topic forget trying to save everyone, we need to cut the population down anyway. I just want all the youngsters, the under 18 crowd and those that act it, off my favorite gaming servers. A little more control of the sale and policing(non-govt) of online games, if it results in better experience on line, sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Shoo, go home, the street lights are on, wash behind your ears and goto bed!
i just had to make a comment on the drug war... I am sick and tired of those ads that say that everytime you buy drugs, you are supporting terrorists, its a damn lie, and the gov't knows it! sorry, i just had to say that. Baned Booze... then become a liberal, Mary Jane for all.
YOU SUCK BALLS!
that the infinite hatered moms hold toward
GTA III has to do with the fact that junior
does nothing but drive around smashing up
and blowing up Robin Egg Blue Minivans.
And it's not helping when dad smirks with
some kind of strange satisfaction everytime.
In other studies moms were very please when
junior stopped at every red light and gave
those blue gems the right of way.
"Even if he was playing a crook. Well at least he's
a very curtious one", one mother mentioned.
Don't forget your blinker fluid, kids :)
1 A&B->C Premise
2 A Assumption
3 B Assumption
4 A&B &I 2,3
5 C ->E 4,1
6 B->C ->I 3,5
7 A->(B->C) ->I 2,6
Discussions like this make me very glad that guns are still legal in the US. Censor yourselves all you want, leave everyone else out of it (ie no legislation making your opinion law).
Here's a concept: many people, myself included, buy violent games in order to not commit violent acts. When work pisses me off, instead of flying off the handle and killing all my co-workers in a murderous rage, I go home and fire up a video game. This way, I can run around a virtual area that looks suspiciously like my workplace, blowing away people that look suspiciously like my co-workers, and nobody actually has to die. I tell you, there's nothing that takes the edge off a bad day at work like holding a smoking shotgun in your hands and watching your boss's severed, mangled head roll across the floor in glorious 32 bit color. The more realistic, the better. This is how I like to express my rage, and it's a helluva lot safer than keeping a pistol in my briefcase.
If, however, one of you brainwashed censor-zombies manages to make it law that I can no longer mangle people in the virtual world, that might also piss me off, only then I wouldn't have the luxury of limiting my violence to the virtual world. And, as we say around the office, if you can't have video games, real life is the next best thing. So come get my games. Please.
Same goes for movies and music. The more violent, the more graphic, the more realistic, the better. Let people vent on those things instead of on real people. Censorship is mind control, there's no two ways about it.
~NullPointerException
First of all, what right does the government have to make laws depriving people of any rights solely on the basis of age stereotypes? There are many 17 year olds who ae more qualified to vote than a lot of 40 year olds. The vast majority of the population is hoplessly stupid and ignorant. (That's how Worst Buy, Scientology, and the Mormon church make money, after all) Those few among us who know their ass from their elbow should be voting, regardless of age. The age-stereotype is no better than the poll tax was at improving the credentials of the average voter, and maybe worse. Think voting elegebility should be determined solely on the basis of a multiple choice test that you would have to not be an ignorant dumbass to pass. That would filter out the 75% of the population who don't know their ass from their elbow, and leave the decently intelligent people of all ages, races, creeds, sexes, economic conditions, etc to rule.
Now, how this applies to the topic at hand: The government has no business using age stereotypes to restrict acess to something accross the board. There are plenty of 15 year olds mature enough to handle alcohol responsibly, and alcohol in responsible moderation is completely harmless. There are also plenty of (if not all) 7th-8th graders can play GTA3 with no harm done whatsoever. IMO it should be the PARENTS regulating what their kids can have, not some heavy-handed and futile government rulemaking that attempts to stereotype about all adolescents of a certain age and merely turns the items into forbidden fruit without actually stopping kids from getting them.
Repeal the DMCA!
It's fundamentally a clash between two fundamental rights: the freedom (of art, commerce, speech or whatever) and protection against harm.
To decide which is more important is difficult.
Fleur de Sel
"well then don't let the kid go to that particular friend's house." yes, but it's hard to assess the friend's house 100%. the friend could have older siblings that have the game, or have a third friend with the game, or maybe the other parents are just plain ignorant of the video game situation and let the kid buy what he/she wants.
again, i do agree that the parents have to regulate their kids, but we all have to understand that you can't keep a child caged every minute of every day (and you shouldn't have to). also, i am in full support of video games being rated and enforced, much like the movie industry has been trying to do (success or failure? it's up and down, depending on where you live). i wouldn't mind senator (hopefully not soon-to-be-prez) lieberman so much if he was more in support of enforced regulation (and studied the facts more), and less for censorship. it boils down to our rights as americans (for those in the states, anyway). i don't think we'll have bans here, but it could get very close.
i quote a timeless duo:
Lisa : Dad, you can't judge a place you've never been to.
Bart : Yeah, that's what people do in Russia.
-e
Rock!
Talk about a hypocrit to the nth degree. That guy would set up "facts" one moment, and then rip them all down the next moment, and then go back to pretending the original "facts" were true. Granted, it was FUNNY, but none of the "facts" in that movie were even remotely true, and a lot of the blame (Ie. Returning spent bullets to K-Mart??! YAH OKAY, GOOD CALL THERE BUDDY. WHY NOT GO PROTEST FORD TO RECALL ALL THEIR CARS SO PEOPLE CANT DRINK AND DRIVE - Moron.)
On the back of a movie case, you get a complete description of what potentially offensive scenes are in it. In a game, you do not know anything about what scenes will open up as the game progress.
Love games, hate censorship, but after listening to a hearing on C-SPAN they got me convinced. This was long after I had already played GTA3, and interesting enough, I remember having many good laughs at the violence in it with my friends - I think it is funny. For kids, I do not think it is funny.
Complete ratings in movies are not considered censorship, why suggest that it does video games? Video gaming is turning into a bigger money maker than movies, and without the same level of piracy concerns. In this growing market, we need to curb the corporate desire to push the limits of accepted violence. I think (as pointed out in the hearing C-SPAN) that the game companies are making a bad business decision fighting for violence; if they could come up some with non-violent but GREAT games, the parent-purchase market is open for the taking.
On so many levels. From the actual coding, to the sound design, and the artwork, every step of game production rivals movie production in one form or another.. Both are legitimate forms of art! I am totally against BANNING of games, but I don't mind if people want to ENFORCE game sales like they do with rated R movies. Michigan just passed a bill that if outlets are found selling mature games to minors, then they will get a $10,000 fine and up to 90 days in jail. It's a start. I just hope the fine is equal to selling a rated R *movie* to a minor, or I would think it would be unfair.
Though I sympatize with your overall point, that statement is not true. But we have to be careful with details here.
I've reviewed much of the psychological literature on violent effects of video games, and attended discussion on the topic at the Videogames and Cultural Policy Conference.
What we know thus far about the effect of games can be summarized as follows:
And that's what the data shows. With some luck, we will have more information within the next 5 years or so.
My other car is a cons.
<SARCASM ON>
What the world really needs is a realistic GTA expansion pack "for the sake of the children"...
We can use a little bit of the Kubrickian ultraviolence to teach the otherwise unattended and unloved children a few things...
And six shields ought to summon the thought police...
</SARCASM OFF>
BTW, videogames may be your life but they are not reality folks, and even kids aren't that stupid.
And I'm getting tired of the line of reasoning that goes, "I get urges to run people over in my car after playing this game, so imagine the childrens' reaction". Get professional help yourself instead of preaching about the evil axis of these 'artistic' videogames.
American society needs to (re)evaluate its (internal and external) culture of violence, the social benefits of gun control, and the poverty industry (ie. reality) before it worries about the effects of videogames (ie. fantasy) on anyone or anything.
I got busted once when I tried to buy beer when I was 17. Therefore we must not need legislation governing the sale of alchohol to minors.
Contrary to popular belief (and not coincidentally media depiction) studies have shown Youth violence has DECREASED proportionally to the increase in popularity of video games. There was a very good article on it in the NY Times magazine a year and a half or so ago.
People who have their eye on video games as the problem are totally off the mark. Alot of this smacks of PMRC self righteousness and neo-Tipper Gore-ism. Call this BS for what it is, another attempt by conservatives to tell me what my kids and I can buy.
Unless the video game makers state their intents for the game, it is next to impossible to know if the company is providing violent entertainment for the purpose of making sales, or because they might have a hidden agenda, or maybe even because they personally like the idea of running people down in cars (arguably disturbing). If a game company produced a game that allowed you to become a terrorist and choose Suicide Bomber, Fly Plane Into Building, etc. would we treat that game the same way as a game that lets the player run people over using automobiles, or the same as a first person shooter where you just blow things away?
We don't necessarily know the intent of the game company, but we can make informed decisions about the game based on its content, or own values, and/or the social politics of the day. Therefore maybe it's not a bad idea to enforce the rating system on video games just like ratings are (usually) enforced in the movie theatres for age groups. For example, don't let minors purchase violent video games, whether they have to wait to a certain age or need consent of a parent might work. However we all know the realities of computers and how easy it is to electronically distrubute bits and bytes. Most likely the kid will get his or her hands on the software eventually. However I don't believe that's an argument for not enforcing the video game rating.
Maybe a parent who doesn't mind their kid joining the army, doesn't mind the "recruiting experience" offered by the U.S. Army video game (which involved killing people). However the same parent might not let their kid become a terrorist offered by another video game. However in another country this situation might be reversed.
Apparently some people in my state are making up my mind for me...
7 0, 2907789,00.html
http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/news/0,108
I'm sure this has been said before, but the only regulation you need is PARENTS, why dont they decide wether or not to allow their kids to play a game. Sure the minor can go out and buy it, but its up to the parents to decide wether or not they are allowed to play it.
I guess I still think that it's not the government's job to limit access, but the parents' job to control their children. I think the fact that most parents both work and spend precious little time interacting with their kids doesn't mean we solve social problems by putting more laws on the books. People want to think they can leave their children unattended in society safely. That's bizarre to me. Kids lack discipline, they often don't understand the consequences to their actions, and need adults around to guide, instruct, love, and punish them. If the adults are there, you don't need a drinking age and video game restrictions. If they aren't there, no laws are going to stop that anyway. I never had a problem getting alcohol when I was a teenager.
GTA is "violent"?
Holy shit, have these people ever watched a cartoon in their life? GTA is about as violent as a road runner cartoon, only not quite as reaslitic as that.
People would be wiser to not let their children watch MTV or the Sci-Fi channel or any of the cop shows on the major networks for that matter than they would to worry about some videogame with animated blood and animated hit and runs.
... but I'm too sleepy to read the entire thread right now.
YES, kids should probably not usually have access to violent video games.
YES, parents need to have access to information about the games their kids want to play.
NO, it's not the government's job to deny access to the kids. It's up to the parents to look into a game and decide if it's right for their kids. Same as movies, books, television shows, and everything else in this world.
But parents are throwing up their hands. We've got a Fundamentalist Christian ethic taking over that's letting people get stuck with kids, and we've got people putting off becoming parents until they're older than 40, and we end up with a whole lot of kids whose parents have no clue how to raise them. Then we reinforce that with more and more regulation of schools and children's entertainment, letting parents know "It's ok, you don't have to worry about it, we'll control what your children get."
But it's not about absolute denial or permission. It's about putting art and entertainment in context. It's about explaining the difference between realistic violence and fantasy violence. It's about letting kids talk about how a movie or game or whatever makes them feel.
Heck, if we don't allow children any fantasy outlet for violence, we'll cause just as much as if we treat violence as normal recreation. That's why we have these images in popular media, for crying out loud. When we get angry, we can't go out and shoot a whole McDonald's full of people... but we can watch Arnie do it for us.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
"I really don't have a problem with regulating violent games- its when the government tries to outlaw them that I have a problem."
That's nice. Regulation of guns is leading to more and more restrictive gun laws, while gun-related crimes continue to rise, thusly and clearly illustrating that the laws only affect those who abide by them. Regulation of media in China IS prohibition. Regulation of alcohol led directly to (a fortunately unsuccessful) prohibition.
Whenever the government gets involved in "regulation" it's really just someone else making your decisions for you. I don't like that.
Seriously! Anyone who's done even a cursory reading of RM101's comments can see that this guy is right!
MOD PARENT UP!
RM101 is a known troll and this is a troll post! MOD HIM DOWN!
I think we need to more closely examine what we mean when we say "children" and "kids".
For my original comment, I had in mind a teenager who I would assume have the abilty to cope with violence. Personally, by the time I was 13, I would daresay I was able to cope with the violence in the media and entertainment. By that age, violence on the news is reprehensible and violence in entertainment is fiction.
On the subject of preteen children, I personally don't believe the average preteen should be playing a game like GTA. However, I'd leave the individual decision up to his/her responsible parent. Who is better to know what Little Johnny can handle than his parents?
[Tangential Rant Mode ON:]
In terms of desensitization and taking things for granted, I think a little desensitization to the media is better than over-sensationalizing everything. Don't get me wrong, a child (or person of any age) needs to know that violence is wrong. It shouldn't be committed or accepted. However, lets take a step back. We live in a world where we drop bombs and food on the same day. During World War II, before CNN, no one in America cried over the poor Germans. Is callousness a good thing in excess? No. But thicker skins could help.
[Tangential Rant Mode OFF:]
CitrusTV (http://www.citrustv.net): the Nation's Oldest & Largest Entirely Student-Run Television Station
The poster wrote:
:)
I don't understand Pawlo's art argument, although I love gaming. I agree with Paul Szynol.
This bugs me. There's more than 2 sides to most issues. You don't have to agree with _either_ of the folks debating.
It's not like the choice is "they are art, or they should be regulated". Try 'none of the above'.
Short of the hackneyed "for the children" argument, the concept that any issue is Yes/No, Win/Lose when discussed really is seductively evil.
Otherwise you get things like "DRM: evil, or not?". "Liberal or Conservative?" "Christian or Doomed to Hell?" "Vi or emacs?"
Of course, you can either agree with me, or not
A.
I have no problem with warning labels and ID checking
.
Yes, these have really curbed the use of tobacco, alcohol and illegal drugs by children.
The problem I have with the whole "protect the children" argument is that it ignores the reality of childhood:
1) Of the physical assaults (i.e. fist fights) you have seen were most of them people over 18, or under?
2) If you have been subjected to organized vocal and sustained criticism, and verbal abuse (i.e. teasing) was it by people over 18 or under?
3) Where did you see the most cheating?
4) Who commits the most vandalism?
5) What is the average age of a gang member?
6) Who throws the most screaming temper tantrums?
As children we are not good, sweet and innocent -- we are violent, selfish and nasty. Society and culture is how we learn not to be. Now, lest you think this proves the video game ban argument:
1) from birth to age 5: Children spend the vast majority of their time with their (wait for it) Parents
2) from 5 - 7: if they aren't with their parents, they are with: other children and where are they? at school
3) from 7 - 18: If they are in any of those other places, they are with their peers doing whatever they want (see the above list for details).
So, tell me, how could a video game compete with parents, teachers and schools full of other children? If a video game could really have that much influence, then why don't we just write a game that let's them explore utopia, and have them turn out perfect?
Who knows, maybe that will be the next great decision from the wizards of Washington.
We are agents of the free
Children are not able to fully understand and cope, on their own, with the violence evidences in such games.
Assuming that is a true statement, define children. How old does a child have to be before they can cope? Do we suddenly get granted this magical ability at 18?
Children growing up in an environment where such media violence is taken for granted often take real violence for granted in their life.
Really? Could you show me the scientifically valid survey that prooves this? Because everything I've read has show that the research on the subject is, at best, inconclusive.
The big problem I have with ratings systems and regulation of games, etc, is that it doesn't take into account the fact that children mature at different rates. This is less of an issue with video games because, regardless of rating, the parent can always buy the video game for their child. That's what's important here is the parents right to choose what's okay for their child to see.
I remember parents who wouldn't let their kids listen to Madonna thinking it would corrupt them. That's ridiculous in my opinion, but I fully support that parent's right to make that choice for their kids. As long as video game ratings remain a voluntary advisory system they are all okay in my book.
What I've loathed for a very long time is the movie ratings system. When I was 15, I was mature enough to deal with anything I've ever seen in an R rated movie but I still couldn't go see them in the theater unless my mom really wanted to come sit through it (which did happen on occasion thankfully). She couldn't write me a note of approval, or even just show up to buy me the tickets, she had to sit through the whole damn movie. If she had no desire to see it, I had to wait for video or HBO. The greatest irony was that the strict enforcement in the theaters did nothing to stop me from seeing the movies, it just delayed it.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
well im 17 and its all black and white to me. lets see if your parents dont want to to play something, very simple, DONT BUY IT! by boycotting it, you bring more attention to the game, i never even hurd of GTA untill all the drama broke out. the only real way to stop something ignore it, but i gotta say thanks to the people who b1tched and moaned about this game, you made my life more fullfilling, well i gotta go steal a car and rape some prostitutes now so ill be back after i pop some pigs ;)
The world would be a better place if the violence of GTA was taken out of the game.
And brought to bear upon these jackasses.
Shall we dare the rise of organizations of stupidity? Akin to those we saw in the 80's, headed by everyone's favorite robot's wife, Tipper?
Shall we label violence as 'evil' and 'wrong', and insist that it will turn kids to the "devil"?
Please, no. I don't want my eventual kids playing GTA until I'm certain they can figure out that driving over a person in real life is a hell of a lot different than driving over someone in GTA.
There won't be a chance to if these whackjobs start censoring everything. Can you remember when you were a kid?
How cool was it to see the latest R movie? Or one that showed just a tiny hint of nipple? The plot sucked, the acting was bad, the special effects were cheesy to the extreme, but you saw an R movie! You were teh rox, w00t!
Restricting items only makes children want them more. Look at cigarettes. Look at alcohol. Look at R rated movies. Look at violent video games - well, thankfully, not here in the US. Yet. But look at other countries who have (*snicker*) "banned" (*rofl*) violent video games.
There's a copy in everyone's closet, begging to be played.
You know what needs to be censored? Right wing fundie whackjobs and soccer moms who think the TV is a babysitter.
They're the things that truly inspire violence.
The hoopla about video game violence is the same tired story that we heard in the 80s about rap music. The fact is some big cheeses in LA want to put themselves into the loop and thus into the revenue stream. They do this by complaining about video games (which already have ratings) until the government steps in giving them power, which is then converted to cash.
Just think, soon we will have the VGAA ran by some bloated hillbilly asshole. Video game ratings will cost $500k and it will be illegal not to have one. The point is the fees. The people who wedged themselves in are making lots of money.
It's OK to stop kids from playing violent games? Isn't that simply just restricting it, but to people like you? Why should I, a perfectly responsible 15 year old have to be restricted because some people can't practice control?
My parents are OK with me playing violent games, and I'm still a VERY nonviolent person. I couldn't imagine killing a real person, ever, even though I've been playing games since Wolf 3D, at the age of 5-6 (Granted, it was the SNES version for a while)
It's the PARENTS that should be doing the parenting, not retail chains. Besides, with all the warez communities, anyone can get anything.
the way i see it is that when i play a violent video game it is like opening a vent, or when i listen to hard core music such as the insane clown posse, its a vent it i can vent any hostility io have towards anyone through my controler or through my radio controls, it may just be me and my friends but thats how it works here
I remember when I was a kid (not so long actually... maybe a couple of months hehe), I used to play "violent" games such as Cowboys and Indians. The progression from that game to now such games like Quasar/LaserQuest and that kinda stuff, SuperSoakers (not sure if the brands are in America too sorry) and the like.
My point is that Games with depicted violence really are nothing more than these clasical "violent" games. Does the fact that we see blood make a difference? I think not.
How long is it going to be before we see books that are allowed to graphically depict violence be banned?
Violence control is A Good Thing. Many people dont want their kids seeing violent games, and im sure many people dont want to see high levels of violence themselves. Let it be included, but dont insist on making our own minds for us Mr Government.
Oh and, before I go, games do have "distribution control". Just as movies have age rated, so do games...
You know the REAL QUESTION here isn't whether it's a good idea to do something or not.
In America the subtext of any political discussion is "who's gonna get paid" and "who's gonna pay?"
You see, GTA set themselves apart from the other games, and made too much money. All the middlemen are jealous and want a piece. How are they going to make an exception of this GTA game?
Bottom line is that bad parenting is going to screw some kids of bad destiny into a life of crime with or without GTA. What's wrong here is people can't admit they're saying "I don't want anyone's kids playing this game because I have different ethics." Do you have any kids? No? Then your proper avenue of influence over other people's kids is through the parents. Why do you feel the need to involve the government or the industry? Trying to exert a little more influence over other people's children (private domain)? Want a little more than your share of power? Think that your ethical high-ground justifies it?
Remember that one person's rights extend infinitely, as they are basically free so long as we live in a free society. Their rights are limited only as far as they would infringe upon another's rights. This is the fundamental principle of a free society. Do you want to live in one one or not?
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
Most Parents with kids these days are not froma gaming generation or atleast from a very early gaming generation. The mentality that they have is that games are still just childrens toys and not intended for adults. If I visit my mother and bring and she see me playing a mature game like GTA I will always get the comment "when are you gonna grow up". Not paying atention to the fact that in my virtual world I'm a 25 year old criminal running around killing prostitutes. (Hey there has been movies about things much worse)
So what I'm trying to say is parents don't look at the rating on a game, why should they its a video game and video games are for kids.
I cant honestly see what this will do. If a parent doesnt aprove of the game then just.. dont let them play it, the government shouldnt be playing the 'morale and ethical' development role in a childs life (but then again neither should vice city). government enforced age restrictions arent much of a deterrent for older kids either.. its just their values that keeps them from doing the 'bad stuff'...
Walmart doesn't sell porn videos either for the same reason. You may or may not agree that hyper-violent games are in the same moral category. However, that seems to be how they feel about it. Shades of grey.
can you find in GTA that you can't find of the 6 o'clock news?
SIGFAULT
They know it is JUST A MOVIE don't they?
I believe a fair amount of adults dont think it is just a movie.
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This is very simple to me. If pressure groups want to try to get labels on video games about their level of objectionable material, I think this is fine. If they can convince video game publishers to do this, that is great. Hopefully this is what is happening in stores today.
Now, if stores want to check people's IDs, this is where I start to get concerned. If a store chooses to check people's IDs, and to refuse people who are too young, then I'm all for this as long as what they are doing is legal. Forcing stores to comply with this kind of policy through legal means is going too far and should not happen.
As far as keeping these games out of kids hands, I think people are very simply blaming these games for doing something that they aren't. I personally might not let my children play these games, but not because of the violence, but because I think young children don't exactly benefit greatly from playing video games for hours on end. Now, that is my personal opinion, and that is exactly my point. Parents should be able to choose the rules about what activities their children can participate in, and they should be responsible for enforcing the rules they set.
If stores want to buckle under pressure and not sell this stuff to minors, I think that is great. They are making choices about what they are selling based on responses from the community they are in. If I'm a parent and I don't care if my child plays this game or not, I can still buy it myself for my children to play.
These games obviously present a lot of violence, which obviously educates people about violence crimes in their various forms. I think it is a very large jump however, to say that these games are responsible for acts of violence people commit. In school, very early on, i think, you learn that violent acts are against the rules of society, and that people who commit crime usually are caught and are held responsible for their actions. Ultimatly, regardless of what games a person might have been playing, a person, child or not, chooses to cross the line and commit a crime. They should be held responsible. Its that simple.
I personally hate all this crap about this stuff being bad for our kids. One side effect it has is making the defense 'but it was the video game's fault' that much more viable in court, which of course is rediculous. Promoting that idea seems to me will cause more crime than anything else. Next thing you know some 30 yr old murderer will be blaming his parents and the game company for the crime he committed because he played these games as a child...give me a break.
Your signatures belong to me.
Before video games, there were violent children. Before TV, there were violent children. Before any kind of technology aside from flint and shale, there were likely violent kids.
In fact, there is less teen violence now, than there was in the 1950s (I dont have a link, I regret, but I studied this issue loosely in a university English class). Teen violence is just another demonized aspect of our society. It is exaggerated profusely by our media, which is really less news than it is total sensationalism.
In the 1970s, a kid in Britain dressed up like Alex from Kubrick's 'A Clockwork Orange,' and beat the crap out of some people. Britain went nuts, banned the movie from Britain for many years. I think you will all agree that that was a scapegoat for bad parenting/schooling or what have you. The same thing is happening with video games now.
Instead of tackling the larger problems of broken homes, inadequate counseling for troubled students, increasing domestic violence, politicians will get more votes by appealing to what all confused parents 'know,' and ban video games.
A recent NIMH study showed that violent video games do not increase the agressiveness of boys -- in girls it increases to a level near that of boys.
So, all in all: youth violence is down, media is sensationalizing the issue, video games are an easy scapegoat, scapegoats get votes, real problems are never admitted, and video games are not proven to make people commit crimes.
Psychotic kids play video games, video games do not make kids psychotic.
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Kids flock to anything with a warning label. While GTA3 and Vice City are amazingly well put together games, the negative news publicity probably is most of the reason why they have sold most of their copies. Yes, the games are great(from a gamer's perspective), but the morality is horrible. Putting a taboo on it makes it sell more.
For me, I find violent video games do the opposite of enticing me to commit a violent act.
For example: I've had a rough day at work, my boss is yelling at me and riding me all day. If I'm pretty pissed off at the end of the day, coming home to play some q3a or counter-strike and killing a few dozen people really takes the edge off.
So in a way, those kind of games sate my appetite for violence.
NO it doesnt mean if I dind't play video games I'd go blow someone's head off, but it sure does relax and help distract me.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Parents!
Just like it is up to them check what their kids are watching and for them to know where ther kid is going when they leave the house. It is not my job, nor do I need to be inconvenienced.
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
The people who put it together should be stoned in the street.
Gosh! Proof positive that GTA causes violent tendencies.
I really don't have a problem with regulating violent games- its when the government tries to outlaw them that I have a problem.
/me gets out a zip gun and starts mowing down pedestrians...
An interesting point, Taco, especially when you consider the United States, Japan, and Germany are the only three countries in the world that do not have government-run censorship of movies.
The American film classification system is a rarity in the modern world. Films are classified by choice. The director makes cuts which are eventually given approval. There may be critics of said system, and tempers may flare, but when you consider the alternative in countries such as India or China, in which nothing of interest makes it through the system, it has its merits.
Governmental censorship sucks. Well-minded people are generally just as dangerous a force for quelching art as are dictators.
However, it's very common in the rest of the world. Fight it every chance you get. You don't know what you stand to lose until its gone.
-Brett
FUD Alert! FUD Alert. I smell a lie.
I've been to walmart many times and have found M rated games right on the shelf. I think you meant to say the fact that they only carry music with censored lyrics is hypocritical when they sell firearms in the same store.
If you don't believe me, take a look at this and this . Oh yes, they carry M rated games. Its just odd that they carry M rated games and R rated movies, but no explicit music.
13 year old white supremacists are shitty web designers.
What always has puzzled me is why various organizations/communities think sex is worse than violence. Look at all the games out there now, almost none of them have sexual overtones, and almost all of them are violent. I'm not against the violent games or anything, but if there is some truth to the idea that violent games spawn violent behavior, it makes violent games or even movies much worse than something that has sexual overtones.
At least with something that has only sexual content, you aren't hurting anyone. So why is it typically classified as worse? You can definitely see this in american TV also, plenty of violent shows, but nothing that would show nudity or have intensely sexual content. After watching TV in Europe, it's fairly obvious that sex and nudity to most people there is not a big deal and a fact of life.
Ya know, the whole violence issue wouldn't be an issue if parents would actually *parent* their kids. Where this sort of thing (violent games/tv/etc) becomes a problem is when parents use these games/shows/etc as baby sitters and then don't bother to communicate/interact with their kids on a meaningful level.
I grew up on The 3 Stooges, Wyle E Coyote/Roadrunner cartoons, many "classic" Bugs Bunny cartoons that are now "banned" because of violent and/or "controversial" content, Castle Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, etc. My dad took me hunting and fishing - I shot and gutted many kinds of animals and caught and cleaned lots of fish. My parents made sure that I knew the difference between games/cartoons/etc. and the Real World - try any of that cartoon/game crap in the real world and someone (parents, cops, etc) will kick your ass. Also, what percentage of "violent punks" grow up to have a nice life - "If you wanna have nice stuff when you grow up, stay out of trouble and get an education." I got my education, a nice job, and am well respected by my peers and did it all without psychotherapy!
We wouldn't need all this ratings crap if parents would do their job and be aware of what's going on in their kid's world and if they would set appropriate boundaries and actually punish their kids when they do something stupid.
Ok, but why should I believe Mr. Sullivan any more than I believe Michael Moore? Mr. Sullivan does nothing more than assert his own "facts" and gives no useable references to back up his views that Michael Moore had lied.
For example, the issue that the Columbine kids were *not* bowling that morning as tossed out by Sullivan in his article in opposition to Moore's view that they were:
From the "Bowling for Columbine" FAQ page:
The title is taken from the little-known fact that the two killers, Dylan and Eric, were supposed to be in bowling class at Columbine High School on the morning of the murders. At least five witnesses, including their teacher, told the police that they saw one or both boys that morning at the bowling alley for their first hour class. Some school and law enforcement officials later maintained that the two boys skipped that class that morning yet no other witness has come forward to say they saw Eric and Dylan anywhere else that morning.
One reason the film is called "Bowling For Columbine" is that, after the massacre, all the pundits and experts started blaming all the usual suspects that are wheeled out for blame whenever a school shooting occurs--evil rock music (in this case Marilyn Manson), violent video games, and bad parenting.
My point is that those scapegoats make about as much sense as blaming bowling. After all, Eric and Dylan were bowlers, they took bowling class at Columbine--was bowling responsible for their evil deeds? If they bowled that morning, did the bowling trigger their desire to commit mass murder? Or, if they skipped their bowling class that morning, did that bring on the massacre? Had they bowled, that may have altered their mood and prevented them from picking up their guns. As you can see, this is all nonsense, just as it is nonsense to blame Marilyn Manson.
From Sullivan's "source" Dan Lyons of Forbes magazine:
TITLE: Moore titled the movie Bowling for Columbine because, he suggests, the two kids who shot up Columbine High in Littleton, Colo., went to a 6 a.m. bowling class on the day of the attack.
ACTUALLY: Cool story, but police say it's not true. They say the shooters skipped their bowling class that day.
I'm sorry, but while I don't have links to the actual witness statements and police reports, I'd say that Michael Moore's explanation is better than Mr. Sullivan's "proof" from Dan Lyons' two sentence statements.
In fact, the FAQ page goes on to debunk quite a few of the "facts" stated by Dan Lyons (what's Forbes magazine doing trying to debunk a documentary anyways? why don't they stick to money articles?):
Q. Is that bank that hands out guns for real?
A. Yes. North Country Bank (with branches throughout Northern Michigan) offers you a wide choice of guns when you open up a certificate of deposit account. In effect, they are giving you all of the interest the account will earn in advance in the form of a gun. The bank is also an authorized federal arms dealer so they can do the quick background check right there at the bank. I put $1,000 in a long-term account, they did the background check, and, within an hour, walked out with my new Weatherby--just as you see it in the film. (I did have a choice of getting a pair of golf clubs or a grandfather clock, but they didn't have either of those hanging on the wall like they did those three rifles). I learned about the bank's gun offer from an ad in the local paper that showed a gun across the top with the heading, " More Bang for Your Buck" from North Country Bank. I still have the account and the gun to this day (though I plan to legally "auction" off the gun for charity, and creatively have it destroyed--more on that later!)
and...
Q. How did you convince Lockheed to let you in their missile factory in Littleton?
A. Well, first of all, the Lockheed PR people would disagree with your use of the term, "missile." They now call their Titan and Atlas missiles on which nuclear warheads were once (and still are but in less numbers) attached, "rockets." That's because the Lockheed rockets now take satellites into outer space. Some of them are weather satellites, some are telecommunications satellites, and some are top secret Pentagon projects (like the ones that are launched as spy satellites and others which are used to direct the launching of the nuclear missiles should the USA ever decide to use them).
Lockheed Martin is the largest defense contractor in the United States. They gave us the MX missile and are now heavily involved in developing the nutty Star Wars missile defense shield. They have five facilities in and around the Littleton and Denver area and they are the #1 private employer in the school district that contains Columbine High School.
How did I get their permission to film there? I threatened them with bombing, of course.
and...
If you believe Mr. Sullivan's suppositions that all of the US money to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan went to "aid" not to the government, then you should check out this link on Moore's site. It is, unlike Sullivan's article, well-linked and referenced to the State Dept reports and other sources which explain how the money was sent to Afghanistan in order to support the Taliban (not the people).
When it comes to fact-checking a documentary on how our culture is skewed in some places, I'll trust Michael Moore, not Andrew Sullivan and Dan Lyons.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
"Kids should not get violent video games..."
Nobody here will argue with that, well, except the kids, but...
See here's my basic problem. Everybody will tell you it's just common sense that a really young child (say 5 or 6, maybe as old as 10 depending on the child and their parents...) should not be playing GTA and the like. But I'm thinking most of those who oppose violence in video games really don't want it there in the first place. They keep screaming about ratings and keeping them out of the hands of children only because they know that you won't ever truely keep it out of the children's hands. Kids like games. Kids will get games. If kids will get cigarettes, they're going to get games. Nicotine doesn't have half the addictive properties of a really good and violent video game.
When those in opposition to violent gaming are proven right by the lack of effectiveness in ratings, they'll call for even more strict distribution guidelines and harsher rating systems. Most developers will buckle and most games will stray from the current trend of violence. Whether or not someone can make a good game without the violence is totally beside the issue. The real issue here is that artistic expression and our rights to play what some of us want to play are seriously being juggled here.
Don't kid yourself, the religious zealots and the media superpowers (i.e. those in Hollywood who stands to lose out to the video game industry) don't want to take the best of violent video games from the children, they want to take them from EVERYONE. When I say adults, I'm talking about anybody past the age where they figure out you don't shoot cops and you don't beat hookers with a baseball bat to get your money back.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be any control over this issue, but that control should be in the hands of the parents. Their collective incompetence (as demonstrated) should not be a burdon on the rights of video game developers and video game players. And I'm just about getting sick and tired of every little dickless zealot out there getting pissed off about what other people want to see, hear, play, or do in their spare time.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
YHBT!
4/10
Too obvious, but still somewhat successful.
I'll explain it to you all again:
1) Anyone who invests a lot of time and energy into ONE THING will be influenced by that ONE THING. That's how the brain works - whatever is repetitive and emotionally stimulating is assumed to have some connection to the organism's survival and is therefore recorded more firmly than "lesser important" things.
2) If you let a kid "play violence" CONSTANTLY, their behavior may well be influenced. If you let them play with DOLLS CONSTANTLY (male or female), their behavior may well be influenced.
3) NO child can be HARMED by INCONSISTENT EXPOSURE to ANYTHING - porn, violence, whatever.
4) Especially if they are being influenced by an adult as to the (adult's perceived) social and philosophical context of the material.
5) Which means if you ain't training your kid, someone else will.
6) Which means any attempt to regulate ANY content of ANY nature is coercive interference both in the free market AND in parenting.
7) Anybody who does not understand these points is a moron. We Transhumanists will deal with you later.
Have a nice media day...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
April 20, 1999; this was the date of the Columbine shootings. Quake 3: Arena "official" demo released on Nov 16th, 1999. Quake 3: Arena released in North America on December 2nd, 1999. Please correct me if these dates are not accurate, but it's what I found with a quick Google search. It seems about right too, but I'm not sure. Anyway, you can eat right, eschew violence, not smoke, never cuss, exercise, follow every law known, etc. etc. ad nauseum, and you'll end up just as dead as the rest of us.
For those who describe their systems as 'boxen', do you order multiple 'boxen' of corn flakes also?
http://www.pvponline.com/rants.php3
This guy seems to have put it pretty elegantly. I think I agree with him
This "protect us from ourselves" approach was never NEVER intended to exist with the US government although many European governments cannot claim the same. This parallels the problems in many public schools. The teachers that actually want to impart knowledge and understanding to children are abused by often violent students that "have a right" to be there and thus you are giving those students a "right" to prevent learning by others and to destroy a good teacher while further entrenching the welfare mentality of argument that the sperm and ova doners (having refused to be actual parents) will use to often get some free money or at least attention. So you end up with the inability to stop the troublecausers, much less teach them a better way (give them some hope and some real mentors) plus you burn out teachers and end up with school systems full of dead beats only interested in getting through the year.
The government has NO business regulating or restricting these games and the reason is because the government simply cannot do it as well as dedicated parents can if they would actually spend time with their kids and do some real parenting. Furthermore, parents should be able to take strict measures against their children if for example the kid finds some other way to bring home that game (legally, but from a store that doesn't care or from a friend). There should never be any court of law that would even consider hearing a case of a child or teen suing their parents for something as silly as restricting what entertainment they can watch. Save the whining for some cheese and consider that there are kids out there who are molested, beaten and emotionally raped into feeling like worms that really need that legal attention.
So far, I've avoided the temptation. People just wonder why I'm grinning like a lunatic.
Jouni
Jouni Mannonen | Game Designer, Consultant
You know what, I played tons of violent games as a kid, and as an adult I'm still much of a pacifist. When blowing my friends into little fragged kibbles, I was fully aware that the game did not depict reality, and I don't think that the bloody bits were overly influencing, except for the occasional "cool, gross!" when somebody got crunshed in a closing door, etc.
That being said, ratings aren't a bad idea. Parents should be aware of hte game content when making purchases for their children, and should make an educated decision based on how easily influenced the child is. Just because somebody is between the ages of (for example) 12-18 doesn't mean that giving them GTA means they're going to immediately feel the urge to go jack cars and blow away real people with a rocket launched.
There are a lot of adults who are probably more unduely influeced by such things than the 16-yr-olds. Personally, I've always found that a good deathmatch is a way to get together with friends and just have fun or even vent frustrations without physical violence.
I certainly don't think that video game ratings should be any more stringent than movie ratings. "M" is "R" - same theoretical age restrictions apply. Just like some R rated movies are much more violent/sexual/etc than others, M rated games vary as well. The sooner people figure that out and accept it, the sooner they lose the convenience of blaming others for their ignorance of what their child is interested in.
And that's good for those of us who are tired of our hobby being blamed for every bad thing in the world.
GTA is substantially less over the top than Pulp Fiction, The Godfather or any other movie with a similar theme. No T&A, minimal cursing, fair amount of violence. A lot of driving, trying to steal a tank and running from police. Pretty harmless for a 16 year old, if you ask me (which you didn't).
"How can games like Quake III which teaches kids how to slaughter their schoolfriends and promotes a satanistic agenda possibly be acceptable ?"
Quake 3 does not promote a satanic agenda, it certainly has hell-based propaganda, however it is not in anyway satanic, other than being fun.
Go to www.churchofsatan.com and read up on satanism before you propagate your christian biased agenda.
"With games such as Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament being directly responsible for the Columbine massacre, I think this change in emphasis could only be a good thing."
Where is your evidence that these games had a direct influence on the kids involved in this?
Maybe you need to read a bit more, stay away from television, and actually attempt to verify facts before making statements.
It is knee-jerk reactionists like you that cause things such as the Crusades, The Salem Witch Trials, and The Black Listing of so-called communists. Rhetoric such as this is pathetic and unwarranted, think before you speak, otherwise you simply look foolish.
I know this is of topic by just would like to know this.
You say you are pro-gun, I am wondering what good a gun dose ?
CIA Factbook 2002 (US):"Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households
It's plain and simple. You put restrictions and hyped up press on games such as GTA, the games will become more popular and the kids will want the games all the more.
Stop hyping the games and the attention will go away.
Save the World! Use a Quote!
First they took my Custers Revenge -- I did nothing
Then they took my GTA III -- I did nothing
Now all I have left to play is Super Mario's bible challenge and Tetris....Damn them
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
The problem lies mostly with the parents (imo), if they aren't paying attention to what their children are playing then its not the game developers or children that are at fault. Stricter enforcement of the age ratings should be enforced on the retail side of things as well, and this comes in to the parents thing as well. If 12 year old Bob wants a game rated for children 13 and up he should only be able to purchase the game with parental (not his 18 year old brother) consent. If the parent does concede and purchase the game, and doesn't pay attention to the game or investigate the reasons of the rating, then again it is the parents fault.
A category that seems to have been forgotten is the game with a message. Deus Ex has a strong political statement, for example. The Ultima series (at least V and VI, which I played the most) have philosophical points to make.
What about the rest of the field, then? Well, just because it's bad art doesn't mean it isn't art :) I think it's dangerous to get the government involved in regulating games. Imagine the director of FEMA getting to decide whether or not Deus Ex is "too violent".
Gun ownership in the States is easy to come by. I live in Canada, and I literally have NEVER seen a single gun shop, nor a real gun (except ones in holsters, carried by police officers). I think this is a major reason. Another thing, is that the killers are usually teens, and the media wants to provide a reason for what went down. Odd little scenario....have you ever heard of a shooting in the projects, or in the ghetto, or wherever, and heard the news claim it was due to video games or movies? Hell no!
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
If you can go watch a movie where this type of make believe takes place... then who cares... for that matter it completely blows the video game stigma out of the water. People are raped, murdered, tortured and even appear as Hobbits in movies. Dont these folks have something better to do.
-bill vancouver
If the ESRB (game ratings) has the same values as the MPAA (movie ratings), then it's going to be twisted. For example, Star Wars II has dismemberment, decapitation, hundreds of deaths and mass destruction, and only got a PG. However, a movie with no objectionable content whatsoever except for saying the word "fuck" twice will get an R. For that reason, Amelie got the equivalent of a PG or PG-13 in most countries, but an R in USA.
Truth is, kids don't learn profanity from TV or movies, they learn it at school. And it's simply impossible for a movie with casual nudity to be aimed at kids.
At least there are movies that make the MPAA look stupid. Too bad video games aren't there yet.
Whenever I hear 80's music now, I imagine myself in-game, cruising along the beach in a stolen car looking for things to run over or crash into. Then, maybe later, pull over and blow away a few people with my shotgun.
Thanks RockStar, my memory of the 80's will never be the same.
-- anthony
hardcore explicit pornography can be classified as an artform. It's not sold to children - and i doubt parents would buy it for their children either.
In other news, film at 11pm is "Rambo", followed by "Seven" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" on FOX.
If you watch the Marilyn Manson "Guns, God, and the Government World Tour," you'll see that Wal*Mart (note the * branding on their US branches) doesn't carry Marilyn Manson CDs, even though they carry guns.
Yay for guns! Do you love your guns?
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Whoever moderated this up is stupid. EB doesn't want game returns any more than they want unhappy parents. If you've ever looked at their tills, they do mention "At least one of the titles on this receipt is rated M for Mature, please verify their understanding of this [ F5 - Ok ]."
Why would a company want to sell something, only to have in come back in an unsalable condition? That's stupid.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
This must be modded up. Don't miss it.
What happened at columbine. It did 2 things.
One, it let the world know that when you bully someone around, ignore their plea's of help, and keep at it, they are evantually going to react. Blaming it on violent video games or violent music is only an excuse for the REAL problem. Society at large. We do have a class society here whether people like to acknowledge it or not. We have our people that are popular, the average people, and of course the outcasts. Which the kids at columbine were. Just remember that when you kick an animal enough, it is going to bite back. And those kids at columbine did bite back. After hearing of how they were treated their up to it happening, it doesn't surprise me at all that they showed no remorse for what they did.
Second, I'll make this one short. They let others that are in the same position they were that they weren't alone. And I'm guessing it got some of those people to bring out and talk about some of the problems they were facing being an outcast of society.
As an activist and advocate for youth rights, nothing aggrevates me more than retailers/theaters barring the sale of entertainment, whether it be video games, movies or music.
Granted, voluntary enforcement leaves the retailers at liberty to decide whether to create such a policy without laws forcing them to, but barring sale based on an organization's rating system (ESRB, etc.) is shoving someone else's opinion (rating) down the consumer's throat, and barring the sale to individuals, based on the vague and discriminate class of age.
In Michigan, section 301 of the Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act of 1976 prohibits a place of public accommodation (defined: a business...of any kind...whose goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations are...made available to the public) "from denying an individual the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities...of a place of public accommodation because of religion, race, color, national origin, age, sex, or marital status." It is undoubtedly arguable that any retailer in Michigan prohibiting a minor from buying a "Rated M" game is violating this act.
The responsibility lies in the hands of the parents, not the retailers, or the government. If parents want to make their purchasing decisions based on a rating system, whether it be the ESRB, or something like the Childcare Action Project, so be it. Retailers should either sell the product to everyone, or not carry it at all. The "One Rating System to Rule Them All" mindset is not the way to go about it.
Just my two cents...
Most parents are not keeping up with the advances in gaming, 3D rendering, and the like. When most parents see a Violence rating on a game box, they probably think in terms of movies, where such things are doled out sparingly; you don't see two straight hours of Hale Berry's breasts or Ah-nold slicing out eyeballs.
Games are different. They push the envelope. They bathe the player in blood and expose him/her to graphic images for several days at a time.
Sure, parents bear some blame for not keeping up. But as an IT person, even *I* don't feel like I'm keeping up with everything that's going on.
And of course, there's always situations that parents have no control over, like their kids going to someone else's house to play games, or kids grabbing warez off the newsgroups.
Personally, I enjoy a good first-person as much as the next guy, but I also have no problem recognizing that the game industry is oftentimes reckless and irresponsible. Children still make up a significant portion of the gaming market, and game designers know that games with mature themes will be a hit with kids.
With games such as Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament being directly responsible for the Columbine massacre, Ummm...lets take a look at "release days," shall we? Quake III: December 3, 1999 Unreal Tournament: March 14, 2001 Columbine: April 20, 1999 Does anyone else see anything wrong with the above statement?
Games don't make people violent.
Games don't make kids violent.
LIFE makes people and kids violent!
How many of you remember your own teenage years? Remember all those hormones? Remember the peer pressure? Things are just as bad today, if not worse... and guess what? THIS generation has far more parents who don't do the job of parenting.
It's up to the parents to protect their kids and teach them right from wrong, not by passing laws to water down violent games or movies, not by whining about how terrible things are... by talking to their kids and helping them with their problems instead of ignoring them and then crying when they turn to hours of violent games to try and escape the lives they can't figure out yet.
IMHO, anyone who says we need more laws to "protect" our kids is saying the government can do a better job of raising them than they can. Maybe they're right... but they should have thought of that before becoming parents.
The main reason for the violent crime in N. America which Michael Moore gives is that the media has you Yanks shitting yourselves because the media gets you all riled up by showing you nothing but murders, rapes, bombings, stabbings and muggings. This fear is exacerbated by the racial divide (at least according to Moore) between blacks and white suburban America.
I may have exaggerated a bit, but that's the gist of it.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
I refer to #5, Zoo Tycoon. It's an absolutely awful game. However, The Sims was pretty lame before the first expansion, so perhaps it got better with them. My fiancee was a Roller Coaster Tycoon adict and has been trying to avoind installing RCT2 until she finishes a consulting job she scored.
:)
Sims Unleashed is pretty cool, however.
Alex
I don't get it. What department of /. is this story supposed to be filed under?
That is a pretty broad statement to make. I played Wolf 3D when I was 9, 10 years old, Doom after that, Quake after that, so on. I knew full well it was a game. It was fun dammit! What makes you presume you know the maturity level of any given kid?
Exactly. As a kid, I played Popeye on my TI-99/4A all the time. The Old Hag threw bottles at me, and I learned how to punch them away. And look at how I turned out. I'm posting an unsolicited comment to a geek website at quarter to four in the morning while smoking a cigarette and waiting to take my next Prozac. Overall, I'm better adjusted than most people I know.
Hold on just a sec... Fscking cat won't stop meowing to be let out... SHIT! No more empty beer bottles! [digging around, lobs an empty rum bottle, makes a mental note to wear shoes when going to the bathroom after bedtime]
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Point #1. All art is in the eye of the beholder and if the creative team wants to call it art, fine lets call it art. But nothing exempts some art from being age inappropriate, just like everything else in life.
Point #2. In an ideal world ratings are simply informative. In the end I think that objective information on the outside of the box lead to better purchasing decisions. I think it should be up to local communities to decide what should be sold to minors and what should not be.
Point #3. Without the legitimate threat of government ratings and controls, there are no voluntary ratings. Thus while I do not like the idea of government control, the option must exist in order to encourage the more preferable option. Most marketing people don't see the carrots that I see in ratings systems, they just pay attention to the stick.
Point #4. I am in favor of ratings and technology that allow parental controls without parental following children around every second of every day.
Point #5. If you think ratings systems are for the birds go buy it for your kid yourself. In the end, regardless of ratings, it is a free country.
First off, I'm in the games industry, so take any of my comments with an appropriately sized block of salt.
Which is really more likely? That violent games create violent people, or that people who commit or desire to commit violence are drawn to violent games?
The first has no clearly demonstrable casality. Smoking doesn't cause cancer in everyone, but at least it's statistically significant enough to show that it does cause it. In all honesty, more studies need to be conducted to be sure there isn't some sort of link, but the statement "If you play violent video games, then you will be compelled to commit violent acts in real life," is clearly far from the truth.
The second would suggest that violent people are committing fake violence rather than spending their time committing real violence, which would seem to me to be a vast improvement. Kids love violence as it gives them some sense of power, where they otherwise have none. That's not really a problem of violence, though, as much as it is a problem of discrimination.
Seems to me just a further attempt to diminish personal responsibility. Perhaps this is the crux of the matter - a free society requires an intelligent and informed populace who can look after themselves and take responsibility for their own actions. Unfortunately, there is an enormous chunk of the population who are either unwilling or unable to carry that responsibility, and they demand that we prove they are so weak-willed that they can be influenced to do practically anything.
Once again, the few are screwing it up for everybody else. It was a nice civilization guys, hopefully we get it right next time.
sig fault
Hehe, good question. The daily headline email said "from the dept." too. :)
Any classification of games should consider not only the amount and explicitness of violence (and whatever else they want children not to view), but whether the game presents it in a good light. Perhaps the censors would want to encourage children to play games with an anti-violence message, even if they included some violent action.
It should also be noted that as games become more and more realistic, it gets more difficult to distiguish violent games from non-violent games, as players may be able to play violently or non-violently.
I object to this! Dude where's my car was a classic of american filmmaking. It's so stupid it's art... The art of stupidity.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
Oh, where would those games come from - maybe Europe? What did you think, that only Yanks can write Games?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
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