The Game on Your Wii: Now Rated R
New York Governor Paterson on Monday signed into law a bill mandating that all video games sold in the state of New York display ESRB ratings on their packaging. Sound familiar? It should. Bills like this have been voted for, voted down, and had lawsuits filed against them in almost every state.
This new waste of resources and dollars also maintains that new consoles must be equipped with controls that would prevent the display of indecent/violent video games. You know, parental controls. Which the Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3 already have.
This law will also see the creation of an advisory board to examine issues such as how violent video games affect children. Yes, that sounds familiar as well.
This redundancy in passing a law that has previously been deemed unconstitutional seems to be just another step in New York’s race to become the official nanny state.
Senior vice president of communications and research for the Entertainment Software Association, Richard Taylor, is none too happy about this law. “The state has ignored legal precedent, common sense, and the wishes of many New Yorkers in enacting this unnecessary bill. This government intrusion will cost taxpayers money and impose unconstitutional mandates for activities and technologies that are already voluntarily in place.”
Indeed, the passing of bills and laws regulating video games has cost taxpayers over one million dollars. That’s one million dollars of your money spent to do something parents should be doing without the government enacting a law telling them to do so.
This law, sponsored by Senator Andrew Lanza (R-I, Staten Island) seems especially near and dear to the heart of Senator Martin J. Golden (R-C, Brooklyn): “No child should be playing ‘games’ that involve mutilating people with chain saws, having sex with prostitutes, or dealing drugs. This hyper-violent material is mind-boggling in its brutality, and our kids should simply not be exposed to it. These commonsense proposals will better inform and empower parents throughout our state, while also helping to prevent our kids from gaining access to these video games.”
There’s a real simple way to not expose children to this. A way that won’t cost taxpayers money, that doesn’t need a committee to study it, that won’t require our elected officials to spend time debating it. It’s called parenting. And we need to stop expecting the government to do that job for us. Politicians should stay out of the gaming business and let parents determine what their kids can and can’t play. It’s part and parcel of the nanny state that is made of both sides of the political spectrum; the “we know what’s best for you” mantra of liberals coupled with prurient conservatism leads to ratings and enforcement of those ratings via retailers. It shouldn’t be up to a senator, a governor, or even Gary the EB Games clerk what our children can purchase. That’s a parenting decision that shouldn’t be legislated.
Stories like this one are why this happens. The grandmother sued because of the sex scenes in Grand Theft Auto. My question is, “at what point did you think it was acceptable to buy a young teen a video game named after a serious, often violent, felony?” Yeah, the odds of that game being good, wholesome entertainment are really high. What’s next, buying your kid a penthouse because you think it’s a real estate magazine? Then, there’s that guy who got arrested because he bought his son a Mike’s Hard Lemonade and it never occurred to him for even a second that it might be an alcoholic drink.
The fact is, a lot of parents and grandparents are extremely stupid and/or irresponsible. Until society starts hounding and humiliating the ones who buy very inappropriate games for little kids, laws like this will be socially acceptable. The first reaction when an outraged parent vents over “finding out” that a game like GTA is not appropriate for their young child should be “what the hell was wrong with you that made you buy that for them” from other parents.
MikeT,
While laws such as this one might be socially acceptable in some circles, they are never legally and Constitutionally acceptable. This is why we have a Constitution, to prevent the overreach of government into areas it shouldn’t be.
In addition, I would say that most parent’s initial reaction to the “surprised about GTA” parent is exactly what you state: “What the hell is wrong with you?!?!?”
This is the kind of problem that can be handled on a social and personal level. we don’t need laws to address it.
I never said that they’re constitutional or good. I said that many people would find them socially acceptable because there isn’t a social expectation that a parent who does this sort of thing will get abjectly humiliated by other parents.
Interesting historical sidebar on this controversy over whether violent video games make violent kids. Apparently in the 1880s, there was a huge hue and cry over the fact that the “penny dreadfuls” and dime novels that were glorifying Billy the Kid in the midst of his crime spree were going to corrupt American youth and turn them toward crime.
If we researched far enough, we’d probably find contemporary pundits who said the bloody Greek Tragedies were also corrupting youth.
So the debate goes on.
The simple way to control such games would be to make sure the computer/xbox is in the kitchen or the livingroom, that is where the rest of the family hangs out.
I guess that is too simple, eh? Laws are so much more official, and gets the State into the center of the action.
@lisa:
Charges of corrupting youth led to Socrates’ execution… so yes, I think you’re quite right.
Videos games have just about the most accurate and truethful advertising (at least regarding content) of any media out there. If you take GTA or God of War or a similar mature title and read the summary on the back it will promise you in graphic detail exactly what the game will entail. And while the “Hot Coffe” scandal with GTA was not advertised, is that really any worse than what the game out right promises (vehicle theft, vehicular manslaughter, prostitutes, drug dealing, and copiuos blunt force trauma)? You want to address the problem, just look at the video games your buying your child (they’re 60 bucks, kids shouldn’t be buying them with pocket change anyways).
I’m glad to see an article like this that defends the games industry, published outside the game enthusiast press.
More to the point; at least ratings are a lot better than outright censorship.
This is a function of our world today, where even parenting is done in 15-second spans. Instead of parents reading to their children, we have DVD rentals, for instance. Parents trying to purchase videogames for their children, for instance, can just look at the ESRB rating and make their decision based on that label.
Seemingly, reading the title and/or the backcover is too hard for these people.
That’s an odd law, and completely unnecessary. I live in Texas, and I’m a big fan of video games. I have never bought a video game that did not show the ESRB rating on the front of the box. Mandating something that already exists is a bit silly.
I used to play a lot of games online through Xbox Live but now I rarely play online. I grew tired of playing mature games with children. It’s a big problem, enough so that underage kids have earned the nickname of squeakers because of their prepubescent voices. Players normally ridicule the squeakers to get them to leave but they often refuse, ruining the game for adult players. While there are ways to rate players and even report them for inappropriate behavior, Microsoft has so far refused to add underage as an offense or a rating. There is simply no way to report these kids for playing games they shouldn’t be playing. If parents won’t police their children, other gamers will but we aren’t given the opportunity to do so.
I attend midnight launches for some games and they often take place on weekdays during the school season. This does not deter some intrepid parents from bringing their underage kids to the launch of rated M games. These kids are frequently allowed to stay home from school the next day to play the games they shouldn’t be playing. No amount of government regulation will prevent those parents from buying the games for their kids. Only outright censorship could stop those parents. My favorite game retailer is Game Stop and I have seen their employees ask for ID when young folks try to buy a rated M game. I have also seen them refuse to sell games to underage kids.
Parents are the only valid targets for blame, not the gaming industry.
Government regulation is propelled by people and interests that want to regulate everything. To them, there is no such thing as an equal exchange, and so, instead, each exchange, buying and selling, must be framed within a legal and regulatory framework, driven by the hypothetical most vulnerable person in society.
My kids play Wii and Nitendo games, and I used to write software (but never liked to play computer games). The only way that I can detect the game’s content is by being around when they play these games. Most of these games are very complex, with various ‘paths’. It is not possible for me to exercise all of these paths to verify that there is no objectionable material.
I have a similar problem with the various kids/teens shows from Nickelodeon, etc. We can’t be living our kids’ lives, but at the same time as parents we do need some help from the vendors. After all, we rely on Burger King (just as an example.. we do not feast there all the time, but limit it to once a week!) to tell us what’s (ingredients, calories, fat) in their meal.
If I see an ‘R’ on a DVD or a game, I will exercise judgement in getting it for my kids, and will further exercise caution when they start using it. So I think it is a good idea to have some rating on the game. It will help me. Let the company, based on its knowledge of their product, describe the nature of its product, and I as an adult parent will decide whether that is appropriate for my kids that I know very well. Fair enough?
My wife and I rarely drink alcohol, and until I tasted Mike’s Hard Lemonade when I was in my thirties, I would not have even known that it had alcohol!
The “War on Violent Video Games” suffers, ultimately, from the same exact infirmities that doomed the ’80s “War on Porn.” To wit:
1) The complete absence of any evidence linking the objectionable media’s availability to any negative real-world consequenses of any sort, anywhere, for anyone, ever; and
2) The widespread and inevitable distribution of said media by channels that are almost impossible to control.
Anyway, although correlation is hardly proof of causation, if either porn or violent video games were going to submerge the world in ruin, it would have done so by now. Instead, we find a decrease in violent crime of every kind over the last 30 years.