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Video Game Industry to Sue Michigan's Governor
hapwned writes "A news release at Warcry writes that the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) plans on filing suit in Michigan to overturn the recent Violent Games Act. From the article: 'The ESA argues that this bill is an effort to substitute the government's judgment for parental supervision and turn retailers into surrogate parents. Lowenstein said that the industry's products were being unreasonably and unfairly singled out. He contends that while there is no question that a few games have content that some audiences will find offensive, the same can be said for some content in TV, films, music, and books. Since the government does not regulate the sales of those entertainment industries, it should follow suit for the sale of video games. Ultimately, he concluded, parents, not government or industry, must be the gatekeepers of what comes in the home.'"
It's not the Government's place to tell it's population what they can, and can't play.
Really, it's gone way the fuck too far.
~The TwoTailedFox posts again....
anybody got fined 12,000 dollars for renting or selling a "violent" movie to a youngster?
or better yet, a cartoon.
or an orson scott card novel.
But industry shouldn't have a role? That's crazy talk. Parents ought to keep a close eye on the things their kids do, but it is also the community's responsibility to raise kids rightly. If a kid is running around Wal-mart yelling and screaming, most of the time people just look the other way and mutter under their breath. But that is doing a huge disservice to the child who will not learn proper behavior.
So too is it important that industries concentrate on producing high-quality, wholesome products. Whether this be something as nutritious as breakfast cereal or as empty as your typical R-rated movie, it is important that the community standards to which a majority of a community profess are supported by the corporation's product.
It is good business to provide people with things they need. But there is also a lot of money involved in selling people their vices. We do not accept people who wish to sell drugs to minors, nor do we absolve of guilt those who would ply them with alcohol.
It is not always 100% the job of the parent. The community must be held responsible to the extent that they have offered moral corruption from beyond the purview of the child's parents.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Who cares, this all comes way too late to save the Lemmings.
&sniff;
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
Ultimately, he concluded, parents, not government or industry, must be the gatekeepers of what comes in the home.
Why should parents raise their kids when the government is happy to do it?
Um, the V-Chip, Janet Jackson's nipple...
films,
It seems to me that the movie industry, haveing been made an offer it couldn't refuse (from the US gov't back in the '20s) set up self regulation: Films get rated, distributors won't screen X, unrated or (often) NC-17 films.
music,
Content labels, and the world's largest retailer won't carry potty-mouth stuff.
and books.
Well, they've certainly been banned in the US before. Ulysses, Lolita....
Since the government does not regulate the sales of those entertainment industries...
Bzzzzzt.
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
She had this comming. She wanted this anti violent game campaign much like Hilary is chasing GTA to further herself.
Granholm is on thin ice in this state... and signing the violent games bill, i assume, makes her feel she may win some votes with the conservative/christian/majority of the west side of the state.
i believe you mean Id software.
DOOM is a product and as such can't own anything.
If you're going to create mock litigation at least do it right!
One more thing. I believe Satan (also known as "The Prince of Darkness", "Lucifer", "The Morningstar", "The Devil", and countless other shady ephithets) registered "doom" as a trademark when he introduced his "War on God" line, some 6000 years ago.
I suspect that both you AND the OP will be seeing Satan's shadowy servants- I mean, lawyers- in court.
I have a theory I'm testing out, could you help me by answering one simple question?
Have you successfully raised two or more children?
My theory is that people who have don't dispense parenting advice in glib little phrases and hold forth that parenting is simple.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Yeah, what a concept. If this suit is successful, parents will be finally required to do some, err what was the term again, oh yes, parenting. This means setting and enforcing the moral standards for the household, amongst other things.
Dunno. How long has Wal mart been running US foreign policy viz China?
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
It's not the government's job to "protect" anyone from themselves, no matter how many times they've orbited the sun. Help given to someone who doesn't want it is not help at all.
The fact that they've passed laws before to protect people from themselves doesn't mean it was the right thing to do, nor is it justification for passing even more of them.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Also I think we should ban high school football. God knows how much violence that has caused outside of playing it.
Um... feel free to correct me (and I'm sure everyone will leap at the opportunity), but I thought the whole idea of the bill was to ensure that the parents DO get involved. Ie, a child cant go to the video store and buy a NC-17 game (or whatever the classification system is), but instead has to get their PARENTS to buy the game for them.
Otherwise, the kid could just buy the game and hide it until the parents aren't around.
Yes, this is an inconveinece for the store clerks, that have to vet customers ages, and yes it'll reduce sales because there'll be fewer games being sold. But saying that this bill does NOT support a parent's interjection in a child's activities is just stupid.
In the US you can be a todler and go into a games store and buy something like... Vampire Bloodlines (with plotlines involving snuff films, butchering babies, killing police officers...) or some other pleasant game like GTA SA.
But you can't at age 18 walk into a pub and order a pint of beer...
I don't really understand it, computer games are like videos, just so far worse graphics and more interactive, but I'd imagine soon it'll reach video quality. Which begs the question... isn't letting a minor buy a sex-rape-killathon style video game over the counter the same as letting a minor walk into a dirty sex video shop and buy the equliviant video off the shelf?
Posts like this just make my head spin...
Parents ought to keep a close eye on the things their kids do, but it is also the community's responsibility to raise kids rightly.
But? But?!? Parents ought to keep a close eye on the things their kids do. PERIOD. There is no 'but.' You're just making excuses for bad parenting, and then blaming it on society. Right. It's everyone ELSE'S fault you're a shitty parent and your kids is going nuts in a public place. That kind of attitude is part of the problem.
So too is it important that industries concentrate on producing high-quality, wholesome products. Whether this be something as nutritious as breakfast cereal or as empty as your typical R-rated movie, it is important that the community standards to which a majority of a community profess are supported by the corporation's product.
It is important for industries to concentrate on goods and services that people want to pay for. Thats it. No, no, stop, really. That is ALL. If it isn't in the industry's interests to produce what you call "wholesome" products, then it has no responsibility to do so. The industry doesn't owe you anything. Why should anyone be able to hold them to their own personal standards of decency through enforced legislation? Thats just crazy. If you don't like what they're selling, don't buy it.
There always seems to be a handful of outspoken activists railing against one thing or another that they consider offensive. There is always talk about common decency, community standards, etc. But you get right down to it, most of the stuff they find offensive (popular Movies, TV shows, GTA) is hugely popular. Many many many times more people are actually buying and enjoying the very things these "defenders of decency" are opposed to. This leads me to ask "Just what mythical puritan community ARE these people representing?" Because when you look at the numbers, THEY are the ones in the minority.
It is good business to provide people with things they need. But there is also a lot of money involved in selling people their vices. We do not accept people who wish to sell drugs to minors, nor do we absolve of guilt those who would ply them with alcohol.
You're comparing video games drugs and alcohol? You've got to be kidding me....
It is not always 100% the job of the parent.
Um, yes. Yes it is.
The community must be held responsible to the extent that they have offered moral corruption from beyond the purview of the child's parents.
As I said before, the community is not responsible for your child. You are.
But say you're right. What if this mythical magical "community" is responsible? What are you going to do about it? Who are you going to punish? All community is, is a group of individuals. Are you going to just start selecting subsets of individuals and punishing them for their 'irresponsibility'? In the case of GTA, who do you pick? Do you punish the head of Rockstar games? The development team? The marketing guy? Suddenly one of these people is responsible for your kid? Or what? It just doesn't make any sense. These people don't even know you, or you them. There is no way they can be blamed for your poorly raised child.
Your kid, Your problem
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
How thoughtful of the game industry to support the individual's right to raise their own children. Except that it is blatantly obvious that their only reason for doing this is so that they can take advantage of people who don't take an interest in what their kids are doing. The fact that the game industry is against it is fairly strong evidence that the problem exists to be taken advantage of. I'm as against this kind of government regulation as the next guy, but that doesn't make the game industry in any way right.
So are you saying there is no correlation between parenting experience and parenting skill?
Because I would think that a person with more parenting experience than myself is more likely than not going to know more about it and have a more valuable opinion. I think your reply that x+y
I think the notion that we were all kids once so we all equally knowledgeable about parenting is not logical.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Uh huh. Because precisely what we need are more laws, because we can't trust parents to be responsible enough to apply their moral values (which may not be the same as yours, by the way) to their little bastards.
I don't know what pisses me off more, the government sticking its dick in everyones proverbial ass, or the parents that expect laws to do their jobs for them.
Shit like this is proof positive that democracies and republics are goddamn shams, because damn near everyone is goddamn stupid and their combined ineptitude ends up fucking the whole thing up.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
Michigan gets alot of press. Timothy McVeigh Bowling for Columbine Michigan Militia UofM Football Quami Killpatrick (No I have no clue how to spell his name)
Sometimes when I'm working on projects things disappear, I suspect gremlins.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences."
C.S. Lewis
Why stop there? Why not make it illegal to sell books with questionable content to minors? Heck, Without Remorse involves drug use, prostitution, and rampant street violence, much like GTA.
Every time the society has banned books or otherwise tried to control what enters the hands of the populace, technological and societal advance has been put on hold for centuries at a time. Sure, it's for the sake of the children now, but aren't we all God's children?
Remember: They aren't called the Dark Ages because it was dark!
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
"Who pays for smokers who can't work because of emphysema, or the man who ends up in trauma care
because he chose not to wear his seat belt?"
The same people that pay for crack babies, welfare moms and homeless people. The same people that indirectly sponsor cancer research through government grants. Taxpayers.
No matter what the system is, there will be those that contribute and those who unfairly benefit from it. All you can do is try to intelligently manage it and keep the damage low. However this is all unrelated to the topic at hand, which is a small, lazy, vocal group grabbing the reins of the government and steering it into an Orwellian domain where what you see and what you play is strictly monitored by the government.
The less responsibility you take for yourself, the more responsibility society, and by extension, the government, must take for you. Stop expecting the government and laws to solve your problems, and stop trying to pass laws that circumvent the freedom we all take for granted in this country.
Uh huh. Because precisely what we need are more laws, because we can't trust parents to be responsible enough to apply their moral values (which may not be the same as yours, by the way) to their little bastards.
Hey I'm a parent, and I'm extremely vigilant in this regard. I certainly don't need laws to do my job for me! On the other hand, I'm surrounded by people who don't seem to give a rat's arse about what their kids are exposed to. I used to love free speech before it was taken away, but letting your 4 year old watch the Texas Chainsaw Massacre? C'mon!
My problem is this: I can raise my boys to be ethical and as they get older, to understand entertainment violence in context, but my family is not an island. My kids (and my self for that matter) will have to live in a world filled with the demon spawn that other parents have negilently released into the community. So while I don't need laws to tell me to do my job, I do need laws to tell those other parents to do theirs.
That being said, the Law is a very blunt instrument when it comes to getting parents to take their responsibilities seriously. You can't censor out all the violent cultural material, at lest not without creating an intolerably saccharine culture. (Conversely, of course, some material is so objectionable that no civilised society should tolerate it, eg. children's programming which extols the virtues becomming a suicide bomber.) I'm just no sure how we can get parents to take an interest and to realise the responsibility they owe to their fellow citizens.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Someone FINALLY clues into what I have said to my peer group (and been sound berated for) It's about bloody time parents started taking responsibility for their offspring.
I have always maintained that kids blaming their anti-social behavior on video games, music, movies, etc was a cop-out, a way of deflecting blame and reducing their possible heavy sentence.
I grew up watching the Big Bunny & Roadrunner Show. The most violent cartoons of their time (not to mention Tom & Jerry) and I don't go around smacking people with a 2X4. I was also seriously seriously teased throughout my grade school life. I also thought about grabbing a gun and blowing away more than a few of my fellow students. I didn't because.......
MY PARENTS TOOK AN INTEREST IN RAISING ME!!!!!!!
Parenting is not just having offspring but also raising that offspring to be a productive member of society wether they be ditch-digger, philosopher, politician or scientist. It doesn't matter what they become as long as they contribute to society rather than interfering with it.
I know this is kind of a rant/lecture but I care about human-kind. (Plus I've have a couple of Canadian-strength beers)
The GEEK shall inherit the earth...