Slashdot Mirror
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.
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 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.
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.
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"
Boy, that list is just bursting with violent games.
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.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
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.
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
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?
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.
Prevention is good, when it can be effected without infringing on our rights as citizens. For instance, we could prevent all crime by putting everyone in prison... would you want that?
Prevention with the restrictions I have mentioned is neither easy nor cheap.
Also, I believe there are effects where violent games both sate the hunger for real-life violence, and those that fuel it further. Which is the dominant effect I wouldn't want to try guessing....
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
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.
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.
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
Children are not able to fully understand and cope, on their own, with the violence evidences in such games.
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?
Like many things in a childrens upbringing, this is a matter of BEING A PARENT. You would let your kids see Star Wars, wouldn't you? They know it is JUST A MOVIE don't they? Why shouldn't the same apply to video games?
A voluntary rating system was a great idea. It allows parents a quick and easy way to determine if a game is appropriate for their kids. If reading a box is too much, they have worse problems than video games!
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.
Like this shooting, you mean?
Criminals and nutters will get their hands on guns regardless of whether guns are legal or not. And the number of muggings over here in Britain is significantly higher than it is in the US, partly because it is effectively illegal to defend yourself here.
Finally, here's a little know fact about the Columbine high-school shootings: About a year before they took place, a law was passed in the state making it completely illegal to take a gun onto school premises. Before said law was passed, the deputy principal of the school would take a loaded pistol onto the premises every day, and take it home again every night. After the law was passed, he left it in his car a quarter of a mile away. Interestingly enough, it was he who eventually disarmed the boys - except that he had spent several minutes running to his car and driving back with his gun, by which time the boys had managed to kill quite a few of their fellow pupils.
I wonder what would have happened if the state had trusted him enough to let him keep the gun on the premises?
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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.