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Could CA Violent Game Law Lead To an Industry Exodus?
donniebaseball23 writes "Oral arguments for the California games law are set to begin on November 2. It's a hugely important court case for the industry, and if the Supreme Court sides with the legislators it could lead to an exodus of talent from the games business, says one attorney. 'Certainly less games would be produced and there would be a corresponding job loss,' said Patrick Sweeney, who leads the Video Game practice at Reed Smith LLP. 'But I expect the impact will likely be significantly deeper. I believe the independent development community would be severely impacted. Innovation, both from a creative and technological aspect, would also be stifled. The companies, brands and individuals that we should be embracing as the visionaries of this creative and collaborative industry will migrate their talents to a more expressive medium.' Meanwhile, Dr. Cheryl K. Olson, author of Grand Theft Childhood, notes that even if California gets its way, it could backfire."
it would not cause an exodus. If putting age restriction and fines for violating them hurt industry, there would be no porn made in CA.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If it's a hugely important case for the industry, you can spend a sentence describing the law.
Unless I badly misunderstand, the law bans sales of games to people under 18. So the only impact here is on stores that sell the games, not on developers. Developers are free to make whatever they like, it is the stores that have to restrict who can buy it. They can still sell anything, they just can't sell it to anyone. Same as tobacco or alcohol.
The only way it would cause an exodus is if game sales plummeted and that would only happen if large amounts of sales of M rated games were being made to people under 18.
I don't buy that for a second. For one, most retailers already ID for games (Target IDs me and I'm 30 and shop there all the time). Also, kids don't tend to have a ton of money to spend. There's a reason there have been more adult targeted games: Adults have more to spend. When I was 14 I had to beg games out of my parents a couple times a year. Now I buy them as I please. Finally parents will just buy the shit anyhow, and that's still legal. Rare is it you hear about the kid who bought their own violent game, the parents bought it for them.
So unless I really misunderstand this, and if so please show me a link to the reality, I can't see it mattering much to the VG industry, it'll just ber a stupid burden on the retailers.
Physical game sales are on their way out the door anyway. Or they are with PC games that is... next-generation consoles will probably see the same displacement.
I don't see how banning sales of some games to minors will cause an exodus of game developer talent. No matter where the games are made they will still be subject to the same ban.
California's neighboring state, Nevada, would welcome these businesses because it would diversify its economy which is predominately based on alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and sex.
Plus, Nevada has no corporate income tax nor personal income tax.
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
It's a very beautiful place to visit, but I would hate to try to run a business from CA. HORRIBLE economy and regulatory environment. The state is bankrupt, and Americans can watch CA if they want some insight into where the country is headed if we keep allowing our government to load us up with debt. When Bernard Goldberg "borrows" money to create bogus profits he goes to prison, but when our Treasury Department does it by selling T-bills to the Federal Reserve it's totally legal. Go figure.
Your comparison doesn't make much sense. Try something with a car instead.
The law is stupid, but claiming it would cause an exodus of developers is equally stupid. It doesn't change in any way what they do, or what they are able to sell nationwide, it only affects what they can sell to minors in California - and in that respect affects developers equally regardless of where they live/work. The law should be struck down, as it was originally before our (nominally Republican - I thought those guys were supposed to be against such idiocy) loveable governator decided to appeal the decision, but it doesn't help matters any to spout such nonsensical hyperbole.
Production is based in California because talent, production facilities and resources of every kind are to be found in California.
Look at the movie industry. Rated R movies make getting in for minors much harder. What do the directors do? Make PG-13 movies, and push the limit all they can. There is not a shortage of people wanting to make movies.
This is the best post yet in this thread. People need to remember that children grow into adults. If you want to do what's best for your children, make sure they inherit a world that an adult will want to live in.
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States all over the union have passed laws restricting "violent video games" (with various definitions for that term) and every time the courts have overturned them as unconstitutional.
Why do the states keep wasting taxpayer money on laws that they know wont survive in court? (are they just trying law after law until someone finally finds language that wont get overturned?)
The reasoning appears to be that if we can't program violence, there's nothing worth doing, so everyone will quit...
What a strange world it is, where creative imagination can't come up with anything unless it involves mayhem and death.
All military shooters will take place in a parallel universe where the world's governments realize that while war is a means to an end, the cost of life is too great to be a viable option. All firearms were discarded, used only for sport now, and instead all guns are paintball guns. The UN sends judges to determine when soldiers have taken enough hits to be considered unfit to continue. In the end, the soldiers meet in the middle of the battlefield, shake hands, and pull out wet sponges to clean paint off the opposing teams's uniform and kit. In this world, in war, no matter which side is victorious, everyone is a winner.
That's a requirement which does not exist. Theaters card voluntarily, much like every major game retailer cards voluntarily.
Nice trolling. The government won't be any more in charge of healthcare than it was previously. The only difference is that nearly everybody will have health insurance.
On a serious note America doesn't have any violence issue compared to the rest of the world. Most of the places with the worst violence don't have much of a TV/video game playing population. Serbia, Africa, the Middle East yep all video games fault.
This is the same stuff legislators were trying to pull with the motion picture industry. In the end a self-regulating body was put in place, accepted by the consumers and producers, and all is well. Do younger kids end up seeing violent or sexual movies? Sure, it can happen and there is recourse if a parent thinks a theater isn't adhering to the system. TV has it's rating system that is enabled by the V-chip and controlled by the household authority (presumably the parents). All gaming systems (computers too? I assume so) have this in place, so why isn't the ESRB given the same right?
If this was something as simple as unrated pornographic games that 8-year-olds were getting a hold of, I would be inclined to agree with the legislation. This isn't the case. This is parents being unwilling to take the 30 seconds to check the rating on a game or, baring that, spending some time with their kid seeing what they are consuming. Meanwhile, legislators in the bankrupt state of California have more pressing matters to deal with than trying to subvert the Constitution.
That said, the conservative court will drop this one like a bad habit. It already has precedence on it's side with movies and TV, a ratings system that works, and that little thing called the first amendment. IANAL but I doubt there will be more than 1 or 2 dissenters - possibly one of the whacko judges, ie Clarence Thomas.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
No, but it has forced the MPAA to self censor every film for it to satisfy the ratings board. Which is censorship... and even R rated films are censored. So much that no one makes an NC-17 film... and X films are just flat out porn. So there is a certain area of content missing in between R and XXX.
That explains why those middle eastern cultures are so much more evolved than most other cultures.
At least their numbers were. A Persian popularized Arabic numerals (123 vs. CXXIII) and invented algebra.
Mom and Dad will have to buy them personally? Mom and Dad are working 2 damn jobs.
And does that slow them down? Hardly. Mom and Dad already have to buy groceries regularly. Big-box supercenter chains, such as Walmart*, Target, and Meijer, sell both video games and groceries.
If they cared about your children, they would impose strict tariffs on imported goods. so that Americans are not competing with slave wages overseas.
But then the United States would lose its export market as other countries retaliate with their own tariffs. Think of the children whose parents would lose their manufacturing jobs due to the export decline.
I don't expect the number of kids playing the forbidden games to go down, just a change in their method of obtaining them. Of course, if the kids are playing them NOW, they probably don't have parents that care a great deal, and those parents are unlikely to object greatly to acting as a filter for the purchase.
And for those situations for which piracy is an option (every non-online PC game), expect it to be exploited more often than it might have been in the past. More and more games are also sold online, for direct digital distribution. How does the law
apply in that case? Even if some method of adult verification is required, the possession of a credit card to purchase it is usually sufficient. Extremely resourceful children with uncooperative parents will be able to cash purchase a pre-paid debit card, populate it with whatever owner data they wish, and purchase the games with that..
Ultimately, this all boils down to the parents monitoring the activities of their children and rearing their children in the way they best see fit. If restricting violent video games is part of their parental ajenda, their involvement will have much more effect than any law will.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
The companies, brands and individuals that we should be embracing as the visionaries of this creative and collaborative industry will migrate their talents to a more expressive medium
Or better yet, they will just move to a different state/country.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
They just think they are. There will always be a market for violent games. And besides, kids will still get them. This is nothing more than BS "feel good legislation".
There's something similar in games. An AO rating is a commercial death sentence for a game - even though it's still legal (in most states), all the major retailers have a voluntary policy of never selling AO games. So an AO, no matter how good a game, will still be unable to sell. It's impossible to turn a profit. Thus the games developers and publishers strive to stay below an AO. Even an M rated game will suffer from reduced availability - wal-mart will carry them, but some other retailers refuse.
The old Hayes code worked in the same way. It was prefectly legal to make a noncomplient film - by no cinema would show it, no distributor would distribute it, and no factory would duplicate the films. People made some for art's sake, but there was no way to turn a profit.
Yet the law is still terrible all the same. Even if it didn't cause an "exodus," censorship is and always will be a bad thing.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Movie censorship in the US of A is bad enough as it is.
Skipping all the issues with the actual censorship process, movie companies effectively sensor themselves, which gives us a clusterfuck of PG-13 rated movies, just so they can cash in more on the extra audience/target group. I'm not saying all PG-13 movies are bad, but I'm personally left with a feeling that such movies don't show their true potential; especially when the story/theme inherently targets adults. I feel I was robbed for a better experience, just so some children's feelings won't get hurt. $deity forbid if they were to see a boob.
I like games and movies that push the limits of what's considered 'proper' (by the US moralists and people in general), and I also enjoy my slasher/grindhouse/exploitation movies occasionally (Incidentally they're all made in the 70's). There is no reason to believe that game censorship won't have a similar side-effect. This could be remedied by stretching the limits of what is considered appropriate for teenagers, so most games could be made for this age demographic without having to butcher their expressiveness in the process. Be it scary scenes, violence, cussing, drug use or sex. But since the moral values of whomever makes these censorship laws are warped compared to most people who actually *watch* movies and *play* games, I don't see this happening anytime soon.
This law would just affect California right? What percentage of the gaming market is situated in California? Im pretty sure the rest of the world will carry on as usual...
It's also possible that they were just lying - like when the airlines insisted that it was against the law to board a plane without an ID, when that was not the case.