HyperNexus

Any kid who were to hear from his parents that they named him Jason to try and win a contest for a year's supply of video games would be in therapy for life...

Why is this man still making movies?

Yeah, it's a shame the Meat Circus was such an exercise in controller-snapping frustration, to quote Yahtzee, because it was really a brilliant game, one of my favorites. Still, doesn't do much to abate my love for the game, and I'm quite pleased to see the soundtrack getting released, the game's music was as good as everything else that wasn't the Meat Circus (though that level did have good music, at least).

I've never heard of this show before, but its suddenly awesome.

This guy is clearly more concerned with the opportunity to bilk money from Nintendo than people's safety. And the Wii is hardly dangerous just because a small handful of people are reckless with it.

This sort of thing makes me want to become a lawyer so I can shoot down stupid lawsuits like this. I don't think I'd even ask for a salary, I'd just enjoy the satisfaction of triumphing over frivolous lawsuits.

It's Christmas in February (or whenever this DLC releases).

Anything Fallout related please.

False advertising charges? Really? That's the angle he's going with there? When both video games and films have ratings that distinctly proclaim what age groups the product is authorized for?

Trying to control the flow of mature games and films to an audience that's too young for them is one thing, but it's not like Gears of War 2 was marketed to little children.

I get the feeling that until people who grew up playing video games become the ones in positions of power in law and the government, we won't see an end to anti-game laws.

Maybe we never will, there will always be people who don't understand things. I once read somewhere something to the effect of "we're all ignorant about something."
Video games simply happen to be something that the generation before ours doesn't understand, and that worries them, which is understandable. It's perfectly human to be afraid of the unknown. It's just sad that rather than try to educate themselves on the matter, they'd rather vilify something that's actually pretty harmless, and place blame on it rather than accept responsibility themselves.

Really, it's up to parents to handle this sort of thing on the individual level. I have to question how effective a law against the sale of games to kids would really be. There's still the internet which has plenty of horrific things to expose kids to besides some violent games (the best and worst thing about the internet: it has everything), many parents will probably still buy their kids M-rated games, not understanding the rating system, or kids will play games at friends' houses, etc. There are myriad ways for people to get their hands on stuff, whether its legal for them to acquire it or not.

Good parenting can do so much more than simply passing a law and saying "eh, good enough, my kid should be fine now." Now, I admit maybe I am in no position to say this, as I am not a parent, and given that I'm still in college, I likely won't be one for a while. But I can cite my upbringing. I've been playing games since I was 8 years old... my parents never really have fully understood video games. They see me killing people in Grand Theft Auto and worry about it. But I remind them that I've yet to go on a spree of violence, and that I also enjoy games with no blood or violence, and they respect that. And they raised me to be a decent human being, and whatever they did worked well enough, I'd like to think I'm a pretty level-headed and caring person.

Now, I believe the flow of Mature games to minors should be regulated. This past Christmas I was deeply concerned for my 12-year-old cousin. He loves video games, and I think that's great.
But what worries me is that frankly, video games may have influenced him in a bad way. My cousin is precisely the stereotypical 12-year-old on Xbox Live who tries to act older than he is that annoys people, and that saddens me.
I played Left 4 Dead with him over Xbox Live recently, and he was the embodiment of the stereotype. He teamkilled me and the bots repeatedly, shot cars with alarms on purpose, and intentionally set our team on fire every time he got a Molotov.
He told me that about 85% of the people he's played with on XBL have him on Avoid status. I asked him if he knew why, and he said he had no idea.

This Christmas my mother bought him Mass Effect for his gift per his request. He also got Gears of War 2 and Left 4 Dead. On the surface that may not be bad, they're excellent games, but what worries me is his insistence on playing Mature games, which he's been playing for years now.

When he came over on Christmas Eve, I had rented Sonic Unleashed a few days earlier and was enjoying it (the Sonic parts, anyway) and showed it to him. He said it sucked after watching for about two minutes. I asked why, and he said it was because there was no gore. When I ran off a cliff and lost a life, he complained that Sonic should have become a bloody splatter on the rocks below. I told him what a blast it was to blaze through everything with such a visceral sense of speed, and he started throwing a hissy fit about wanting to play Gears of War 2. Me and the rest of my cousins wanted to watch a movie, but ended up turning it off because he wouldn't shut up about how Elf had no violence.

I talked to my mom and my aunt about my concern for him. I mean, he's 12. It shouldn't be this way. It should be the other way. He should be enjoying Sonic's innocent, fast fun. I'm in college, I should be the one obsessed with playing only bloody games. But it's not that way. And my mother and his mother don't really grasp the situation. Our whole family knows he can be a headache sometimes, and we all love him dearly anyway just like we do every other member of the family, but they didn't really seem to grasp what to do about his efforts to try being more mature than he is (I've tried telling him that swearing alot on XBL and playing bloody games doesn't make you mature... dunno if it stuck with him at all) and his obsession with games intended for people many years older than him. I asked if they ever considered simply not buying M-rated games for him, and they just kinda... shrugged their shoulders on the matter, not sure if they wanted to deny him something he wanted.

Anyway, the point of that whole thing about my cousin is: video games might have some influence on minors. It may not make them go on killing sprees, but it might influence them in other ways. As such, I do think that kids my cousin's age shouldn't be able to get their hands on M-rated games so easily. But passing a law against games isn't going to do that. What will do it is my aunt putting her foot down and not buying him games meant for people 6 years older than him. My parents forbade me from playing Mature games until I was 15 or so. That was also the age at which they started to relent on their rule against me watching South Park and the like. As a kid, I wasn't happy about those rules. But looking back, I think it really was good for me.

I know this turned into a wall of text (brevity is not amongst my repertoire of skills), but for people who said tl;dr and skipped down here to the end:
It is probably a good idea to restrict minors' access to games (and other media, for that matter) that are intended for mature audiences. But passing a law isn't the way to do it. It's up to parents. If they don't want their kid playing a violent game, a law may help, but the only way for them to be absolutely sure their kid doesn't play it is to make sure of that themselves.

I wonder what future thing our generation will be worried about our kids being corrupted by...

Let's not start a debate over this, please.

Here's the thing: people can (and likely will) debate whether or not Final Fantasy VII is good until the end of space and time, but whether it's good or not is relative.

What is undeniable about Final Fantasy VII, whether you like it or not, is that it was important.

Personally, Final Fantasy VII is one of my favorite games of all time, and it's the reason I really got hooked on video gaming, but that's my experience with it and my opinion of it -- you're entitled to your opinion that it wasn't that great. Let's leave it at that before something less civil erupts.