Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room

Violence in Video Games & the Law

(1/5) > >>

Renegade:
From:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20021417-38.html?tag=topStories1

The California law slaps anyone who sells or rents a "violent video game" to a minor with a $1,000 fine. That's defined as a game in which the player has the option of "killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being" in offensive ways. Parents or guardians are still permitted to buy those games for minors.

...


The pro-regulation states also cite Postal 2, saying that the game encourages players to "burn people alive with gasoline or napalm," "decapitate people with shovels and have dogs fetch their severed heads," and "kill bald, unshaven men wearing pink dresses."

California attorney general and gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has said the state should be able to place "reasonable restrictions on the distribution of extremely violent material to children."

...

Which is why groups as diverse as the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the Future of Music Coalition are siding with the video game industry. The coalition warns that if the California law is upheld, it "would lead inexorably to the enactment of new statutes prohibiting violent depictions or descriptions in other artistic media" as well.

...

And it was Justice Sonia Sotomayor who seemed to be the most conversant with video games, asking whether a video game showing a Vulcan "being maimed and tortured" would be covered by the act (answer: no) and whether an "android computer simulated person" would be covered by the act (answer: no). Justice Antonin Scalia was sharply critical of the law, but on more traditional grounds: saying that "it has never been understood that the freedom of speech did not include portrayals of violence."


--- End quote ---

No matter how you look at it, this is a real political mess. There's no winning here.

Still, it will be interesting... whether or not it's a bloodbath~! :D

app103:
The gaming industry could suffer hard if California wins this one, and the public of any age would as well. If California wins, it would place a whole bunch of games in the same category as pornography, which could effectively remove them from most store shelves, making them unavailable to anyone of any age, not just children. And if that were to occur, it is most definitely government sanctioned censorship.

How comfortable would the average consumer be with having to go to an adult book & video store, walking past racks and racks of porn, to buy a copy of Mortal Combat? Most people I know don't want to be seen walking into such a place for any reason, not even to get change for a dollar, so they certainly won't do it to buy a game.

mahesh2k:
Aussies took objection on AVP-multiplayer this spring season. On games like GTA i can understand any objection like violence etc. But AVP is worthy of ban ? I mean seriously, kids can easily differentiate between killing aliens to provoked violence in GTA.

Deozaan:
I hope they also fine vendors for selling R-rated movies and music albums with "Explicit Content" warnings to minors as well, for consistency's sake.

The worst things in (most) commercial video games would probably get a PG-13 rating in cinema, yet time after time legislators try to ban/restrict/censor games while leaving other industries alone. >:(

4wd:
It's always been cheaper, (and easier), to create a law than to educate people.

How comfortable would the average consumer be with having to go to an adult book & video store, walking past racks and racks of porn, to buy a copy of Mortal Combat?-app103 (November 03, 2010, 04:47 AM)
--- End quote ---

I would!  Mind you it wouldn't be for Mortal Kombat but I would for Delta Force: Angel Falls.......and I'd probably stop to look at the pictures on the way :P

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page