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California Anti-Videogame Bill Author Interviewed
rsmith-mac writes "As an update to last week's story about a proposed California bill to bar minors from buying first-person shooters, HomeLANFed has an interview up with Leland Y. Yee, the assemblyperson responsible for creating the bill. While there are some good intentions with Yee's actions, I can't help but feel that this is a classic case where the road to Hell is being paved with those good intentions."
The idea behind an industry rating system, as opposed to a government rating system, is that it puts the ratings in the hands of those most qualified to make them. The system in place with video games right now is most comparable to movie ratings. The problem, it seems, is that many game retailers aren't playing ball. According to Yee, a vast majority of underaged participants in an FCC undercover study were able to buy M-rated games without their parents.
Having managed a movie theater for a few years when I was in college I can tell you that plenty of underage kids end up getting into R rated movies simply by the incompetence of the ticket booth people, or by theater hopping.
I would have liked to have seen these same kids in this study try to buy DVD's that were rated R. Are the retailers like that with everything or only video games?
Can you imagine the increase in piracy when johnny 16 year old can't buy doom 3 in the store but he can get it over bit torrent?
What Yee is proposing is basically throwing out the ESRB rating system and using his more stringent guidelines to decide which games are unsuitable for children. He leaves the door wide open for "T"-rated games to be unavailable for purchase to those under 18.
I always though that video games should use the same ratings system as movies, that would make it easier on the parents and the retailers to figure out what the ratings mean.
Is this wrong? Yes. But so is being able to buy Vice City if you're 13 years old. It's not just stupid parents -- it's game retailers as well. Until they stop selling violent video games to unaccompanied children, we haven't got much ground to stand on.
What more can the video game industry do though? What happens to a retailer when they sell a DVD that is rated R to a 13 year old? When a 13 year old buys a tape that has the "Explicit lyrics label?". Does the MPAA or RIAA shun them and not send them any products? There doesn't seem to be any enforcment in other areas of the entertainment spectrum, so why should there be with video games?
I don't doubt it. The movie industry has never tried all that hard to go after kids who try to circumvent the rules. Of course, my guess is you're a lot closer to 15 or 16, as opposed to thirteen, if you're trying to get into an R-rated movie.
What more can the video game industry do though? What happens to a retailer when they sell a DVD that is rated R to a 13 year old? When a 13 year old buys a tape that has the "Explicit lyrics label?". Does the MPAA or RIAA shun them and not send them any products? There doesn't seem to be any enforcment in other areas of the entertainment spectrum, so why should there be with video games?
I agree -- video game makers shouldn't pay for the sins of video game retailers. Maybe I'm naive, but I imagine those underage kids in the FCC study were so successful not because cashiers were malicious (or even inept) -- but rather because a lot of stores have no cohesive policy for preventing minors from buying M-rated games. Either that or they don't bother to enforce it.
If retailers buckle to political pressure and start getting tougher on this stuff, then it'll be somewhat harder for kids to buy M-rated games. At that point it's less of a problem that there's no disciplinary mechanism in place.
I found a few more objectionable things about Mr. Lee's statements, such as the following:
We can also point to the testimony of criminals as further proof. We know that the Columbine killers compared their intended crimes to the game Doom. Earlier this year, a group of Oakland teenagers went on crime spree, stealing cars and committing several murders. One of the perpetrators was quoted as saying, "We played the game by day and lived it by night." The scientific community has put it very simply -- the debate is over.
1) We don't know much at all about the Columbine killers because they are dead. They may have made comparisons to Doom in order to plan their crimes, but in the end, they killed themselves and no one knows any real reasons for their actions. Besides that, one of them was 18, and Doom existed before the current rating system was widely used (and was an old game by the time of Columbine).
2) 'We played the game by day and lived it by night', well, that's very nice, but if he's referring to GTA, you're looking at a game (GTA:VC) that has sold millions of copies, and yet only had a couple of people claim that they were copying it. We'd be living in hell if there was true causality at work here.
3)The scientific community is not united on this matter, and this is not some media conspiracy to prevent people from finding out that violent games may cause violence. If anything, the reverse is true, because before Columbine it was quite easy to find one study saying the reverse for every study saying what he's quoted, yet it's become harder to find even pre-existing studies every day. Not to mention that a scientific study should prove it's hypothesis, and not many psychologists have been starting with the hypothesis that violence does not beget violence these days.
4) As he is a politician, the final line may disturb me the most: '-- the debate is over'. Sorry Mr. Lee, the debate is never over, and you should know that. You don't try to pass laws and declare the debate over, because the debate will have to continue in order to make sure your laws are not only effective at doing what you intend, but also are not stopping people from getting Constitutionally-protected material.
Furthermore, he says on one hand that the law will not just cover Mature and Adult Only material, but also some Teen material, yet states that it will be easy for retailers to determine what should be seperated from the rest. The wording that he quotes is so vague that you could find some E material to be covered, yet retailers are supposed to be able to do this easily...
-PainKilleR-[CE]
Case and Point:
In Japan today, their comics (manga) are a multi-billion doallar industry. There are manga cookbooks, manga textbooks, all genres of entertainment and reference material; everything that in the US might be done as a movie or text (they have normal books etc. too).
In the US, comic books and graphic novels are marginalized in the mainstream. Many of the few profitable companies (those that make mainstream fare) left make all their money on merchandising, and have been run completely into the ground several times each. Why is this so?
In 1954, the Comics Code Authority was created as an "Industry Association" in response to congressional coercion. Check out their standards. This quashed much of the creativity present the in the mainstreaim industry, which was about 40 years old. Many of the true creative geniuses were forced underground for nearly a decade, and the mainstream companies that followed the code rotted from within.
In the mid-fifties, the manga industry essentially sprung from nowhere, blossoming into a huge industry over a decade. The average age for a consumer buying manga in Japan is just barely below the average age of the population there, whereas in the US the average age of the comic book consumer grows older by one year every year.
In Japan, their "industrial" complex for producing games is just as developed as that in the US. If creativity is stifled by lawmakers, it will cost the US Billions in lost revenue. If any country passes laws that restrict its entertainers or artists, it will cost that country a chance for the revenues or prestige generated by those creators.
I think the IGDA is more organized and is better capable (with benefit of hindsight) to combat these sons and daughters of those who created the Comic Code than the naive comic industry of the 1950s. I don't believe that there is any less general paranoia (Red Scare vs. Terrorist Scare, same thing) than then, and its got the populace running scared and not paying attention to their freedoms (why is it times like this that would-be censors always choose to strike?).
I encourage everyone to check out the link to the Comics Code. Its stipulations are eerily similar to many proposed restrictions on interactive software today, and as such its a very relevant piece of history.
Performing sanity checks on your own beliefs is vital in avoiding poisoned koolaid.
The reason this is different than ratings on films is that ratings on films, like ratings on videogmaes are volantary. There are no laws agains children seeing R rated films.
Secondly,
I have said this many times, watching a clip of a videogame is like reading the script to a film. If you have not actually played the games, then you have very little idea what it is actually like to play them. If you have time to write a law, find a day to sit down and actually play the game. If you watch clips, surely you know that those are totally without context.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Lets face it. It may not be true for all but I'm sure a small percentage of children are going to be affected by viewing violent media over and over again. Its only common sense. You pretty much don't need a study to figure that out.
Not every child would be affected of course. Most would probably ALREADY HAVE SOME TYPE OF MENTAL OR EMOTIONAL ISSUE. The question is, would that mental issue cause them to kill on their own or does repeated images of violence act as some type of catalyst? How would a store clerk know if the kid buying the game has issues or not?
Studies show that it does act as a catalyst. You might not agree but many people smarter than us have proven it. Different stimuli affect different poeple in different ways. Most people will not be affected. Most people don't have emotional/mental defects as well. Most people are not treated like those kids were at Columbine HS.
There are many factors that contribute to teenagers becoming violent. Bad home life, bad social life, mental/emotional problems, drugs, alcohol, etc. No need to throw violent media in what could already be a bad mixture.
This law pretty much has no effect on most people and it gets game companies off the hook. The blame is set squarely on the parents shoulders where it belongs. Isn't that what we want? If kids get ahold of a violent game and use it as an excuse for commiting violent acts then the parents should be blamed for buying them the violent game and being bad parents, not the game company who made the game for adults.
I don't have kids but I know that when I do I won't want them playing games that I dont think are appropriate for their age. I can't follow them around everywhere they go so I won't know what they are spending their money on. Its nice to know they can't buy smokes, porno, beer, and video games I don't want them to play until they are older. I will make the decision if they are mature enough or not after I play it myself. This law gives the parents more of that control Right now the control is in the hands of the piply face youth working at Best Buy.
Even if the kid goes through another avenue to get the game, its still the parents fault because as a parent you should be aware of what your children are up to on the computer. Knowing what I know about the Internet, I don't even know if I want my kids using the it.