Stephen King speaks out against violent video game bill

by Griffin McElroy { Apr 6th 2008 at 3:00PM }

The oft-proclaimed "Master of Horror" never was much of a gamer -- he'll be the first to admit that. That's probably for the best; it would be hard to consistently produce the pants-soiling stories he's known for if he spent his days wasting away in front of his computer, looking for a PUG for the Hellfire Citadel. However, that doesn't mean he'll sit idly by as the gaming industry gets remorselessly hassled by The Man.

In a recent column for Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King decried HB 1423, a pending bill in the Massachusetts state legislature, which would outright ban the sale of "violent video games" to minors -- effectively circumventing the ESRB ratings system altogether. King, who knows a thing or two about violence, dissects the bill as eloquently as you'd expect, saying that politicians use pop culture as a "whipping boy," to illicit a passionate response from fans of the beleaguered medium, and to ignore "the elephants in the living room." Wait, you mean the popularity of violent video games isn't the biggest crisis facing the country? Get out of town!

Tags: column, entertainment-weekly, entertainmentweekly, esrb, HB1423, massachusetts, stephen-king, stephenking, the-mist, themist, violence

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

mr mobius @ Apr 6th 2008 3:08PM

*bows*

OMGOMG @ Apr 6th 2008 11:59PM

Let it be known that SK doesn't just write horror stories.

Here's just some of the stories he's written that aren't horror in nature:

The Body (Stand By Me)
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption
The Green Mile
Apt Pupil
The Dead Zone (I could go either way regarding this one)

John @ Apr 6th 2008 3:10PM

Hippocrate! Just make HORROR books and HORROR movies and just stay quiet. By the way keep a watch out for cars! HA!

Dash @ Apr 6th 2008 3:25PM

It says speaks for not speaks against. Read the damn paragraph before you open you mouth.

Dash @ Apr 6th 2008 3:25PM

*open your*

...I blame it on the keyboard.

PiemanPieman @ Apr 6th 2008 3:29PM

wat

Tamachan87 @ Apr 6th 2008 3:48PM

"Hippocrate"? That conjurs up an awesome image.

But he's pro-gamers not anti. It helps to read first lest you make a complete r-tard of yourself.

Shmil (Brawl Code 2621-2310-1994) @ Apr 6th 2008 3:55PM

@ PiemanPieman
let me fix that for you
*twat

Obie @ Apr 6th 2008 4:02PM

John...wow...just...wow...almost feel sorry for ya.

tc @ Apr 6th 2008 4:13PM

Hippocrate?

He's the singular version of one of the earliest Ancient Greek practitioners of medicine?

Khash @ Apr 6th 2008 4:13PM

hahaha oh man, I don't think John even read the headline. What a tool.

Trickob @ Apr 6th 2008 4:45PM

john, i'm afraid i'm going to have to ask you to turn in your internet license and registration. please don't make any more comments on behalf of the gaming community. we really don't need your help...

Mr Khan @ Apr 6th 2008 3:11PM

Ahh, an Author. People will listen for once

Leospark @ Apr 6th 2008 3:21PM

I would actually like to see what kind of game that he can put out. I'm craving more horror games.

And that being said... this is all Rockstar's fault. They pushed it over the edge with that stupid Manhunt 2. I hate all of their games with a passion. They need to be shot in the face. >=(

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force) @ Apr 6th 2008 3:40PM

Actually, I'd say the downfall of civilized society started with The Flintstones.... damn Hanna Barbara for daring to show husband and wife in the same bed together...

Or, we could be progressive about this and realize the violence in games, even the extreme situations like Manhunt or GTA, are mere drops in the bucket compared to other media and we could actually applaud a company for pushing the line closer to equal standards. But we really don't want that, do we? Because if that line is pushed by companies like Sony Santa Monica, Rockstar, or Monolith Productions, politicians would be forced to quit thinking of gaming exclusively as kids toys and who knows WHAT that could lead to? I mean, suddenly we'd be forced into dealing with the real reasons behind crime rates, the economy collapsing, and the ever widened gap between the rich and the poor. We'd actually have to make positive changes to our society.... that'd be awful.

Benny @ Apr 6th 2008 4:01PM

Just because you don't like Rockstar's games, it doesn't mean that they shouldn't be free to make them.

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force) @ Apr 6th 2008 5:35PM

Sheppy owned hard.

Farseer (GDI) @ Apr 7th 2008 10:13AM

"They pushed it over the edge..." is followed by "They need to be shot in the face."

Ladies and gentlemen, if you are looking for an example of "irony", then look no further.

finnith @ Apr 6th 2008 3:25PM

Well put.

finnith @ Apr 6th 2008 3:26PM

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18133

Everybody should go and read that right now.

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force) @ Apr 6th 2008 5:38PM

"un* gamer".

French slang stole the term "gamer" from English and it uses the masculine form "un" by default. "Une" is feminine and is only used to define females: it can't be used as a blanket term in the French language.

logemerson @ Apr 6th 2008 3:32PM

Stephen King, always doing my home state proud.

Dash @ Apr 6th 2008 3:35PM

Holy crap another person on the internet that lives in Maine. *world explodes*

Benny @ Apr 6th 2008 4:09PM

I didn't know Hell had applied to join the Union.

Dr0ooo @ Apr 6th 2008 3:35PM

Kudos Mr.King

Vegnagun bwf @ Apr 6th 2008 3:39PM

Griffin, do you play WoW? You always put WoW references into your posts. Coincidence?

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force) @ Apr 6th 2008 3:43PM

He'd do me proud if he would do another short story book. For some reason, I fall out of love with his ability to spin a yarn the higher the page count goes. Night Shift remains my favorite book of his. That said, kind of suprising to hear this come from King considering he showed his technophobic tendacies yet again with Cell. Technology bad, rahr!

vidGuy @ Apr 6th 2008 4:01PM

King is, well, a king. I agree that his pacing on the novels kind of sucks. In the short stories there's always something gripping within the first ten pages but here I am 100 pages into a novel and not a damn thing has happened. Boo! Cell was amazing though. Can't wait for the movie.

I'm also surprised by this. Doesn't the man still do most of his writing with a pad of paper or a typewriter?

azuravian @ Apr 6th 2008 4:31PM

Well, you're in luck. His next collection of shorts is due in November.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_After_Sunset

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force) @ Apr 6th 2008 4:31PM

Possibly. he has stated many times that he hates computer.

But you liked Cell?!? Dude, my father, the ultimate King fan, handed me back my copy and simply said "Well that was just an unfocused mess."

I don't know... I'll do a king book every once in a while but I think I left him behind in high school. Then again, I don't read too many horror books nowadays anyway. I mean, I try, but then I get pissed off at bad decisions or missed potential.

I mean, take Dean Koontz's Lightning for example (SPOILER ALERT). The evil Nazi doctor dies halfway through the book, the lead villian, dead. But this was a time traveling story and I was truly disappointed that, instead of the stalker doctor for the rest of the book, we get a generic SS squad. The lead villian went from being a sadistic stalker with a sense of righteous retribution for the betrayal to a group of four SS goosesteppers who's thought was essentially "Hitler say stomp, we stomp." This was a disappointment considering, with the time travel aspect, the doctor could have STILL been the lead villian.

Anytime I read horror novels like that nowadays, I always seem to go through those same motions. Science thriller doesn't annoy me anywhere near as much.

vidGuy @ Apr 6th 2008 4:40PM

Yeah, I don't know what it was but Cell was a page turner for me. Maybe because it felt like a rip-off of The Stand with some Dawn of the Dead flavor smashed into it. My brother hasn't given it back to me yet and I know he's read it at least twice.

King's easily my favorite author though so I'm probably not the best critic. I started at 12 with The Shining and have hit up just about every word he published. Damn shame that I haven't been able to commit myself to finishing the Dark Tower series, still got the last three to go.

Zorink @ Apr 6th 2008 3:53PM

Is a man who writes terrifying books allowed to look that happy are laid back in a picture?

Benny @ Apr 6th 2008 3:59PM

Of course he's happy in the photo - he'd just eaten a schoolgirl.

DangerMouse @ Apr 6th 2008 3:58PM

I don't get why everyone gets frustrated when bills are passed to prevent kids from buying violent games. Gamers getting all antsy over this shit like some insulted their religion. I have no problem with retailers restricting children from buying M rated games. I see his point about not wanting the govt. to act as surrogate parents, but is the bill saying that the parent can't buy the game for their child? If it's really a problem, maybe the ESRB should go back to the drawing board and come up with a more detailed rating system.

vidGuy @ Apr 6th 2008 4:06PM

I think just about everyone here supports the goal of preventing the sale of Mature content to minors. The methods, however, are unforgiveable and unconstitutional. The First Amendment provides a lot more protection than most people know. So far, every one of these bills has limited those protections in some way. I'd support them if they would draft a bill that wasn't overly broad, vague, or arbitrary and didn't effectively censor legal content for adults.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force) @ Apr 6th 2008 4:19PM

I think before you form an opinion on this matter, you should go back to the drawing board by actually reading these bills. Several important key points you'll notice...

1. No other media faces this kind of pressure. Take, for example, films. Movies chop content to get their R-Rating. This would make the film NC-17. Now, games chop content to get the M rating, because this would make them AO. This content gets put back into films as the Unrated DVD version which many stores gladly sell. But they absolutely refuse to sell Adults Only rated games. Likewise, I can hand a child a $10 bill and let him go to borders and buy his copy of American Psycho in paperback which features, among other depravities, having sex with a severed head. Not a finger would be raised in protest.

2. These bills often act outside of ESRB ratings. They use vague terms like "violence" and "realistic" to coin what would and would not be inappropriate. In this way, they can attack any game they want and there would be no preventative measures the industry could take to avoid outright bans in stores. Make no mistake, between stocking a game that could cause them controversy and appearing pious, stores will take the latter. Just look at the Manhunt 2 fallout for evidence. Even channels dedicated to gaming were quick to fold on that one.

3. These bills are often put in place as a violence prevention measure based upon the idea that violent games make people violent. This is impossible to prove and every attempt to bring correlation could not prove causation. So essentially these bills are being drafted under a lie. The communities are being told blatant lies to back support on bills that would hinder and disrupt free speech and an industry which is bringing billions in jobs inside the US. Essentially they'll tax the taxes from the jobs and sales and readily accept this industry as a source of income, meanwhile spitting in their face the entire time.

4. Money spent writing these laws and eventually wasted defending them could be put to better use in programs that could attack the source of the crimes they are trying to blame on gaming. In other words, my own home state of Illinois pulled money (over a million)out of public health and school boards to foot the bill for Blag's big old battle against the game industry. Because the law drafters are never held personally accountable for these actions, they continue to waste away public money just for the votes from soccer moms.

MasterInsan0 @ Apr 6th 2008 4:39PM

The biggest problem with these "keep kids from buying violent video games" bills is that the government has no right to police this sort of thing. I don't want "The Man" telling me how I practice my hobby.

The secondary problem, and maybe the most serious for the game industry, is the fact that a bill like this would effectively turn the M rating into another AO rating (assuming the government allows the industry to continue to self-regulate).

Lone Starr @ Apr 6th 2008 4:02PM

OM NOM NOM NOM

Obie @ Apr 6th 2008 4:03PM

Great writer, great guy. He should write a book about a killer video game!

John @ Apr 6th 2008 4:15PM

I always love starting a roit! So much fun! Thanks guys!
;-)

tc @ Apr 6th 2008 4:46PM

hahahha, you did it on purpose then?

Were I you, I'd quit while i was very much behind. But that's just a suggestion, feel free to continue being an asshat...

ThornedVenom (Harley Quinn Defense Force) @ Apr 6th 2008 5:41PM

What's a roit?

Torgo @ Apr 6th 2008 4:16PM

Elicit, not illicit.

Phil @ Apr 6th 2008 5:31PM

See, I really wish he'd get involved in the gaming industry. We see so many f-ing tom clancy games, I think the horror fans deserve something of his works already.

Cell is being adapted into a movie, isn't it? Let's see one of his other books or movies adapted... Couldn't The Mist be retold from the perspective of the military and have an action game influenced?

insectoid @ Apr 6th 2008 6:01PM

It's called Half-Life. Half-Life's plot was actually inspired by The Mist.

vidGuy @ Apr 6th 2008 6:30PM

The Cell movie is being directed by Eli Roth, the same guy who directed Hostel, and is currently slated for 2009. Not much info here, but keep tabs on it: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0775440/

sp @ Apr 6th 2008 7:39PM

I'm confused. This from somebody who personally censored his own published work by removing the short story "Rage" from the Bachman Books because its school gun violence vaguely resembled Columbine? So he's against restricting minors from video-game violence but he's for restricting us all from reading his own fictitious violence? Don't get me wrong, I think they're both ridiculous and I'm a big fan of King, but I don't get the mixed message. I thought that was one of his best short stories ever and I was upset when I recently looked for it only to find he had personally quashed it. Now you have to buy it from overseas (or possibly ebay) if you want it.

SabreCat @ Apr 7th 2008 8:05AM

The thing is, in that case it was the author's decision. And he'd probably like to retain that kind of control over his work--not allow the government to dictate what he can and can't publish or how.

Myke @ Apr 6th 2008 8:41PM

"Wait, you mean the popularity of violent video games isn't the biggest crisis facing the country?"

Actually, i think rap is cause people hate when rappers say words like gun, and bitch but its ok when places like very public retailer like wal-mart can sell guns. Oh yeah, and nobody never has says the word bitch or even curse in that matter. RIGHT!!!

Anyway, I get tired of people thinking that video games is reason why everything is bad in the world. Like its the reason why the US/Iraq are in war and etc. Its not the developers fault that underage kids are buying their games. Its the retailer and the parents fault. Thats what the ESRB is for. Just like rating system for movies. People need take responisbility for their own actions and stop blaming other enities. PEACE!