Clinton Would Crack Down On Game Content 543
thefickler sends us word that Hilary Clinton has taken a public stand in favor of shielding children from game and other animation content that she deems inappropriate. Quote: "When I am president, I will work to protect children from inappropriate video game content." Politically, this puts her in company with Republican Mitt Romney on the subject of game censorship. Her fellow Democrats are content to let the industry self-regulate.
In your face parents (Score:4, Insightful)
Now parent can focus on what's most important to them... consuming propaganda.
Re:Socialism (Score:2, Insightful)
Clinton is a corporate whore. The rest of the Dems are letting the industry deal with itself but the control is coming from the right and you yell socialism?
Retard.
The gaming industry is obviously young and naive (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Think of the children! (Score:5, Insightful)
Didn't you pay attention to the last election? Those things don't matter. What matters is "family values."
Hrm! (Score:5, Insightful)
A few examples:
Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. A store selling 18+ games to twelve-year-olds should be punished.
Good idea, honestly. Sorry, but I found Hot Coffee pretty stupid.
Again, I approve of that idea, greatly.
After all, this legislation is going to affect underage people, unlike Jack Thompson's ideas of banning such games for everyone.
Big Brother (and Sister) (Score:4, Insightful)
PGA
Re:Well, Screw Democrats then (Score:2, Insightful)
And so are their customers. (Score:3, Insightful)
The game industry has adopted the same solution as the film industry - they rate their product according to age group. The difference is that the ratings are circumvented far more often.
Parents think the word "Game" and their internal association is probably something like "Monopoly". Despite the obvious flaws in the idea that games are like movies, they are very similar in the level of emotionally involving content they can contain. If anything, games can involve you far more emotionally, because they cast you as a protagonist. I had serious qualms about offing little girls in BioShock, even though I knew intellectually that they were nothing but a digital asset in a game database.
I don't think the games of my youth were a contributor to violent behaviour, but who would equate knocking a few pixel squares into each other with real-world violence? Modern game media represents real-world situations with increasing fidelity, and I wouldn't be surprised if the game equivalent of a "video nasty" was responsible for at least a few wet bedsheets if not some more disturbing turns of behaviour.
But the solution is not to ban mature content in games, the solution is to assist the content provider in giving their recommended restriction levels a little more teeth ; if only by engaging in the same kind of marketing campaigns that are common enough to raise awareness of film certification.
Re:Socialism (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Big Brother (and Sister) (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Socialism (Score:4, Insightful)
And before someone goes into a rant about the cost, don't you think spending money on fixing your broken and wounded is better than spending billions on killing others?
I've seen people around here saying "oh but its too hard for parents to monitor games 'cos they'd have to play them".. well there are plenty of review sites (and room for new websites that rates games suitability for kids) that comment in more detail about what's in the game than the ESRB rating.
Re:Well, Screw Democrats then (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well, Screw Democrats then (Score:3, Insightful)
Alright. (Score:2, Insightful)
Really? I meet a lot of parents who rent those games because their kids explicitly ask for them, and maybe, just maybe, the content in video games just doesn't hold a candle to that in television, the internet, and perhaps even their own home lives...
Life's tough. I welcome the idea of a low-bias rating system. I do not like the idea of wasting so much time on government oversight of video games, however. With what's on our plate for the next four years, video games shouldn't even be registering -- blame the reporter for asking or blame Hillary for being so prepared, either way it irks me.
Cruelity (Score:3, Insightful)
Parenting (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hrm! (Score:5, Insightful)
Fining a video game store for selling certain games to minors? Who decides what games are appropriate for minors? When I was 12, a friend of mine and I played Doom II on his Sega Saturn, and neither of us was harmed by it, even when we decided to have fun and run around with the chainsaw, spewing blood all over the place. When I was 14, I got a hold of a copy of GTA 3, and my friends and I thought it was great fun to run around shooting cops with a rocket launcher, and again, nobody was harmed by it.
What counts as a harmful game? "Hidden sexual content?" I wasn't aware that 12 year olds were harmed by sex as depicted in the GTA games. It is a stretch to claim that after playing a game like San Andreas, teenagers were running around, joining gangs, picking up hoes, and killing cops. If a teenager has emotional problems to begin with, or has trouble distinguishing the fantasy presented in a video game from reality, then they need professional psychological help.
Just how far do we take the "harmful" label, anyway? Is it more harmful to be in a game where your character is a gang member shooting cops, or a game where your character is a pilot dropping bombs over Vietnam and Iraq? Are both games harmful? What about a game where you are a wizard, who throws bolts of lighting at your enemies and electrocutes them? What if the Ender's Game novels were made into a video game; would that be harmful to youth? For that matter, why hasn't Ender's Game been taken off the shelves, or subjected to an age requirement: Ender murders a few of his classmates, with his bare hands, and then leads an army to commit genocide. Why isn't Mrs. Clinton calling for a crack down on violent novels as well, which describe violence in quite a bit of detail, far more than a video game can (video games can only provide a visual and audio reference; a written work can describe all the senses in a single passage)?
Of course, video games are an easy target, just like music was an easy target in the 80s and 90s, or hippies were an easy target in the 60s and 70s, or Jazz singers in the 20s. A candidate who wants to say they are protecting our youth only needs to find an easy target, and they are good to go: Lieberman chose Marilyn Manson, Al Gore chose Twisted Sister, and Hillary Clinton chose San Andreas. I doubt that any of them actually care about our kids, except to try and get our votes.
Subject needs fixing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Fixed that for you.
Honestly, I doubt that H. Clinton gives one whit about games. But her focus groups tell her it'll get her a couple points with the "Think Of The Children" voting segment, so she'll say she's "against violent video games." She'll say whatever'll get the voters off to get elected (the same can be said of many politicians).
On a somewhat related note, Ms. Clinton has always struck me as the kind of person who, if presented with a pistol and a note from that stated if she killed the people on the attached list, she'd be out the door, gun in hand, before checking that the thing was even loaded.
Re:Well, Screw Democrats then (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not if the parents approve?
If your legal guardian feels that you are old enough and responsible to enjoy said entertainment then it should be their right. It should also be their right to prevent their child from playing such things if they so desire by not giving the money to their kids in the first place and/or monitoring their internet activities.
If you bring up tobacco and alcohol, those things are of course dangerous and have been scientifically proven to cause harm. That said, once you are 18 then I believe you should be able to put whatever into your body you feel like, but a parent giving his kids cigarettes is about as negligent as giving them some mercury or cyanide to play with.
Video games and even content of pornographic nature has never been conclusively shown to cause physical or mental harm to the average human. Yes, there are cases where people play a video game and flip out (like kids jumping out of windows because they thought they could fly like in Pokemon), but the same thing could be said about a psycho who reads the Bible or Koran and kills someone because he claims god told him to do it.
Again, if a parent feels their child can handle it or just don't care, they'll buy it for them anyways. Its kind of just stupid to have more laws on an issue that in reality is a moot point.
Re:Well, Screw Democrats then (Score:3, Insightful)
1) The **creation** of video games that are not appropriate for children
2) The selling of adult video games to minors
The problem with #1 is that it is blatant censorship. The problem with #2 is that any video game that is not appropriate for children will be immediately pulled from store shelves. No retailer will want to run the risk of accidentally running afowl of the law. Walmart especially will pull the things on "moral grounds." So in effect, it *will* be censorship, albiet indirectly.
R-rated movies are not criminalized. Children can't get into them without an adult, but you don't see people being hauled off to jail because some child slipped through the cracks. It's the parents' job to police this stuff. We don't need the government to say, "Parents, you can't do your job so we'll do it for you." And parents who say this is "good for them" because it "make parenting easier" shouldn't have kids in the first place. They are trying to say they don't want all of the responsibility of parenting. If they can't handle it they shouldn't have had kids. Not only that, but to think that you'll be able to 100% shield your kids from 'the real world' is a pipe dream. Even if you are able to effectively shield your kids in such a way, once they leave the nest they will be ill-prepared to deal with the world at large. (it should be noted that this causes some kids to 'go crazy' as in 'party hard' and 'sex it up' which is exactly what over-protective parents are trying to prevent in the first place. i.e. their over zealous efforts can be counter-productive)
Criminalizing the sale of violent video games to minors won't stop children from getting their hands on them anymore than it would stop children from sneaking into R-rated movies. If all other avenues of distribution are 'sealed up,' they will just play the video game (or see the movie) at their friends' house down the street (the friend whose parents bought the game or movie for them because they either don't care or don't care enough to figure out what is age-appropriate).
Re:Well, that decided it for me. (Score:3, Insightful)
I like Kucinich, but know he is terribly unlikely to win the primaries let alone the general election.
Re:Well, Screw Democrats then (Score:2, Insightful)
Filip
Re:Title is incorrect... (Score:4, Insightful)
That makes some sense - just like rating movies.
Ok, But that's what we have NOW. We have a voluntary ratings system that the industry standardizes on. Same as the movie industry.
The catch is they're trying to make it illegal to sell these games to minors, which, well, yeah. That's a bit beyond what they currently have going in the film industry. Yes, if you're 14 you'll been shooed out if you try to see a R rated movie, and most rental stores will stop you from renting "Faces of Death". But it's not outright illegal. And most retailers and rental stores will shoo you away if you're not old enough to buy a M rated game. But again, not illegal if the occasional kid slips through.
Proponents of "video game regulation" aren't really interested in the market, or even protecting kids. They know that 99% of people over the age of 30 think "Pong", "Pac-man", and "Space Invaders" when they think video games, and are exploiting them wanting to make sure the industry stays that way. It's a cheap political ploy, nothing more.
Re:Socialism (Score:4, Insightful)
Take the following scenario, you are in a car accident, or been shot. Would you want to be shot or in a car accident in say Mexico, or say Norway? This is important because the quality of emergency care you get is a result of the quality of health care. So if more people die in America due to accidents or gun shots then you have two reasons; bad drivers and lots of guns killing people, and health care that is not capable of dealing with those situations.
What you are doing by removing accidents and homicides is being selective in your statistics and focusing on those people that don't do dangerous sports, or do anything that might bring harm on them. Not a good idea...
Re:Socialism (Score:4, Insightful)
The entire point of stats aren't to give credit to your cause. While that is the popular thing to use them for, it is to see where the problems are or the trends. Lets put it this way, If more people are dieing from gunshot wounds in one country where guns are legal for everyone to own then in another country where only government officials, law enforcement or military people can have, the problem isn't the medical treatment, it is the presence of guns. When you do something like a comparison of countries, you have to look for places where things are severely different and find a way to normalize them. Poor people in the UK don't have cars, so normalizing the effect of motor vehicle accident makes sense. Average citizens in the UK and Japan don't carry guns, some can in the US, normalizing for this needs to happen.
So yes, it is entirely appropriate to make a fair comparison. Even when it doesn't agree with your world view.
Re:Well, Screw Democrats then (Score:4, Insightful)
On the contrary, you should never STOP debating it and you should strie to make sure the politicians know that whichever of them does it more will be losin votes. Make them compete about who will do it the least.
Re:Socialism (Score:3, Insightful)
"The United States had the highest breast cancer survival rate, the highest cervical cancer screening rate and the lowest smoking rate."
According that article, no one is best.
The problem with the United States is that people don't take care of themselves. The best health care system is worthless if the people themselves don't care. Preventative care (should) start at home.
Re:Hrm! (Score:3, Insightful)
Irrelevant. Whether a National ID system works for another country has no bearing on whether it will work for us. No government can be trusted completely, but some can be trusted in ways that others cannot. Given the nature of our Federal Government today, and where it is heading, I can't believe that a National ID card would benefit of the citizens of this country. Oh, it would make some things convenient, but the downsides are too great. I'm certainly not willing to take the risk, and neither would you, if you were to really think about it for a minute or two.
How any American could find a National ID card to be a good idea is beyond me. The United States Federal Government is already far more powerful than it needs to be, than the Founders intended it to be, and giving it even more authority is just stupid. Many State governments are already aware of this, and are refusing to implement Congress' Real ID scheme/scam or any derivative. There's a reason for that.
Re:Well, Screw Democrats then (Score:3, Insightful)
I sure did. In fact, my parents were serving themselves and I was a pre-teen. I tried it and didn't like it. I didn't have an interest in alcohol until I was in my mid-twenties. I was also exposed to cigarette smoke before I hit 18, and have no interest to chain-smoke.
I say let parents do some parents and only get into trouble if there is some obvious deleterious issue that manifests itself. If the kid ends up well adjusted, then the parents did fine.
I'm sure as hell going to expose my kids to alcohol before someone else beats me to it. Same goes for violent video games.
Re:Hrm! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Socialism (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well, Screw Democrats then (Score:3, Insightful)
Kids are inexperienced, but they are not grievously stupid as so many adults assume them to be. If you can figure out that there is a difference between the blocky polygonal world inside the TV and the non-blocky, non-polygonal world that is not stuck in the TV, so can they. The youngest children who may not be able to discern this are more likely to be scared of the bad man running around with guns and a chainsaw than anything else.
The average middle-class white boys who generally cause these massively-hyped school shootings will continue to do so whether or not they play violent video games. This is not just a matter of "lulz i liek beating peoplez up in gta, don't take it away plz". This is also a matter of children's lives. What if we were spending the time and money that we waste fighting about video games on finding out why they want to kill people to begin with? We would be able to find and help these kids before they snap. They might actually end up OK, and their victims would still be alive.
Instead they snap. They end up dead or in jail. Their victims end up dead.
By holding up actual progress with their anti-game bullshit, idiots like Clinton have more of a part in these deaths than any Rockstar developer ever did.
Re:Socialism (Score:3, Insightful)
You must have been watching FOX news again, because you are full of shit. People are routinely refused treatment or medication because they cannot pay for it. I guess you are referring to the required MINIMUM treatment at certain emergency rooms. Such treatment options suck because A: If your symptoms do not meet the definition of immediately life threating or subject to causing severe permanent disability you will be refused treatment. B: The law requires a MINIMAL level of treatment only mostly focused on stabilization. C: They are horrendously expensive to us all since only the worst cases go through them, cases that could have been managed at much lower cost in a normal clinical setting. Quit spreading lies misinformation.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
Go ahead people mod me down or ignore me yet again because I take an unpopular stand. I can take it because while I do care about how the spread of ignorance, misinformation or plain old FUD screws up our world, I don't care what idiots think about me personally.
For once I don't really disagree with her (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree with her on this as much as I did "It Takes a Village [wikipedia.org]. Unless and until science can proof these games harm children there should be NO LAW about them.
Falcon