Jack Thompson's Game Bill Moves Forward

Gamespot reports that the Jack Thompson-penned anti-games bill currently being considered by the Louisiana Senate Judiciary Committee has been approved, and will now go to the full Senate for debate. From the article: "According to the text of the bill, it would be illegal to sell, rent, or lease a game to a minor if it met the following three conditions: (1) The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the video or computer game, taken as a whole, appeals to the minor's morbid interest in violence. (2) The game depicts violence in a manner patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community with respect to what is suitable for minors. (3) The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors."

Comments

Legislation, meet morality

[linvir]

Legislatin morality is one thing, but it should at least have some form of stability. This bill seems to be nothing more than an include() for a dynamically changeable external form of morality. If law were an operating system, the hackers would be pissing themselves out of excitement waiting for all the exploits they could write using this.

And now the eternal question: what the fuck would be wrong with simply enforcing the existing, objective, ubiquitous rating system? You know, like we do here in Britain? It sounds to me like he's deliberately avoiding this because he wants to create a situation in which he can sit back and pick targets at his leisure.

Re:Legislation, meet morality

[Vengeance]

An insight I've had myself in the past: The law is indeed an operating system for the nation.

Software developers like myself can see the mass of spaghetti which has been the direct result of a bunch of rank amateurs writing the code ad-hoc. Additionally, we can see their failings when it comes to poorly-understand complexity and unintended results of actions.

See Genetic Engineering for some similar concerns.

Re:Legislation, meet morality

[Tackhead]

> Legislatin morality [midwestoutreach.org] is one thing, but it should at least have some form of stability. This bill seems to be nothing more than an include() for a dynamically changeable external form of morality. If law were an operating system, the hackers would be pissing themselves out of excitement waiting for all the exploits they could write using this.

Law is an operating system, and those who hack it are called politicians. From their point of view, these exploits are features, not bugs.

And now the eternal question: what the fuck would be wrong with simply enforcing the existing, objective, ubiquitous rating system? You know, like we do here in Britain? It sounds to me like he's deliberately avoiding this because he wants to create a situation in which he can sit back and pick targets at his leisure.

"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against - then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens' What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957

...is why.

Re:Legislation, meet morality

[cptgrudge]

The law is indeed an operating system for the nation.

Reminds me of that /. sig that someone has around;

"Want the root password to the US Constitution? Try Child Pornography."

or something like that...

Re:Legislation, meet morality

[Surt]

Enforcing a rating system in the US is very hard due to issues with our first amendment rights to free speech. And the person in question actually has worked to try to write rating system enforcement legislation, and has had no luck there (gets overturned in our courts every time due to aforementioned first amendment issues).

What we need is a voluntary agreement by the 3 major retailers of games to abide by the ratings system voluntarily, but no one wants to be the first mover on that issue because of the sales loss they'll take. The only thing that will change this, frankly, is if enough parents get up in arms about this to coordinate a serious boycott of walmart to force them to make the first move on enforcement.

Re:Legislation, meet morality

[pete6677]

I think he knows it will eventually be struck down, but it will get a lot of publicity for him as it winds its way through the courts. This is of course his main objective, self-promotion.

Re:Legislation, meet morality

[swv3752]

How many kids under 15 are able to get to the store alone or have money to buy a $50 game? I mean it is possible, but not really likely. Invariably the parents just don't care what the kid does, not that the kids are sneaking behind thier parents back. I have seen store clerks in Gamestop tell parents before that a title was rated mature and parents just say give it to me, with Lil' Johnnie standing there, not having hit puberty yet. As far as I see it, it is a non-issue.

Unfortunately the real effect is that independenat and small shops like Gamestop will close up in LA. Bigger chains like BB and Target and Walmart will only carry G rated titles. And heaven help the poor clerk that sells Spyro to a minor after Jack gets a bug up his butt about fire breathing dragons.

As I see it that is the real thing they are going for. Between all the poor that could care less about video games, Baptists that are against all games, and Politicos that will do anything to secure thier positions, it is a bad time to be a gamer in LA.

Re:Legislation, meet morality

[gad_zuki!]

The "oh noes the gubmint is to get us" ayn rand crap is just that: crap. Look at Thompson and his supporters and you'll find the same conservative Christians who have been fighting the culture war for control of expression and action in the US for decades now. If you want to take them on you have millions of ordinary Janes and Joe who think all the arts are obscene, not some government conspiracy theory. If anything, the set and established body of rulings (government) when it comes to free expression and the arts will save us from conservative Christians (citizens). Essentially, you have it backwards. Thompson and his ilk are the people . Theyre the voters. Welcome to an uninformed, bigoted, but working mob rule form of democracy.

Re:Legislation, meet morality

[Surt]

I think minors goes up to 17 (in most states) but LA could be different.
Still, I think most 13+ year olds are frequently allowed by parents to spend time alone with their friends in the mall. Getting $50 for a game isn't very hard if you have an allowance or a job (tutoring, lawn mowing, paperboy, etc). A lot of kids have access to considerably more money than that. Buy the game, ditch the box and cd-case, carry the game disk home in your pants.
So I would say that even being a reasonably cautious parent, there is a pretty reasonable chance that your child could buy a game without your knowing.

Whether or not they could manage to play it without your knowing would be another matter, but unless you have them under pretty sever lockdown they can probably play it at a friend's house without your finding out. Kids are smart. As smart or smarter than you were at that age. My parents were both Masters+ educated, and did their utmost to completely lockdown my experience. They were stricter than anyone else's parents I have ever met (now at age 33), and still I had plenty of ways around their monitoring.

Parents shouldn't believe that they can control their children's experiences. They can't. There's not a shred of hope (consider: the best trained experts in experience control, jail wardens, can't keep drugs out of any prison in the world). What parents can do is influence their children, educate them, help to reduce their interest in whatever they want their kids not to get involved in.

Re:Legislation, meet morality

[Chowderbags]

Except that those same people will pay $50 for 10 year old Johnny to get a game that's clearly marked as being for 17 year olds. But the average person isn't really driving it. Jack Thompson attempts to drive it. The moral right does drive it. But what is it? A mere 10% of the population (true, it's still a large number in absolute terms)? Just because some people yell and scream about things doesn't mean that the majority agrees with it, it just means that the majority doesn't seem to care enough to give a shit.

Re:Legislation, meet morality

[Just Some Guy]

Look at Thompson and his supporters and you'll find the same conservative Christians who have been fighting the culture war for control of expression and action in the US for decades now.

On behalf of conservative Christians throughout America: you have no idea what you're talking about. I am far more interested in regulating my own household than asking the government to do so. Jack Thompson is a nutcase who has much in common with your average Christian as he does the average man, the average 50-something, the average white person, or the average person who doesn't wear glasses.

And don't forget that liberals have been advocating censorship for decades as well. I say that not as an excuse, but as a reminder: don't think that every last person in your political demographic is as anti-censorship as you'd like to believe. Pointing at the other guys and yelling doesn't help anyone, least of all you.

Re:Legislation, meet morality

[hex0016]

And now the eternal question: what the fuck would be wrong with simply enforcing the existing, objective, ubiquitous rating system? You know, like we do here in Britain? It sounds to me like he's deliberately avoiding this because he wants to create a situation in which he can sit back and pick targets at his leisure.

Because in the US, the rating system (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment_Softwar e_Rating_Board)in place is not government-mandated. It's run by the video game industry itself. It's not an enforcement tool; it's a guide for parents and consumers to pick material they feel is appropriate for their family and/or themselves. That being the case, the government couldn't make the existing rating system the basis for enforcement of "community standards" because that would be tantamount to a group of corporate interests rendering the law rather fluid.

Re:Legislation, meet morality

[mOdQuArK!]

Setting aside the fact that Ayn Rand is a flaming nutcase, there's no denying that at least some "public" figures look at the law like that (as a means of controlling the populace).

I've always thought that it would've been a good idea for the Constitution to explicitly prevent the disenfranchisement of criminals. While most folks seem to be horrified at the idea of letting felons vote, I think it would be a good form of negative feedback against legislators - if legislators do things that cause a lot of people to become criminals, then they have created a large bloc of people who will vote against them.

As far as "problems" with allowing criminals to vote, if your laws are sane & generally accomodates the "common sense" of the public, then there shouldn't be enough criminals to have any significant effect. If you _do_ start seeing the "criminal" voting bloc having significant effects, then that's a strong indication that the laws that are being passed are not reflective of the desires of the overall populace.

this is crap

[sepharious]

there is no standard, no definition, of what is offensive or objectionable. it leaves open wide interpretation and would open businesses to frivolous lawsuits based on someone's ill-informed position on a game. "oh well, I find that Mario portrays violent acts of an offensive nature"

Re:this is crap

[MrSquirrel]

Mario is a BAD influence. Jumping on turtles? Eating mushrooms? Playing with fire? I don't want my kid around that. When I drop my 12 year old off and give him $60 (~price of a new game) at the mall to do whatever he wants for 12 hours while I go spend the day at my crackhouse, I don't want him buying garbage like that Mario character! Honestly... there is already a rating system in place - enforcing that is easy and it is actually based on real criteria (rather than saying "any game that we think at any place and time is bad"). Last time I checked, no one under 16 could drive a car -- so how the heck are kids getting to these game stores to buy violent video games? And how are they paying for it (I don't know many places that load up on little kids as employees)? Oh, that's right... parents. But why actually be a good parent when you can have laws do your work for you? Go-go-gadget-government!

Re:this is crap

[Macthorpe]

From the site you linked to:

Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that "there is no such word." There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead.

Well done. You proved that irregardless isn't a word by linking to an article that specifically says it's a word. What's the fun in shooting people down if they hand you the gun fully loaded?

Re:this is crap

[Durandal64]

Linguistically, "irregardless" would mean "not regardless". Hence it would mean the exact opposite of what people using it are trying to say. So regardless of what Merriam-Webster says, "irregardless" is a stupid word and a mark of unintelligence if you use it. Just like "nukular".

Re:this is crap

[Macthorpe]

Just like inflammable is the opposite of flammable! Oh, and you totally missed the point I was actually making. Nice.

Re:this is crap

[Macthorpe]

I don't think people who use the word irregardless sound like blithering idiots. At this moment in time, I would define a blithering idiot as someone who argues etymology with someone when their original point was nothing to do with etymology at all, continuing on the same blind path of reasoning despite being told that they'd got the wrong end of the stick.

My original point was, when trying to prove a point, don't post things that explicity say that you're wrong. It's just silly. Silly like having to explain yourself twice to some prat on the internet because they want to have the argument they want to have, not the argument they should have been having.

So are Tetris, Chess and Checkers banned?

[HanClinto]

The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors."

So wait, so under these rules, it sounds like Tetris, Chess and Checkers are all illegal to sell directly to minors? Unless you count the gameplay logic involved in Checkers to be "scientific", which is a bit of a stretch of the bill's apparent wording.

Is stuff like this being taken into account I wonder?

--clint

Re:So are Tetris, Chess and Checkers banned?

[Skreems]

I think it has to meet all 3 criteria to be inelligable. Which means it's time for someone to release a game that teaches you about politics, science, and art, while at the same time being mind-numbingly gory.

Re:So are Tetris, Chess and Checkers banned?

[Enry]

So GTA:Washington, DC would be okay so long as you learn how a bill is passed while beating up hookers with a golf club?

Re:So are Tetris, Chess and Checkers banned?

[Red Flayer]

AND() not OR().

Unless chess appeals to ther violent character of kids -- you know, horsies trampling on bishops. Which brings out the fact that chess is part of an attack on Christianity[1]!!one! Ban it!

[1] You do know chess came from Arabia, right? Chess is conclusively a terrorist game, expect to hear all about it on O'Reilly Factor soon.

How about an Anti Needless Legislation bill

[Megaweapon]

According to MY bill, it would be illegal to pass stupid laws if it met the following three conditions(1) The average person, applying contemporary intelligence standards, would find that the legislation, taken as a whole, appeals to the government's morbid interest in sociatial manipulation. (2) The law depicts intervention in a manner patently offensive to prevailing standards in the liberty-mined community with respect to what is suitable for citizens. (3) The law, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for ANYONE except those in power.

They should expand this to other media

[TerenceRSN]

The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.

Now if they could outlaw movies and TV shows for similar reasons we'd get rid of about 90% of the garbage coming out of hollywood these days.

Regarding the law itself, aren't laws required to be unambigious and clear as to what's legal and what isn't? How is a video game store supposed to determine what's acceptable by the adults in the local society?

Is that it?

[Spy der Mann]

This is the controversial, censoring, extreme-right-wing menace that had been haunting us?

Sometimes I wonder who has more irrational fear - Jack Thompson or the gamers themselves.

Implied sex?

[imunfair]

Personally, I think parents need to stand up and do some actual parenting, but aside from that, this sentence stuck out:

"He also engaged in implied sex with a prostitute in a rocking vehicle before chasing her across a parking lot and beating her to recoup his cash." (Emphasis added)

Since when was implied sex ever an issue? We've had that in movies for what, 70 years now at least? I could see graphic sex, or even just sex being an issue... granted I haven't played the game but that's what the article says...

I think once Jack gets done with this he should go after Britney Spears because of implied sex in her songs. ;P

Re:Implied sex?

[Spy der Mann]

... Britney Spears ...

EEW man... careful with what you say, I'm eating!

Re:Implied sex?

[Soul-Burn666]

For fuck's sake. In GTA, while the car is rocking you can still move the camera. Move it to the front and you'll no movement, the dude's hands on the wheel and the car spontaneously moving.
If implied sex is that bad, go and ban games like Civ. The population in the cities increases and it's known there was no cloning at that time. Guess what? Those simulated people had sex and multiplied.

THE HORROR!

come on, it's obvious

[ArmenTanzarian]

Clearly, Louisiana has no bigger problem than this.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Cowboys and Indians

[Spazmania]

In Thompson's youth, kids didn't play violent games. They just ran around with toy pistols playing cowboys and indians where they pretended to shoot and kill each other. Well, mostly the pretended to exterminate the Indians because everybody rooted for the cowboys to win.

Of course, they were fully clothed and didn't desecrate any all-american baseball bats along the way, so it was all good clean fun.

I support a law to protect children, BUT

[Alzheimers]

...but these "conditions" are the most vague, debatable, and questionable set of standards I've ever seen codified in law.

(1) The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the video or computer game, taken as a whole, appeals to the minor's morbid interest in violence.

"Average" compared to what? Don't forget that 50% of the population is below average.
"contemporary community standards" in whose community? Do we apply the same community standards of a small town, bible belt parish to a neighboorhood in San Francisco?
"Minor" by age standard, where you can vote or serve in the military but can't buy a beer?
"violence" by whose standard? Is jumping on mushrooms with faces considered a violent act? How about sending 300lb collinding into each other at full speed in an attempt to steal a oblong pigskin?

(2) The game depicts violence in a manner patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community with respect to what is suitable for minors

See: Above

(3) The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors."

"Literary, artistic" the cutscenes in GTA are no less well written and directed than scenes from Goodfellas or Boys N Da Hood or Taxi Driver. And yet those films are considered by many to be amongst the pinnacle of modern american cinema. I saw Taxi Driver in a psychology class in High School.

Whose artistic vision are we judging these standards to? One of DaVinci's most famous drawings is of a nude man. It's prominently displayed on the best selling book of the past few years. If a game features the Venus Di Milo, is that inappropriate for children?

"Political" for whose politics? Are we worried about offending children now with images of war, that would make CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC for mature adults only? What about the nightly news? What about images of the 9/11 planes? What about games that question authority? Should the Federalist Papers be considered too mature for school grade reading, for advocating social unrest and revolt against government?

"Scientific" is also questioned when talking about a government that tried to apply that title to Intelligent Design. If the Big Bang is a promient plot element, does that insult to fundamentalism constitute a mature rating?

Re:Uh..

[falcon8080]

How is this an issue?

Its an issue because 1) The definitions are intentionally vague 2) It is defining what is morally acceptable and enforcing it by law and 3) It is a good beginning.

The first 2 points should be fairly clear, let me explain the third.
If someone were to introduce a law to ban all violent video games, it would get shot down. If someone were to introduce a bill that once passed into law would allow others through lawsuits to build the definitions of what is morally 'correct', then it would not take much to slowly adjust the bill until it had strangled adult games into a 'near criminal obsession by a few lonely gun carrying nut jobs'.
I hate the term, but its near classic 'slippery slope'.

Besides, do you really want to be told how to raise your child by someone else?

Re:Uh..

[Chris Burke]

As a parent, I ask how many of you parents want your 9 year old purchasing GTA?

Okay, you're a parent with a 9 year old (or at least was/will be 9 years old)...

1) How did your 9 year old get the money to buy GTA?
2) How did your 9 year old get to the mall to buy GTA?
3) How did your 9 year old get it home without you knowing?
4) How did your 9 year old play it at home without you being aware?

I see a lot of potential for parenting in there that the state is supposedly going to do for you now. So the question is: why does this need to be a crime? What if you gave your child permission to buy a game that met the three vague criteria but you didn't consider harmful?

We can talk about GTA which I'd think most people would agree is not suitable for young children, but you know there are going to be ridiculous cases where this applies -- assuming anyone knows in advance what games are affected, meaning it could be the game stores themselves which apply the rules to ridiculous cases just to cover their own asses. This is the problem with legistlating moral standards, and it isn't going to work this time.

We've gotten along fine without making it a crime to let someone under 18 into an R-rated movie. I'd be willing to bet most adults snuck into an R-rated movie at some point in their youths, and while they would rather their own kids not do the same, they probably wouldn't think criminal prosecution of the theatre is necessary if they did. Yet video games, which so many of that generation simply don't understand and thus are deathly afraid of, suddenly require a whole new set of laws to protect the children (so the parents don't have to).

Re:Legal Madlibs!

[Sylver Dragon]

I had noticed tha Madlib too. While Jack Thompson may be a nanny state tool, he's not really dumb. He's realized two truths in US lawmaking.
1. If at first you don't succeed try, try, try, try, try and try again. Then try some more. Eventually, something will stick.
2. If you're having trouble getting something passed, just parrot existing, accepted legislation.
The only thing we can hope for is that Jack will die of a massive heart attack or some such, before he gets something to stick.

Re:Uh..

[karil]

As a parent I ask you, how would your 9 year old get the money to buy GTA? As a parent I ask you, how would your 9 year old get away with playing GTA without your knowledge? Whats wrong with this bill is it holds retail stores liable for your responsibilities as a parent. This bill is designed to scare stores into not carrying M rated games. effectivly telling me, an adult, I cannot buy this game...now we have an issue.

How to get around this

[Skevin]

> (3) The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors

We can make GTA an educational game... like "Grand Theft Auto: Reader Rabbit".

Literary Value
Da Brute: "Lo, like two fucking ships passing in the night. Who the hell are you?"
Stranger: "Call me Ishmael."
Da Brute: "You sent me to hell and back, mofo. What a tangled fucking web you weave."
Stranger: "Sammy paid me to screw you over, man! It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times!"
Da Brute: "Fine, then I shall strike you down with great vengeance!"
Stranger: "Et tu, Brute?"
*blam* *blam*

Artistic Value
Unscrupulous Collector: "Dude, here's the dig. You hijack the shipment and kill every motherfucker who gets in your way. Take all the Renoirs and the Monets, but burn all the Warhols - we don't need dat shit pollutin' our 'hood."
Mission: Steal all Renoir and Monet paintings from the convoy. Destroy any Andy Warhol artwork with your weapons. Use your real-life art sense to determine which painting is which.

Scientific Value
Big Don: "Alright, gangsta, heads up. We got a perfectly spherical mortar shell 12 centimeters in diameter that weigh 2500 grams, but our freaking mortar only delivers exactly 8000 square foot pounds of force-... No, I don't have a fucking conversion table between metric and english, you look that up yourself! Anyway, the rat we gotta nail is parked in between those two buildings 30 furlongs away, where the air pressure is 13.2 PSI instead of usual atmospheric constant 14.7, you got that? Anyway, he'll be there for only ten minutes, which gives you enough time to come up with a Second Order Linear Partial Differential Equation accounting for air resistance. Hey, mofo, if you miss this shot, we gonna shoot yo homies, cut up yo family, and rape yo gerbil."
Mission: Hit the car with the perfectly spherical mortar shell. You have one shot.

Solomon

Re:Solving the problem.

[Red Flayer]

"How about we just throw out all the crap and use the current laws instead?"

What current laws? Public decency laws? Pornography laws? The ESRB is not law, it's voluntary.

The law isn't the sole purpose of the bill

[Crash Culligan]

And now the eternal question: what the fuck would be wrong with simply enforcing the existing, objective, ubiquitous rating system? You know, like we do here in Britain? It sounds to me like he's deliberately avoiding this because he wants to create a situation in which he can sit back and pick targets at his leisure.

While that would be a big win for him, look at the bigger picture: he keeps introducing legislation which says basically that OMFG TEH GAMEZ ARE TURNING UR KIDS INTO KILLAHS!!!1!!ONE!ELEVENTY. It gets reported on. And those who don't know better buy the subtext and become that much more worried.

It's said that if something gets repeated enough times, people will believe it. (As long as that phrase has been bouncing around, it must be true.) If he tells people enough people that video games are dangerous, then it doesn't matter if they strike down his dumbass laws now so long as they come to believe it eventually and outlaw them then.

It's meme warfare, pure and simple. And amazingly, it's so pure and simple that he probably doesn't even recognize it.

Re:The law isn't the sole purpose of the bill

[linvir]

I think the correct expression in these circumstances is something along the lines of...

Whoooooooooooosh

The 3rd Clause

[Dr_LHA]

The 3rd clause could basically be used to ban all sales of video games to minors, allowing only purchasing of educational software. After all "New Super Mario Bros" "...lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors...", but its still a fun and harmlessly innocent game that is perfect for all ages, which in no way should be banned.

A question is, can one make a law based on the nebulous idea of what people find moral, rather than defining a moral code in the bill. Personally I think not, and as such the law will either not pass or be swiftly struck down.

Re:So I have this idea for a game...

[Surt]

In Louisiana, that qualifies as scientific merit, I believe.

Re:Uh..

[wolenczak]

Money to buy it? If you have a 9yr older playing GTA bet he got it from a friend/peernetwork, not from your pocket.

Re:Or...

[HumanisticJones]

You mean like we had to do when I worked at Circuit City? Every game that came across that counter that was rated M required me seeing some ID. What would have happened if I didn't get that ID and let the game slide back across to a 12 year old? Well it wouldn't be jail time, but I'd have been out of a job on a serious offense. This is an issue for the commercial sector, and it always has been. The game companies rate the games, they've covered their butts. The stores need the responsibility to regulate selling the games to minors. This just takes adding warnings into the product databases of retail chains, it doesn't take a government agency eating up tax dolloars.

Re:Or...

[Surt]

Well, in fairness to Jack, he got laws passed to do just that, but they were overturned on free speech grounds. Now he's modelling his legislation on the laws that restrict the sale of pornography to minors, hoping that by that route he will succeed where his other legislative efforts failed.

Re:Uh..

[irablum]

does Grandma take the kids to R rated movies? no. why? because she knows that if she wants access to the kids that taking them to R rated movies is a no-no.

Is it that hard to see the big letter "M" on the side of the box and know that you shouldn't let the kids play it? its even usually larger than the big "R" on the video boxes.

If I'm letting my parents or in-laws watch my children for any length of time I provide the games. and if my parents (or in-laws) want to buy a game for my kids they clear it with me first.

so :P

Ira

Paperboy

[leroybrown]

I think Jack Thompson is onto something with this whole "video games cause violence". After playing Paperboy for countless hours when I was 13, I was under the following assumptions about being a paperboy:

• Non-subscribers are to be punished by destroying their property with extra newspapers
• Subscription was not based on how good the paper was but how well I was at delivering the papers
• The proper way to deal with people fighting is to throw newspapers at them
• The newspaper has horrible logistics problems since each day I would be given literally hundreds of papers in the hopes that I'd get to all 10 subscribers
• My fitness as a paperboy was not only judged on how well I delivered the paper, but on how much property I could damage.
• I should never turn my bike around or stop before venturing into traffic

Much like in the game, I was fired after the third day. If only Jack Thompson had been around to save me, I wouldn't have royally been misinformed about my duties as a paperboy.

Re:"America's Army" video game

[russotto]

It does have a "torture prisoners" mission. An Army spokesperson defended its inclusion by pointing out that "While it exists on the game CD, it can only be accessed by means of a third-party tool which the Army does not provide".

Good luck holding on to that idealism

[spun]

No sarcasm intended, I really mean that.

You do know the whole purpose of law school is to kill that idealism of yours, right? I heard a lawyer friend of mine say that 85% of first year law school students say they want to get into some kind of advocacy law. That goes down to less than 15% of graduating law school students. I have no idea if this is true or not, but my gut tells me it is, and as Stephen Colbert says, that's the organ we should all be using to think with. ;-)

I'm sure you can do it, but you have to stick to your guns. Don't let them brainwash you!

Why can't "society" butt out?

[Andy Somnifac]

(1) The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the video or computer game, taken as a whole, appeals to the minor's morbid interest in violence.

Great, "contemporary community standards." Do I want my bible thumping neighbors and coworkers deciding what is and is not OK? Answer: No. I can see it now: "Oh no! You can tell that woman has boobies underneath that armor! Boobies are bad!!!1!"

(2) The game depicts violence in a manner patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community with respect to what is suitable for minors.

Again, who is to judge this? I would guess that those people making these decisions wouldn't have let me see movies like Robocop as a child. But, last time I checked, I thought I was a well adjusted member of adult society. Violent movies (since there wasn't a large amount of realistic violent video games as I was growing up) didn't warp my perceptions and make me want to shoot up my office.

(3) The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minor

I can see it now:

• Literary or artistic: We live in a society where Britney Spears is a mind bogglingly successful recording "artist." Does anything else really need to be said to point out the fact that society as a whole would be most unlikely to spot something with artistic merit even if it was sitting on their nose?
• Political: It goes against the prevailing political norms, so it must be bad. How dare a video game put forth the idea that corporations are wielding greater and greater influence over the US government. It is teh bad.
• Scientific: And what percentage of Americans actually believe in the creationist theory that the world is only 6000 years old?

Why can parents not just step of and, god forbid, monitor what their children are doing? Why is it the governments decision to decide what is and is not OK for your children?

Re:Uh..

[esper]

Yes, but do I, as an adult, still have the right to buy it for myself if stores don't carry it (can't risk being prosecuted if a register jockey decides he doesn't care or a 17-year-old comes in with a fake ID), leading to game publishers deciding that it's not worth the expense of creating games that stores won't carry? Oh, wait - it doesn't matter whether I have the right to buy it or not if it doesn't exist.

When's the last time you saw a sexually-themed game with good production values (no cheesy low-grade graphics or barely-interactive movies that claim to be "games") which doesn't just treat sex as a topic for crude attempts at juvenile humor (sorry, Leisure Suit Larry, you don't count either)? They're generally not made. The sort of bill described in the article, if passed into law and not struck down, would consign graphically violent games to the same obscurity as graphically sexual games.