should the government regulate who buys violent videogames??

[thomas]

well? I heard there was some bill in sacramento earlier this week for people who wanted "violent video games" to be banned or something like that, and what's your view?

I think they should just be stricter on the limits

[Andrew]

If people can buy guns and knives, watch violent television shows and movies, why not buy a violent video game?

I mean back when NES was out they had spy vs spy which involved killing each other. Same concept, better graphics.

Although that is what the rating system is for is it not?

A parent should watch what their kid buys/plays. Check the rating. Don't buy a 10 year old an R rated video game... just like you shouldn't take them to an R rated movie. Of course they will get their hands on it (or play) somehow, but there is no need to encourage them.

[Caid Ivik]

What you Americans have parents for?

[Khan]

Whining when their kids to bad stuff. The current censorship in the UK is fine as it is.

[ordos45]

I could see perhaps being stricter.  Like cordoning the Mature and Adult rated games in one section of the store, and not letting anyone under 17 go in that.  Or...egads...they could actually enforce the rules they already have regarding selling mature games to minors and not pass new legislation they won't enforce anyhow.

[Dragoon Knight]

<rant>

This whole topic pisses me off.  Violent games do not make voilent people... they do, however, give violent people ideas.  Or give people with questionable mental backgrounds the incentive to run around hitting people with a baseball bat.  Some people even use video games as excuses for their crimes, so they can blame those "evil games companies".  It's all a huge pile of bullshit; the only evil games company is EA.

Parents start griping and whining about their kids going out and killing people or being disobedient in other ways.  Rather than blame their own shitty parenting skills, they cast the blame on anything else.  Games are simply the latest thing to be blamed, and since it seems to be working, the complaints keep coming.

It's another case of "TV gives you square eyes"... if your kid's a psychopath, or you beat him daily, or he's depressed or angry, then don't buy him a copy of GTA: San Andreas, you moron.  I'll say it again: violent games do not make killers; they merely give killers ideas, which they could have got from a million other places... like watching an average episode of Jerry Springer or something.

</rant>

[Khan]

^ What he said. But I do think we should have BBFC labels.

[thomas]

nicely put dragoon, yeah the whole issue is annoying as hell.

what about the degredation of women in video games (I know, anotehr pisser), I hear this brought up with the other "negative" aspects. :P

[Dragoon Knight]

<another-rant>

In the name of sweet zombie Jesus on a pogo-stick, the woman portrayed in video games are not real!.  They are merely visual representations of fiction!  If Lara Croft were real, she wouldn't be going around raiding tombs... she'd be stuck in a wheelchair with severe back problems!  But the truth of the matter is that a high percentage of gamers are male, and an astronomically high percentage of these men derive pleasure from seeing certain parts of the female anatomy go 'wobble'.

Going along with the whole percentages theme, quite a hefty number of the aforementioned males do not get to experience this in real life, and therefore get their 'Jiggle-Fix' from games such as Tomb Raider or Dead or Alive 2.  It's not a case of 'degrading women'... it's god-damn supply and demand!

If there was a demand for gangs of burly, half-naked men doing yoga, then you can be sure that there would be several games under that criteria, too.  As it happens, there is not.  The games are not intended to degrade women in any way; they're designed to meet consumer wants.  Think about it... if these games are being made, then a hell of a lot of people must want them.  If they want to gripe about it, they should go away and make "Hank and Frank Do Yoga!" -- Available on PS2, GameCube, XBOX and PC!

</another-rant>

[Dude_Doc]

Is there really so much crime going on with the accusation of violent games and such? I'd understand if it was a pandemic, but I've heard very few cases. There are bigger issues like drink'n'drive, drugs and other things.

I think that, in most "violent game cases", that parents refuse to accept their children being murderers, or rufes seeing them as mentally ill. Everyone wants to be normal, to be healthy. Not many people accept the idea of something happening to them, that it could happen to them, that their children happens to be unstable.

It is like smoking. One never believes that cancer can develop in you. But one day it does. At least that is one way to see it.

[Caid Ivik]

Being evil does not mean to be ill. I think this 19th century myth has been already refuted many times...

[DukeLeto]

Note to Ordos45: There is actually NO LEGAL BACKING behind ESRB, so "enforcing current laws about selling M rated games to minors" would, by definition, accomplish nothing.

However, simply put, to restrict the sale of videogames (or any media, for that matter) just because some already unstable people have beaten up a car with a baseball bat...that borders on fascism.  If you censor something for its content, you are violating simple freedoms of speech.

[ordos45]

Ah, must mention that to the people who wouldn't sell me Halo when I was 16 sometime then, thanks DukeLeto.  You know...if it came with yoga mat so you could control a character like DDR, Frank and Hank do Yoga might actually sell...  :O

[ps501]

Well here is an interesting case to ponder.  (I myself am older than some, but not as old as others) I have no children (which by default makes me the best person to give advice on parenting, right :)

But I do have 8 nieces and nephews between the ages of 2 and 7.  One day I was putting on some cartoon network program to pacify two of them and it was some xyz cartoon.  My sister-in-law said that they couldn't watch that program because it was too violent.  Fair enough.  I also noticed that Tom and Jerry was also on, and asked if that was ok to watch (we both grew up when T&J was "new" - Apologies to the WW audience that don't know what I'm talking about)  As I was watching that show, (for the first time in maybe 25 or more years) I was surprised at how violent that is.  They were constantly doing things that would kill a normal cat/mouse/dog/person, etc.  Yet that was "ok to watch" and "not violent"

Hmmm Do I have a point?  perhaps, but consider that root causes need to be determined as to the causes of violent tendencies in people.  I will matter-of-factly state that the root cause of violence is not a Rap music video, a game, or book.  People were killing others long before rap music or Halo came out.  (This quasi-expert statement is coming from a guy that got his undergrad in Criminology and Psychology, Masters of Criminal Psychology, and a doctorate in Psychology... of course there isn't any money in that occupation, so I do something else, but that is a topic for a different day)

Banning games or music will not prevent murder, rape, theft, or any other crime known to man.  They were going on long before this attempt at censoring free speech, and they will continue.

On a flip side I have no problems with some fanatics or anyone else who want to come up with a scale of how "bad" a game is, and have a book or website saying "the God fearing people of group blah blah think you will go to hell and your children will be mass murders if you play game xyz" hey fine with me.  If you

[Dude_Doc]

I don't think anybody can do anything about this stuff. Tobacco can only be bought by those that are 18 or over - yet, minors still get their hands on it. Same with alcohol.

If the gaming industry can do anything, it would be to have the storekeepers/sellers ask for ID or something from the person who buys a "violent game". On the other hand, the companies would loose a lot of money if restrictions would be put on these games - fewer people would buy them in stores, some would probably just download them, and so on.

[Edric O]

Going along with the whole percentages theme, quite a hefty number of the aforementioned males do not get to experience this in real life, and therefore get their 'Jiggle-Fix' from games such as Tomb Raider or Dead or Alive 2.  It's not a case of 'degrading women'... it's god-damn supply and demand!

If there was a demand for gangs of burly, half-naked men doing yoga, then you can be sure that there would be several games under that criteria, too.  As it happens, there is not.  The games are not intended to degrade women in any way; they're designed to meet consumer wants.  Think about it... if these games are being made, then a hell of a lot of people must want them.  If they want to gripe about it, they should go away and make "Hank and Frank Do Yoga!" -- Available on PS2, GameCube, XBOX and PC!

There are plenty of people who really, really WANT hard drugs. There are also many nice fellows in Iraq and Afghanistan who have a very high demand for machine guns, rocket launchers, and anything that goes boom. Does that mean that we should legalize trade in hard drugs or allow companies to sell arms to terrorists, on the basis of respecting "supply and demand"? Of course not.

I'm not saying I don't agree with you, I'm saying your argument is flawed. Just because there is enough demand in a certain type of product to drive a trade in that product doesn't mean that this trade is always okay and should be allowed. Computer games happen to be okay, but other things aren't.

Now, going back to the original issue of the topic, the fact is that censoring computer games will solve nothing. Even assuming that a game influenced someone to commit some crime, that person would have had to be very disturbed in the first place to be so easily influenced by a game. Games cannot make a criminal out of a sane person. At most, they can make a criminal out of an insane person. Which raises the question of why isn't that insane person receiving any help - or, if we're talking about a kid, what the hell are his parents doing.

[Dragoon Knight]

I was only trying to infer that the reason that women are portrayed in games the way they are - i.e. half naked, big breasted or both - is because there is a high demand for it.  I'm not saying it's right, or whether it should or should not happen; I'm just saying that's why it happens, and not for the reasons the critics say.

The law of supply and demand will always exist; if people want something enough, there are always other people willing to sell it to them. :)

[Edric O]

I was only trying to infer that the reason that women are portrayed in games the way they are - i.e. half naked, big breasted or both - is because there is a high demand for it.  I'm not saying it's right, or whether it should or should not happen; I'm just saying that's why it happens, and not for the reasons the critics say.

Ah, well, it seems I just misunderstood your point...

The law of supply and demand will always exist; if people want something enough, there are always other people willing to sell it to them. :)

Of course. Let's just hope that, for example, the kind of people who would be willing to sell nuclear weapons to Osama Bin Laden never actually manage to get their hands on such weapons.

[stefanhendriks]

I've learned that the law of demand and supply is also faked. Sometimes the branch will make your 'demand' and 'supply' it. Like the 'mode' (clothes).

For voilent games, the world is hypocriet when it wants to ban voilent games. If it wants non-voilent stuff, you better change people mentality first, then the rest will come.

Actually this will give the branch a bigger impulse. I remember that when alcohol was forbidden in the US, there was more alcohol drunk and smuggled (sold) then when it was legalized. Its a good reason to legalize a lot of stuff. (though i think in our country, drugs is just something very bad to do. Give a finger... and they'll take the hand).

Ok, i went offtopic again, sorry! :)

[DukeLeto]

Ah, must mention that to the people who wouldn't sell me Halo when I was 16 sometime then, thanks DukeLeto.

Well, a place of business still reserves the right to deny sale of any product to any person at any time if they see fit.  Similar to how Wal-Mart won't sell superglue to minors or alcohol to an intoxicated person.  It's just that they could legally sell you M-rated games.

[Anathema]

Banning video games for minors hasn't got anything to do with freedom of speech. By that logic, 8 year old kids should be able to buy pornography because otherwise we're harming their rights. Not that there's anybody saying pornography should be banned, though. Wonder why that is ::)

It's not as if it's a good thing that kids sit 4 hours per day in front of their PC/console playing games. If you have to ban certain games because parents can't be bothered to keep track of what their kids are doing, games in general should be sold only to adults.

[stefanhendriks]

In fact, games being bought above a certain age is not entirely stupid at all. However, here comes the real pain when banning games:

- for banning games above a certain age you need some mechanism to check this

Simply stated, porn can be obtained by adults only. But who says that once its 'obtained' in house, that children do not watch it?

There is no way to check this, unless we all  get implants, and some chip checks our age in the console which says "hey, you are not x years or older, you may not play this game!".

[Anathema]

You've got to be a pretty shitty parent to let porn be found by your kids.

Same thing with video games. Once it's been obtained (wether it should have been or not) it's the parent's responsibility. Privacy be damned, as a parent it's your moral obligation to check your kid's comp every once in a while to see he's not stacking pornography, playing X-rated games or planning terrorist attacks.

[stefanhendriks]

Completely agreed about parents and such. However, its not the parents that are shitty when porn can be found. Kids are intuitive and they are very original. Suprise you by day ofcourse, so when you're 16 year old kid is a day off and you'r enot off. There is no way you can tell if he/she will be looking/searching for some...

... and thats even not talking about the world called "internet".. where porn is easily found.

[Acriku]

You've got to be a pretty shitty parent to let porn be found by your kids.

Same thing with video games. Once it's been obtained (wether it should have been or not) it's the parent's responsibility. Privacy be damned, as a parent it's your moral obligation to check your kid's comp every once in a while to see he's not stacking pornography, playing X-rated games or planning terrorist attacks.

I don't know, I was a pretty resourceful fella when I was 11 or 12 when my parents weren't looking. I found porn cleverly hidden within a tape case of a wedding video. Kids will find it if it's in your house, it has not much to do with parenting skills.