The ESRB Bites Back

Next Generation has an interview with ESRB president Patricia Vance, who is not taking the criticism of the Board lying down. From the article: "There are people who just don't believe in self regulation. They don't believe that an industry can regulate itself, even though there are plenty of examples of successful regulatory bodies out there, including the film business."

Re:It all boils down to..

[Starsmore]

I'll agree with you there. If a parent is raising a bad kid, then by all means, take the kid away. But you don't do that by using blackmail and litigation and lobbying to basically stigmatize an entire industry. Which is what Jack Thompson and his ilk or doing.

You are right. They don't give a shit whether or not adults want to play the games; they feel that the games are an affront to their god, and should not be created, period, end of story.

A parent raising a kid the wrong way, and developers making violent video games are two exclusive actions; take away the violent video games, and you'll still have parents raising their kids the wrong way.

And as for the 'parents of the slain wanting the parents of the killers to be held responsible', did anyone actually try sueing the parents of those two kids from Columbine? I remember the parents of the victims going after Smith & Wesson (the guns), id (Doom), Sony (Playstation), the Wachoski siblings (Matrix- that's why they wore the trenchcoats!), Anne Rice (Moody vampire stuff, she has to be involved!), and the makers of Sharpee markers (black markers! They wrote in their notebooks with black markers!), but nothing about going after the parents who ignored their obviously mentally unstable children (or the jocks that made their lives living hell, or the school that let it happen, for that matter)...