Thursday, March 08, 2007

Dead Horse Discussion



"If we allow the courts to pass a law against the selling of mature games to minors, then it won't be long before video games are outlawed completely! We must protect our First Amendment rights!"

I'm am so sick and tired of these idiotic remarks. Every time someone tries to pass a law about video games, two or three more threads about it appear on numerous gaming forums, filled with several pages of "preaching to the choir" garbage about how unconstitutional it is to stop minors from buying video games not suitable for minors.

We already have laws that restrict our freedom of speech.

Norm: I got a plane full of people saying you threatened that stewardess.

Greg Focker: I was not threatening her. I was just trying to get my bag into the overhead storage thing...

Norm: You were acting like a maniac and you threatened her with a bomb.

Greg Focker: No, I said I didn't have a bomb.

Norm: But you said bomb.

Greg Focker: I said, "It's not like I have a bomb".

Norm: You said "Bomb" on an airplane.

Greg Focker: What's wrong with saying 'Bomb' on an airplane?

Norm: You can't say 'Bomb' on an airplane!

Greg Focker: Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb. You gonna arrest me? Bomb bomb bomb bomb! During the war I was a BOMBadier!

As for freedom of expression, there are age limits placed on explicit movies, music, and pornography, but if we allow a similar law for video games to pass, then Jack Thompson will suddenly have the power to completely eradicate the industry from existence? We're not dealing with a comic book villain, people! It's one thing to regulate a freedom, but an actual banning would be way too blatant to succeed. Just look at the prohibition America tried to pass with the eighteenth amendment. We know, for a fact, beer is bad for our health, but that didn't stop the twenty-first amendment from succeeding. The potential harm in playing video games isn't even an absolute problem. Restriction would only be a safety precaution; not the first step of gaming's inevitable downfall.

Do any of you seriously believe the lawyers representing the industry are doing so to protect the First Amendment? If it was a punishable crime to sell M-rated video games to minors, then fewer children with cautious parents would be able to buy them. They fight for higher profits, just like any other business would.

As it is now, many families can not afford to have a stay-at-home parent, yet they should always have the spare time to check everything their child does? And children, especially teenagers, are not so innocent that they won't lie about what they are doing either. Show mom and dad a different box with an acceptable rating on it and wait for them to leave the room before continuing the game. If one of them stay to watch, save it and quit, or play something else until they are gone.

"Oh, but parents knowingly hand their children money to buy these games."

Who here was never able to manipulate their parents at one point or another? My dad gave me $10 a week for school lunches. I usually skipped lunch in order to save the money for games and MTG cards. He never caught on to it. Some might use the allowance they earn each week under the trust that they won't waste it on things they shouldn't have... but I guess that would be the parents fault (It's hard telling them that they can't trust their children nowadays, isn't it?). A child can also use money he received during the holidays, or cash in his old games for store credit. All he'd have to do is hide it when he gets home, and play it when no one is around to see him. As for the retailers, how much do those people make standing behind that counter? Do many of them even receive benefits? Wal-Mart employees don't care about doing a great job for that sort of money. Punishment is usually the only way to motivate these employees, and a law to criminalize selling mature titles to minors will promptly cause more of them to check for ID.

The thing I really hate about this particular topic is the number of under-aged gamers posting their complaints about it. You little punks have no say in this! That's like asking pedophiles if they think sex with children should be legal. This isn't to say old gamers are any better.

"I played mature games when I was child, and they didn't affect me."

There are a couple of factors to consider before blurting this out, with the first being the difference in eras. There were far fewer people in the 1970s and 80s, with a more relaxed society. As a therapist, my dad was always the busiest during the school year. When life is more structured, problem children become more obvious. They have more trouble abiding by all the rules laid out in front of them. This leads to more stress and more aggravation, and if one of these kids goes home and starts becoming irritated by constant fragging, ganking, or alleged hacking, who knows what they'll do out of anger? Those are merely the online games. Offline can be just as bad, but it's normally a more influential danger, than one caused by rage.

My best friend and I would watch wrestling together as children, betting on who would win, enjoying the obvious story lines and terrible dialogue (as any true American should), but afterwards, Jeremy would usually want us to participate in our own fights. This guy was 6'5'', even at the age of 15, and heavily outweighed me. I rarely enjoyed be his sparing dummy, because I had been hurt on several occasions, including landing on my leg improperly.

Jeremy has minor mental issues. He talks like a normal individual, dresses himself correctly the first time he tries, and his hands aren't covered with wounds from trying to use a fork properly, but some TV shows, like wrestling, encourage him to re-enact what he saw. Apply this to a similar child with access to firearms. Do you think this can't happen? I'm not saying passing a law would stop these sorts of problems, but I'm sure it would diminish them.

"Well, in that instance, it is the parent's fault for not being more careful with their guns."

Maybe so, but with the Second Amendment, we can't stop Americans from bearing arms, and the NRA does all it can to prevent "unconstitutional" restrictions from forcing us to learn to use and care for them before purchase.

Even without guns, who hasn't had their car broken into? I never got the chance to play the PS2 my brother bought me, because it was stolen shortly before we left to take it back to my dorm room. Granted, Grand Theft Auto doesn't tell children to go out do this, but it does glorify it, and for some, that's all it takes.

Another factor is the degree of content found in today's gaming. How can we compare our childhood gaming to the stuff found in Eternal Darkness, Silent Hill, Gears of War, and Crackdown?

What did we have to fear back then?

Small pixel zombies and creepy chip music?

Blocky, bloated Nazis guarding treasure chests?

Patrick Stewart?

The nudity in gaming back then was scarier than all of that!

*Mostly Censored*

(Who's the target audience of this crap anyhow? Legophiles?)

Plus, a lot of violence wasn't senseless back then.

Totally justifiable!

Pass the law. If the parents believe their kids shouldn't have these games, it's easier to enforce that rule with store clerks checking for identification. For the smarter ones, I'm sure they'll be able to convince mom and dad to purchase Halo 3 when it arrives.

I know what you are saying. Parents should do this and retailers should do that, but there are a lot of things people, in general, should be doing. Gamers under 17 should learn to respect the rating system. I should be using my spring break to complete my bibliographic essay. Viz Media should stop making more Pokemon movies. Too bad life doesn't work out the way it should.

Just put aside your self-serving bias and outrageous beliefs long enough to really consider what sort of impact this would have on the industry. Minors won't be allowed to buy R-rated games. That's it. We still have beer. We still have movies. We still have books, music, and sweet, sweet porn. Why would it be any different for this?