The Game on Your Wii: Now Rated R
Once again, the government of New York thinks its citizens are too dumb to make choices on their own. Maybe some of them are. But it’s not up to elected officials to make up for the ignorance of parents who buy Grand Theft Auto for their five-year-olds. There are those who say that the plethora of violent video games available makes it harder to raise their children decently. How? How does it make it harder? The challenge of parenting includes boundaries, guidelines, and saying no to things you don’t want them to play, read, watch, or listen to. It also involves teaching your kids that people who die on TV or in video games — wait for it — don’t die in real life! It’s fake! And here’s a challenge: Instead of being so shocked that your kid is robbing pixilated taxi drivers and humping cartoon hookers that you cry to your senator to enact a law to forbid it, you take the game away from him. Better yet, do a little research before you buy a game for your child, and don’t send him alone into the store with a wad of cash and no guidelines on what he can or can’t purchase with it.
While once again trying to legislate personal responsibility, New York is ignoring the fact that similar laws have been struck down in California, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, and Washington. The Family Protection Entertainment Act, a bill sponsored by Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman that was supposed to protect children from violent video games, suffered a slow, silent death and never became law. Clearly, Governor Paterson and Senator Lanza did not look into precedent when putting this into motion. If they did, they would have only had to look back to last year, when then-Governor Eliot Spitzer tried and failed to regulate video game sales. Sad thing is, this isn’t even the most inane video game bill pushed by a New York politician.
Richard Taylor sums up the problem with laws such as this: “It also unfairly singles out the video game industry over all other forms of media. One wonders where this overreach by government in New York will end. If New York lawmakers feel it is the role of government to convene a government commission on game content, they could next turn to other content such as books, theater, and film.”
Overreach, indeed. While some people are happy to have information about video games laid bare for them — in much the same way they are happy to have the government count calories for them — we have to wonder where this will lead us. Not only are we looking toward a day where our government strips us of our ability to make our own decisions on our day-to-day life events, but the monumental waste of taxpayer money being spent on babysitting and hand-holding adults who should be responsible for themselves and their families without government interference is shameful. Our politicians are creating crimes under the guise of protecting us from ourselves. And it is costing us money to fund these studies, to put these bills through, to have panels formed that will spend years and dollars duplicating research, coming up with the same vague results as panels before them did, and then having their nanny laws shot down as unconstitutional anyhow.
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.