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.

Comments

It's stupidity, not location

[MoonBuggy]

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.

Re:It's stupidity, not location

[Zemran]

Do you really think that the few shootings in the UK really equate to a crime wave ? Something like 85 fatal shootings in the UK compared to over 11,000 in the US. The blinkers that let you think that having a gun will stop people shooting you is incredible. If the bad guys do not have guns (as is the general rule in the UK, exceptions accepted) you are far less likely to get shot than you are somewhere that anyond can get a gun. There are obvious exceptions to all rules but it is incredible blindness to say that mugging in Britain are higher than in the US because neither the mugger nor the victim have a gun. It is also wrong to say that there are more muggings in the UK. The figure that you misquote was for London compared to NY in one time frame.

Show me the numbers...

[sterno]

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.