California Appeals Violent Video Game Law to Supreme Court
You may remember a while back the story about the state of California passing a law that made it illegal to sell violent video games to minors. As I’m sure we all know by now the law was thrown out and deemed unconstitutional by a judge.
Not one to give up so easily, Gov. Schwarzenegger ordered an appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court, but yet again the law was deemed unconstitutional and the previous ruling upheld. Well, Gov. Schwarzenegger is back, and in true terminator fashion just keeps on pursuing his target, relentlessly, without need for rest or sustenance. The final say on the issue now lies with the Supreme Court, who I can only imagine will end up at the same ruling as the previous four judges.
I really was hoping I had heard the last of this story when it was overruled for the second time, but it seems our beloved Arnie just doesn’t know when to quit. Not only is he pursuing legislation that will have little to no impact on children actually playing violent video games, but he is also wasting vast amounts of the taxpayers’ money doing so (reportedly a whopping $400,000 in legal fees alone to date). This frivolous spending comes at a time when the state of California is going through one of the worst fiscal crises it has ever faced, and this can only make things worse. When the appeal does eventually get shot down, Gov. Schwarzenegger is going to have a lot to answer to. Especially to the taxpayers in his state.
Via GamePolitics
I believe this is bull. Children aren’t effected by videogames if they are properly raised.
Also, the only major argument they have is that they are blocking ‘mature’ games just like they restrict porn. The only problem is, not all rated m games feature sexual imagery or imagery that would fall under this category.
I can understand them wanting to block games that have ‘porn’ (which, none of the games I know of are enough to be considered porn), but they should have to sit through each game and document and prove it is pornographic.
@Jo: Seriously? I honestly see porn/sex as being less of an issue than violence. At the very least I think if sex were to feature more in games then it would be consensual more the violence is between the on-screen characters.
Regarding this though I don’t really see it as a problem supposing they limit it to just the current age ratings. For example the 17+ games I guess would be almost equivalent to our 18+ rating, and if a board has decided that then I think it’s fine not to sell the games to kids. It shouldn’t be illegal for the kids to play them, the parents should have the overall say but regarding the sales.. I don’t see this being a bad thing.
The real issue seems to be that in the US they have the Adults Only rating which would cover 18 year olds and above here, only the AO rating causes a real shitstorm concerning how the game is allowed to be advertised and sold. I think if it was more like our system things would be fine, but I think the AO rating and by extension the Cero Z rating in Japan really hamper a mature handling of the situation.
Porn in game isn’t really the issue to them. They are just trying to use it to ban the violence in one fell swoop. I honestly think there should be no age requirements on videos, games, etc. Proper education needs to be done by the parents.
I maintain that if more parents interact with their children through games, board card video or otherwise, there will be fewer problems with said children. Moronic legislation doesn’t save children from the ills and scary parts of the world, connection with healthy role models and caregivers does.