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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."
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.
... 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."
There is a slight difference that puts games more in line with films - graphics and the removal of the need for an imagination.
Give someone a book containing a sexual or violent scene and they require some imagination to make an image of it. For some people the same words can provoke lesser or greater images. For games and films you get it laid out in front of you with full colour and everything, so there's less ambiguity to the detail.
Books tend to self-regulate based on vocabulary as well - put complex words in your books and you're not likely to get many kids reading them, but put it in a film and it's accessible to loads of people who wouldn't have read a text version. Lord of the Rings is a great example - how many pre-teen kids would manage to read LotR and how many like the film? There's nothing terrible in LotR for sexual/violent content (there's violence, but nothing excessively described) but it still aims itself at an audience based on the vocabulary it uses.
Granted you still get books that are sexual or violent to greater and lesser degrees, but they've never been regulated and since most books are probably PG on content but for older readers based on vocabulary then there'd be a backlash from those used to books not being regulated/age rated.
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.