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| OYashiroForever
247th Post
 
Frequent Customer
    
|  "Re(2):Video Games Free Speech"
, posted Tue 3 Jun 20:57:
quote:
Restricting children from playing Mature rated games has nothing to do with the first amendment. I think a lot of people don't understand the first amendment, a lot of people hide behind it, and a lot of peope miss use it, including the courts.
The president set by this case could allow under aged children to walk into R, NC17, and X rated films.
The rating system used by video games is self imposed anyway isn't it? with ratings assigned by the games' producers?
You make some excellent points Gen, but allow me to correct you on one thing. The ratings are not self-imposed. Ratings are assigned by a group called the ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board, as I recall), who are a seperate entity from any gaming publisher/developer. When a game is to be rated, the developer sends a tape with all of the most questionable material and the ESRB does their thing.
As to your original point (a well-made one), gaming has gotten to a point where it needs to be officially regulated and mature games need to be kept out of the hands of children. Because a 16-year old can't handle GTA: Vice City? No. Because in order to be considered a legitimate form of expression, it needs to go through this step of evolution.
Yes, in some cases, it will indirectly cause censorship because developers won't want to lose potential sales, so they'll censor themselves. And yes, poor little Johnny won't be able to buy his copy of Mortal Kombat 17. And? How many of you saw R-rated movies before the age of 17? How many of you drank before the age of 21? Cigarettes before 18? Uh huh. Exactly... Don't cry for little Johnny. He'll still get his fix of blood and guts on the 11:00 news if his mom won't buy the next GTA.
Frankly, it's all worth it as long as the religious nuts and the politicians who fellate them shut up and move along to the next "heresy". Plus, I think it's the next logical step towards gaming becoming a part of mainstream culture and being taken seriously as an art form.
Edit: Oh... and the word is "precedent". Big difference. 
"I haven't slept for 10 days because that would be too long."
"Your denial is beneath you and thanks to the use of hallucinogenic drugs I see through you."
[this message was edited by OYashiroForever on Tue 3 Jun 20:58] |
| DarkZero
81th Post
Occasional Customer
| "Re(4):Video Games Free Speech" , posted Tue 3 Jun 21:58
Just a brief correction, here: The idea that movie ratings are imposed by law is a MYTH. Movie ratings are imposed only by the Motion Picture Association of America, an industry group formed by several of the biggest movie companies, and movie theaters are free to ignore the ratings as they please. The only thing stopping them is the ECONOMIC impact of the MPAA possibly deciding to mess with them. There is no LEGAL impact, because there is no law against showing R-rated and NC-17-rated movies to minors.
The ESRB is also an industry group and also isn't legally regulated, which currently puts the video game and movie industries ON EQUAL FOOTING where ratings are concerned. This law would've put restrictions on the video game industry that aren't on the movie industry.
And personally, I don't see how the campaign to stop kids from playing violent video games is any different than the campaigns against lascivious novels, nude portraits, and comic books in the past. A new medium for entertainment and storytelling has once again cropped up and the forces of Bible-thumping, oppressive "morality" and liberal "Get away from them, they're OUR kids now" philosophy have once again come out to try and shape it in the way that they see fit, and they're using the same tactics that they have in the past. First they want a rating system, under the agreement that there will not be a legally enforced rating system. The best among the medium comply. Then there is an attempt to get the medium banned to some degree, under the idea that children should not have access to it. Once that works, there will be an attempt to have the medium fully controlled by the complete banning of anything that its critics find objectionable. It's the same old war of attrition and the people on the sidelines are acting the same way they always do. "We have ratings for something else, why not have ratings for this?" is quickly followed by "We already have ratings, why not enforce them?" and then "We already ban X, why not ban Y as well?" and on and on until something that they don't really want has already happened. We are watching Phase 2 of that strategy.
Please, do not look upon these tactics lightly. They are not just an attempt to put video games into step with other mediums. They are an attempt to make video games a more restrictive medium than art, books, comic books, movies, and music currently are, because attempts to choke the life out of those mediums and turn them into a perfect politically correct system of societally approved messages have already failed. There is no scientific consensus that video games make children violent, just like there was no consensus that lascivious novels, nude portraits, or crime and horror comic books turned kids into sex criminals and gangsters when those things were nearly banned. This is nothing but a bunch of uptight, arrogant people that want to make your decisions for you preying on scientific ignorance about a new medium to shape it into what they want it to be before it becomes fully accepted the way it is. This is no different than the past.
Also, I am not entirely sure of this, as my memory is a little fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure that this is the anti-video game bill that contains strict guidelines for arcade operators, but with a very fuzzy definition of "violent video games". There seemed to be enough leeway that if an arcade carried games as tame as Vampire Night or even Street Fighter III, then they would need to close up their doors like a nightclub and have a guy at the door carding people to make sure that they're eighteen. Even if you continue to support a bill that would keep games like Metal Gear Solid out of the hands of seventeen year olds, I doubt you would be ecstatic about the final nail being hammered into the arcade industry's coffin. Hopefully as more news stories and case reviews come out I will be proved right or wrong on that point, as the Associated Press currently says nothing more than "violent arcade games".
Sorry for the extra long post, by the way. Two ideas just struck each other at the right time and I guess the floodgates kind of opened up.
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Oh... and the word is "precedent". Big difference.