Repercussions of Legislation on the Gaming Industry

1up.com has a look at the ways in which anti-violence legislation may affect the gaming industry. From the article: "Although Gamepolitics.com Editor Dennis McCauley says that the Strickland case will be thrown out due to lack of merit because 'no compelling evidence indicates that playing a violent videogame can turn someone into a triple murderer,' the Strickland v. Sony case is detrimental to the industry. It is challenging freedom of speech and expression in videogames -- in contradiction to the 2003 Court of Appeals ruling that videogames are protected by the First Amendment. If Strickland et al were to win, it could force the industry to censor itself out of fear of future lawsuits. And it might result in future federal regulation of videogame content."

Comments

Re:Are we worrying too much?

[voice_of_all_reason]

Even assuming that such legislation were to pass, somewhere on the chain it would be overturned by the courts

Prohibition only took, what? 12 years?

And I'll bet they just went and let all the bootleggers out of jail afterwards, right?

Re:IMHO...

[max born]

IMHO games should be just honestly released in "adults-only" versions whenever applicable, and possibly with "violence-free" editions optionally, whenever the developer feels like it. It's a responsible thing to do.

But for what purpose?

Take nudity for example. When I was last in Eurpoean I saw full frontal nudity (male and female) on television. The Europeans are a lot more tolerant of this kind of thing. Yet by many indices they have a much lower rate of social deviance.

Americans are legislating morality. They don't have any scientific evidence that nudity or profanity is bad they just know it is. They also believe in creationism.

Re:IMHO...

[blazzy]

Take nudity for example. When I was last in Eurpoean I saw full frontal nudity (male and female) on television. The Europeans are a lot more tolerant of this kind of thing. Yet by many indices they have a much lower rate of social deviance.

Full frontal nudity is "social deviance" in US culture. That's an interesting choice of words. =]

Americans are legislating morality. They don't have any scientific evidence that nudity or profanity is bad they just know it is. They also believe in creationism.

Since we've taken to comparing "Americans" and "Europeans" while throwing insults this way. I'd like to point out that many European countries are a bit worse on "legislating morality" when it comes to media violence or political ideologies that they aren't fond of. And they don't seem to have strong First Amendment type protections to combat this kind of censorship.

Defiantly some negatives

[joystickgenie]

There are defiantly some negatives that can come from this.

What is retailer's reaction to this going to be? Wal-Mart target and just about every other retailer already refuse to carry Ao games. Will this law make them extend this policy to M games as well? If it does, this would be very bad for the video game industry. That would make it necessary for video games to be created T and lower only. You can not survive in the consol market if the chair retailers don't carry your product.

What will the developer's reactions to this going to be? There will defiantly be a lot less game made for adult audiences after this. Game developers will not want to risk their games being pulled off the shelves, or moved into a back room, because some parental organization determines that it's not good for little Johnny.

Also what would this do to the public image of the video game industry? It is already very difficult for games to be recognized as literature or intelligent forms of entertainment in the games vs. art debate. How will this make video games look? Will it put video games in two camps of child's toy and pornography or will this help push games as mature entertainment?

We still have to wait to read the actual terms of each of the bills to see how it will finally work. But there is room for bad things. Even if a law is made that seems good to begin with, it is really easy to edit the law or interpret it incorrectly and make it terrible for games.

Re:IMHO...

[Catnapster]

And if your kid gets shot by a psycho kid who played one brutal game too many, and lost the sense of difference between the games and the real world

Take note of the critical two words of that sentence: "psycho kid." A kid with the severity of psychological issues that would be necessary to confuse video games with the real world would, sooner or later, run across something violent - be it a video game, a movie, or a fight at school - that would push him to violent acts of his own. Video games are rarely, if ever, the only factor in any individual's decision to commit violence. It would be more effective to address the psychological issues making the kid susceptible to influence by video games than to censor the games. Remember that before video games were the villain of the moment, school shootings were blamed on Marilyn Manson and The Basketball Diaries.

But if the kid goes to spend the pocket money on a game where the brain splashes oh so cool on the wall, and then unattended will play with dad's gun and test it on his sister, to see if her brain splashes just the same,

Maybe it's just me, but I see a much, much bigger problem in your hypothetical situation than you seem to. Do you consider it more dangerous for children to play violent video games, or for children to have unfettered access to firearms? And do you think that someone careless enough to leave their gun within apparently easy reach of children would think anything of buying said violent games for their kids?

Re:IMHO...

[Catnapster]

Well, they're taught firearms safety; I inferred from the grandparent poster's phrase "play with dad's gun" that the hypothetical kids in their example were not. Which I ought to have pointed out as well - most kids who have been taught firearms safety are aware of what happens when one shoots something, which would have rendered the scenario moot.

At the end of the day, it comes down to teaching children what is right and what is wrong. It's not like kids magically learn that killing people is unacceptable when they turn 18, and until then we have to shelter them from anything that implies otherwise. If the kid knows that it's not okay to shoot people, playing GTA isn't going to make him a killer.