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The State of Video Game Regulation
Gamasutra is running an in-depth look at the regulation of video games in the US and other countries. They discuss the reasons for such legislation, such as child protection and intellectual property restrictions, as well as what gamers can expect to see in the coming years.
"Fairfield also points out combinations of laws, which, when put together make for strange outcomes. The biggest of these, for video games, is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. In short, gaining unauthorized access to someone's computer and doing $500 in damages opens you up for criminal charges. It's good for prosecuting hackers, but it makes for a strange fit with social networking websites and user-generated content. That fit was especially strange when prosecutors weren't quite sure how to approach the widely publicized case of Megan Meier. The 13-year-old Meier committed suicide after being deceived and bullied by another girl and her mother, Lori Drew. Unable to find a good way to approach the issue, prosecutors charged Drew under MySpace's End User License Agreement, effectively giving MySpace the power to dictate criminal law."
He would have probably had a paddy when you told him to stop playing with his toys regardless of what they were.
Hasn't anyone considered the possibility that the reason why children become aggressive when told to stop doing something they are enjoying, is because they were enjoying it?
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
I guess parent used the wrong 'Reply' button.
Do you think these 'serious attempts to keep games out of hands of minors' should restrict a parents ability to buy games for their children? After all, age does not denote maturity ( which is also why I think the 'age of consent' is ridiculous' but that's another topic )
The disappearing pencil trick. Let me show you it.
Seriously, the solution is simple. Just do it like they do in NZ. Exactly the same system for video games as for movies. Effectively it just becomes the following:
R18 - Sexual content / Drugs / Extreme violence - GTA
R16 - High levels of violence - UT
M - Medium level violence, alcohol, etc - Baldur's Gate
G - Everyone - Tetris
It's illegal to supply anything with an R rating to someone under the R rating age, even if you're their parent. Nice and simple, and you never have problems with people claiming they didn't know what their kids were playing.
I know that if my teenage nephews wanted the most violent gory game on the planet I would have NO problem with buying it for them. Why? Because not only have they been playing games from the time their little fingers could grasp a controller (for which I still get bitched at for ruining my sisters "hallmark moment" because instead of mommy or daddy my oldest first words were MINE! because I dared to try to sneak in some eternal champions while he was napping after playing Barney) but more importantly from the time they were little I showed them how games were made. The "behind the scenes" as it were.
I used WAD editors(remember those?) to show them how levels were made, used Bryce and Paintshop Pro to show them how scene and character art was made, showed them how scripts controlled the enemy characters, etc. So now when the oldest plays a shooter(the youngest prefers MMOs) I hear dialog like this "Who designed this thing? Would you look at the draw in? And look at all the jagged seams! Do they think this is a PSOne? And who wrote the AI for this thing? Can't they see I have just mowed down a dozen of their buddies? DUCK YOU DUMMY!" so I don't think I have to worry about my boys mixing up fantasy and reality.
But of course these regulations are trying to fix with pointless laws a much deeper and more sinister problem we have in this country: abandoned kids. What I mean by abandoned isn't thrown out onto the street, no, in some ways this is much worse. I am talking about all those kids out there whose parents have simply used the TV(and now the game console) as an excuse to never interact with their children. Picking up my nephews from their friends houses I have seen it first hand. Houses without a single book or magazine so you know the child has never been read to, parents too busy with their own lives to even notice if the kid isn't there, kid allowed to stare at the screen for hours as long as they don't bother the parents, etc.
It is no wonder that kids like that might have trouble separating what they see and play from reality, hell they were raised by the tube. But all the regulations in the world isn't going to make those parents spend time with their kids. Frankly I don't know of anything that would. Maybe instead of ever more stupid regulations we could be pushing for more personal responsibility? Hell if I know. It is just so sad to see with your own eyes kids being raised by a television set.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
> I don't see how you can equate a simple statement like "Ozgnikt stabbed FrumbumnÃr" with a moving image showing blood spurting everywhere and shit and giblets all falling out.
I didn't. I just said that the books contained a lot of violence. I never in any way suggested that the violence in LotR was the same as people stabbing eachother in a moving picture 'showing blood spurting everywhere and shit and giblets all falling out', although now I feel the need to point out that IMHO books can do a better job describing pain and agony (and possibly the joy this brings to the one inflicting the pain and agony...) than movies, provided the reader has at least some imagination.