The ban wouldn't work anyway. The kids would just get it of the net (torrents or such) or burn a copy from on older friend.

I don't think it will be long before there's a fully-pornographic game, with well-rendered models and realistic (sorta) hardcore sex.

About five years ago some people who owned a cgi company asked me about the legal implications of doing something like this. I just passed them off to someone who was more knowlegeable then me. I'm surprise they haven't released a game like that by now.

I don't think the problem here is that these things are being sold to children. The problem is the parents are letting their children buy these things. The government should not be involved in the raising of children. The industry has parental notifications on all of the products. The system works exactly the way the Movie and TV rating systems work. I think this is sufficient. If the product is labelled and the parents still allow their children to buy it, I still don't see how it is the government's responsibility to pick up the slack. It is the parent's job to raise the kid.

Someone tell me how this is different from governmental regulation of books or movies. If we are only preventing certain ones being sold to children, then why is it bad for books/movies, but peachy for games? Yet I don't see Hillary (or Ace) clamoring for the regulation of either of those.

First of all, thanks for the link!

If the censorship, libertarian, expanding government control of media and “Disingenuous Senators” points don’t sway you, how about these:

The economics of small developers (like me). I will most likely be forced out of business by federal regulation even though I don’t write violent/sexy games.

The complete waste of federal dollars to defend this bill (once signed) all the way to the SCOTUS, where it will be properly shot down.

The shift of responsibility from parents to minimum wage retail clerks.

The unfunded mandate to retail stores that sell games.

The software thievery issue, i.e. the kids will get the games via software thieves who don’t check ID.

The thought that, once regulated, game makers will be immune from lawsuits and public backlash (the Gov’ment approved it to STFU) and will be unrestrained in what they produce. If you think GTA is bad, just you wait until there are no checks on publishers.

If you find Tipper Gore’s actions in the 1980s reprehensible, how can you not find this bill equally so?

The shift of responsibility from parents to minimum wage retail clerks.

Seven-Eleven and all liquor stores are crying you a river right now, Hoss.

I think part of the unexpressed reservation about measures like this is that kids buy a lot of this stuff, making it commercially viable, meaning that adults who might want a very violent or hypersexual game can buy it too. Without teenagers buying some of this stuff, there's just not enough of a market for it to make it a decent seller, and thus it won't be made at all, and therefore yes, indirectly, keeping it out of the hands of kids also may keep it out of the hands of adults. Adults, to some extent, are free riders on the market for inappropriate entertainment sold to children and teenagers.

Bingo. Glenn Reynolds and Reason Magazine libertarians are basically adolescent boys in their tastes and attitudes. They know if this stuff isn't being sold to other people's kids there won't be a market for it, eliminating its availability to them.

I didn't mean that to sound so uncaring, 7 Sins.

But my point is that many industries selling adult products rely upon minimum wage clerks to check for IDs before selling to young-looking customers. This is not an unprecendented burden.

Whoa, whoa, whoa-- HOLD ON THERE, Ace!

There are Japanese videogames about picking up bikini girls on the beach and then having sex with them??

Man, America sucks.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

The economics of small developers (like me). I will most likely be forced out of business by federal regulation even though I don’t write violent/sexy games.

Why would this affect you?

The complete waste of federal dollars to defend this bill (once signed) all the way to the SCOTUS, where it will be properly shot down.

It's a tough call, but SCOTUS isn't automatically against laws carefully-tailored to keep pornographic materials out of the hands of children, are they?

I mean, it's not legal to buy an x-rated movie if you're 11, is it?

If such laws have passed constitutional muster, why not this one?

The unfunded mandate to retail stores that sell games.

Well, you're using the word "unfunded mandate" to simply describe a law restricting what you can sell. Again, 7-Eleven lives under this "unfunded mandate" regime as well.

The software thievery issue, i.e. the kids will get the games via software thieves who don’t check ID.

So? If you shouldn't be selling this stuff to kids, what's it matter if kids obtain it freely?

Kids can get a hold of porn, cigarettes, and booze through different means, but that doesn't mean we scrap the laws against selling such things to kids just because it cuts into vendors' profit margins.

Do these children have parents or do they generally fend for themselves? If they have parents, perhaps the parents can, you know, assert some control over what games the kids play. Call me crazy, but I don't think that's the government's job.

Uh... Mr "It's Old" is surprised? Where the hell have you been? Ace's description just scratches the surface.

Learn...and Despair. (All following links should be considered Not Safe For Work)

Jlist H-Game Listing

Something Awful H-Game Reviews

J-Mate H-Game Reviews

Seven-Eleven and all liquor stores? I Booze, cigs and porn are stuff that smart teenagers can hide from parents pretty well (or so I have heard...). Video Games are time consuming, location based and pretty much visible to anyone who cares to look. If your kid gets drunk under the bleachers, he can sober up before seeing a parent, same for cigs (unless you regulate breath mints).

Anyway, add that to the pile of stuff that does not move you.

What about the other points?

BTW: I thought it was funny, not uncaring.

It is very hard for people under 18 to buy or rent restricted games in my experience.
Most retailers dont sell the games to minors, just like most bars dont serve drinks to underage customers. Some do, but most dont.

I think that it is mainly parents who buy games for children. Even if the parents arent directly buying the games, they are the ones paying for them.

this is just an issue for politicians to run on and pretend that they have family values.

"Heres some free condoms kids. Dont worry if they break- we wont make you notify your parents when you have the abortion. Just make sure you dont rent any Mario games. We wouldnt want you stealing peoples gold coins or attacking gorillas in the local zoo."

Cross posting....

Anyway, how it affects me is pretty much detailed in the post you linked. To summarize, it adds to my costs because I have to submit to a rating review, which a ridiculous because I write casual adult games. I already lose money on many games I produce, this adds to these loses. As retail space is reduced, a bigger percentage of that real estate is taken by the big publishers’ products, further reducing my profitability.

With less retail space comes lower selection. With lower selection comes crappy quality.

Hope you enjoy choosing between Madden:503, GTA:43 and “Stupid Movie based game”:22. Maybe “Brownback Mountain” will be a good game…

There is a bigger issue here about the libertarianism of Glenn Reynolds (Ryan Sager is even worse). It's a petty, cosmetic form of the ideology that measures freedom by: how much porn is being shoved down people's throats and corporate welfare for embryonic stem cell research. Hayek put it best in The Road to Serfdom quoting Kant, "Man is free if he needs to obey no person but solely the laws". Rule of Law in other words. Then later on in the same book recognizing that economic freedom is the pedestal upon which all other freedoms sit upon. With reductions in economic freedom causing the most damage to freedom overall, as though yanking out the tablecloth pulls all the dishes and silverware with it. You would never get any of this from Glenn though, he's too worried about porn.

YAY Karol!

So? If you shouldn't be selling this stuff to kids, what's it matter if kids obtain it freely?

Isn't the point of the ban to keep this stuff out of the hands of kids? If they are going to get it "freely" (or more accutrately "out of my hide") why put me out of business?

Having played GTA (grand theft Auto), those games are definitely not appropriate for children, because they give them missions to committ atrocities, and encourage random violence. Amoral.

Hollywood video, and Blockbuster dont rent these games to kids. Walmart doesnt sell them to kids. Whos buying them? Parents.

How in the hell can a kid hide a game like GTA that takes hours to beat? Simple. Either their parents dont care if they play violent video games, or they dont pay any attention to their kids at all.

Sinner:
I think you bring up some good points, and I'll add more, but it still seems to come up short.

In my industry, government regulations (mostly passed by those who, ironically, rail against "Big Business") are so confiscatory that they can only be afforded by the very same "Big Businesses". It also seems that regulations don't seem to have the impact that is wished for, and only serve to drive more businesses underground. You could also make the point that, with e-commerce developing as it is, mail order sales of these regulated games will undoubtly rise due to fraud.

Having said that, as much as I despise the "for the children" (spit) excuse for passing the most ridiculous laws we have, we do have an obligation to police what our children are involved in, and can expect reasonable assistance from the stores we patronize as well. That the results may either raise the price, or possibly eliminate some games from reaching the market, it is also a cost of doing business. The argument that kids should get their hands on product in order to establish better volume in demand and production is somewhat spurious. Good luck in all your future products. I will be looking over your site to see what you make and distribute.

Picking up girls in video games? Am I the only person who remembers Liesure Suit Larry?

Wow, that game was cool. The women in the games were great, too. Not like today's women with their restraining orders and pepper spray...

Yeff,
I only played LLL in Vegas. SOME of the women may have been great, but others gave (Mr. Laffer) VD. Ouch. Or the pimp got me, um, Larry.

Thanks Tom M.

The more I write ion this topic, the more I realize that the central issue may not be anything we have discussed here but the differences in what we think about games.

To me games are closer to art and literature; to some games are porn, booze and cigs.

I would wager that my team and I spend more time on our games than many novelists or screen writers, but our products are lumped in with Hustler, Rainer Beer and Camel Lights instead of with “Brownback Mountain”, Glenfiddich and Cubans. If you thought of a game like a fine wine instead of Mad-Dog 151, you might think differently about censoring the games.

When people burned books because they were bad for kids or had the “N”-word in them, it was bad. When the descendents of these people want to ban violent video games, it is good. PC is PC and it is all bad.

But then again, I am personally involved.

Sinner:
Most of the newer games I have been playing are recommended by my Thirteen year old son. He has moved me from Tie Fighter through Mech into games where my choices mean more, such as KotoR 2. I always shop with him and check out the box, but if I find that the subject matter warrants it, I will allow him to buy a Teen, or maybe a Mature game.

Comparing the proposed regulation to book burnings or "banning" is inapposite. Plenty of worthwhile material, even art, may be kept from children without a police state. "Showgirls" was NC-17, so I couldn't legally watch it when it showed in theatres, but the ushers didn't wear jackboots.

I think of good video games like good art, but I don't think all good art is appropriate for children. Nor are all good video games.

As for it being parents' responsibility: well, duh. Just like it's a parent's responsibility to keep an eight-year-old kid from driving a car or it's a citizen's responsibility not to go on a killing spree. Writing a law doesn't absolve people from their responsibilities, it's a recognition that plenty of people are irresponsible.

A person can become a parent without being especially responsible (indeed, that makes some people significantly less likely to reproduce). While we are forced to trust parents with many decisions about their children, we also recognize that some parental options are always a bad choice. Hence, we trust parents to decide what kind of medical care the kid gets, but some vaccinations are mandatory because the mere fact that you would choose otherwise is itself proof that you are a bad parent. Likewise, we generally let parents decide what kind of books or video games a kid can have, but if the kid is reading "The Erotic Poetry of Al Franken" or playing hentai, we can safely assume the parent cannot be trusted.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't think that the MPAA ratings system for movies was legally enforced. That is, I think that submitting your movie for a rating is voluntary, and there is no law compelling theater owners not to allow, say, ten-year-olds into a picture rated NC-17. Compliance is voluntary.

The MPAA ratings system seems to work well with voluntary compliance, and I think the ESRB ratings are well-handled, so why the rush to make them legally enforceable? Isn' t the movie model good enough?

Good point on the MPAA: I don't know how I got confused about that. Yeah, there's no legal impediment to showing an NC-17 movie to a kid per se, although if the movie happens to be legally obscene it may be illegal in the particular jurisdiction.

I'd prefer to have the ESRB remain a voluntary system, provided that it works well. If we decide that the ESRB needs to become legally enforceable, however, I don't think that's cause for conjuring images of Nuremburg.

I have no problem with selling adults as much death, sex and violence as they can handle, but not kids. If children can be barred from purchasing porn or watching an R or NC-17 flick, then there is no reason why video games should not be similarly restricted as regards children - this is ground well traveled not the crest of a slippery slope. Think of it as the video game industry's coming of age.

Ace, you're completely wrong on this. Video games are being targeted because politicians can use them to sway the emotions of people who have little or no direct knowledge of the products and regard the entire category as kid's stuff.

Consider how wretched our choices for books, movies and TV would be if they got similar treatment. Hillary and her ilk wouldn't dare suggest banning 'The Sopranos' despite ample evidence it has been viewed by millions of children. The difference is that there isn't an ambulance chaser out there trying to claim Tony Soprano taught his teen-age client to start a criminal gang. (Not while being taken seriously in a court of law.) Somewhere in the world there are almost certainly some young criminals who got ideas from that show but it's understood that they weren't brainwashed and made choices that the majority of other their age would not.

The difference? It would piss off a huge middle-age voter spectrum if you talked about taking away their entertainment because they should "think of the children." This is about playing on the emotions and not on a genuine problem. Despite the massive attention drawing of incidents like Columbine the crime stats make it plain that the generation of kids who've been exposed to violent games their entire lives are far less violent than my own generation which had only the Atari 2600 to corrupt us. We had to go out and do real violence to see blood with better resolution than 1 cm square pixels.

About these Japanese games, thinking it through makes your argument fall apart even more. Japan is chock full of outrageous porn packaged in ways that would be regarded as targeting children from a US perspective. Yet Japan has a far lower incidence of the kinds of overt behavior we believe this will cause our children to display. Can it be the Japanese parents simply know how to say no? Can it be that they manage to create a sense of societal responsibilty in their young? Trying out some of this material reveals something else.

It's boring.

Making a game of sex itself just doesn't work. Mike Saenz first demonstrated this in 1987 with MacPlaymate. Yes, so long ago it was in black & white. We at Cinemaware all wondered if this was a harbinger of the future but found that the novelty wore thin very quickly and was actually quite difficult to come up with a decent play mechanic that would hold any interest after the depiction of simulated genitalia stopped being remarkable for its own sake.

Read the Hentai game reviews on Something Awful (which have already been linked above) and note that the games worth playing are ones that work as games that would be engaging without the XXX material. Most of them are just garbage that tries to qualify some value with the porn images. But that stuff can be obtained on its own without forcing one to work for the payoff.

As for the potential of state of the art CG being applied to porn games, dude, where have you been? There were porn games on the Apple ][ back in the 70's. Other than Sierra On-line's Softporn Adventure most of them got very little retail exposure. Not because 'of the children' but because the typical retail outlet for computer software didn't handle porn of any kind.

Since the aforementioned MacPlaymate in the 80's the interactive porn industry has kept pace with every advance. Jenna Jameson lends her name and image to a PC product that has you doing pretty much the same stuff almost twenty years later. It's all 3D now and much more realistic but again it gets old pretty quick. A DVD of the real woman is more engaging (at least for a few minutes) and a Rated E for Everyone Nintendo game a better interactive experience.

So the high-tech porn is already out there but it isn't the focus of Hillary's nonsense because she knows damn well that no major retailer is offering it to kids if they carry it at all.

Until the physical sensations can be decently simulated, CG porn has little advantage over existing non-interactive video. Even then, men will still behave like men. After climax they'll still roll over and want to sleep even though they'll use the same equipment to spend hours pretending to kill mythical beasts with archaic but magical weapons.

The chances of a game revolving around explict sex being pushed in the mainstream of material on the shelves of Wal-mart and Best Buy is pretty low for the exact same reason porn movies tend to be lousy as movies once you look past the naked bodies. They're sold on the porn part and the target audience doesn't want to wait. The rest of the movie could be the best thing since 'The Godfather' but if they wanted to see that they would have chosen that. Likewise, it can be annoying when you've chosen a movie for its dramatic qualites and it becomes so mired down in sex it becomes tedious. (John Barnes' book 'Mother of Storms' got really annoying by bringing the plt to a grinding halt for prolonged sex scenes that didn't advance the story.)

Sure, we get movies with bits of gratuitous nudity but 'Trading Places' would still have been a successful comedy without Ms. Curtis' magnificent mammaries. That just happened to make it a better movie. (I've long thought there should be an Oscar category for gratuitous nudity.) The important thing is that just about everyone can remember a fair bit about that movie beyond the boobs. Other movies with fabulous bodies on brief display are all but forgotten because they had nothing else going for them.

Porn sells on its own merits but a product that isn't solely porn can be ruined by its presence. Not because the porn is bad but because it inherently limits the audience. When you have a huge amount of money riding on selling a large volume of a game it can be a critical decision on whether to include material that pushes up the rating. The Hot Coffee thing in GTA was a stupid thing to get excited about since the content of the game already made it a T (Teen) rating. That idiot parents have been buying this series for 8 year olds is the fault of those parents. The packaging makes it quite clear what this game is about. That a sex simulator mini-game is hidden in there should be a blip on the radar once you already chosen to let your simulate a career as a violent criminal.

Scott, the point (repeatedly made) is that the Gaming Industry is currently enforcing the ESRB in the same way that the Movie Industry is enforcing the MPAA. There is NO legal force behind the MPAA. Why should there be for the ESRB?

Game developers submit their games for rating. The rating is printed on the packaging and also displayed in any commercial. The retailers enforce the ratings at the point of sale. This works exactly like the Movie Industry. Neither rating system is legally binding.

The industry's "coming of age" has been here for awhile. And is currently working fine. The parents who buy these games for their children now, will be the same parents who buy the games for their kids when this law is passed. Nothing will change insofar as The Children™ are concerned.

Let's step back for a minute and ask ourselves some questions.

Where is the evidence that pretending to be a bad guy, or pretending to shoot bad guys, is harmful for children?

Where is the evidence that pretending to chat up pretty girls, or pretending to have sex with them, is harmful for children? Or knowledge of sex for that matter?

Seems to be that before the state steps in, there should be some sort of actual proof that the activity to be restricted is actually harmful in some way. Pretending to do bad, violent, or sexual things (which is pretty standard; the only novelty is the graphics engine helping the pretense along) doesn't quite measure up as far as I can tell, and I have yet to see any real evidence that it does.

And of course the length of childhood as we presently define it wasn't engraved on any stone tablets, while we're on the subject. Where's the evidence that a longer childhood is beneficial? It costs a hell of a lot of real money for both the so-called "child" and his parents, and effectively subtracts years from everyone's lives. Shouldn't they get something out of it besides misery and family conflict? Where's the evidence?

Ken, you have a great point. There is a really great reason you will never see a credible study done. The link that the good Senators infer cannot be proven.

The entire argument for the ban is based on the Cum hoc ergo propter hoc (with this, therefore because of this) fallacy. Well, that's not really right because the "with this" is complete media/Senator spin.

If you look at the Department of Justice Stats on violence since 1994 you will see that violence has dropped to the lowset levels ever recorded. The drop begain the year that the Playstaion console was released.

Using the logic of the fine Senators, we could make the argument that video games REDUCE violence in kids.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/gvc.htm#Violence

Sinner is correct. Pornography is already widely available online. What keeps kids out of it? Hint: It isn't a governmental ban. It's involved parents.

The sad fact is, folks, that we have yet to create a governmental mechanism that can replace concerned and involved moms and dads. No law or federal agency can fit the bill. The only way to keep these games out of the hands of kids is through their parents.

My kids are gamers...both of them. When they started playing an online game, did I allow them to do so on their own time with no supervision? Hells no. I started playing it WITH THEM. My son doesn't play violent video games at my house. Guess why? Because the ps2 is connected to the ONLY television in our house that the kids have access to, and it's in the living room, where he has to share time with his sister and me.

He doesn't have free access to the computer...EVER. Nor does his sister...EVER.

No chip, no ban, no governmental intrusion can take the place of a nosy mom.

And it never will.

The sad fact is not that these games are being produced, but that parents have forgotten how and why to do their job.

How do we as a society remedy that? I am not really sure. Maybe by holding them accountable.

But, if you want to think about America's crime problems in connection to video games, my advice to you is that your actions are all sound and fury, signifying nothing. They are a way of appearing to do something while accomplishing nothing. They are righteous indignation without a foundation of meaningful action.

Just my take on it.

grating exorbitant acrimony coders shabby:Knutson caking?herder sage christmas floral arrangements orchid photographs christmas floral arrangements orchid photographs http://www.planyourhome.net/christmas-floral-arrangements.html http://www.planyourhome.net/christmas-floral-arrangements.html awards flexible pinpoint?metacircularity lutes orange blossom flower flor orange blossom flower flor http://www.planyourhome.net/flor.html http://www.planyourhome.net/flor.html urge earthling?diddle tunnel: lenox colonial bouquet plate 2005 nascar gift lenox colonial bouquet plate 2005 nascar gift http://www.planyourhome.net/lenox-colonial-bouquet-plate-2005.html http://www.planyourhome.net/lenox-colonial-bouquet-plate-2005.html Greenberg streetcars,socket: pastor ferdie flores pastor ferdie flores http://www.planyourhome.net/preteen-flowers.html http://www.planyourhome.net/preteen-flowers.html jitterbug scarf wholesale artificial flowers wholesale artificial flowers http://www.planyourhome.net/tulips-are-better.html http://www.planyourhome.net/tulips-are-better.html sink sick