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ESA to Sue California Over Violent Game Law
Advtg writes "In response to last week's bill banning the sale of violent video games (/. coverage),
the Entertainment Software Association has announced that they are preparing to sue the State of California. From the article, "The Entertainment Software Association is
planning to sue the State of California over the passage of AB1179, a bill that has outlawed the sale of violent video games to minors. President Douglas Lowenstein said that he
'intends to file a lawsuit to strike this law down,' and added that he is 'confident that we will prevail.' The article goes on to show how muddy the law is in comparison to other
laws meant to protect minors."
> What is "political value as to minors"?
Could be "Civil Disobedience," as in looking at pictures in protest because they are banned.
Might not stand up in court though...
The law doesn't say that it will ban the sales of games with just violence in them, but heinous and sexual violence. If parents don't have the sense enough to not let their kids play games with that in them, then I wonder if the government should step in. We are talking about minors here.
On the other hand, maybe there should be two different levels of minors. Minor minors would be under 12, regular minors would be 12-17. Regular minors could buy these games, minor minors could not.
There's no emoticon for what I'm feeling! -- CBG, "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes"
The fact that the law mentions "standards" and "values" in determining which video games qualify really lead me to believe that this is just a "feel good" sort of law that is there to appease the people who want legislation, without actually having any sort of enforcable merit.
And no, I am not a lawyer. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all different.
It's the parent's responsibility to say what their kids should and shouldn't buy. If I feel that I can give my kid $50 and know that he's not going to buy something stupid (drugs, etc.) then I trust that he knows right from wrong enough that some violent game won't make him decide to go postal in the real world.
Selling porn to children is something most of us agree is Bad. But porn could be as hard to define as video-game violence. The famous quote is "I know it when I see it."
Violence is hard to define, if you're trying to separate the "squashing goombas flat in Mario" type from the "setting people on fire and laughing at their cries for help" type. It's going to take some subjective words like "sadistic" and "intentionally causing suffering."
But if it's hard to define legally, I don't think it's that hard for most people to see that Mario and GTA are totally different things in the hands of a little kid. The question is: can we make it legally clear?
The algorithms involved are surely interesting, yet must also be incredibly difficult to implement.
I know they typically search for skin tones and then the outline of a body and compare the percentage of skin to the surface area of the entire body to determine if the individual is clothed.
If you "get" pointers add me as a friend (116)!
Okay- I am sure I will get modded flamebait or offtopic by a mod who doesn't agree with me, but here goes-
I think this is similar to gun "control" laws- two of the places with the biggest restrictions on guns have the highest crime rates- California and Wash. D.C.
Passes crazy laws against video games is reactive- not proactive. There are a million ways to lower california's crime rate- banning video games isn't one of them.
This is just more of the left wing nannie state bullshit. The gov't needs to stay out of our business.
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
Seems to me that the bill in question would have been a lot easier to police (and would make a lot more sense) if it had banned the sale of ALL video games to minors. I'm not suggesting that kids shouldn't be allowed to play Super Julio Bro's, but that little Timmy should have to take "Dad" to the store with him if he wants the new release of "Patricide II - Daddy's Back".
I'm not a proponent of censorship in general. I just happen to think that there's nothing wrong with preventing children from having access to gruesome violent content *on demand*.
How will this affect the game America's Army, the U.S. military's Orwellian recruiting tool? They're having trouble with their recruitment numbers already (I wonder why?). The right will have to figure out whether they want the game played by minors so they will be more likely to sign up to fight wars, or if they want to continue scapegoating the video game industry for all of society's ills.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
They are right, this bill is trying to clearly define things that are subjective.
What happens when laws like this pass? We start making borderline games that will pass for sale to minors, but are just as bad AND large software companies will push a little cash one way or another to get their game an "okay."
They should really ban the sale of electronic games to minors. If they want them, relatives can purchase for them. Unfortunately, the idea of a game is almost as vague. "Mouse Trap" is obviously a game, and it's probably not electronic, but what about "Operation?" What about today's fancy graphing calculators?
Let's look at what the electronic violence bill hopes to do:
-involve parents
-prevent children from buying and playing "violent" video games that do shape their developing perspectives
As for the arguments, here are some pre-argument questions:
What part of growing up requires children the ability to play games?
-look back a few generations to the people who grew up before video games existed
-think third-world children
Is it some sort of torture to disallow children access to games?
-stop thinking about third-world children
-think about children doing something that provides intellectual stimulation, like chasing each other or playing tag
-if a child is tortured by their lack of playing, couldn't we call it an addiction?
-the only time this will be torturous is if one child is allowed to play while another one watches
Do video games have any truly positive impact on the development or well-being of a child?
-so-called hand/eye co-ordination
-entertainment
-stress coping (fantasy worlds; places where they are in control of things)
-keeps kids out of trouble (mischief and even drugs)
-potential for learning something
-potential for work creating or playing games (I'm stretching)
Some negatives?
-time consumption (starting a hobby young grants the hobbyist a grand advantage)
-physical strain (hand, eye, and postural)
-artificial reality during development can lead to psychological problems/disorders (ADD, addiction, and [meh]violence)
-overload of entertainment may lead to disinterest in reality and a lack of motivation and inability to self-entertain
-reliance on external device for stress coping
I was even being pretty modest about the negatives.
But personally, I think the baby CAN eat steak. My kid's growing up listening to Snoop and watching John Woo. For some reason, I worry more about deprivation of culture than about potentially unlocking a sociopath. But more importantly, to say ratings systems have nothing to do with censorship ignores the chilling effects of centralized speech guidelines. Content producers constantly strive to comply with arbitrary ratings systems contrived by the MPAA or ESRB. Effectively, ratings ARE censorship. We'd be better off with decentralized ratings boards, and each community could listen to the ones it respected the most. People who want more restricted content already do that, they consult Parents Television Council or something similar. Since people with more restrictive values will already fend for themselves, it seems like the official ratings should be the most permissive. That's the only way to make the most people happy. And people who are PRO-ratings shouldn't have any problem with decentralization. Eliminating centralized ratings would never eliminate ratings, it just means no monopoly on ratings. That way, no one who's anonymous and unaccountable could make capricious decisions about what's commercially feasible, as they do now.
#3 could not be more wrong. Alot of people on Slashdot seem to like to believe that there is no link, but most research indicates otherwise. Exposure to violent video games increases agressive behavior (r=.18), agressive cognition (r=.27), and agressive affect (r=.18). And this is not a single study, this is from a meta analysis on a large body of research that has been conducted in the area. Both correlation studies (non-directional) AND experimental (CAN infer causality) support the link. If someone can cite a few articles not showing the link, I'd love to read them, the overall juvenile crime rate is not a remotely good justiification.
Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2001). Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial behavior: A meta-analytic review of the scientific literature. Psychological Science, 12, 353-359
Last time I checked squashing some bugs or other sucks things wasn't comparable to killing people either. At the same time, it's how the violence is portrayed... it's perfectly alright to masticate on a piece of deer steak after going out and shooting it blammo, dead... but if you were running around thumping wild animals with a sledgehammer it might be considered less so.
Violence in mario also has a degree of seperation from reality. While the GTA variety may imply negetive consequences if you beat the crap out of somebody with a bat, it still involves a level of violence closer to reality than mario. Those 'in charge' seem to draw correlation between those who pump their enemies full of pixels and those who commit real violence. Of course, it is often enough that those who commit real violence play violent video games, but I highly doubt the axe-murderer type would play powerpuff-girls now would he?
What happens when said clueless parent sues the game store anyways, because he/she bought the game for junior? How does one prove a video game store sold the game to a minor, and not a clueless parent. Is it guilt until proven innocent, or does the store have to prove they didn't sell the game to a minor? How about it the parent was present and consented to the sale (as tends to happen now).
Perhaps game stores will start requiring a signature from adults buying mature-rated games? Not only is the definition of the games a little violent, but a lot of the particulars in how they will track such things are as well. Perhaps kids will get bootleggers to buy games for them. I couldn't see a kid confessing to getting "Jamie 18" from bootlegging the game for him, but rather just saying "I got it from EB." Of course it could just be that they will institute spot-checks with kid-agents?
I can see a whole lot of ways this law isn't going to work...