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Violent Video Game Restriction Struck Down
Nutsquasher was the first to submit news that a ban on selling violent video games to minors has been struck down, reversing an earlier decision in this case that held that video games were not a constitutionally protected form of speech. The decision (pdf) is available. Since the Federal government has been considering a national law along these lines, these decisions on local laws may be important soon.
Training on violent video games was one of the key contributing factors to the United States' success in invading Iraq.
It'll be interesting to see what impact this has on a similar law that was just recently signed into law by Washington state's governor.
Video games don't breeb violence...poor parenting does.
No, but an argument could be made for desensitization. I think I have posted this here before, but in the Corps (Marine Corps), one of the most difficult things to do in training recruits is to get them to not hesitate pulling the trigger to end another human beings life. (humans tend to default towards not killing each other unless they are sociopaths which the Corps does not want). To overcome this issue, recently the Corps has been experimenting with 3D shootemups in an attempt at desensitization and teaching squad maneuvering and strategy skills, but primarily desensitization.
So, do video games desensitize kids to violence?
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I have killed probably millions of digital people in my game playing days, but when I accidentially step on a snail, I get bummed out. To me, life is sacred. But that is not to say that I don't think killing can be justified, it is just very regretable.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" - JFK
Just because they shouldn't play them doesn't mean there should be a law against the sale of these games to minors.
Here in Canada, it is perfectly legal to show full frontal nudity, explicit language, and graphic violence after 9:00 pm. Hell, some of the movie channels that come with regular cable (not PPV) even show nudity before this... Thinks back to a recent airing of Blade Runner
At the young age of 15, I sat down in the middle of the day with my Dad and some of his buddies and watched the Outer Limits (the episode where Alyssa Milano gets naked). He obviously believed I was old enough to view such content.
He didn't, however, think that at age 8, I was old enough to be looking at his Playboys.
In C++, friends can touch each others private parts.
Reason I'm asking is that from the press article, it appears that Judge Limbaugh doesn't know what he is talking out. The article says that Limbaugh stated that the ordinance does not hold up to constitutional scrutiny for first amendment reasons, while he does say that obscenity is one exception to first amendment freedoms. This is all true, but nowhere in the article does it discuss the legal definition of indecent, and how indecent material, while it still falls within the rubrick of first amendment freedoms, can be specifically regulated when dealing with minors. This is why minors are not allowed in Topless Bars, regardless of whether alcohol is served, and why the FCC can regulate when indecent materials can be shown on television (from 10:00pm to 6:00am). Makes no sense to me. I'm not saying I'm not happy that the kids can buy their video games now, I just don't understand the rationale, legally.
"BadTimes will make you fall in love with a penguin" - Laika
"Our review of the record convinces us that these "violent" video games contain stories, imagery, "age-old themes of literature," and messages, "even an 'ideology,' just as books and movies do." ... Indeed, we find it telling that
the County seeks to restrict access to these video games precisely because their
content purportedly affects the thought or behavior of those who play them."
I'm 17, I've been playing violent video games for longer than I can remember without parental supervision or limitations. I'm the polar opposite of "aggressive", to the point that I can't drive in heavy traffic because I'm not aggressive enough to switch lanes. When a recruiter for the Marines called me, I told him, "I'm sorry, I don't kill people" and hung up the phone.
On the other hand, I played a Ferrari racing game in an arcade yesterday, and 10 minutes later I was in my car peeling out at red lights and red-lining in every gear.
I guess that means that I "suffer a deleterious effect on [my] psychological health" when I play racing games. Those evil devices should be illegal!
Or maybe it means that I'm a bad driver. That game didn't hypnotize me and make me drive like an asshole. I was fully aware of what I was doing, and chose to do it anyway. Sure, the game triggered that behavior, but something else could have triggered it just as easily. Being passed by a 350Z on the highway does the same thing. Vroom vroom.
I'm willing to bet a good sum of money that that's how violent video games work too. They don't make people violent, they make violent people active. The question is, would their violence be triggered by something else if not by a video game?
Scratched Emulsion
So, do video games desensitize kids to violence?
Only if the kid is unable to determine the difference between fiction/fantasy and reality and is able to remove the "violence" from the context. No matter how you wrap it, video games are distinctly artificial, and like tv, you know that what is happening isn't "real."
Regardless of the number of times I've seen a car crash on tv, in the movies, on nascar, or how "fun" it is to trash cars in video games, getting involved in the real thing (for me) definately triggered a different reaction than "awesome."
The military (to varrying extents) brainwashes recruits. THAT is how they get them to not hesitate pulling the trigger. The methods they use to perform this brainwashing have varied over time, but merely playing a video game will not be enough to accomplish the goal.
the last video game developer who went on a killing spree. If I were to expect someone interacting with video games to go insane and blow someone'e head off, I would expect the person who came up with all of the ideas: the ragdoll effect after you kill someone, the way blood splatters on walls, different animations of how bodies explode, etc.
I'm writing a violent video game that will be one of the most complex video games ever invented. I'm spending over 6000 hours of my own time developing it. I graduated CMU for CS, and no one will hire me, so I'm forced to make my own game. If you ban this too, after I spend every waking hour for three years working on it fueled by pure hate in the system, I don't even know what I'd do but I bet it wouldn't be pretty.
x 2. html
I'll have my first demo at:
http://delvedesigns.com/websites/clancrazy/inde
Only has attack moves in it.
God spoke to me
City wages war against violent video games
Basically, with this law in effect, depending on the size of your arcade, you might have to rent a larger builing if you wanted to stock Tekken. I think it was even ambiguous if you could create an "adult's only" arcade.
It wasn't really aimed at retail stores as much:
Of course, the above refers to the Indianapololis ban, not the St. Louis ban, but the articles I've read claimed the laws were very similar with the St. Louis ban going even further:First They Take Vice City, Then They Take Berlin: Video Game Legislation Offers Hard Lessons For Comic Books
The main point is that this was censorship, of a very specific kind. By imposing harsh restrictions on arcade owners that would cost money to meet, they basically could cause arcade owners to stop stocking certain games. Arcade owners are mostly interested in making money, not in idealistically protecting the right of the public to have the choice of playing the video games they want. (It's exactly the same purpose as the Castillo case, really, just swap out comic books for video games.)
The main thing that comes through in these cases is that the people putting these bans in place don't like video games at all and don't think kids (or adults) ought to be playing them, period. They go after them where they are weakest, the only reason they don't try for a blanket ban on all video games is because this is not Afghanistan and it wouldn't hold up. It's very reminiscent of the anti-Dungeons & Dragons crusades of years past, if these same people had stated right out why they didn't like D&D they would not have been listened to. So instead, they linked it to suicide and homicidal rampages among teenagers, even if the link was tenuous or an urban legend.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)