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Feedback on Government Regulation of Games
Today, as we're reporting on the House investigation into Rockstar and the Illinois violent games law, Gamasutra is offering up industry responses to a question concerning the role that government should play in games. From the article: "Government legislation would be a disaster. The ESRB rating is a good enough system. I seriously doubt that the number of employees at retail stores selling 'Mature' games to minors is greater than the number of parents who let their children buy the game. If their parents won't let them play it, chances are they have a friend who has it and they play it at their friends' house. If parents want to censor their kids, they need to be the ones to do it; the government is not responsible for raising children.
-Cari Begle, Stardock"
Think it was Gremlin Graphics, or maybe Imagine, who did that one. Despite being largely unmarketed outside of Britain, the game generated uproar in the real congress, with politicians of all sides condemning it and it even leading to US-lobbied-for Scotland Yard investigations of the game's author, Roy Dallstute. To a certain extent, you could understand it, you'd be playing the game and suddenly a message would flash up: "WARNING: CONSENSUS APPROACHING. KILL MORE REPUBLICANS!" if, say, the Republicans had a majority in the other house and were close to one in the one you were playing in. If I was a politician, I'd not be overly happy about that kind of thing being flashed up in front of kids.
The hubbub only really died down when Al Gore, of all people, made some speech where he claimed it was important to recognize free speech even extended to those who oppose democracies or something in a comedic sense, and that if nothing else the game was increasing those who played it's awareness of the US political system and that wasn't a bad thing. Dallstute himself defended the game by arguing that (a) it was a game and (b) while the methods may have been unusual, the notion of politics being a game where passing laws was considered a bad thing was new, and he hoped that message would reach a new generation of politicians.
It remains to be seen what the investigation into Rockstar turns up, but I suspect compared to CW, it'll be a storm in a teacup. We might see ESRB ratings carry some legal weight, but I think it'll be meaningless outside of that.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
"While it is beyond doubt that 'parents' claim to authority in their own household to direct the rearing of their children is basic in the structure of our society,' [Ginsberg v. New York (1968)] the question here is whether the County constitutionally may limit first amendment rights as a means of aiding parental authority. We hold that, under the circumstances presented in this case, it cannot."
-Interactive Digital Software Association v. St. Louis County, Missouri.
It's pretty obvious that parents on some scale are refusing to take enough of an active interest in the lives of their children to prevent them from acquiring content that may not be suitable for them (or anyone else for that matter). Rather than policing their children, some people would rather have the government do it. If Bob and Jane won't stop little Billy from getting his hands on a "murder simulator" then someone has to, obviously. The government could say, "No! Raise your own damned kids," but would likely find themselves replaced by a government that says "Sure, we'll raise your kids." Some would argue that holding the parents responsible as a good alternative, but which is easier for a government: Give in to the voting public and stay in office or alienate the voting public and get replaced by someone who will give in anyway?
If anything, the Federal government should stay as far away from this as possible. If California, New York, or Illinois wants to do something about it within their own state, they can go right ahead. What those particular states might want isn't necessarily something that my state might.
If the government did have to do something on a national level, I'd suggest creating an organization to replace the ESRB, which really has little to no authority or power to do anything other than assign a largely inadiquate lable to any game that is given to it for review. I'd like to see three primary elements of a game catagorically rated: violence, profanity, and sexuality. Games like GTA would score quite high in violence because of the ability to kill anyone in almost any manner, moderately high in terms of profanity, especially given the more recent installments, but on the low end in sexuality even with the Hot Coffee mod. Although I've never played Playboy Mansion, I'm sure that while it would score high in sexuality, violence would probably be a big zero.
A rating system that scored games based on individual attributes rather than taking it all into consideration and giving it a broad rating that encompasses several different factors. For instance, as one of the comments in the article mentions: "Finally, the ESRB's rating system has a fatal flaw of not distinguishing between games like Halo (scifi, shooting aliens) and games like GTA (shooting cops, sex with hookers, drugs, etc.). They're both rated M. Since AO is retail suicide, everyone avoids it like the plague and it has become useless."
Having such general ratings really limits an easy method of choosing content that might be suitable for you or your children. An M rated game about bashing someone with profane language and various racial/religous slurs is much different than an M rated game about bashing someone's head in with a claw hammer. you might not mind some raunchy language but violence might sicken you. It's much the same way with movies. A movie can be rated R for excessive violence, language, or sexuality. In a similar fashion you might not mind if your children of age 16 see a movie with a lot of fowl language, but you might not want them to see anything with a lot of sex or violence. A rating system that breaks a game into a few core catagories and gives rating for each catagory would better serve parents and people in deciding which content would be suitable for them or their children.