Clinton Introduces Invasive Game Legislation

An anonymous reader writes "Senator Clinton has introduced a doozy of a game bill. It mandates an investigation of the gaming industry to determine how pervasive hidden mature content like the 'Hot Coffee' mod is." GamePolitics is reporting on the bill itself, as well as the ESA's response. From the latter article: "While we are gratified that the Senator holds the ESRB in such high regard that her bill would give these ratings the force of law, the courts have made clear that giving a private party governmental powers is unconstitutional. Beyond that, the bill clearly infringes the constitutionally protected creative rights of the video game industry. Thus, if enacted, the bill will be struck down as have similar bills passed in several states...." More commentary at Gamasutra.

Comments

Re:just curious...

[LordNimon]

The fact that games are more interactive is what makes them less harmful than movies or books.

I don't know how you can say that. Violence is harmful, both to the victim (physically) and the perpetrator (psychologically). The more interactive the violence, the more "real" it is, and therefore it has a greater impact on the perpetrator.

Moving an analog stick and pressing a button does not generally emulate what would actually need to be done to carry out an act of violence.

You're kidding, right? What do you think a gun is? It's a stick with a button! You aim the stick at your target, and you push the button to fire it.