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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.'"
Ha! Damn politicians thought they could just roll over the games industry eh? To be honest, I didn't think that the entertainment companies had it in them to challenge the government. Good for them!
But why does this have to turn into yet another round of Sue Somebody(TM), much less the governor? Even if I were to sue somebody, I'd sue the state legislature first, or better yet, the special interest groups that started the bill in the first place.
Skype is too convoluted... Now I'm reverse-engineering the Kyoto Protocol.
I don't see why this compromise can't be reached. At that point we will be conducting due diligence, and can reach that wonderful state of plausible deniability.
Why is it that in America we allow such things to happen? What happened to parents taking responsibility for their children? As a child I remembered hearing my parents telling me "No". And if I continued bothering them the spanking would commence. These days parents are afraid to be parents because of how government regulates children. If a parent disciplines their kids by spanking, it's bad. But if this is not done, than they will grow up and be miscreants. As a conservative right-winged nut, I refuse to blame the game industry. It is the parent's responsibility to take handle of the situation. If you are reading this and want to understand what happens to a generation of children who never got spanked, by all means read Starship Troopers by Heinlein. Parents take back your children or else the state will impose its foot into your house.
"C++ is to C as Lung Cancer is to Lung"
with an Entertainment Industry suit.
Wow thats weird.
You have to weigh in the possibilities of the child getting the software from another source.
You have to worry about the possibilities of the child playing the game while you are away.
You have to worry aobut the possibilities of the child buying the game himself.
Let me ask you this... Have you been a politician? If you have, then you would understand how hard this is. A kid has many many many friends in his life and even though some people may not think so, having a kid's friends hate a parent can make life a hell for that parent.
I'm not a parent myself, but it just seems like if the child is in Junior High or Senior High School, there is more power heading to them as they learn more and learn how to manipulate things more.
Empathetic-- 94% You tend to walk in someone else's shoes a hundred miles before pointing a finger.
Which part of the Michigan bill tells the population what they can't play?
As far as I know, it simply defines what you can't sell to minors.
You also can't sell alcohol, tobacco, or pornography to minors. So what?
If a parent wants their kid to play Grand Theft Slaughter Rape Party, they can still buy it themselves.
One question. What would happen if some of these novels were re-written in cartoon/comic book form, with language that could be read by a 10 year old, and placed in the kid's section of the library/bookstore? People would complain, and if it happened enough, people would try to introduce legislation to prevent it. Books do have a self-regulation system, in that as a child grows in reading comprehension, more mature topics become available. Video Games do not have that self-regulation. Do the gamecontroller keys get harder to press as the topics become more mature?
Video Games, by their very nature, are mostly targeted toward children and teenagers, because that is what brings in the money. It seems to me that the video game industry wants to have a double standard. "We want to sell to children, teenagers, and adults, so we can get more money, but let's put a 'Mature' rating on it so that we can be protected against people who complain."
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that it is the government's job to regulate video games, and I do believe that it is a parent's job to teach and raise his/her/their children. But the game industry is not doing a good job of self-regulation, either.
Great civilizations have lived and died on false theories. Don't mess up mine with a few facts.
i'm a michigan resident in my late 20's...when i buy booze its i usually get carded 50% of the time. i remember when i purchased doom 3 last year, the chick who rang me up asked me for my id, and not a year before that, some kid carded me when i wanted to buy tickets to a rated r movie.
is it just me, or is the fact that its easier to buy booze than it is for me to watch a show or play a game really illustrate just how fucked and buracratic we've become.
dude.
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.
IMHO, the first step would be to stop pushing parenthood and stop providing incentives for it.
If the only people who had kids were those who really give enough of a shit to take the responsibility seriously (like it sounds like you are) rather than just every dipshit who wants to be a part of something or wants something to love them then that problem would dissipate
Part of this is governmental which we (supposedly) have some power over (subsidies).
The other part is societal e.g. TV, commercials, and movies (the pushing thing).
That's way tougher to address given that whole freedom of speech thing.
Another alternative is punishments for parents when their kids screw up.
That's a real tough one as well due to nature/nurture/societal influences etc.
So, it is a really serious issue but it's a really tough one as well.
Good luck with yours.
We completely disagree.
"We"?
The populace, under 18, needs to be prevented from pr0n, booze, weapons, and in this particular case, violent video games or those video games with adult images in them.
No, they don't. European children manage to handle nudity and alcohol at younger ages, and they're turning out all right. Hell, they have lower rates of teen pregnancy than the US.
There's nothing wrong with watching porn or violent imagery, as long as you know the difference between fantasy and reality. That comes along in the single digit age range, not at 18.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
The only problem with those laws (well not the only, but still...) is they allow the irresponsible parents to file suit against the gaming industry because they were too lazy to look at the box and see what kind of content the game had before forking over the money for the kid to buy the game. So, if the law is to be there, it should at least have the stipulation that the industry can't be taken to court for money or anything other than to have them fix the content that is in violation of the rating it was given. After that the state should take the kid(s) away from the parents for the parents being negligent in taking care of the kids. Of course, taxpayers would be paying for this.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
Except when the school has a psychiatrist coming around once a week to tell your first-grader how wonderful he is, that he has rights, that he can make his own decisions, that his parents have no right to tell him what to do, as the State of Connecicut did (still does?). They even instruct the children to NOT TELL THEIR PARENTS about this; one of mine (the one who stayed out of trouble later) got in trouble at school because he did tell me. By the second and third grade, I had lost all parental control outside of the home, and barely managed to maintain order in the home. The other two of my three boys ended up in jail at least once before they were 21, have a number of legitimate and illegitimate children scattered around, and the youngest at 30 still wears a mohawk died various colors (and wonders why he gets harassed at work!)
Saying it is not the problem, enforcing it is.
....
If it's not because mom & dad are almost never home (because they have to work), it's because those kids have got/sought-out friends that do have the much-wanted goods.
And, prohibiting these kinds of things will work as well as prohibiting cigarettes and/or alcohol. Worse even, as you need to obtain a computer-game just once to be able to use it as long as you wish. I imagine an underground game-swapping "organisation" will pop up.
Oh my ! Just like the underground alcohol network that was in place when the gouverment (way back when) tried to suppress it's usage by adults
The idea of copyrights is much the same as that of patents; limited protection, then the material is released into the public domain for anyone to use. Unfortunately, copyright terms have been repeatedly extended to the point where no copyright has expired since WWII. Just another excellent example of special corporate interests railroading our government...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"