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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."
when you accept it as such.
I don't see why they should regulate video games any more than they regulate the content of books.
Yeah, having myspace set legal precedent is a great idea. Since they do such a good job with things like css, (d)html, javascript and the like. I'm sure they'd do incredibly well in the judicial system.
Before you freak out, please read this post as sarcastic.
Believe that we should start executing people for breaking their EULAs.
It's the next logical step towards a beautiful future.
You can't take the sky from me.
... Don't buy them for them, and turn on the content rating system, to stop them from borrowing them from friends. Both the XBox and PS3 have these features. Older consoles don't, I admit. But it's a trivial issue. Nonetheless
Most kids are bright enough to tell fiction from reality, and the ones who aren't are likely to get into trouble anyway.
I hesitate to say it, but George Carlin was right - "Wait, the kid who eats too many marbles doesn't get to grow up to have kids of his own? Good. Fuck 'em."
Can you *imagine* what the MySpace game would be like?
I don't remember the final score, but Dante wrote a detailed review.
Different societies have different value systems, and so different countries regulate different media in different ways.
What's important is that games get treated fairly against other media and regulated for what they are, not what scared, ignorant people worry they might be. The problem is that governments and legislators don't yet "get" games, and so fear and ignorance reign supreme.
As an example, in Australia, the government has a Classification Board that rates books, TV, movies and games. The Board is supposed to represent the values of the community and it generally does a pretty good job. Very few movies are refused classification (eg: banned).
Not so with video games. Games are regularly refused classification in Australia, largely because the highest classification for games is MA15+ - so if a game is considered only suitable for adults, then it can't be classified.
Yes, this is ludicrous and there's been a huge response from the local industry and a lot of local gamers. You can read more about it here if you are interested.
The point I'm trying to make, though, is that games are not treated on the same level as other forms of media in Australia, because they're poorly understood by government as a medium - mainly because the people in government didn't grow up playing games. I'd bet there are similar issues to varying degrees in other countries.
Give it a decade or so and things will be different. Until then, we're going to have to keep putting up with emotive comments and costly ineffective legislation from politicians looking for cheap popularity amongst their ignorant and fearful dull-eyed constituents.
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.
you don't just have to bend over and take it unless THE MAJORITY AGREES
And usually that only happens in prisons.
And some greek islands, if we trust some old travel books.