GDR – A Fight for Liberty
This is still going on? Really? We haven’t settled on this stupid thing yet? Good grief, people!
I keep getting nagged to sign a petition, to let my voice be heard, and nobody is telling me why, and it rarely makes itself clear. Once again, the gaming community is being reduced to a bunch of unread morons who just make demands and don’t say a thing otherwise to let you know why you should do what you’re told, and that’s led to me being pretty annoyed with this Govenator VS. EMA business, because my perception of the “big deal” has been completely off-base and wrong. Maybe I’m solo in this, but for anyone else who’s only connection to this is some screaming gamer friends and a URL, let me try and set the record straight a bit.
For those not in the know, back in 2006 Governor Schwarzenegger passed into state law that violent games could not be sold to children in California. The definition of violence, while loose, basically summarized itself as “a game in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being.” (source) This was four years ago, and the bill continues to be repealed and fought over to this day, now on its way to nothing shy of the Supreme Court itself.
The definition of violence is pretty poor, I’ll admit. The “sexually assaulting” bit is something I don’t see come up much in this country, and sounds like grounds for an M-rating in and of itself, and I’ll get to why that’s important in a minute. What worries me is the “killing” of human beings, as the rest of that list probably shouldn’t get into kids’ hands anyway. What isn’t clarified as when that becomes inherently violent, as I seem to recall that back in the day plenty of games had me “killing” human beings that would proceed to vanish in a puff of smoke.
Thank you, Japan?
Save that poor grasp on how violent something like that is or is not (a pixel hitting a stick man should not be classified as the same level of violence you’d find in MadWorld, for example), this bill isn’t doing anything to restrict sales on games that many major retailers are doing already, and to say that it’s being unfair to gaming as opposed to movies, books, and television is, in large part, a falsehood. At the local Wal-Mart, kids under 18 can’t buy an R-rated movie any more than they can an M-rated game or can of chew; the store cards for all three, which at the very least in that last case is legally required. Gamestop checks for ID when buying M-rated titles, as well, and I’m pretty sure that practice, if not required by law, is pretty standard.
The Govenator’s bill isn’t changing that much, so long as the definition of what makes something “violent” is addressed much more clearly, lest games sneak by it by reverting back to the cartoon mascot stage and having us “killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of” anthropomorphic (or even completely normal) critters. I’m pretty sure “Murder Kittens: the Video Game” would raise some serious eyebrows, even from the GTA crowd, and that StarFox spin-off every furry has dreamed of since Krystal came into being? I guess that would be appropriate for children all of a sudden.
This seems, to me, to be what most of the people involved with shooting this thing down are concerned about. What isn’t being played up nearly as much by petition-signers and people whining to me about this is the government establishing it’s own idea of what is and is not appropriate in a creative medium. We can say this doesn’t happen to other things like the printed word, but last I knew several countries had over history banned certain books, and America is no exception. I suppose that’s of little comfort, but it probably shouldn’t be consoling.
When this petition started going around, I didn’t get what the big deal was, and I’m not sure a single person who linked me to it would be able to tell me why it mattered at the time. I thought it was a grand exaggeration, and even now I think it explains itself rather poorly as I am just now coming to terms with why this matters after researching the issue beyond a rabid MSN contact screaming for me to “SIGN THIS!” As most people state it, the impression I was getting was that “the man is gonna make it so kids can’t buy GTA without their parents, and that’s BS!” Funny, I was under the impression that that was covered already.
Nothing gave me the indication that movie and television ratings are voluntary and issued by a independent board that has nothing to do with the government. Maybe that’s supposed to be common knowledge, but if you don’t go looking you don’t know, because common knowledge has a way of just being assumed as known instead of actually, you know, known. So this has been educational for me, as common knowledge has been a bit of a weakness of mine for my whole existence and the actual issue has felt very skewed to me here in particular. If the bill passes, California can restrict game sales not by the ESRB’s definitions and ratings, which they should be encouraging parental awareness of instead of overwriting with the simple0minded mentality of “make the sticker BIGGER!”, but by the government’s own perceived notion of what is corrupting our children. Hello, source of the problem, I’m glad to have found you at last!
On the one hand, I can see how this would quickly get out of hand, as the whole shebang is run by old geezers whose perception of gaming is probably on par with Hollywood’s, being unaware of anything beyond the Atari that isn’t GTA or some other controversial mess they make for themselves. On the other, I see it being completely unnecessary because the ERRB have sticks so far up their own rear ends that I’m pretty sure they could run for government themselves. Ever look at these rating descriptors? You should, or as a parent you’ll just be adding to the problem one day. Get with it. But come on, “Comic Mischief?” That’s a rating qualifier? What the crap is that?! Bugs Bunny has “Comic Mischief,” frickin’ Playhouse Disney has “Comic Mischief”! Who comes up with this stuff?
While I’m not above trying to keep parents in control of their kids (and to some extent even reigning back free speech to “does not include dropping F-Bombs in front of a 2-year-old and their mother who can’t do anything about it because the law protects you more than it does her in this instance”), I think the ESRB have done a well enough job of trying to make it pretty clear what makes a game’s rating and why you shouldn’t let your five-year-old bang hookers in GTA. It’s hauntingly reminiscent of the mother who wrote a letter to the local paper to warn parents of this evil game that had just come out at the time, Conker’s Bad Fur Day. You know, the original, for the N64.
This is where you think, “Sam, this has been happening that long, maybe the ESRB isn’t doing so great of a job.” I would like to tell you they could have wrapped that entire game in explosive dynamite that goes off if a child touches it and some parents just would not have got it. This game’s box had printed on each and every one of it’s six sides at least once a piece a warning stating that “this game is not for anyone under the age of 17.” It was not tiny, it was not unintrusive, you literally would have had ot go “LOL CARTOON SQUIRREL” and thrown it in your cart and proceeded to never look at the box in more detail to not see this warning. This is not the ESRB’s fault, this is retarded parenting, and Arnold’s bill won’t change any of that, it’ll just sling government nonsense and prejudice on top of it.
Drunk squirrel, scantily-clad squirrel, "NOT FOR CHILDREN"? Little Timmy will love this!
Biggest M-logo I’ve ever seen, btw, and last I knew from what I’ve read not restricted by Arnold’s law. I’m not worried that the law will keep violence away from kids; I’m worried that it’s the government’s loophole-laden definition of it, and one that includes Katamari, no less, a game with universal non-violent appeal, but technically I’m rolling people into a giant ball that is being crushed into the form of planets or stars somehow, so I’d say, yeah, those people probably died and were mutilated plenty in the process, even if you never, ever think about that while playing. I have no qualms with a kid playing Katamari, because it makes no sense whatsoever and if you feel violent playing it it’s probably not the game’s fault. But the bill covers that. Katamari is, as far as I know, more violent and inappropriate according to the Terminator than Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Uncle Sam never understood video games, I guess, but probably sings along to the Great Mighty song. Sling his crap, indeed.
Here’s the thing, though. Petition or not (and I’ve yet to see a petition I’ve signed ever work), the Supreme Court will decide what it decides. It’s worrying, because the people in the Supreme Court are generally imagined to be at least 80 and probably still getting used to color television. That in and of itself bodes pretty ill, and I don’t want to see people like that deciding what my games are like. The free speech argument keeps falling back on games as an artform and form of self-expression, which assumes these old fogies are going to approach the situation in a way that Ebert has recently proved isn’t all that likely for anyone who didn’t grow up with the things to warm up to. While gamers almost universally view games as a form of self-expression and many individual titles as outright art (no amount of freedom of choice is going to make the emotions you feel halfway through Bioshock any different, and quitting Shadow the Collosus is no different than being afraid to finish a book), the fact is that people under 40 still basically view the industry as the new breed of toymakers, and lump video games with cartoons under things that should unquestionably be for children, and any exception to that is inappropriate (thus my own mother’s mentality that the Simpsons is wrong while my little brother watches Two and a Half Men, which i personally find to be at least equally inappropriate). We’re banking on the opposing team, here, and that honestly scares me and should probably worry you.
The fact is that the ESRB and retailers are doing a fine job in trying to help keep kids out of garbage they shouldn’t be digging through; it’s the parents’ fault, not the industry’s. Hollywood doesn’t let your kids in to Gorefest 2010, that’s you. And that’s fine, that’s your decision in raising your kids. If parents had done a better job keeping this crap out of the hands of prepubescents (and if Arnold would realize those same prepubescents are the main audience for anything he stars in, which, save some embarrassing comedies including but not limited to “man gets pregnant,” which I’m pretty sure would scar many children for life, would almost all be classified as unsafe for minors by his own standards), this would quite possibly have never come up. Parents are getting more aware of the problem, though, as many newer parents are gamers themselves, and despite the fact that console parental controls are incoherent nonsense buried in endless sub-menus, the industry is realizing that parents need a way to stay in charge, and that, no matter how irrational their decisions are (no Smash Bros. for kids, it’s too violent), it’s their kids, and thus their decision and responsibility. Stop trying to have teachers and the law raise kids for you, guys. Let parents be parents.
Let Uncle Sam stay the uncle, though, and not the intrusive relative who gets drunk on your couch and screams at you what to do. Fingers crossed that he’ll take the hint.
