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Parents Ask If Videogame Rating Bill Necessary?
Thanks to the Zanesville Times-Recorder for its article discussing why some parents are questioning recent moves to legislate on the availability of violent videogames to minors. John Sellars, a local Ohio parent, says of his children: "I watch what they play and I decide what they play. I don't think it should be up to the lawmakers to decide, it should be up to the parents." A local videogame store owner is also quoted as arguing: "The game manufacturers rate each game, like they do movies, and parents will tell their children 'No, that game's not for you'", in a relatively rare counterpoint to recent violent gaming-related legislation attempts.
Um... Then buy the games for your children. This isn't about banning the sale of video games. It's about banning the sale of extremely graphic/violent/adult video games to minors.
I'm all against censorship, but this is just a good idea plain and simple. Would you want 7 year olds being able to buy movie tickets to NC-17 movies?
Ok...here come the 16 year old fan boys with mod points to mod me down...But remember, parents are not responsible for what thier kids do. Its society in general.
But seriously, parents should be a part of thier kids life, if they cant, they shouldnt have kids. It always seems to be the womans responsibility for birth control, but a box of condoms is much cheaper than 18 years of child support.
I dont really care about the idea of censoring children from culture, but instead i much prefer using that as a learning opertunity. Then let them decide whats best for themselves. This applies to video games, violent movies, porn, etc.
In America we are imprisoned by our fear of them.
These parents fail to realize that ratings are guidelines, not regulations. The ratings are provided for the purpose of helping the parents make informed decisions about what their kids are playing. It's like saying that there shouldn't be any movie critics, because I decide what movies I watch anyway.
While reading the article, I found this lovely excerpt:
Washington state Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, who sponsored her state's bill, said bans like this aren't censorship.
"There is a great deal of precedent for restricting dangerous things like alcohol and tobacco to minors," she said.
The last time I checked, alcohol and tobacco are restricted to minors because they posed large physical health risks. A video game's content does not cause physical health problems. If you're worried about their mental health, don't be. Banning violent video game sales to minors imposes on a parent's right to choose what's best for their kids. Kids mature at different rates, therefore it should be up to the parent to decide what is best for them.
Politicians like Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson should keep in mind that some people actually want to be parents of their own children, rather than have a whistle-stopper do it for them.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
... but it must've been the winds of change.
I think some parents are starting to realize that legislation of restriction is not often needed. The store owner and parents in the article are correct; the kids don't purchase the games, the parents are the ones deciding what games their children get to buy, and violence does not spring from video games but from the roots of bad and inadequate parenting.
Even when I was in my late teens, I stayed away from games which seemed morally offensive to me. I have avoided Carmageddon to this day because I don't like the idea of running over pedestrians for no reason at all. All of the 'good kids' I knew from childhood to my graduation from highschool either didn't partake in such things, played the games and watched the videos only sparingly, or moderately played and viewed but with the understanding that what they were looking at was not real, and retained both their sanity and morality.
The two teenagers in Tennessee who shot people from a moving car after playing GTA weren't unbalanced because of the game; rather, they were not quite sane before they played the game, and the game only inspired them to their act of violence. That is, if they'd not been playing the game, they would have simply found some other inspiration and acted in violence from it.
Some parents have begun to realize this, and have refused the sensationalist fear presented by news outlets which seek only ratings and readership. They're right to use this common sense, and those of us who have understood video games and their effects are relieved and delighted.
Good parenting is and always has been the duty and responsibility of the parent(s); if I ever have one or more children, I will be a parent with this reality in mind. Guides and the like (such as ratings) are good and accepted, though they are not always needed. (Who would expect a Mario game to involve sex, drugs, and grotesque amounts of gore?) Restrictions on youth, on the other hand, take away a part of a parent's ability to be a parent, and therefore not only restrict the rights of the youth but the rights of the aged, as well.
Thank you for either patiently reading through my rant of the hour or skipping to the end.
~UP
Eat the Path.
"I watch what they play and I decide what they play." If the rest of the parents in the US were like him, legislation wouldn't be necessary to keep nasty games away from kids. Unfortunately, lots of parents are lazy and/or stupid, and they need the government to do what they can't be bothered with.
The government should never take on the role of rating products or services of any kind. Independent organisations will always do a better job at that. It is then up to each retailer to choose their products, with or without an independent rating system, and each consumer chooses a retailer.
I wonder if anyone here has a problem with the fact that the government restricts the sale of Alcohol and Tobacco to minors... I mean, afterall, I want to choose what my kids smoke or drink, not the government.
/.ers are stuck with number one.. which in my opinion, is a problem with denial. Because of this, you guys will be surprised when the answer to number 2 is enforced... and it will be because you weren't in the debate.
To this, I would just like to ask one question.
Is there a time when enough parents are not policing themselves or their children in where society is forced to react?
There are numerous studies proving the effect of violent videogames on minors. There are, to my knowledge, no ligitimate studies proving the opposite... however, untold millions of kids have games like Grand Theft Auto, BloodRayne, Manhunt and what not. If we know it's bad... if society can be harmed by it (not just the child themselves), and if WE KNOW that many parents are not restricting their kids from these purchases, what else can we do?
Perhaps at one point, it was a good idea to let a parent monitor their child's alcohol usage. Afterall, a drop here and there won't kill anyone...or make them alcoholics. However, we've seen that this approach doesn't work (oh sure, I know it worked for you and your parents, but we have to generalize about some things). At some point, someone stands back and has to make the call that the current system isn't working... then we have to decide what to do about it.
Now, there are two potential answers.
1. There is no problem.
2. There is a problem, what can we do about it?
I'm afraid that most
Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor
From the article (yes, I read it):
Gosh, there's no loaded language here, is there? Let's try that last sentence again:
Okay, editorial qualm aside, my mood on this is mixed.
On the one hand, it would be nice to keep the especially violent video games out of the hands of mental children. Note: not minors, but those people who lack the common sense to know that no video game should be used as a guide to life. Some minors show greater maturity and understanding of the world than people four times their physical age.
But on the other hand, open the door for them and they'll dive through and keep running. After they act to keep violent videogames out of the hands of minors, they'll question whether adults should have them, and then they'll question the rights of the manufacturers to exist. I don't want to live in a completely child-safe world. I went through childhood once already, thankyaverramuch.
It's yet another slippery slope, liberally lubricated with morality and insecurity, which a third of the population wants to climb, a third wants to hold a particular position on (though no two people in that third can agree where on the slope that position should be), and a third wants to ride to the very bottom (shouted "wheeeeeeeee!" optional).
Much as I'd like to join the group that wants to climb out of that particular hole, until someone successfully passes a ban on idiocy, I feel a line needs to be held somewhere.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
Yes, I know that this isn't a popular opinion here, but I really think that there are two types of games that should be banned.
1) Bad, boring, unfun games. Nobody likes these, not even me.
2) Satanic/sinful/sexual games. OK, stick with me here. A lot of games today touch on these themes, which I see some people defend staunchly. But, I would argue that these types of games are harmful in their effect on society. If something is readily available in society, it's difficult for a parent to keep their kids away from it. This is the answer to those people who will fill the streets with filth and sin, and tell me to "just parent my own kids." It's practically impossible for me to keep my children away from demonic images, since they are everywhere. I also see these demonic images as a crutch. Imagine two games on the shelf - one with a firey image of a demon chewing on a naked body of a woman, and the other with a little bunny rabbit. Which one will sell better? The sinful box of course. It doesn't matter if the little bunny rabbit game is 10 times better than the boring demon game. Demons sell, sex sells, sin sells. Ultimately it's a crutch that allows bad games to be sold. Who needs a good game when you've got the devil to sell your game for you?
--Guns don't kill people, abortion clinics kill people.
Minors can't buy pornography or watch violent films on their own, why should games be treated any differently?
I don't think you realize it, but by making a law which prohibits the sale of 'M' rated video games to minors, you would be treating video games differently. There is no law which prohibits the sale of R rated movies (NC-17, movies, and Playboy for that matter) to minors. The only reason no one does is because, if the MPAA found out about it, that store would never be allowed to carry movies again. (Funny, for all the bad stuff they do the MPAA did good on that one; I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day.)
I think the thing most of us, who are against this type of law, fear, is that this will be the nose of the camael in the tent for the Government restricting free speech. Sure, this piece is innocuous enough, but it sets a very bad precident. What is next? Giving this type of game to a child becomes "contributing to the deliquency of a minor" much as alcohol and tabacco are now? So this would effectivly allow the government to block children from access to anything that it deems is "inapproriate".
Ok, so the above might be a bit of a slippery slope fallacy, but I don't want to take that chance. If the above does happen, its very bad. If this type of law doesn't get passed, then the worst we get is little Jimmy seeing some violent images before he is deemed ready, which hasn't been proven to cause violent behavior. Not exactly the same scale of problem.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.