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Government Pressure on ESRB
Alex Blonski writes "There is new CNN coverage on the recent pressure the government is putting on the ESRB to crack down on mature-rated titles, after the Grand Theft Auto Debacle. ESRB President Patricia Vance says that 'It is very important for people to realize that this game is rated " for mature,' Vance said. 'This game is not a game that was rated for children. Regardless of what if anything was modified, it's a game that the ESRB has made as clear as it can that it was not intended for anyone under the age of 17.'"
I don't know about some parents, but if I was a dad and my kid asked me to pony up $50 bucks for a video game, I'm sure as hell going to find out what its about. Plus most stores have the "M" games on lock down, anybody under 17 can't even buy them. This means a lot of these kids are getting adults that should know better to buy it for them. But as they say, money talks, bull**** walks, and these games are racking in the dough like crazy, more than what some blockbusters make.
insert inflammatory anti-microsoft comment here
I must have missed that GTA San Andreas and Manhunt ads during saturday morning cartoons.
How exactly do they market to children.
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
Why 17 and not 18, or 21? Deciding by committee for every child in the US is stupid. They should use a system that lists the 'level' of sex, violence, dirty language or whatever and let parents choose appropriately for their own fears.
Why is this moderated as a troll? You moderators need to wake up and learn to read past line 1 before rating something. This post makes a very valid point about how the ratings seem to indicate specific age tolerances relate to content appropriateness.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
And where do these legislators come from? Is America really so backwards that a majority truly supports puritan fascism? (That might sound a little harsh, but what else can you call it?)
Or is the computer game industry just slacking in its campaign contributions, so the legislators are fishing for funds?
Here's another possible angle: the legacy entertainment industry (TV, films, etc) is frustrated that the new entertainment industry (computers, internet) has so much more freedom. The old guard is lobbying for legislation so that the freedom of the new world doesn't draw away more of their customers.
When parents use their televisions and consoles as nanny and babysitter, they shouldn't be too surprised when their children begin using them as role models.
When parents use their televisions and consoles as nany and babysitter they also tend to use the Government as head of the household which is just wrong.
Putting pressure on the Government for more invasive control is not only wrong it is not what this country was founded on... Yet, each and every day, more and more people want to do less and less parenting and regress back to being a child themselves with the "fatherland" leading their lives.
I can see how someone could see the word "game" and immediately associate "kids" with it. This is what the media depends on to add some shock value to the story. But I was not complaining about parents letting their kids play MA rated video games, just as I don't complain about parents letting their kids see R rated movies. I think the central issue here is a media bandwagon that politicians see and the facts are of no interest. It's all about appearances now.
The relevant facts to this story are that the game industry hasn't put enough lobbying money into congressional pockets, so they're being investigated. It's just like when Microsoft was getting hit by the DoJ. Whether you like it or not, the main difference between the DoJ's interest in Microsoft before, and the lack of interest now, is the amount of lobbying money flowing from them to congress. The interest of the DoJ quickly dwindled even before a Republican got elected to the whitehouse.
"Scientists don't change their minds, they just die." -- Max Planck
You're right... it's not huge... but really, even non-hardcore gamers (such as myself) know what a game mod is. I know the difference between a game and something entirely unrelated that is downloaded to alter the game. I understand that nothing inherent in the game was "unlocked". I'd guess that there are a LOT of people who understand this very fundamental difference. I'm guessing that she may actually not be quite so ignorant, and is betting that there are more people who respond to every shrill "But What About The Children?!" comment than there are people who know what the fuck a game modification is. Either way, to me at least, she has proven herself to be as sleazy and underhanded and ignorant as any other politician out there. I was considering voting for her if for no other reason than to see a female President, but now I won't. She's an asshole like the rest.
Government is not a substitute for parenting.
...nor tv, movies, or video games. Hell even school isn't a subsitute. Parenting can only come from one place and that is the child's parents (or legal guardians depending on the case). I agree with you wholeheartedly and it just digusts me that the parents are so detached/lazy/ignorant/whatever that taking time out of their lives to spend time with their kids/taking steps to protect their kids as they see fit (restricting cable/internet/etc) is such a burden that they would rather put that responsiblity on all of us.
..... see how stupid that sounds?
"I was too lazy to lock my liquor cabinet and my kid got into it and drank himself to death. It is the alcohol companys' fault for killing my child and they along with all of their supporters should pay."
Awesome! When do we get to sue to the nightly news?
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
Let them make their own decisions.
This is the most fundamental principle of liberty.
The information is a self-explanatory game ratings.
The decision is whether or not to buy this or allow your child to play it.
I know, I know. Precious Little Johnny (er.. Taylor or Tyler or Hayden or whatever the hell you people name your kids these days) leaves and goes over to his friend's house and plays GTA on little Mikey's (er... Connor or Tanner) computers, and he's out of your control. Well, it's your job as the parent to go meet Mikey's mother and find out if you can trust her to oversee your child for a few hours.
My girlfriend's son came home the other day and bragged about how his aunt let him play a game that was rating "M". He wanted to throw it in Mom's face that he got to play one. That landed his ass banned from his Game Boy for about a week and then she didn't know what to do. "How do I get him to make good decisions?" I suggested that the KID be made to go talk to Aunt Ignorant and that HE explains to her that he's not allowed to play rated M games and that he should have told her the game was rating M, but he made a bad choice. The kid did it, Aunt Ignorant was horrified at her transgression, and said that it just never crossed her mind.
I promise you that if it was a movie, Aunt Ignorant would have thought about it, but video games are "kid's stuff" to that generation, so it's not part of their decision-making to consider that the game could be inappropriate.
Anyway, the point is that my old lady is responsible for her child and trying to teach him how to make good decisions by turning situations like this into learning opportunities for her son. And that's a hell of a lot better for a kid than having some paternal-minded windbag like Senator Clinton spending our tax money on investigating how in the world a video game that is intended and rated for adults ended up having adult-only content.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
"This used to be primarily the domain of the "right"" I agree with your post but disagree with this statement. The left has *always* been on some "think of the children" garbage whereas the right used to have a respect for things like freedom of speech and personal responsibility. I suppose the difference is academic at this point because now all of our politicians, left and right, want to have a hand in forcing their morals on you, but I do think it's an important distinction that conservatism is supposed to respect market forces and personal responsibility, not foisting Christian morals on other people.
When does "playing pretend" go to far? When Mom says so, not when Uncle Sam says so. It's called individual liberty, and individual responsibility. It's called Enlightement liberalism.
Yes and no. Sometimes, mommy is an idiot, or a flake, and Uncle Sam would be a better judge of what's right for little Johhny. The problem, of course, is that most of the time, Uncle Sam is also an alcoholic with a penchant for violent outbursts.
Sometimes, the line should be drawn well before Mom says so. In this instance, I would argue that any parent that allowed a child to play this game was failing in their duty as a parent.
Of course, that's my opinion. I might be wrong. The government might be wrong. Mom might be wrong. And we all have a fairly equal chance of being wrong.
That's why individual responsibility is so important. Not because individuals always make the right choice, but because people generally try to make the best choice, and having a lot of people making decisions, and thus many points of failure, is better than having one person or group making the decisions, and thus a single point of failure.
If Jane is an idiot, Johhny is screwed, but Sam and Max will be all right. If the Govenrment is given control, though, and drops the ball, everyone suffers.
Thomas Galvin
It's the MPAA's fault. Terms like "R rated" are trademarked by the MPAA and they won't let anyone else use them, they've even sent cease and desist letters to fan fiction writers not to use those terms.
Being a soldier means as much about loving war as being a firefighter does about loving fire. I've never EVER seen a US Army (or Marines, Air Force, etc.) commercial that glorifies war. The fact that you equate images of our military with images promoting war just illustrates your own liberal bias.
It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
I remember reading a Newsweek (it's mainstream, not liberal) piece about soldiers in Iraq. When they saw an Iraq guy running away from their guns, they literally begged their leader for permission to kill. It's shocking, but being a soldier now means being trained to love to kill. Google 'killology'.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
The point is, the age thing is in no way hard-and-fast. First of all, people mature at different rates, therefore what is suitable for one kid may not be suitable for the next. More importantly, right and wrong can be taught at nearly any age, and if it is taught properly, it is highly unlikely that something such as a video game could through a child off the straight and narrow. Certainly, for someone who's either mentally disposed to psychopathy, or for someone whose parents have not taught proper behaviour and so on, video games can have a very detrimental effect, but it's not the game that is the problem.
I am 16, and play GTA. What I do in the game has no relation to what I do in reality, except perhaps talking about the experience with friends. Killing without fear of retribution is separate enough from reality for me that I can run people over and beat their bloodied corpses while laughing my head off, and not carry that into the real world. At the same time, this gets pretty boring after a while; the real fun comes in doing missions and doing challenging or cool stuff in the sandbox environment. If I can pull off an insane stunt, or go out with a bang, the killing is interesting. The killing itself is actually not the meat of the sandwich.
There are more realistic games than GTA, but if it is a situation where death is particularly graphic, it's sickening, not enjoyable. If someone finds graphic death fun or amusing, then they're just getting kicks for their mental condition.
im in ur
You obviously weren't at E3 in 2004 - the US Army came in on a half dozen blackhawks and rappelled down outside the conference center as a part of their grand 'entrance' to the game expo.
Inside the conference, there was a MASSIVE booth with huge screens displaying the 'snipers eye view' of soldiers placed around buildings around the conference center...you got to see the solders, out of sight, aiming & zooming in on random civilians walking around the LA conference center, oblivious...
All as a part of their multi-million dollar 'Americas Army' marketing campaign - for a GAME that is specifically designed to brainwash kids into thinking that going into the Army is fun and something that is 'Cool' to do.
As a canadian down for the conference, these scenes were very disturbing, particularly as I noted the rest of the conference attendees reaction (or lack thereof) to this blatant display of military propaganda.
When the US Army is flying in and running around 'playing army' for a bunch of geeked out gamers, there is something VERY wrong with the way that the game industry is going.
I can't see how this could possibly be anything BUT glorifying war.
If there was a game out there telling the 'other side of the story' of the current situation in Iraq, you can guarantee that the US media would be up in arms horrified, but no, we can make all the games in the world about bombing foreign countries, dropping bombs on their citizens, and make them 'Rated E for Everyone'.
The SOLE reason for the US Army to make their current round of games is marketing & propaganda - even says so on their website & marketing material for the games. They are trying to brainwash people into enlisting, plain and simple.
And by providing sanitized, video game images of what 'being in the army is like', it both does the soldiers that are actually in these situations a grave injustice, but also continues the cycle of hatred and intolerance that has gotten the US into it's most hated nation status around the world.
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