Insert Vote, then Insert Coin.
Jack Thompson. There. I said it. I invoked him. Now that that unpleasantness is out of the way, I can freely finish this piece whilst I wait for the incoming cease-and-desist to my email inbox.
I invoke JT early, because love him or hate him, he’s successfully become the figurehead for a movement that is based by and large on misconception and hot-button rhetoric. That’s right. A movement. He’s not alone in this, although the average gamer with a mind to stand up for their favorite activity has no idea about any of the other principle players. Lock and load, guys and gals, because that in and of itself should scare you.
Still in the dark? Just recently, California State Sen. Leland Yee tried to introduce a law in California aimed at the control of video games containing “any objectionable and/or violent material”, with such restrictions and judgment of material being in the hands (by and large) of the government of California. Let me backtrack, as “tried” is incorrect here. The bill BECAME LAW. However, in a move to strike down what was shaping up to essentially be an anti-ESRB mandate, the law was deemed as unconstitutional. This isn’t without precedent, as other laws were taken out by eight other jurisdictions, including three appeals courts, which all deemed said laws to be unconstitutional. Victory for common sense, yes? Oh the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune! Here comes Ah-nuld, the Governator himself, to appeal the decision. Feel free to simulate the sensation of slamming your head into your desk at any time. Conan the bloody barbarian is putting his foot down against game violence.
How about the 11th hour ruling 2001 ruling which blocked an Indianapolis law banning violent coin-op games?
Let that sink in for a moment. That’s just two states. Two of fifty and a few territories of just lil ol’ U S of A. Let’s check the globe, shall we? Prime Minister Brown of England is currently launching an offensive into strict regulations concerning video games. Germany has a long standing history of out-and-out banning certain titles, adhering age limitations and deciding what (if any) stores may carry or sell these items.
But I digress, and tend to fly off my intended target. We were chatting about the United States here. So, concerning the upcoming Presidential election in 2008, are there any candidates that vouchsafe ol’ JT’s ramblings? Oh. My. Yes. Democratic runner Hillary Clinton. Senator Clinton decided it would be a stroke of brilliance to introduce the Family Entertainment Protection Act in November, 2005. The act in and of itself would have hit retailers with extravagant fines for not being on the ball. I’ll point out, that no such act/consequence exists for movie rental stores, theaters, galleries, museums, grocers, or concert venues beyond the distribution of controlled substances. Brilliant and savvy move by the body politic, that.
How about that hot-and-spicy violence issue, eh? It’s a favorite of pundits, and is laden with the most up-to-date information from any number of unbiased specialists confirming beyond any shadow of a doubt that videogames are little more than Orwellian brain washing offerings placed lovingly into devices which give us an interactive Two Minutes’ Hate.
Mario is ALWAYS at war with Pacifica.
“But Xero,” you may ask; “what proof is out there that proves the bleak Mad-Max future videogames will provide for our babies”? Well, let us have a peak into what the best and brightest of science have to offer! Most recently, it was proven that the VA Tech shooter was the byproduct of years of behavioral conditioning at the hands of bits and bytes. Oh wait. I’m Sorry. According to a investigative panel appointed by Gov. Tim Kaine , he wasn’t. In fact, the panel appointed by that state’s politic found no evidence whatsoever of a connection between video games and the horrible violence that ensued that day. It still didn’t stop some people from leaping to their pulpits before the blood stopped pooling. No video games programed Seung Hui Cho into Charles Bronson. Unless, that is, there was a secret FPS level in Sonic the Hedgehog that I managed to skip. Sonic. Not Shadow. We’re talking pre-hedgehogsploitation here, folks.
But that’s not enough. Let’s go to a previous study by Villanova University, led by Prof. Patrick Markey, which clearly illustrates the sinister subliminal commands issued by the ruling Technocratic- what?
What’s that?
The results were that the measured responses of 167 students who were asked to play violent games like Doom 3 and Return to Castle Wolfenstein as well as tamer titles such as Tetris Worlds and Project Gotham Racing did not produce violent tendencies? Well, ok. Sure. Surely it made them all angry and ill-tempered, however. It’s painfully obvious.
Oh.
Wait…
The titles only produced noticeable spikes in anger with people who have documented anger management issues. Huh. Well for the sake of campaigning, we’ll allow the politicians to merrily obfuscate any connections between offenders and documented histories of mental ailments. Consider it the grown-up version of plugging your ears with your fingers while chanting “I’m not listening,”.
With that in mind, it’s up to the government to wax hegemony and tell parents how to raise their children, in every minute regard concerning every intimate detail of parenthood. Once you have a child, you see, your DNA magically restructures itself so that your higher brain functions cease upon entering a Game Stop or Electronics Boutique.
You shamble along the aisles with your offspring in tow, drooling and moaning the protestations of a wounded animal that’s been absconded out of the familiarity of it’s natural habitat. Your eyes are a fogged-over remnant of sentience as your mind reels and is incapable of taking in the myriad of bright colors and flashy fonts that assail you from every gleaming box on the shelves.
Upon reaching the register, your fight-or-flight mechanism has taken complete control of your adult mammal body. The strange world and it’s denizens inside the store frighten and confuse you to the point where you gladly hand over a wad of cash without a second thought to the consequences, let alone the physical act of turning over the box in your sweating hands to check a rating.
Parents aren’t to blame. One can not stave off the collective voodoo of the Videogame Industry and it’s dark workings on the fragile and easily-tricked mind of your average parent. Parents, ye be warned. Here there be monsters.
Thankfully, such a mental metamorphosis never occurs when taking junior to the local cinema. No sir. Thank the powers that be for a Government that is staffed with individuals who understand that your average parental unit is a moron and your average child is little more than a sponge that takes in any and all information through a process of osmosis that is currently unclassified by modern scientists.
When you get that power-up, the terrorists win.
It’s dangerous to go alone, take these bureaucrats.
Only you can stop frags.
Winners say no to unlocked achievements.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s gamer score.
We will win the war on the electronical entertainments.
So what’s the underlying reason for this kind of knee-jerk campaigning? In a word: games. Games are for children. We’ll ignore the current demographic of 16-35 year olds, because we know what the word “game” means, thank you very much. Additionally, video games are not art; and we’ll gloss over the fact that said issue was once applied to books, movies and music. Video games, at their core, are aimed at turning our rosy-cheeked youths into mindless killing machines. We’ll ignore any research that points to the contrary. There are no bad parents. There are no bad children. Everyone can be trusted, except the ESRB, a self-governing entity designed to answer the threat of non-artistic murder simulators such as *shock and awe* Mortal Kombat. Thanks, Senator Lieberman. I owe you a coke.
Ideally, we consider ourselves a government of the people. Sadly, as is proven time and time again, that means little if the people aren’t informed and vigilant. If you consider yourself a defender of the media; a minuteman (or woman) who’s ready to stand up against ignorance and political vice aimed at your lifestyle, then you owe it to yourself to be aware. Read. Learn. React. Find out who up on the podium REALLY has your interests at heart.
Try Game Politics, ECA, Videogame Voters, and even Kotaku and the Game|Life blog at Wired.
Insert vote. Then insert coin.
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September 20th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Truly just blown away by your statement here, I applaud the beauty of how you once again prove that we gamers are not the raging psychos the government pins us to be. But towards the end, I did come up with a question. What was with the snipe at Senator Lieberman. Being more specifically my senator, I would like to come to his defense in that when I had a breif oppurtunity to speak to him one on one, he confided in me that he takes a case by case mentality to video games. Some games need squashed, but many others should not even be touched. It is not necessarily a characteristic simply of violence, but more of its realism or bias. When given a specific example, Lieberman took no great offense to Grand Theft Auto, but found a cluster of RPG games to be metaphors for bigotry, or in games such as Postal, the chances that it could actually happen concerns the Senator. I won’t argue if he has more to fear from a raging gunman living in a van, to another man driving a tank around Miami. I am however what statement exactly you’re making regards to.
(by the way, unlike every other gamer ever, I liked Shadow the Hedgehog. And I make that statement after playing it just after finishing my original sonic on sega, so no yelling at the gamer for not knowing what he’s talking about :P)
September 20th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
I take a stab at Senator Lieberman because it was his early campaigning against the industry (shortly after Mortal Kombat hit the arcades) that started the longterm ball rolling. It did lead to the ESRB, but that was simply a catch-all to keep the government out of a form of media that they refused to (and still do on many levels) put on equal footing with Television, Movies, and Print.
Every now and again, the Senator throws in his two cents on the matter- usually in the wake of something Mr. Thompson or Senator Clinton crows about. He’s a nice guy otherwise, I’m sure; but the fact remains he’s not exactly a gamer’s best friend.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Very True. But sometimes an ally isn’t in our best interest. Sometimes you really need an enemy who is ready to listen. Because when he swings a motion in our favor, it bears some weight. And as you did point out, his actions did lead to ESRB, which in my personal opinion is a phenominal system. It is generally fair about its ratings, and with store policies starting to crack down on underage purchases, it has become an even more effective safeguard. No more excusing either child or parent. There is a clear agreement between the two that a game is suitable to one’s standards and appeasing to the young consumer’s interest. And on the brighter end, it deflates the arguments of people like Mr. Thompson. If you have a publicly accepted assesment (ESRB) in place, his whining falls on deaf ears. Reverand Jesse Jackson put it best when he said, “Thompson is a man wound tighter then a spring, and would probably think masturbation is the work of the devil. So he pretty much gets off picking on little kids. Since children these days dont keep up with the news, what are we worried about?”
But through that extensive digression, I think I made it pretty clear, Senator Lieberman’s actions, though not necessarily in good intent, managed to turn things in our favor. So, in proper Rowling form, don’t go looking to tussle with a hippogriff if it’s already tipped its head to you.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
I’ll agree to disagree here- because his current rhetoric isn’t helping - it’s fostering legislation like Yee’s and creating precedent for anyone with a podium and a need for votes.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
You know, one of the things about video game control is that most people, when reporting on these things, they don’t differentiate between people who want to ban violent video games in general, and law makers who just want to limit or ban the sale of violent video games to minors.
The reality of the matter is that the ESRB does not garner nearly as much attention or respect as the movie rating system does — and so a game that’s rated M, that doesn’t have nearly as much weight as a movie that’s rated R.
I think the law makers who want to stem the sale of violent and graphic video games to minors need to be supported — or at least given a fair ear — while the ones who are looking for outright banning of the games to be slapped with some First Amendment legislation.
September 24th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
We have a hurtle before that. We need to draw a line between guys who want a ban on violence, and people *cough* Thompson *cough* who think they need to ban ALL games. We need some standards.
September 30th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
[…] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptPrime Minister Brown of England is currently launching an offensive into strict regulations concerning video games. Germany has a long standing history of out-and-out banning certain titles, adhering age limitations and deciding what … […]
October 2nd, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Love this post overall, just throwing in a bit of two cents here about some of the comments.
ESRB… It was an idea. An idea that I even think was a good idea, but that I’m not happy about in execution. I’m not mad at it, I’m not sad or unhappy per say, but I am not happy about it.
@BandWidth, well see, getting a high rating from the ESRB still does effect stuff. Too high a rating and Walmart and the like will never sell you (Would I ever buy a game from Walmart? No. But it does matter to them if they can get out in the ‘mainstream’ or not) and that is a bad, sometimes deadly thing for a game. Sometimes censorship gets thrown into the mix if the company doesn’t want the rating too high.
I will pull the example of Xenosaga: Episode III. Not to say any spoilers, but this is a series with a history of cutting out the blood for the NA release. The fans weren’t happy, but we lived. But in this, the last game of the series, their censoring messed up two emotional and important scenes of the game. And this was done in the name of keeping the rating low.
Rating a video game is also hard, because of just how much is there. Movie? You can just sit down and watch it. A video game there’s a lot more ground to cover. So, again, I don’t hate or even dislike the ESRB per say. I just think… work is needed. Something. But then I find that true for a lot of things, and what we really need is more parents who do their jobs. The reason Timmy gets the game he’s ten years too young for is just as much the parents fault.
(I do point out I’m of the camp that thinks parenting… ya know, is the job of the parent. Not the government or corporations. Quite frankly I don’t think they should have anything to do with it, besides for the company making it clear to the parent what they’re buying, since you can’t do like a book or movie, and just say the adult should read/watch it first.)
Really, I wish more people would just read things like Killing Monsters by Gerard Jones….