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California Continues To Push For Violent Game Legislation
Back in February, the US Court of Appeals shot down a California law that banned the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. Shortly thereafter, State Senator Leland Yee petitioned the US Supreme Court to review the case. Now, along with California's Psychiatric and Psychological Associations, Yee has filed an amicus curiae brief with Court that elaborates on the reasoning behind the law. Within the brief (PDF) are some interesting quotes: "Parents can read a book, watch a movie or listen to a CD to discern if it is appropriate for their child. These violent video games, on the other hand, can contain up to 800 hours of footage with the most atrocious content often reserved for the highest levels and can be accessed only by advanced players after hours upon hours of progressive mastery. ... Notably, extended play has been observed to depress activity in the frontal cortex of the brain which controls executive thought and function, produces intentionality and the ability to plan sequences of action, and is the seat of self-reflection, discipline and self-control." The video game industry has filed its own amicus brief to dispute Yee's claims.
California has no other problems right now...
Oh right, I forgot the contemporary approach to politics. If you have real problems you don't solve them, you distract your people by making up problems where there are none.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
California does not have the cash for a case that will likely end being shot down by the 1st amendment.
I hate those little fungus motherfuckers. They make my skin crawl.
Every time I see one of those pieces of shit, I jump on it until it's fucking smashed and dead.
I also hate fucking ducks with shells. Those fucking freaks of nature just piss me the hell off. I love to stomp on them and then grab the shells and just wipe mushrooms the fuck out with them.
Goddamn pipes also freak me out.
After this they'll work on violent legislation dealing with other matters.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
can be accessed only by advanced players after hours upon hours of progressive mastery
If a kid is smarter than his parents, maybe he should be put in charge of restricting his parent's media content (maybe reality TV, Deal or No Deal, 20/20 are all off limits).
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
Some huge majority of 12 year olds with $300 gaming systems are talking their parents into the $75 game anyway.
The ones that aren't will play them at their friend's.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
You know those wily French with their three strikes law? And the Germans with their think of the chiiildrun laws? This, this is different. This is the Californian way.
"Notably, extended play has been observed to depress activity in the frontal cortex of the brain which controls executive thought and function, produces intentionality and the ability to plan sequences of action, and is the seat of self-reflection, discipline and self-control."
I find this interesting because I grew up playing a lot of computer games (probably too much), yet I was, and am still today, basically the poster boy for self-reflection, discipline and self-control. To a point where it has actually hampered me and I've had to work on diminishing those traits so I can live in a better and more carefree way.
So if this statement is correct, perhaps computer games was a much needed way for me to take a break from myself, maybe other kids have the same need?
Despite common belief, they DON'T do the same with movies.
It's not a crime to let a kid into a three-year-old into R-Rated movie, or even to let him buy one. It's just against the rules of the movie union guys. It's actually covered under the First Amendment.
So why should it be a crime to sell a kid a violent or sexual game?
No one organization out there right now can provide definitive prove that playing âoeviolentâ video games train kids to be killers or desensitizes them from violence. Just because the military uses simulators to train soldiers for combat preparedness; does not mean that FPS game are the simulator training kids to be killers. If this was true every child who ever played FPS or âoeviolenceâ video games would be able to handle a gun like a pro and kill anything that moves without discrimination.
california's going broke.
Not every child is directly affected. This is true.
However, sometimes there are secondary effects which do affect every child.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre#Video_games
The tail wags the dog, as is usual in politics. Which dog is Senator Leland Yee wagging? Or, perhaps more pertinently, who's Yee being wagged by? And why? There's usually some special interest group, or someone who stands to gain...who is it?
Yeah, that's actually true and what this guy is conveniently leaving out is that it's not permanent. I was reading about this phenomenon on Dr. Daniel Amen's website years ago (and it's NOT just violent video games).
Essentially, too much intense video gaming for too long makes your brain concentrate too much and you use up all the neurotransmitters that let you concentrate. The result is ADD-like symptoms. Cut back on the video games to reasonable levels and the neuotransmitter levels return to normal because they aren't being depleted.
So the real message is: too much of anything is bad for you.
But this Yee dude doesn't bother to say that part.
If you want to see an example of the mental devastation caused by thousands of hours of playing video games, just consider Slashdot editors. In more than 10 years they have not learned to be professional editors.
"These violent video games, on the other hand, can contain up to 800 hours of footage with the most atrocious content often reserved for the highest levels and can be accessed only by advanced players after hours upon hours of progressive mastery."
Yeah. Right. Maybe if you count the full gameplay, or many many game additioned together. I would be hard pressed to find a GAME with 800 hours of gameplay for a single session until "mastery". You would have to add multiple gameplay. Unless somebody spot an error in my reasoning, I call shenanigan on this senator. Spouting non sense to support his cause should lead to an automatic impeachment,a s a politician.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
One approach to this news would be a knee-jerk "this can't possibly be true" reaction based on exposure to a small sample size (of possibly one, subjective.
I trust that some of the more educated readers of slashdot will consider the scientific evidence presented and that a higher level discussion will ensue.
Rarely do I genuinely LOL. You did it.
I piss off bigots.
"...can contain up to 800 hours of footage with the most atrocious content often reserved for the highest levels and can be accessed only by advanced players after hours upon hours of progressive mastery."
Gosh you know, that's what I hated about Quake 3. Your opponents only started blowing up into bits after you played the game to the final tier. And in Gears of War, the lancer chainsaw was actually a love belt until the final act where it became an excuse to splatter gore all over the screen.
In all seriousness, it really takes hours of gameplay to find out whether a game has material you might object to as a parent?
While I am as much against this law as any other Slashdotter, I don't like that argument.
If there are problems A and B and A is considered a bigger problem than B, B should still be taken care of unless doing so significantly hampers taking care of A.
"up to 800 hours of footage"? I have never played a game that would last for that long. Most of these "violent" games are usually short, 10 to 30 hours of content, usually around 15 hours. The rest of the game time is just repeating the same content again and again. If you play Counter-Strike for 10 hours, thats not 10 hours of footage. It's just a few maps that you play repeatedly. Every time will be slightly different, but it will be the same content. Saying that a game has "up to 800 hours of footage" is like saying that a 2 hour movie has 200 hours of footage if you watch it 100 times. There have always been aggressive people and murderers/criminals. Getting rid of violent video games for kids ain't gonna help much. Games CAN cause violent behavior, but so can many other things. Most of the time its the invividual, not the game that is to blame. Parents should know their kids well enough to know what they can handle. This is not always the case, but you know what I mean. It is understandable that games may cause a "brainwash effect" younger children like some politicians say. It's a part of human mental development. I just don't see this as such a big problem as some people blame. This is a part of the same age old chain of fear that todays children will be corrupted by entertainment business. Even Plato, who lived 400BC, thought that literature and drama plays were corrupting the young distort their sense of moral and give a very bad bad influence from them. It is the same as todays. Today we just do it better.
[I hate Goombas from Super Mario Bros. But] I also hate fucking ducks with shells. Those fucking freaks of nature just piss me the hell off. I love to stomp on them and then grab the shells and just wipe mushrooms the fuck out with them.
But even more than that, I hate people who insist Koopas are ducks. According to the field guide Koopas of the Mushroom Kingdom by James Bond:
A lot of people got their NES with both Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt and should know what a Nintendo duck looks like. The only kind of "duck" in a Koopa shell is a turtle that has "ducked" into its shell.
Link to the game industries response broken. A few google queries turned up no other site other than the one listed. Halp?
Long live the BSD license
Given that they have Arnie as governor, it's no surprise that they push for their legislation to be more violent. Games are just the start!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I do question the enforceability of something like this, for instance, if the local store won't sell to the kid, they can just buy it on eBay (cheaper there anyways), or get it through Gamefly. I doubt those companies are going to put special restrictions in place because of one state.
Or parents could simply look at the ESRB sticker and know right away what kind of content is in the game. That's why those ratings are there after all.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
Up to 800 hours of footage??? Other than an MMO, how many games do people play with up to 800 hours of play? Jesus! We're lucky if a game has 8 hours of game play nowadays. 800?? Are you joking!
From this I can only conclude: Senator you must be one hell of a gamer...
The reason they are talking about things like brain activity (and no neuroscientist can tell you what patterns of brain activity are good or bad) is they are trying to distract everybody from the fact that as videogames have gotten more realistically violent, real world violence and crime have dropped, and dropped most sharply in the very same demographic of young males that are the biggest consumers of videogames. Of course, that doesn't prove that videogames prevent violence, but it does prove that any hypothetical anti-social effect of videogames must be so small as to be absolutely swamped by other social and economic factors that influence violence and crime.
I bet they will never push for a law against violent MOVIES, what with Hollywod present in the state. Games, however, are mostly made out-of-state, e.g. Austin TX has a lot of video game companies.
Personally, I just love the delightful irony of this bill being signed into law by Arnold Schwarzenegger. What's next, a law against the sexual exploitation of women--championed by Ron Jeremy?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Last time I check people were violent long before video games nor do they need them to be violent. (Taken from a comedian Howard Greenspan).
Did Hitler have an Xbox? Did Stalin have a colecovision? Pol Pot(sp?) playing too much Soldier of Fortune?
This is complete crap. People dont need to reference something like a video game to be an ass. I am not sure why everyone doesnt see this.
I have real issue with the federal circuit courts having any say whatever in what California can or cannot ban for sale in their own state. The distribution of authority in the DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC of the United States has been shifting with ever increasing momentum to the federal level.
I think california is full of insane pollitics, but isn't that their right as a state under the constitution? I don't like my local and regional policies being dictated by californian pollitics and in order to preserve the rights of my own state I am willing to let california have their rights.
-SL
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
Ron Jeremy is a vocal feminist supporter and feels that most current pornography is degrading and unacceptable.
Let him produce better porn, then.
-- Put crudely, the world is an extremely large problem instance. (Russel/Norvig Artificial Intelligence)
After all, if you're Black, you're poor and taken advantage of (OMFG, think of the slaves! Slavery! Evil white people! ...despite the fact the majority of slaves were sold to various European trading and investment groups, not necessarily ones run by Whites, by Black Africans! Whoops! Hate to burst that bubble...), and that free welfare check that you never have to do a damn thing for is some sort of sop. Gee, it must be so difficult to get paid to do nothing! Wow, what a hard job!
And the White oppressors get free health care! Yeah, I'm pretty sure that race was specifically listed on the Demoncrats health care bill...almost positive...uh, hang on, I don't see it mentioned anywhere, especially not favoring White people. Shit, another bubble pops!
Get in touch with reality, Junior. There's poor people and rich people of all races and nationalities, and everyone in between. The only people I give a shit about are the ones who are trying to actually get somewhere and do something useful with their lives. Everyone else can starve and die. Of course, with our current socialist political agenda, I believe everyone will soon be starving and dying. Who is John Galt?
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
The Amicus Brief response by the video game industry is broken, here's a direct link for the PDF of the brief:
http://cdn4.libsyn.com/gamepolitics/2009_07_22_ESA_Cal_Cert_Opp_14_FINAL.pdf?nvb=20090724170520&nva=20090725171520&t=0e120a59ff4ca8b96b5ac
"Hegelians, who love a synthesis, will probably conclude that he wears a wig." - Bertrand Russell
This is supposed to be a liberal state, but those Democrats in Sac (and in San Francisco, and San Jose) keep passing laws that remove choice from every aspect of our lives.
I would like to help all the lawmakers out there who would like to pass a law that limits expression (e.g. the ability to sell video games to whoever the all I want). If any of you are reading Slashdot, please read the following helpful instructions.
The rest of us have decided that free expression is important to us, so we explicitly included that right in our Constitution. That means you can't make a law that limits the expression of U.S. citizens. If you would like to make such a law, you need to get the Constitution changed so that the law would be allowed. The people who are able to change the Constitution are members of the U.S. Congress. These people all work in Washington, D.C. but some of them live near you. There are several ways to get in touch with these people, including visiting them at their office or sending them a letter. Some members of congress even have web sites and you can send them e-mail. When you communicate with a congressperson, remember to tell them who you are and how you want the constitution changed. If you decide to visit them in Washington, don't forget to bring a map of the area, so you don't get lost.
There, hopefully that should be all the help you need. Now don't bother us with any more attempted laws until after the Constitution has been changed, okay?
Wow... psychology was so much easier to understand when it was called phrenology.
Really, do you know what their big mistake is. They are using the wrong argument. They should have just said that game violence is obscene by their community standards. Because we all know that obscenity is the one thing that trumphs free speech in the US.
And in case someone brings it up. Of course, violence on film isn't obscene. It is art according to the same local community standards.
He could start off by not being in any.
Plenty want violence on film also to be censored. And on radio. And in print. And even in art, whatever that is.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I think with the current economy, two wars etc etc that it is actually a full time job to run a country.
Just that nobody is doing it.
Reminds me of several projects I worked on. Lots of managers drawing up useless docs and sitting in endless meetings. Some idiot demanding you put an ETA on bugs you haven't even seen yet. Lots of excitement about upcoming projects and new potential customers.
And one poor smug sitting in the basement trying to do all the work.
But hey, that ain't so bad. I served my time and now I too am management!
A lot of people comment that Cobert is the only real news left and he is a comedian. But those same people watched comedians when they should have been watching the news and voted for the guy with the biggest smile and who said he was going to cut taxes.
The problem really isn't with the politicians, it is with the voter.
Really, you guys elected a B-movie actor. Wasn't reagan enough of a warning?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I tried to understand this article, but my cortex deally must be mushified from all my games.
When I rule the world, I'll have squads of flame throwers fanned out around me, and for me, winter shall cease to exist
That last link to the Google Image search is not work safe even with Safe Search on Strict. Watch out for the gay koopa sex drawings.
Parents can read a book, watch a movie or listen to a CD to discern if it is appropriate for their child. These violent video games, on the other hand, can contain up to 800 hours of footage with the most atrocious content often reserved for the highest levels and can be accessed only by advanced players after hours upon hours of progressive mastery
A person has a certain amount of free time, and they can spend it on one 800-hour game or 400 2-hour movies. If you're a parent and want to check their entertainment in its entirety, you're going to be going through 800 hours of material either way.