New York politicians prepare anti-video game crusade

I'm sorry, but on the list of "Things you can do to prevent violence in scociety" this topic falls so far outside the top 10 it's scary.

Of course, on the list of "Soft targets which require minimum effort to produce maximum media coverage".....

Clearly, with thousands dying in Iraq everyday, the problem is American teenagers playing video games.

Whoops, that should be "every month", not everyday. We're not up to thousands dying everyday... yet.

The future is very dark folks, the government is going to try to control what we see and hear? Fuck that shit.

They should quit giving the psycho that shot all those people all the press, and ban his name from any publications. His name should never be spoken and the victim’s stories should be on the front page.

The media has made this psycho into some kind of record holder, and games are to blame? Why, because games have a high score, or points?

The masses are sick and twisted, and would rather see some incoherent loser rant about his killings on the news or placing blame on something other than the killer.

Now some loser is gonna try to break the record for worst shooting in US history and they will blame achievement points, or geometry wars.

If you dont already have kids, do not have any. The world is gonna go for a shit in the next 20 years.

I don't really get this whole Videogame Industry vs. Politics thing.. My understanding is that they just want it to be a punishable crime to sell games rated for teens or adults to underage kids.. WTF is so bad about that? They aren't BANNING anything. And I sure as hell would prefer a few less 12 year olds in my Ghost Recon or Halo games.

"The better a mass murderer you are, the better you do at the game."

Well isn't this true in real life? The better mass murderer you are, the more your face gets put on TV?

The better mass murderer you are... The more they show of your idiotic rantings with your lame Neopolean Dynamite sounding voice? Then claim "Oh we had to REALLY think about us posting this on TV." Sure you did, it took all of 3 seconds for you to think hard about it.

The better mass murderer you are... The more people try to figure out your pointless fake name you put on your package? Maybe he was just crazy? Maybe we shouldn't care a mass murderer copied a movie.

Maybe until society stops giving positive incentives for being real life mass murderers, maybe then games will stop having positive incentives to mass murder virtually. But so far, the killer of 32 people at a college in Virginia has been given nothing but the attention he so wanted. Maybe we should stop giving killers what they want.

killr0y

You should come and live in the Uk matey. It's already illegal to sell games to anyone under the given age rating, as is it illegal to buy games for anyone under said age.

Kinda like with the fim ratings we have over here.

If you're under 18, you don't get into an 18 rated film, regardless of if your Mum's willing to sit and hold your hand. It just means there are alot less 12 year old nob-heads sat in the same cinema as you, and if that becomes the international standard of video game ratings and keeps the same idiots out of online multi-player than that's also fine by me.

As adults we have a responsibility not to let our kids have access to inapropriate material. However, video games will never solely turn anyone into a high school shooter. If someone's gonna be set off by that kind of stimulus, then they're already pretty un-hinged, and just as likely to be set off by an ice cream van or a pair of brown shoes.

What it can do tho, is turn your kids into nobs, as anyone who's played X-BOX LIVE or who's kid brother has downloaded Super Mario World on the VC can attest to ("WTF ?!! 2D ?!! SUCKZORZ ROFL !!!1!!").

Politicians using such a soft target to shamelessly self publicise to fucked up tho. Want to earn my respect ? Go after gangs, guns and hard drugs in whatever order you want, and show us some of that steely resolve you display when promicing to tackle these hard-core-child-destroying-murder-simulators.

i'm kinda with killr0y on this. i mean yes, politicians, as usual concentrate on the easiest targets to make their resume` look better, but if they aren't trying to ban games from being sold, then who gives a shit? the 12 year olds? screw them, they should be playing shrek and shit anyway. not lost planet or especially manhunt. now dirty jack, as i like to call him, while he's not a politician (yet), he's just a complete dick. the day they want to ban certain games from being sold period, that's the day we fight back. YEAH!

Democrats Suck...

Yeah, honesty I have no problem with legally enforced age restrictions on games or movies. Certain games are violent enough where certain ages should not be playing them. Flat-out, if I had kids, there is no way in hell they would be playing GTA before they left for college in my house. Those kinds of games are for me. :)

@4: Well the RIAA and the MPAA have been attempting to control what you hear and see... Only, not in the way you're thinking.

i would like to quote old man fitz from american beauty ," this country is going straight to hell!"

Isn't GTA4 going to let you be the good guy?

Does anyone else notice politicians are getting progressively dumber each year?
They just keep going after the hot scapegoat topic and don't do anything useful or that really matters.
Thats is, except for the elite few who actually do manage to change things without blaming stupid shit first, but even that number dwindles as more and more politicians try to appease people with and obvious, easy to see solutions(read:Incorrect) just so their approval rating goes up and they will get re-elected.

"and just as likely to be set off by an ice cream van or a pair of brown shoes. "
LMAO,
Well put SuperSneaky, I tip my hat to you.

I wonder if this lady is supporting it:

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/04/18/video-carolyn-mccarthy-doesnt-understand-her-own-gun-control-legislation/

"So, uh, Ms. McCarthy, do you know what a Playstation 3 is?"

"Well, video games are bad and cause people to do bad things."

"Do you know what a Playstation 3 is?"

"No, I do not."

"The gig's up, gamers. The government has had it up to here with all the murders lately."

Well - we've had it with self-serving government officials, Republican or Democrat, who just don't seem to grasp the 1st amendment of our constitution. It's no wonder why us gamers are being trampled over. Are the stereotypes right? Are we too lazy to take on anyone who challenges us?

Grow a pair, America! It's time to start fighting back!

BTW - You can't legislate insanity.

'The gig's up, gamers.'

I believe it should be 'the jig's up'.

-owned-

You know in high school they have you read books about rapes and murders well before you're 18. This is yet another double standard of "art" vs "games".

The single biggest problem in America is we think everything is somebody else's fault, by a few steps removed. The politicians take this one step further by making it policy and getting on the news. Jimmy's not doing good in school? Not his parent's fault because - and here's the kicker - THEY'RE VOTERS, can't piss them off. No, it's the "evil gaming industry" - probably soon to be called "big gaming". When thay phrase eventually pops up it'll be time to light the torches and grab the pitchforks.

Really, the blame game and not taking responsibility for you or your kids own actions is decaying our society like a Black Plague.

killr0y-

That's exactly what we don't want to happen. What you have to understand is, things like cigarettes and alcohol are without a doubt harmful to ones health, and can cause harm to others as well. There is page after page of research proving it.

However, there is NO research at all that proves, without a doubt, that Video Games cause people to kill people in real life.

The problem is, they claim that this exposure to violence desensitizes us to violence. Supposedly it distorts or ability to be able to differentiate between video games and reality. Sure.

However, it is perfectly fine for movies to have a self-sustained rating system. I mean, movies like Grindhouse or Smokin' Aces don't depict violence at all. However, Politicians won't point the finger at Hollywood. They control the media. Bad reputation with the media equal bad publicity. So they get there free-of-blame card.

It is also perfectly fine for musicians (mostly rap artists) to recite lyrics depicting them killing people, raping women, doing drugs, etc. All they get is a "parental advisory" sticker on their album front cover. No one will point the finger at them either. Why? Because politicians don't want to be called "racist". Also, many of the large record companies ALSO control the media. More particularly, the youth media (MTV, VH1, SpikeTV, BET) So there is that free-of-blame card.

Then there is Video Games. They are the new kid in town. They don't have the major backing of huge corporate media conglomerates, so they are the evil ones. Video Games are the ones that get blamed...

Not the fact that some parent let their 8 year old kid spend the weekend going to see 300 on Friday, then playing some GTA on Saturday, followed by a healthy viewing of House of 1000 Corpses with mom and dad on Sunday. The problem is, when a politician reads what I just typed, all they see is "GTA". Not the fact that the parent allowed it to begin with.


People have been off their rockers for eternity. Did Jeff Dahmer play video games? What about John Wayne Gacy? Saddam Hussein? The Manson Family?

No. Not at all.

Politicians need something to blame. They need something to point the finger at so that the general "blind" public will support them in their crusade to re-elected, not stop video game related gun violence.

You do know that the constitution of the US and the Bil of Rights doesn't apply to those under 18. That is why the government can regulate materials aimed at underage individuals.

The government tells you you have to go to school. You can't drink, smoke, or do a whole bunch of other things. Kids also do not have the right to free speech. Besides free speech as it is meant to be in the constitution is free press, where the government cannot supress the media. It has nothing to do with being able to say whatever you want or display any material you want. If you step over the line and impede someone elses right to go about their normal business was to be prohibited. Displaying giant posters of beheaded people on the side of a building for example.

After Hot Coffee there is no way GTA4 is making it on shelves. Its going to be banned from sale, at least in New York. Because of the realism afforded to the game by next gen consoles every polititian is going to use games like this as a sounding board for thier campaign. 2008 is a huge election year and I wouldn't be surprised to see GTA4 at the forefront of a whole lot of speaches. A whole lot of uninformed individuals and swing voters will do anythign for their "kids". Just like when the democrats said that by electing Republicans they would starve children by cutting school funding.

dsub

You raise some very valid points. There certainly is a huge amount of inequality between various rating systems and what get age restricted and what doesn't. I also particularly like the point obout not wanting to blame the voters for being bad parents - rather, it is far easier to target some "big bad" to rail agaist, thus removing the blame for in-effective parenting.

On the whole though, isn't it time, we, as a responsible comunity of gamers, were prepared to open ourselves up to sensible, informed regulation ?

Jack Thomson isn't going to have much of a leg to stand on if GTA is only legally avaliable to people old enough to make an informed decision for themselves, at which point he'll look pretty daft if he thinks your right to bare video games is as potentially dangerous as your right to bare arms.

wow these events remind me so much of that song by eminem heres the link AND its legal.
EXPLICIT CONTENT WARNING
http://mxjake.imeem.com/music/1FLHufqN/white_america/

This is the type of crap that these people in power pull to avert our eyes from the true murderers and terrorists, the Dick Cheneys and Don Rumsfelds of the world.

Dick Cheney: "We blow up brown babies in other countries"

Don Rumsfeld: "Torture is good."

Ah, truth.

And as we know, only the first crusade managed to get to it's goal...and the other ones failed to do so and ultimately ruined the fist.

supersneaky-

I suppose you are right. Once a system would be put into place requiring the ID'ing of gamers buying Mature rated games, people like Captain Jack wouldn't have anything to fight against.

At the same time, I would expect that the content in such games as Grand Theft Auto could get considerably worse. For instance, if such a regulation WAS put into place, Hot Coffee would have likely stayed in GTA and been a regular part of the game. So in the end I guess it can go both ways. If JT get's his way and games are regulated like cigarettes and alcohol then he'd better be prepared for the content in them to get worse now that studios don't have to hold back at all.

Well its been great guys but pretty soon we'll be considered scum of the earth because apparently...we kill people. That will probably be the worst side effect of all these political games. It will set up a social stereotype that gamers kill people. If that isnt bad for the industry, i dont know what is.

So they're all gonna be in one place at the same time, eh? If they honestly thought all kids that play violent games kill people and it has nothing to do with crappy parenting, don't you think they'd be scared to gather like that? lol

@ Iridium

somewhat wrong

Minors DO have the right to most constitutional protections, and, so long as they don't "materially and substantially" disrupt the educational process, can express them in school

Technically, many portents of school dress codes are unconstitutional. Just because I wear a T-shirt advertising Corona doesn't mean i'm going to disrupt the educational process, does it?

killr0y: Government-imposed limitations on the audience are just as bad as government restrictions on the speaker. Imagine in the government told me I could publish a socialist newspaper but only if I sell it to people ages 70 and up. Not only would that be ridiculous, but it would also be unconstitutional. Same situation. Just less severe.

Evidence that violent games actually DECREASE incidents of crime? You be the judge http://cairnarvon.rotahall.org/pics/violentgames.jpg

@Galls

Yeah the repugs have done such a wonderful job...

The only way to fight this nonsense is the way the movie and music industry do: with money and organization. Joystiq, could you find the links to the game industry organization, ask them to get a petition to NYS Assembly going, and put in a link to donate for the cause.

I know 12 year olds dont have money, but I (slightly older at 30) dont want to feel like I am going into a porn store when I buy games. The NY law would require stores to build a separate curtained off area for M-rated games. Its absurd: 12 year olds can see the cigarettes, beer and R-rated movies at walmart, why do they need to be shielded from game covers?!

I know somebody who used to play Grand Theft Auto all the time until one day when his PS2 possessed his body and sent him on a hooker killing frenzy. He stole his neighbors car and went around robbing liquor stores, running over pedestrians and killing every cop that tried to stop him. Along the way he randomly met a bunch of shady gangsters who told him to re-enact every mission in GTA: Vice City in real life. Then suddenly he found himself at school and found a gun in the behind the dumpster that appeared there out of thin air after the evil PS2 telepathically told him to shoot all of the classmates that teased him. He ran into the school and imagined that he was in a first-person shooter as he runned and gunned his classmates who all dropped ammo after they died to fuel his shooting spree. Then finally he ran out of ammo and commited suicide over it.

This is how stupid the politicians are sounding to me. I guess liberal means "quite liberal with their bitching." There is nothing these bottom feeders don't whine about unless it is all tailor done their way. I can't believe that there are actually alot of people who believe this shit. Oh well. In the end they will be seen for what they are. Idiots.