Jack Thompson Tasked With Writing Law

Gamespot's Rumor Control column this week handles the usual spurious talk that swirls around the game news sites. One (sadly) factual rumour they report on details gamer-hunting lawyer Jack Thompson's new role as a lawmaker. From the article: "Repeatedly, Thompson has called for states to pass laws criminalizing the sale of M-for-Mature rated games to minors. Now it appears he may get the chance to pen such a law himself. In an e-mail sent out Thursday, Thompson says he has 'been asked by the Office of the Governor of the State of Florida, Jeb Bush, to draft and submit to him and to Florida legislators a bill that will prohibit the sale of violent and sexually explicit video games to minors.' ... When queried by GameSpot for more details, he would only say that he is the only person thus far who has been asked to submit a bill to the governor's office about M-rated game sales. He did not offer details about what kind of penalties the bill would prescribe for offenders or whether or not said penalties would be imposed solely on the clerks selling the games or also on the establishment selling the game and/or the game's publisher."

Comments

Please, no

[PunkOfLinux]

If there is ANYTHING good and right in the world, please prevent this from happening. This guy is a freaking nut -- please do not let him do ANYTHING to censor video games.

Worse than "M-Rated"

[faloi]

It sounds like it has the potential to be ambiguous enough to include games that get rated "Teen." After all "violent" games can teens and it gets a little fuzzy. I doubt repurcusions would get all the way to game publishers though (except from companies not wanting to handle the liability of Mature games), after all Hollywood doesn't get dinged when someone underage makes it into a theater. Or when someone underage buys alcohol. But the tides do seem to be against game publishers these days, and some places are still trying to sue firearms manufacturers for stuff that third-parties do with their guns. Time'll tell, but I hope it falls flat.

We are talking about the state that had Too Live Crew arrested though.

Poor Florida

[Morgalyn]

For some reason, I thought we might manage to make it out of this whole can of worms without ridiculous legislation, but I guess not. So far Jeb has done an OK job at balancing the right wing conservative fundamental religious nutcases in the Panhandle with the left wing liberal nutcases in the Wang, but this smacks of falling prey to letters from the west.

I'm still not sure I understand why government entities feel like they need to step into a system that was sufficient for informing parents about the nature and content of media. The MPAA rates movies, the theaters sort-of enforce the rating requirements, but there are no real laws underlining any of it. The ESRB rates games, the vendors sort-of enforce the rating system, but apparently society as we know it is going to come crashing down if we don't impose some fines or jail sentences.

How is legislation like this and the Michigan law going to affect online sales of games?

Now I'm even more tempted to buy...

[Turken]

...one of those "I Hate Jack Thompson" T-shirts they're selling at ThinkGeek!

Honestly, I'm proud to be one of the "Right-Wing-Bible-Thumping-Republican-Christian" wackos that the average Slashdotter loves to hate. But Jack has really been taking things too far the past few months.

Clearing up a few gripes

[Iriel]

In response to the complaints that I've been hearing about this subject like "Why not books?" "What about movies?" "Isn't this censorship?" and so on and so forth, I have this to say:

  - No, this isn't censorship because content is not being taken out. If the studios have to remove content to reach their audience, they'll find a way around regulations (they always do). Children aren't allowed to buy pornography and yet I hear no massive outcry about that. This is simply trying to keep excessively vulgar and violent games away from very young children.
  - Yes, youth violence is on a constant decline as it has been for the past several years, making all these "games raising you children to kill" arguments mostly idiodic.
  - Video games can be conceived of as more influential to children than books (I doubt it) and especially movies (easily so) as numerous studies suggest (keyword: suggest) that games are more powerful due to the level of interaction and feedback they require from the user.
  - Books are also not being targetted because anybody who looks at social trends can tell that literacy, or at least recreational reading in the US is on the decline. The numbers aren't large enough to get a response.

But finally, games are being the scapegoat because the majority of the voting population in America doesn't understand games. By the time all those kids who were 6 or so when Nintendo first hit the US (people like me) become the major voting demographic, politicians will need to find a new target.