Parents back legal ban of violent vidgames sales to kids
But what if you change the question?
The war between the video games industry and critics who think that playing violent games are harmful to children moves to the US Supreme Court in November.
The games industry may well be in a minority, if a recent survey conducted for a pressure group called Common Sense Media is representative of the public at large.
According to its August poll of 2100 US adults, 72 per cent back laws to ban the sale of ultra-violent or sexually violent video games without parental consent.
But turn the question on its head, the Entertainment Software Association retorts and ask American adults if video games should be afforded the protection of the First Amendment, and 78 per cent of adults agree, according to its research.
Common Sense Media has filed an Amicus brief in the US Supreme Court's examination of the constitutionality of a 2005 California law which bans the sale of violent games to children. The law was struck down by a federal judge citing First Amendment free speech issues before it could go into effect. Since then California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has appealed the decision and lost. Last year his administration petitioned the Supreme Court to consider the issue once and for all.
The Supremes will hear oral arguments in November.
The ESA says the industry's voluntary ratings system, which sees the sales of 'M' rated games banned to minors, works well and that games should not be treated any differently from any other form of First Amendment protected material, such as books, music and films.
The nuances of this argument are a little hard to grasp, since the outcome is the same, whether enshrined in law or not - that minors can't buy "M" or "AO"rated games from stores. Presumably, punitive sanctions may differ, or maybe it is just a point of principle that the two sides are going to war over
The ESA argues that in any case playing violent games causes no psychological or neurological damage in youngsters. As a parent of teenagers who play video games, some violent, from time to time, I side with the ESA on this.
It's Facebook wot's evil.
The ESA has marshalled its arguments against the California law here.
COMMENTS
hmmm...
or maybe the parents could, you know, parenticise their offspring
It's the games wot dun it!
It's always some other reason that little Chad / Chastity goes on a killing spree. Games, pornography, movies. It's never the parents' fault.
Assuming a similar grading is imposed in the US that we enjoy here in the UK (15 & 18 rated games), how about these questions:-
"Should stores who sell adult rated games to minors be presecuted?"
"Should parents who purchase adult rated games for minors be prosecuted?"
a little bit of everything
I don't think that a little bit of the violent games will turn a kid into Manson (pick whichever one you want), then again some games contain *subjects* that are inappropriate for kids even sans-violence.
So i'll just throw the obvious out there and grab my coat: Parenting (you know, actually *raising* your kids right) is the key. The problem is that in (perhaps too) many cases, parents are woefully ignorant of what they're kids are up to (and sometimes couldn't even be bothered).
Oh! And btw, if you want to actually learn something about the games your kids are playing, taking all your cues from people who don't know shit squat on the subject is no way to go (i.e. the complete tards on the news, or the cretins on the panicky soccer mom forums, etc.).
Cheers.
What's the difference between voluntary and compulsory?
Simple: with the an industry-wide voluntary ratings system and corresponding voluntary policies on the part of the retailers, then the simple fact that if someone screws up and sells a game to a kid with a fake ID, then no one gets fined, no one goes to court, no one gets sued, and no one wins an election "cracking down on crime" by harassing merchants. Free speech never enters into the discussion with regard to a voluntary system either, as there is no *governmental* interference. However, the instant the government, which *can* fine and send people to jail steps in, it's a whole different set of conditions and there's a whole different set of laws governing whether or not it's permitted in the first place. Even if the stated goal is exactly the same.
What do they really want?
"72 per cent back laws to ban the sale of ultra-violent or sexually violent video games without parental consent"
I suspect most of that 72% just want something to stop their children buying 18/M rated games from shops; the ESA ratings would seem to meet that requirement. As ESA say, I don't see any reason to treat computer games differently from movies.
