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Games Entertainment

Feedback on Government Regulation of Games 31

Posted by Zonk from the woe-is-us dept.
Today, as we're reporting on the House investigation into Rockstar and the Illinois violent games law, Gamasutra is offering up industry responses to a question concerning the role that government should play in games. From the article: "Government legislation would be a disaster. The ESRB rating is a good enough system. I seriously doubt that the number of employees at retail stores selling 'Mature' games to minors is greater than the number of parents who let their children buy the game. If their parents won't let them play it, chances are they have a friend who has it and they play it at their friends' house. If parents want to censor their kids, they need to be the ones to do it; the government is not responsible for raising children. -Cari Begle, Stardock"
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Feedback on Government Regulation of Games More

Feedback on Government Regulation of Games

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) * on Tuesday July 26, 2005 @02:29PM (#13168795)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • The Courts Agree With You, Cari. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tyrsenus ( 858934 ) on Tuesday July 26, 2005 @02:39PM (#13168932)
    "While it is beyond doubt that 'parents' claim to authority in their own household to direct the rearing of their children is basic in the structure of our society,' [Ginsberg v. New York (1968)] the question here is whether the County constitutionally may limit first amendment rights as a means of aiding parental authority. We hold that, under the circumstances presented in this case, it cannot."

    -Interactive Digital Software Association v. St. Louis County, Missouri.

  • Like many other areas (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Tuesday July 26, 2005 @02:58PM (#13169148)
    government would best serve this country by staying the hell out if it can help it. However, things seem to have gotten to the point where the government really can't help it.

    It's pretty obvious that parents on some scale are refusing to take enough of an active interest in the lives of their children to prevent them from acquiring content that may not be suitable for them (or anyone else for that matter). Rather than policing their children, some people would rather have the government do it. If Bob and Jane won't stop little Billy from getting his hands on a "murder simulator" then someone has to, obviously. The government could say, "No! Raise your own damned kids," but would likely find themselves replaced by a government that says "Sure, we'll raise your kids." Some would argue that holding the parents responsible as a good alternative, but which is easier for a government: Give in to the voting public and stay in office or alienate the voting public and get replaced by someone who will give in anyway?

    If anything, the Federal government should stay as far away from this as possible. If California, New York, or Illinois [gamasutra.com] wants to do something about it within their own state, they can go right ahead. What those particular states might want isn't necessarily something that my state might.

    If the government did have to do something on a national level, I'd suggest creating an organization to replace the ESRB, which really has little to no authority or power to do anything other than assign a largely inadiquate lable to any game that is given to it for review. I'd like to see three primary elements of a game catagorically rated: violence, profanity, and sexuality. Games like GTA would score quite high in violence because of the ability to kill anyone in almost any manner, moderately high in terms of profanity, especially given the more recent installments, but on the low end in sexuality even with the Hot Coffee mod. Although I've never played Playboy Mansion, I'm sure that while it would score high in sexuality, violence would probably be a big zero.

    A rating system that scored games based on individual attributes rather than taking it all into consideration and giving it a broad rating that encompasses several different factors. For instance, as one of the comments in the article mentions: "Finally, the ESRB's rating system has a fatal flaw of not distinguishing between games like Halo (scifi, shooting aliens) and games like GTA (shooting cops, sex with hookers, drugs, etc.). They're both rated M. Since AO is retail suicide, everyone avoids it like the plague and it has become useless."

    Having such general ratings really limits an easy method of choosing content that might be suitable for you or your children. An M rated game about bashing someone with profane language and various racial/religous slurs is much different than an M rated game about bashing someone's head in with a claw hammer. you might not mind some raunchy language but violence might sicken you. It's much the same way with movies. A movie can be rated R for excessive violence, language, or sexuality. In a similar fashion you might not mind if your children of age 16 see a movie with a lot of fowl language, but you might not want them to see anything with a lot of sex or violence. A rating system that breaks a game into a few core catagories and gives rating for each catagory would better serve parents and people in deciding which content would be suitable for them or their children.

    • A rating system that breaks a game into a few core catagories and gives rating for each catagory would better serve parents and people in deciding which content would be suitable for them or their children.

      But the ESRB already does this. Next to the rating, there's a synopsis of what caused it to earn that rating (which is already more than the MPAA does in rating movies). All it would take is the parent actually reading the label, and they'd have an idea about why the game was rated in the fashion it w

    • Snap, snap (Score:3, Funny)

      by Safety Cap ( 253500 )

      The government could say, "No! Raise your own damned kids," ~.

      So, just pass a law called The Parental Responsibility Act :

      1. Definitions
        • "Parent" the legal guardian or biological progenitor of the child, who is responsible for raising and caring for said child.
        • "Child" the underage citizen that is placed in the care of the parent.
        • "Age-inappropriate material" is any pictures, text, or audio content that contains materials too disturbing for a child to view. The entity responsible for determining i
      • 4. Legal responsibility for minors

        A parent shall be held liable should insufficient parenting be found as the reason for a crime their child has committed and been found guilty of by the courts. The parent's sentence shall not exceed the difference between the maximum sentence for the offense commited by the minor under the law the minor was tried under and the maximum sentence for said offense under adult law.
    • You are missing what the problem really is. Parents don't pay attention to the current, simple rating system. Making it more complex with scores in each category would help essentially no one. If they can't figure out M is for mature, 17+...having three sections with ratings is going to make their heads explode. The current rating system is fine. People just need to start taking personal responsibility for their children.
    • "An M rated game about bashing someone with profane language and various racial/religous slurs is much different than an M rated game about bashing someone's head in with a claw hammer."

      Amen. I went to see The Devil's Rejects last night, and all I could think during the scene where Otis rapes what's-her-name with a gun was "Hot Coffee is honestly supposed to be worse than this?"

      I find myself in stark disagreement with most ratings. I firmly think that The Devil's Rejects, Sin City, and (not trying t
  • I can't understand why Congress actually waste time and money on stupid things like this.

    Why must everything in this country be cured by legislation? Why can't we as a society take responsibility for our own action and the actions of our children? It's common sense yet nobody, especially the media (for obvious reasons), ever actually says "Hey we don't need you to tell us what we can or can't do".

    • Why must everything in this country be cured by legislation?

      If Congress isn't passing laws, then they aren't doing their job. Their sole reason to exist is to legislate. When you think about it, most laws they pass have already been written a few dozen times over. For instance, how many different laws can you pass making it illegal to kill somebody? Well, if you kill somebody, you are guilty of murder. If that person happens to be a law enforcement officer, then an extra law kicks in (in case the first
  • This is so stupid it makes me nauseous. Where did these whiney politicians come from and why the f did we put them there?

    Sometimes stupidity humors me but now its getting ridiculous.
    It just reminds me of the South Park movie. "Violence is ok, as long as they don't use any naughty words!!"

    Ultimately, this reminds me of a friend I had in college. She grew up in a strict home. She didn't care about video games, so her parents never touched that one, but she did like sweets, which her parents limi
    • Got my driving license just a while ago and I must say, GTA actually made more scared of driving fast and doing tricks.
      In GTA, if I drive fast, in most cases i'll crash my car, in ways I know I can't or don't even want to survive in real life.
      Sure, joyriding makes you not care about the car, but ffs, I _KNOW_ that if i'll drive fast in real life, I'll find myself in a hospital or a morgue.
  • Okay, so we've heard from Hillary Clinton, and the head of the ESRB, and various representatives, but nothing from the people this impacts. I have yet to see an article titled "Parent complains that she didn't know game about hit men killing prostitutes also included sex."

    As far as I know, this law would imapct parents. But the parents aren't complaining. So why is anyone wasting their time passing laws about it? If the constituents aren't interested, why bother? What's the drive?

  • Waste of our Tax Dollars (Score:3, Insightful)

    by robbway ( 200983 ) on Tuesday July 26, 2005 @03:44PM (#13169743) Journal
    These special interest Congressional inquiries are a complete and total waste of American Tax Dollars. Let's compare it with steroid use in baseball. Both are internal issues in a self-regulated system. Both will change their policies to match the perceived societal "norm." Both fixed the problem to the best of their abilities prior to inquiry. There was/will be no new information uncovered by this inquiry. Finally, the "problem" is so vast, it will never be fixed.

    In the case of video games, unintentional Easter Eggs will remain, people will cheat, and people will mod. What is really the key to this issue is that the difference in ratings between M and AO is arbitrary.

  • Where's the value? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Fished ( 574624 ) <amphigory@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday July 26, 2005 @03:54PM (#13169895)
    Customarily, the courts have made it much harder for gov't to restrict freedom of speech when the speech itself has a redeeming value to society. The problem with games like GTA is that it's really hard to come up with some sort of redeeming value for a video game that involves stealing cars (and now, kinky sex.) Our society does have standards, and one of those standards is that car theft is bad. It's also quite hard to find any esthetic value in it--do the makers of GTA leave their cars unattended in downtown areas for the joy of car theft?

    I understand where folks are coming from with the slippery slope aspect of this, but I really think that we would be much better served to focus on protecting speech that is a bit more ... errm... substantial than gory video games.

    • There are at least two values in GTA: entertainment and fantasy. It's always good to be entertained by a game. The visuals, the sounds, the strange animations, and the exploration is entertaining. The fantasy value is when someone kills, explodes, runs over, helps a gang, hinders a gang, or many other types of mayhem and no one is really hurt or damage really done. I'm no psychologist, but I think its great that people can get that out of their system in the fantasy world instead of the real one. The
  • I are one of these much maligned parents. If my 15yo son knows he wants to play Mortal Kombat:Deception with max gore, I'll buy it (his money) and _insist_ he plays. He gets half the purchase price back when he beats the game. The young man is no idiot, nor some precious infant toddler. If he can hack it, he gets it.

    I draw the line at his 14yo sister wanting Britanny's Dance Beat or DDR. _Those_ are cruel and unusual :)

  • The ESRB has done a fine job so far. However, bland "T for teen" or "M for Mature" ratings can only convey so much. Even the more specific stuff, such as "suggestive themes" or "nudity" doesn't really tell parents that much. For example, "God of War" was rated M for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Nudity, and Strong Language. (game site here [playstation.com]).

    The violence primarily consists of killing monsters and an occasional civilian in an extrememly brutal way. (One boss dies from being impaled throug

  • You know.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by vertinox ( 846076 ) on Tuesday July 26, 2005 @05:55PM (#13171236)
    I can think about 50 things that are more important than sex in video games.

    High gas prices and email spam being two of them.

    And then there are those life threatening war related things such as finding WMD's and Osama Bin Laden or just making making a big fuss on why on earth we didn't find either instead of spending all this effort into complaining about sex in a video game.

    It's like complaining that the radio is too risque after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. To sum it up bluntly:

    FOR F***S SAKE PEOPLE WE ARE AT WAR!!! PEOPLE ARE DYING ON A DAILY BASIS AND ALL YOU CAN THINK ABOUT IS SEX IN A VIDEO GAME!

    So... Umm... Yeah... I should write a letter to Hillary, because I would like to see a woman in the Whitehouse, but I think she needs to talk about important issues instead of things like this.
  • last I heard other then porn. they dont. so why should video games as well?

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