Quote:Having solved all of New York state's actual problems, Assemblyman Brian Kolb is moving on to imaginary troubles that happen in the pretend world of video games. Kolb recently introduced a bill to add new warning stickers to video games. Kolb's proposed law would require video game stores to keep "adult" games in a locked cabinet and would require demos of all adult games, which essentially means establishing a different rating system than the ESRB's.

The bill reads, in part:

"The legislature hereby finds that the youth of New York state are entitled to grow-up in a positive setting and be shielded from graphic violence and offensive depictions now found in video games. It is a well known fact that children between the ages of seven and seventeen play video games for an average of eight hours a week. A subset of video games feature violence, gore, and illegal activity, which has raised concern among parents, educators, child advocates,medical professionals, and policy makers."

Should the bill pass and be enacted, objectionable games would carry a warning label reading:

"18+ WARNING, SALE OR RENTAL TO ADULTS ONLY. MAY CONTAIN EXPLICIT DEPICTIONS DESCRIPTIVE OF OR ADVOCATING ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING:

* COMMISSION OF A VIOLENT CRIME
* SUICIDE
* SODOMY
* RAPE
* INCEST
* BESTIALITY
* VIOLENT RACISM
* RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE
* SADO-MASOCHISM
* SEXUAL ASSAULT
* SEXUAL ACTIVITY
* MURDER
* MORBID VIOLENCE
* ILLEGAL USE OF DRUGS OR ALCOHOL"

Here are the questions the bill raises to me: If this law was to pass, who would get to decide which games get the sticker?

Why should a game like Halo 3, which some would say features "Morbid Violence" carry a sticker warning against sodomy?

How many of the things on the list have been shown in PG and PG-13 movies?

Should kids be warned about the contents of Shakespeare? How about The Bible? Because both contain these things and more.

Have you ever, in your entire life, played a video game for sale in the U.S. that featured Incest? Bestiality? I haven't, but if you can think of one, please leave it in the comment section. (You having a crush on Ecco the Dolphin does not count.)

If there's essentially no Bestiality in video games, I can only assume it's include in this list because the author either 1) doesn't know anything about video games. 2) is trying to be as hysterical and inflammatory as possible, or 3) all of the above.

In conclusion, this entire law sucks. And, it's almost certainly unconstitutional. I wish our elected officials would stop wasting their time and our tax money on these purely political "OMG! Games is teh badz!" style bills. Just govern, guys. Keep the streets repaired and courthouse lawn watered and leave us alone. We'll raise our own children, thanks.

/rant.

Quote:

Just what does the state of New York have against gaming anyway? Last week we brought word that their government is trying to pass a "Warning Labels For Games" law requiring "mature" titles to bear a sticker warning that the game may contain incest and bestiality. And now this: Democratic Assemblyman Steve Englebright is trying to pass a law requiring retailers to post a warning sign that games can cause seizures in people with epilepsy.

Um, Mr. Englebright, any video game I've ever heard of already has a warning about photosensitive epilepsy on the packaging. (Check out the example above, from the inside cover of Spider-man: Friend or Foe for the 360.) Also, there isn't any proven link between epilepsy and gaming -- even in the 3% of epileptics who are sensitive to flashing lights.

Here's the text of the Bill:

Around 1 in every 130 people is diagnosed as having epilepsy, whereas only 1 in every 10,000 have Photosensitivity Epilepsy. Among people with epilepsy, only an estimated 3-5% have seizures triggered by lights or patterns. Photosensitivity Epilepsy most commonly affects children.

This Bill would require that a warning be placed upon every video game warning people of the dangers of Photosensitivity Epilepsy.

Here's how epilepsy.com feels about epileptic kids playing games:

Playing video games is an extremely common pastime for many children, and they often play them for long periods of time. Because epilepsy is a common disorder, it is not surprising that some children will have their seizures while playing video games, just by coincidence. How often this happens, and to what extent the games trigger the seizures, if at all, is not known.

Presumably, Assemblyman Steve Englebright gets paid for his job.

Source

Quantact Wrote:Am I the only one here that thinks that Grand Theft Auto has as much "societal usefulness" as the Anarchist Cookbook?

The Anarchist Cookbook, while being freely available on the internet, is a banned book. It is banned because it teaches stuff like explosives manufacture, and the only people who could possibly find it "useful" are criminals and terrorists. Grand Theft Auto is a "fun game" about shooting police officers, fuucking hookers and committing murder. Yes, I know they have the right to free speech to publish this $hit, and I have the right of free speech to tell them to shove it up their asses.

Doctor Omega Wrote:Nope, you're not. I bought GTA:SA on a whim one day at Wal-Mart merely because it was $10. I got home, played it for an hour, and took it back. I lied and said it couldn't be read in my computer, just so I could get that $10 back. I did, however, enjoy the story of GTA:VC. But as far as it being useful, I'm in the same boat as you. The game doesn't offend me or anything of the sort, I just think it's pointless. I didn't even like GTA4. The only appeal to GTAwas the free-roaming "do whatever the hell you want" atmosphere. Once I bored of that, the game was useless to me. Not to mention the replay value blows, hard.