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Innocuous California Game Ratings Bill Passed
Thanks to GamePro for its article noting that a newly revised bill "that requires video game retailers to clearly display signs of the game ratings has been passed by the state senate in California." The bill, "now waiting to be signed by Governor Schwarzenegger", was originally paired with a more controversial bill which "called to define 'atrocious or cruel' video games as 'harmful matter to children'", but that pairing failed to advance, despite support from bill sponsor Leland Yee, leading to a straightforward "requirement to have game ratings clearly displayed, and also have information about the ratings system readily available to parents purchasing games."
I think we can definitely see this as good news. Anything that increases the amount of information to the end user is a good thing, as it allows for informed purchasing decisions, and anything that prevents consumers from getting what they want can generally be considered a bad thing.
This seems to give something to both camps. The educationally conservative will be able to avoid what they consider sensitive material, and the rest of us will be able to buy the next Grand Theft Auto game...
That above arguement is ridiculus. The ones who should be thinking of the children and what they play and buy are the parents. The government really shouldn't play the parenting role. And for those kids (un?)fortunate enough to have parents that don't care what they do, are they really going to grow up into violent mass murdering people? Show me a study that links violence behavior to video games and then I might start to understand the politicians on a power trip. Understand, but never totally agree with.
I'm about to move out to California. What's it like out there? There must be warnings every three feet.
I recently installed a new drain pipe in my bathroom sink. It came with this warning label:
"This product is known by the State of California to contain materials known to cause cancer in labratory tests. Plumbers must notify the customer of this before installation."
Isn't this all going a bit far? I'm concerned that my dirty water and used toothpaste might get cancer, but let's assume a bit of common sense.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
I wonder how games oriented around the govern^H^H^H^H^H^Hterminator will be rated.... This entire system is nothing new - it's been like this in europe a long while with ESRB ratings... You can't buy a game if you're underage, much like trying to rent porno. Not that I'd know. erm....
I think I'm generally in favour of content-ratings for video games. Here in the UK, we have a fairly robust system for it now. Admittedly, we were only spared from a much-worse lunacy when the BBFC lost its case over Carmaggeddon (horrible game, but it achieved a lot in terms of preventing video games censorship here). When Doom 3 came out the other week, I saw the staff in my local GAME refusing to sell it to several un-escorted kids.
Ultimately, I think a system which throws a bone to the loony censorship crowd (who are every bit as likely to be left-wing as right), while allowing adults to still make their own purchasing decisions, is a good thing.
Why not atrocious or cruel' movies as 'harmful matter to children and adults!
This seems reasonable enough to me. I am of the opinion that we don't need laws to ban kids from obtaining violent video games, but rather put the responsibility on the children's parents. However, even the most caring parents can be damn near clueless when it comes to games.
Putting big visible warning labels on packaging won't make won't reduce my enjoyment of that game. They'll give clueless parents a chance to raise their kids the way they want, and let those who think their kids are ready allow their children to play them.
100% Crunchier
This is the best they can come up with? Don't get me wrong, I don't want some uptight senator deciding what games can and cannot be made (or sold), but this article is newsworthy?
Parents don't care anyway? We saw some kid get murdered with Manhunt in his place. We see kids buying GTA3/VC all the time without anyone batting an eye. Does anybody really care about the ratings and does anybody really pay attention, or is this a liability issue... "if we put the warnings on the box, the parents can't blame us when their kid kills somebody, we warned them it was a naughty game!"
either way this still goes back to the biggest problem with kids and video games: parents who let games raise their kids instead of THEM raising their kids.
Or paintings of naked people? Michelangelo's David might make children violent, or sexual deviants! Why, if they read Lord of the Flies, they might crush fat kids with giant rocks! Someone, please think of the children!
I lived in California for a few years during the dot.com era, like probably a lot of people.
Legislation-wise, it's really different out there. California is often the first state to try a new law for something. As you might expect, some of those experiments work out pretty well, and some don't. It's the price you pay for innovation, so to speak.
I'll tell you this, though: I sure as hell miss the California smoking laws. I wish I could spend half an hour in any local bar or club and not come out smelling like an ashtray.
The Kahleeforneea legislature needs to get to work on real issues, like the California Performance Review. If this is what they are wasting their time working on, then the legislature should be sent home to save taxpayer money. Leland Yee is the state senator who tried to legislate "feng shui" into the building code.
What is the penalty for not complying? A $500/day penalty was amended out of the bill. This is another regulation that California merchants must keep track of.
Well there are smoke free bars out there that are created by people who want that choice. But as they arn't public facilities I personally don't think its my place to tell a private buisness what they can do. Though we already tell them that what types of foods they can sell. How many exits they must have and so much other shit, so I guess its just more of the same.
(Note I'm not advocating the removal of all these laws, some of them are probably good, I think its just that we seem to always think we need these laws intead of really examining how nessesary they are.)
> Putting big visible warning labels on packaging
Doesn't a gory image of a blood-spattered dismembered zombie with blood-shot eyes and half-flayed decaying skin, reeling from a shotgun blast that put a ragged, gaping, gore-dripping hole in its torso, qualify somewhat as a visible warning label?
Well there are smoke free bars out there that are created by people who want that choice.
Well, right. But good luck finding one in, say, Wisconsin. Good luck finding a really top/popular club anywhere but Cali that is one.
I guess you could say I'm in favor of oppressing the rights of smokers for my own benefit because I'm not one, and I wouldn't really argue with that. When you come right down to it, I think it should be one of those things that's ok in the privacy of your own home but not in the public space. That, and it should ideally make you ineligible for normal people's health insurance so we're not paying the cost for their slow suicide.
Semi-back on topic, there are a lot of other laws that are pretty different in California, and they're not all the quasi-restrictive kinds. Better carpool lane setups than I've seen elsewhere, for example.
For years the UK has had a little age rating symbol in the corner of every game box there is. It's changed design in the last few years but it's always been there.... It doesn't do JACK.
Every retailer I knew when I was a kid would sell me any game I wanted, I could buy 18s when I was 12. Sure they all knew my mum would be in shortly after and pretty much knew both of us on a personal level (What can I say.. I was hardcore..). But it's still illegal to do something like that... so yea, fancy stickers/printed warnings will do jack.
If you want a game bad enough you can get it with or without a little sticker on it.
I like muppets.
Note, when the State of Florida sued tobacco companies saying that it increased medicare (or what it medicade, either way) cost, several independant groups (and I'm sure there was plenty of backing fromt he tobacco lobby but so far their conclusions havn't been scientifically debunked) did a study and concluded that smokers actually saved the state money in the long run because they died younger. Now I'm sure they don't save life insurance companies money (though life insurance is higher for smokers) I'm sure it could be argued that smokers health insurance is not significantly higher. Either way insurance is a legal wager, and insurance companies generally do increase smokers premiums. I guess it is unfair in employee group rates, where all state workers pay the same premiums no matter what. I wish my employeer would will be willing to shell out the exact same dollars directly to me for me to purchase health insurance myself. But they can't under their contracts, despite the insurance companies semi annual hikes in rates.
All the major chain stores I've been to (yes, in California) already have plenty of signage about the ratings, it's completly not a problem.
The problem is that the store workers are marketing the violent games to kids. I was at a GameStop the other week, and there was a mother with her three kids, probably ranging 7 to 12 or so, and the cashier convinced them to reserve GTA: San Andreas. That's the sort of thing that needs to stop.
Can someone mod my parent post down so this embarassment won't get a thousand corrections?
The "atrocious" bill failed to pass. Call me happy about that.
Hate smoke? Move to New York City or Delaware or El Paso, TX, or if you don't mind just in restaurants: Vermont, Maine, and Utah.
Back on topic, I'm assuming everyone sees the irony in the star of a lot of violent 80's action movies (and films so bad they make me violently ill) signing a law to warn against violence.
I support the idea of warnings & anything that gives parents more information.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
The California smoking laws piss me off. They were passed in order to "protect" employees of bars, because apparently the fact that you could smoke in a bar was really cutting down the list of available jobs for bartenders and bar-backs who didn't smoke. Free hint: There aren't too many of these. Bartenders should just expect to breathe smoke, it goes with the territory, and being a bar-back is unskilled labor and you can get the same kind of job anywhere. Instead the mother state has made yet another decision for us.
Luckily there is selective enforcement of the law in some places and in Santa Cruz in particular, you can still smoke in most bars. The cops will occasionally make a trip through the bar and generally give you a chance to extinguish your smokes. Some bars have even gone so far as to put ashtrays back on the tables, as opposed to the little plates that they used right after the ban.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Bartenders should just expect to breathe smoke, it goes with the territory, and being a bar-back is unskilled labor and you can get the same kind of job anywhere.
That being the status quo isn't really a very good argument for it remaining that way. Once upon a time in America, black people should just expect to be worked as slave labor, too. I don't see anyone rational defending that.
Instead the mother state has made yet another decision for us.
Don't forget that the state represents the will of the people. If a majority of the people in the state were against that particular piece of legislation, I'd be surprised if it stayed.
There're a lot of people who can't get better jobs than to be bartenders, waitresses, etc. Rather than rage against laws that try to protect them, you should be happy they're taking these shitty jobs rather than living on unemployment.
Only the people who visit bars should have been eligible to vote on that issue. Of course it doesn't work that way, and the majority gets to vote on things that don't affect them. It's like when students attending a four year college become residents and vote, then pack up their shit and move on - they have no real idea what effect their actions will have on the city they're voting in, nor do they have to live with the consequences.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Why not atrocious or cruel' movies as 'harmful matter to children and adults!
Why don't we start with 'atrocious or cruel' governments, such as the Bush government Arnold supports in Washington today? It certainly has been harmful to plenty of children and adults, in this country and, even more acutely, abroad.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
As a smoking californian bar-goer(and I vote!), I have to say that pretty much everyone here recognizes that the ban on indoor smoking turned out to be a Good Thing. You smoke less, you don't smell like shit, you meet cute girls when you go outside. A welcome side effect has been the surge of open-air sections in bars.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
Yea, I guess its kinda like having a law that says you can't pee in the corner of bars. Everybody is going to be against it at first, then your gonna see that it was for good.
But you do have to wonder what happends to the bars that specialize in public peeing and sell expensive pee accessoried.
Ths isn't limited to California. There are lots of parts of the US that already have these sorts of no-smoking laws, or are currently considering them. They get a good amount of news coverage, and I've seen a lot of articles where bartenders and other employees were interviewed, and they generally say that their health has greatly improved since things went non-smoking, even if they are themselves smokers. Just because someone smokes cigarettes of his own sometimes doesn't mean it isn't very harmful to his health to spend many many hours a week in a small enclosed place with dozens of people constantly smoking cigarettes. So the fact "there aren't too many" non-smoking bartenders is really not relevant to the discussion.
I'd rather be lucky than good.
The answer is not to outright outlaw smoking, though. In TX there are a lot of restaurants (like IHOPs) which at least until fairly recently - I've not been following things - you could smoke in half of. They mandate an air cleaner of a certain CFM or and effectiveness or something like that. This is a sane system. Want smoking in your establishment? You need some hardware, but you can have it. This makes a lot more sense than outlawing it completely...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
In Nova Scotia Canada they must have seperate smoking rooms, with seperate air circulation. Usually this rooms are simply glassed off, but still intresting
The city where live there is no indoor smoking allowed anywhere, even if there is a ventilation system setup in a special closed off room. Personally as a smoker, it pisses me off. If people don't want to be bothered by cigerette smoke, they have every right in the world not to come in. Hell, make them put a huge sign of the front door saying "This establishment allows Smoking inside, Beware." if it will allow me to have a smoke with my drink without having to go outside esspecially during the winter.
Australian games have been rated forever. OK so a 15 rating won't stop a 13yo playing but it keeps the age of players much more reasonable. Books are rated too (some very naughty ones even get R or possibly X). I think this is great - even if it doesn't work perfectly and some teenager sees naked boobies, it's good to have the information available, right? What I object to is banned literature. Just mark it D for "don't watch this" and I won't! I realize that some weirdos will seek out this stuff, but it's still wrong to tell me what I can and can't handle, once I'm all grown up. As for the weirdos, well, there are many objections to a psychologist state, but .....
*#*#*#*#*#******* I love peanut butter sandwiches!