GamePolitics spent a little time at the Pennsylvania House of Representatives last week for its hearing on violent video games. During the proceedings, a pair of State Representatives questioned the Penn. Joint State Commission about ways violent video games could be targeted. For example, putting a 5% tax on violent game sales, with those funds being allocated to parental education programs. Another suggests withholding tax incentives from companies that make violent video games.
To be clear, the meeting was exploratory, so it's a lot of talk and very little substance -- like most government conversation about video games (www.instantrimshot.com). If you're in the mood for watching congressional proceedings about taxing video games, check out the video after the break.
If this happens, I'll be so angry I'll kill someone.
/rimshot
No seriously, if this went through, all my business would be transferred to Amazon or other internet retailers, circumventing both the tax and the normal PA sales tax. GG unforeseen consequences of government intervention in the marketplace.
If this happens, I'll be so angry I'll kill someone.
/rimshot
No seriously, if this went through, all my business would be transferred to Amazon or other internet retailers, circumventing both the tax and the normal PA sales tax. GG unforeseen consequences of government intervention in the marketplace.
Dude, any politician you elect to take care of your own responsibilities will do this because someone else elected them to do that for them. You can't get all the benefits of a Government given anything without taking all the crap you hate. Either give up the stuff you like or live with the abuse. It doesn't matter what letter they arbitrarily hang after their name.
What the hell? Why are we under assault when the rest of the entertainment industry may do as they please. These money grubbers smell blood in the water.
Don't take it personally, they just want money, NEED money to survive the credit crisis, and will try to get it from laws that the public won't go "Holy shit, we can't stand for this, lets oust these bastards from the office!".
Violent Games are just an easy safe target, for now. Once jobs are threatened, the idea will disappear.
Agreed, the sheer horror of being able to whip around a huge jenga block into a bridge, separating a gorilla family, and sending their mother flying into an abyss of warm and friendly colors could truly turn a young mind to similar violence.
Clearly you haven't played God of War. But no, it's definitely wrong to made legal differences by content, especially when it's also only one genre that's affected.
Watchmen's violence was a bit more realistic and jarring (likely because it was sudden and a bit unexpected). Watchmen also had a better sex scene and an attempted rape with strong violence torwards a woman.
I liked the Watchmen movie, but you will never convince me that there is something more violent out there than God of War. I liked that game too, but it's so over-the-top. You have a case saying Watchmen's violence is more realistic, but it's not more violent, and not worse.
Oh, also, Watchmen had many explicit sex scenes, when games are lucky to get by with a bare breast without starting a media fiasco. R rating equates to M, and both are up to the retailed to decide. So why is it such a big deal when a game has a sex mini-game ala GTA: San Andreas, but when the R rated movie has a drawn out, lengthy, explicit scene it's just rated R and nobody looks at it twice?
What a load of shit. Taxing violent videogames has nothing to do with education and everything to do with profiting. Violence is what sells these days and you can bet your ass some politician will have his or her fingers in the pot. Increased prices will not sit well with the industry or customers, either. If they are concerned about kids getting their hands on these games, then charging consumers or withdrawing money from developers isn't going to help anything. According to recent surveys, most parents understand ESRB ratings and monitor the games their children buy and play. If that's the case, then it shows parents giving consent to their kids, and punishing the industry will solve absolutely nothing.
It's not like the government is swimming in money and looking to expand their profits. They're neck deep in debt and looking for ways to help the economy. Taxing violent videogames would be wrong, but don't act like politicians directly profit from tax increases.
Wouldn't this be taxing adults who already lose a third of their paychecks to state and federal taxes? I'm all for taxing people to keep roads and bridges intact, but this is targeting the wrong demographic. If you want a tax to fund "education" of adults with children, why don't you tax diapers or private schools?
Who do you think pays for diapers and private schools? That's right, parents with 1/3+ of their incomes being taxed. This tax at least would target a large demographic of "kids" whose money is derived from tax-free incomes (mainly because they don't make enough to lose anything to taxes with a part-time job, and if they lose anything it's less than 1% of their total income)
So in other news, the government gains the ability to tax anything they dont like into oblivion. Oh wait...they're already doing that with cigarettes. So I'm going to be happy to turn to piracy in ten years when I've got to pay an extra ten dollars because it's got an M rating. That, or by then digital distribution will be the primary means of getting a game, and as far as I know that's non-taxable...for now.
Either way, it's a good day to not live in Pennsylvania.
We'll all pile into a ship named the Fireflower to escape oppression. Then we'll reach a land where we meet small round brown people with no arms who will teach us how to grow mushrooms. Then we'll jump on them and send them to live beneath the warp pipes. Congratulations. We just founded America II, the low-budget sequel to our life now.
Maybe this will be as succesful as Rendell's idea to make Route 80 a toll road to pay for roads across the state, you know, the proposed law we spent millions researching and then got shot down because it's AGAINST FEDERAL LAW. Boy do I hate my elected representatives.
PA sucks. Tuition at Penn State is one of the highest for any public school in the nation. And we're not getting any of the PA Tuition Relief Act money. That's why I'm moving out of the state in 2 years.
That's because Penn State is some sort of weird hybrid, it's not a public state school but recieves some state funding. The official state schools are Bloom, ESU, Kutztown, etc.
Although tuition did go up after Rendell pulled funding from PSU, I remember that being the first thing he did that pissed me off.
As a resident of the city of Philadelphia, I get taxed enough as it is. I know it's just proposed at this point; and I hope that it never reaches any point other than that. But I REALLY don't need more money taken out of my pocket for silly reasons such as this.
Who defines "violent"? I think Madden is pretty damn violent. Look at Mario, you stomp on animals and burn them to death. Cooking Mama glorifies knives. Scrabble could be considered violent because you can use words like murder, strangle and pederast. Hell, any game with an explosion in it could be considered violent.
I called my rep in the General Assembly, and I suggest you folks do the same. Well, the ones who live in Pennsylvania, anyway. (Find your rep here: http://tinyurl.com/ytn27g )
Be polite, be calm, and stress that creating DISincentives for tech jobs and economic stimulation (read: forcing game devs to never consider PA as an office location and making it harder for gamers to, y'know, spend money on the games they want, respectively) is fantastically unwise given the current economic climate.
You Philly folks had better get on this PDQ or us 'Burghers are gonna come over there and take your cheesesteaks. Srsly.
