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longwingSchwarzenegger, bless his heart, has signed a law banning the sale of violent video games to minors. As of now, selling a violent game in California to someone under the age of 18 is punishable by a $1000 fine. I'll ignore the obvious jibes from the gaming media about the Terminator terminating violence, because this isn't really about Schwarzenegger. Keep in mind that this bill passed the House and Senate of California with an overwhelming majority, Democrats, Republicans, the Governor, there is no good guy here. Obviously, this is an issue that hits really close to home for me, so bare with me while I hash out all my observations and conclusions regarding this development. I'll try to keep things concise, but I may wind up rambling, so be patient.
Observations (facts that have nothing to do with my personal experience or opinions)
This is bigger than California
California isn't a state, it's a nine hundred pound Gorilla. A large portion of the US lives in California, and any law it makes affects every state. Sometimes this is good, like when they crippled SUV manufacturers by legislating massive emissions reductions. Sometimes this is bad, like when they ban video games as a way of blaming their crime problems on an industry.
The bill will be overturned in federal court
It's a 1st amendment violation, pure and simple. The courts have ruled on this time and time again. Other bills like this one have been blocked before, both on the state and federal levels. I don't know how long it will take for a test case to make it to federal courts, but this bill simply won't last.
Time to hate on the new guy
Every media which has ever been invented has gone through this exact same thing. Television was poisoning our youth, just as did rock and roll, and comics, and the printing press. It will take approximately forty years before people shut up. Around 2030-2040, the legislature will consist of people who grew up with games, people who understand that this is BS. When the Beatles generation got into power, a few sane laws got on the books and everyone shut up. Now you're informed if an album has explicit lyrics, but the youth of America are still allowed to choose what they listen to.
The bill only blocks VIOLENT games.
The bill ignores ESRB, M rated games are not banned. Only games which allow you to "commit violence or assault against human beings" have been banned. This means that a lot of good "M" games are still legal, such as The Longest Journey. It also means that a lot of violent games are still legal, expect to see a sharp rise in games featuring Orks, Aliens, and other non-humans.
The bill has holes
The bill only fines retailers, it doesn't fine parents. The overwhelming majority of violent games placed in the hands of youth are placed there by those responsible for said youth's upbringing. 14 year olds couldn't buy GTA a month ago, and they can't buy it now. Their parents buy it for them, and no one in the gaming industry understands why. This is partially a failing of the gaming industry, and partially a failing of American culture.
Conclusions (my personal experience or opinions as regard to the consequences of this bill)
Violent Games don't make you violent
I'm 24 years old. I'm a pacifist. I've killed more people than the bubonic plague, but I killed them in games. I honestly believe that being able to escape reality prevented me from abandoning my pacifist beliefs. I would not be a Quaker today if it weren't for the likes of System Shock, Deus Ex, and yes *sigh* Doom. I have always walked the edge of violence, and know from spiritual searching that I possess a very violent soul. Video games allowed me to relieve that itch and explore that darkness in a safe environment. Without them, I would be violent.
Even extremely violent games have redeeming qualities
I have incredible spacial awareness, an instinctual sense of crisis management, curiosity, an insatiable appetite for literature, and deep understanding of society and culture. All of these things I learned from playing games, violent games. I have been made a better person, more capable of surviving in an urban environment, because I've seen such environments carried to their logical extremes.
We brought this on ourselves
Are you honestly going to tell me that GTA was made with 20 year olds in mind? Violence and Sex sell games, and game makers have been marketing to teens for years. Postal was a really bad game, real gamers didn't play it, adults didn't play it. It's touted as an example of the kinds of things you can do in a typical game, but the only reason you could commit some of Postal's atrocities is because those atrocities sold games. Violence makes the headlines and pushes the product off the shelves, even when the product is crap. Through the inexorable nature of market forces, games have been getting more violent and more realistic. This doesn't make a game good, it makes it sell, and these aren't the same thing.
It's about damn time
GTA made this law, and GTA shouldn't be available to people who can't tell right from wrong. I could make that distinction at 15, but a lot of people are dumber than me, and a lot of them need to have this stuff held back from them. All the same, this isn't the Legislature's job. When Teminator 2 came out, I was eleven. I begged my mother to let me see it, I pleaded with her. I thought it would be a really good movie, and when I finally saw it (at the age of 16) I was right. My mother was also right to keep me from seeing it until I could handle it. She made the movie better by making sure I was mature enough to watch it. I thank her for that. At the time it was frustrating as hell, but we have parents for a reason, and that reason isn't always to say "yes" to everything we ask for.
Our culture needed someone to say "this shit is out of control" and now it's been said. As the gaming industry continues to evolve into a true industry, someone needed to point out the difference between the medium and the content. Someone needed to reign this in. It should've been the developers, but they were slow to act. We've been marketing this schlock to teens for too long, and hiding behind the first amendment to disguise our greed and lack of innovation. Good games don't need violence or polycount (graphics) to sell them. So why are games getting more Violent and Prettier? Violence is easy, graphics are easy, game design is hard. The Sims, MYST, heck... even Tetris, all these games relied on good design to sell. These are the beyond blockbuster games, the ones which sell so many copies you can't even begin to wrap your mind around their numbers. It took the Sims to knock MYST out of the top selling game of all time slot, and MYST is 15 YEARS OLD!
Evolve or Die
People, not just gamers, but people in general, are hungry for better games. We bought MYST in droves because it was a really good non-violent game. Same thing with the Sims, it sold because it was the kind of game anyone could play. We need more games which don't contain guns, we need more games which don't reward hand-eye coordination. Violent action games are a niche market, and one we need to leave behind. I love my violent games, but they're hurting my hobby, they're hurting my passion. The problem, it's simply too easy to make an FPS. The market is flooded with violent schlock because you don't really need to think to make it. You think EA games makes gun games because they want to innovate? They make these things because they're worried about their 4th quarter profits.
We need to break these rules, we need to get people playing games. We need less schlock and more quality, or some of the most important moments of my youth will be lost to the next generation.
Observations (facts that have nothing to do with my personal experience or opinions)
This is bigger than California
California isn't a state, it's a nine hundred pound Gorilla. A large portion of the US lives in California, and any law it makes affects every state. Sometimes this is good, like when they crippled SUV manufacturers by legislating massive emissions reductions. Sometimes this is bad, like when they ban video games as a way of blaming their crime problems on an industry.
The bill will be overturned in federal court
It's a 1st amendment violation, pure and simple. The courts have ruled on this time and time again. Other bills like this one have been blocked before, both on the state and federal levels. I don't know how long it will take for a test case to make it to federal courts, but this bill simply won't last.
Time to hate on the new guy
Every media which has ever been invented has gone through this exact same thing. Television was poisoning our youth, just as did rock and roll, and comics, and the printing press. It will take approximately forty years before people shut up. Around 2030-2040, the legislature will consist of people who grew up with games, people who understand that this is BS. When the Beatles generation got into power, a few sane laws got on the books and everyone shut up. Now you're informed if an album has explicit lyrics, but the youth of America are still allowed to choose what they listen to.
The bill only blocks VIOLENT games.
The bill ignores ESRB, M rated games are not banned. Only games which allow you to "commit violence or assault against human beings" have been banned. This means that a lot of good "M" games are still legal, such as The Longest Journey. It also means that a lot of violent games are still legal, expect to see a sharp rise in games featuring Orks, Aliens, and other non-humans.
The bill has holes
The bill only fines retailers, it doesn't fine parents. The overwhelming majority of violent games placed in the hands of youth are placed there by those responsible for said youth's upbringing. 14 year olds couldn't buy GTA a month ago, and they can't buy it now. Their parents buy it for them, and no one in the gaming industry understands why. This is partially a failing of the gaming industry, and partially a failing of American culture.
Conclusions (my personal experience or opinions as regard to the consequences of this bill)
Violent Games don't make you violent
I'm 24 years old. I'm a pacifist. I've killed more people than the bubonic plague, but I killed them in games. I honestly believe that being able to escape reality prevented me from abandoning my pacifist beliefs. I would not be a Quaker today if it weren't for the likes of System Shock, Deus Ex, and yes *sigh* Doom. I have always walked the edge of violence, and know from spiritual searching that I possess a very violent soul. Video games allowed me to relieve that itch and explore that darkness in a safe environment. Without them, I would be violent.
Even extremely violent games have redeeming qualities
I have incredible spacial awareness, an instinctual sense of crisis management, curiosity, an insatiable appetite for literature, and deep understanding of society and culture. All of these things I learned from playing games, violent games. I have been made a better person, more capable of surviving in an urban environment, because I've seen such environments carried to their logical extremes.
We brought this on ourselves
Are you honestly going to tell me that GTA was made with 20 year olds in mind? Violence and Sex sell games, and game makers have been marketing to teens for years. Postal was a really bad game, real gamers didn't play it, adults didn't play it. It's touted as an example of the kinds of things you can do in a typical game, but the only reason you could commit some of Postal's atrocities is because those atrocities sold games. Violence makes the headlines and pushes the product off the shelves, even when the product is crap. Through the inexorable nature of market forces, games have been getting more violent and more realistic. This doesn't make a game good, it makes it sell, and these aren't the same thing.
It's about damn time
GTA made this law, and GTA shouldn't be available to people who can't tell right from wrong. I could make that distinction at 15, but a lot of people are dumber than me, and a lot of them need to have this stuff held back from them. All the same, this isn't the Legislature's job. When Teminator 2 came out, I was eleven. I begged my mother to let me see it, I pleaded with her. I thought it would be a really good movie, and when I finally saw it (at the age of 16) I was right. My mother was also right to keep me from seeing it until I could handle it. She made the movie better by making sure I was mature enough to watch it. I thank her for that. At the time it was frustrating as hell, but we have parents for a reason, and that reason isn't always to say "yes" to everything we ask for.
Our culture needed someone to say "this shit is out of control" and now it's been said. As the gaming industry continues to evolve into a true industry, someone needed to point out the difference between the medium and the content. Someone needed to reign this in. It should've been the developers, but they were slow to act. We've been marketing this schlock to teens for too long, and hiding behind the first amendment to disguise our greed and lack of innovation. Good games don't need violence or polycount (graphics) to sell them. So why are games getting more Violent and Prettier? Violence is easy, graphics are easy, game design is hard. The Sims, MYST, heck... even Tetris, all these games relied on good design to sell. These are the beyond blockbuster games, the ones which sell so many copies you can't even begin to wrap your mind around their numbers. It took the Sims to knock MYST out of the top selling game of all time slot, and MYST is 15 YEARS OLD!
Evolve or Die
People, not just gamers, but people in general, are hungry for better games. We bought MYST in droves because it was a really good non-violent game. Same thing with the Sims, it sold because it was the kind of game anyone could play. We need more games which don't contain guns, we need more games which don't reward hand-eye coordination. Violent action games are a niche market, and one we need to leave behind. I love my violent games, but they're hurting my hobby, they're hurting my passion. The problem, it's simply too easy to make an FPS. The market is flooded with violent schlock because you don't really need to think to make it. You think EA games makes gun games because they want to innovate? They make these things because they're worried about their 4th quarter profits.
We need to break these rules, we need to get people playing games. We need less schlock and more quality, or some of the most important moments of my youth will be lost to the next generation.
