[insane_cobra]

You better be over 18 if you live in California.

Isn't it incredibly ironic that Arnold Schwarzenegger might ban a violent form of entertainment? I love this world.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

“Clearly the ESRB has a conflict of interest in rating these games,” said Speaker pro Tem Yee. “Plain and simple, parents cannot trust the ESRB to rate games appropriately or the industry to look out for our children’s best interests.”

OMFG. The sheer bottomless stupidity of these people. How the f#&k can parents even know about ESRB when they aren't even paying attention to what their kids are asking them to buy?!

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Manhunt; Halo 2.

This should shed some light on what drives people like our parents and other non-gamers on this issue, a point I've made several times before during this kind of discussion...

Contesting the Not-So-Virtual World of Politics | The New York Times, 9/10/05 (free registration required for full article)

Video gamers aren't supposed to care about serious stuff like politics. According to stereotype, gamers are supposed to be apathetic, socially challenged slackers who live off their parents and don't care about much beyond where the next bag of Cheetos is coming from...

...Even if gamers are not quite as out of it as the popular imagination might suggest, they should realize that many people would probably agree with [New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton]. Most of the people who actually run this country did not grow up with the electronic literacy of the current generation. As a result, many modern technologies, like video games, can be legitimately threatening to them.

Doug Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association, put the entire issue in perspective.

"This is a classic case of one generation attacking the media of a younger generation," he said. "There are all of these people who may be mortified by the Godfather video game because it's too violent but then they'll go out and buy the Godfather trilogy of movies and let their kids watch it because they consider that great art. Many of the people now attacking video games screamed and yelled at their own parents for saying that rock 'n' roll was the devil and was leading to the destruction of American values. A lot of those people ended up going to Congress, and now they are saying the same thing about video games."

[Jeysie]

You have it spot on, Trep.

I've spent cashier stints in both Babbage's (a software/video game store) and in the electronics section of Toys R Us, and the vast majority of parents know absolutely nothing about computer/software games *or* the ESRB.

They just buy whatever's popular, and then come storming back in wailing and screaming to the service desk clerk when they find out what they let little Jimmy play, with the most popular complaint being something along the lines of "How could you let me buy this for my son?"

Of course, that's not accounting for the times when a parent would just send little Jimmy himself out to buy the game with no parental supervision whatsoever.

Granted, I was lucky in that most of the folks I worked with in both places were good sorts, and whenever we saw a parent trying to buy a questionable game we'd try to ask what the age was of the kid they were buying for and everything to steer them straight. And of course if we saw a young kid buying a game he shouldn't we'd steer him off.

(Side note: I have had a fair number of mothers express praise and astonishment that "You're a girl who knows so much about computers. Good for you, that's so rare to see!" Did I miss something?)

But many times there's one of you, and literally a couple dozen of the customer, and sometimes you don't have time to talk to every person. Furthermore, I've had many a customer come over huffing and pissing because "Mommy, the mean counter lady won't let me buy my game!". And there are a lot of retail clerks who just don't care whatsoever (because, let's face it, retail is not the sort of job most people voluntarily seek out).

Erm. I suppose the point of my long-winded rant is that I'm sick of the folks who insist on getting the government to strongarm and muck things because they can't be assed to do anything themselves. But then, that's true of a lot more than gaming...

Peace & Luv, Liz

[mag]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

OMFG. The sheer bottomless stupidity of these people. How the f#&k can parents even know about ESRB when they aren't even paying attention to what their kids are asking them to buy?!

Wait a minute! Are you saying that Murder Psychopath Raping Rampage 3: Blood, Guts, and Carnage might be a violent game? But it's rated M...for monkeys! Monkeys are okay for children!

Originally Posted by Jeysie

Granted, I was lucky in that most of the folks I worked with in both places were good sorts, and whenever we saw a parent trying to buy a questionable game we'd try to ask what the age was of the kid they were buying for and everything to steer them straight. And of course if we saw a young kid buying a game he shouldn't we'd steer him off.

Spoilsport.

mag

[Crunchy in milk]

I see nothing wrong with restricting the sale of such material to minors. If parents want to buy it for their kids thats fine.

I could care less what's in a game, its a game and its a choice to play it or not. If the law says you must be X years old to make that choice so be it.

ESRB ratings are only suggestions. They only let parents decide whether or not to buy the game (should they bother to read them), they do not restrict the salesman from selling any old shit to whoever fronts up the dough.

I would hope the wording of the bill is a little more concise on what they're going to age restrict by law though. The article only says "extremely violent video games" and as headline grabbing as that is, it lacks definition or any basis for comparison.

Thats pretty useless if you're going to write it into law, leaving it up to lawyers to argue in court on a case by case basis if game X is considered 'extremely violent' (compared to what?) in the defense of Joe Salesman when he's being sued by Tommy's mom. For not protecting her child from the big bad world of polygon violence for her.

Point of sale laws haven't been all that effective at stopping underage people getting ahold of beer, smokes etc... This isn't something to get stressed over no matter on what side of the fence you're sitting.

[Jeysie]

Mag: Heh.

Truth be told, I hate age-related restrictions. I was mature enough to watch/play and understand R/M rated stuff when I was 14 without being "horribly influenced", and there are some 18-year-olds I wouldn't trust to open a DVD case without developing mental issues. It's unfair to restrict those who can handle it, and not wise to give free passage to those who can't.

But a salesperson can't determine that at the point of sale, only the parents can. And yet, in my experience parents don't want to be bothered. So we're stuck with all this stupid regulation to try to cover for the fact that parents would rather have complete strangers choose what their kid is and isn't ready for instead of themselves.

(Of course, many parents who do choose what they think their kid can and can't handle do it without consulting the kid, anyway. Ah, what a fun social circle we weave.)

Peace & Luv, Liz

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by Crunchy in milk

I see nothing wrong with restricting the sale of such material to minors. If parents want to buy it for their kids thats fine.

The problem is that most "family-friendly" store chains won't stock such titles. Which in this case means most games.

[Sage]

Originally Posted by insane_cobra

The problem is that most "family-friendly" store chains won't stock such titles. Which in this case means most games.

What? You mean I won't be able to pick up "Chainsaw Hookers III-Madame Strikes Back" at my local Wal-Mart? After the cliffhanger ending of "Chainsaw Hookers II-Revenge Of The Johns", I can't wait to see how things turn out!

ScottMate

[SakSquash]

I can understand banning those games for kids maybe under the age of 14, but 18?! What can an 18-year-old handle that a 17-year-old cannot? So lame.

[Fairygdmther]

Originally Posted by Thrift Store Scott

What? You mean I won't be able to pick up "Chainsaw Hookers III-Madame Strikes Back" at my local Wal-Mart? After the cliffhanger ending of "Chainsaw Hookers II-Revenge Of The Johns", I can't wait to see how things turn out!

ScottMate

But the best was the first one:
"Chainsaw Hookers I - Why Hookers Wear Red"

Lynsie

[Maquisard]

Back in Belgrade, I once saw a clueless grandma ask the arcade manager to activate a porno game for her little grandson. I don't remember why they had switched to keys as opposed to coins at that point--maybe so just anyone couldn't play porno games?

[Captain Blondebeard]

Arnold is coming.

http://media.ebaumsworld.com/index.p...noldcoming.wmv

[Once A Villain]

Originally Posted by Captain Blondebeard

Arnold is coming.

http://media.ebaumsworld.com/index.p...noldcoming.wmv

I saw that a while back. Hilarious. "He's Coming!" LOL.

[stepurhan]

“Clearly the ESRB has a conflict of interest in rating these games,” said Speaker pro Tem Yee. “Plain and simple, parents cannot trust the ESRB to rate games appropriately or the industry to look out for our children’s best interests.”

I take it that Speaker pro Tem Yee hasn't heard about the cuts in Indigo Prophecy to get it an M instead of AO rating then. I can't help thnking that it's in the ESRB (and the games industry) best interest to have a robust rating system. They rate games appropriately then they've got a defence when accused of harming young minds. They recommended not letting kids get hold of it (though probably knowing kids will as discussed above)

Thank goodness I live in the good old liberal UK where I can not only get "Chainsaw Hookers III-Madame Strikes Back" but "chainsaw Hookers IV : This time it's Personal Services" which the ESRB won't pass at all.

[Melanie68]

When legislators decide to draft this kind of bill they will turn to articles like this to defend it.

This article revisited another done in 2001 which did a metanalysis on numerous other studies that were done to test the hypothesis that violent video games made kids more violent.

In this 2004 article, it pretty much agreed with the 2001 results but certainly brought up the shortcomings of such studies and scientific studies in general (i.e. you can never have a completely variable free study when looking at correlations).

Discussion
Three findings are particularly important.First, as more studies of violent video games have been conducted, the significance of violent video game effects on key aggression and helping related variables has become clearer.Second, the claim (or worry) that poor methodological characteristics of some studies has led to a false, inflated conclusion about violent video game effects is simply wrong.Third, video game studies with better methods typically yield bigger
effects, suggesting that heightened concern about deleterious effects of exposure to violent videogames is warranted.
The magnitude of these effects is also somewhat alarming.The best estimate of the effect size of exposure to violent video games on aggressive behaviour is about 0.26 (Fig.2 ).This is larger than the effect of condom use on decreased HIV risk, the effect of exposure to passive smoke at work and lung cancer, and the effect of calcium intake on bone mass (Bushman & Huesmann, 2001). As a society, we have taken massive and expensive steps to educate the public about these smaller medical effects, but almost none to deal with the larger violent video game effects.
In assessing the potential societal harm of a risk factor, one must take into account the risk factor dosage as well as the effect size.In other words, if youths spent only a little time playing violent video games (e.g. less than 30 min per week), or if only a few youths spent a lot of time playing such games (e.g. 1 in 10,000), then the overall cost to society would likely be fairly small.
But as documented in several articles in this special issue as well as in other recent reports, a lot of youths are playing violent video games for many hours per week.When large numbers of youths (including young adults) are exposed to many hours of media violence (including violent videogames), even a small effect can have extremely large societal consequences (see Abelson, 1985;
Rosenthal, 1986, 1990).
A thorough understanding of any risk factor requires several key developments: (a) converging evidence from multiple empirical methods that the risk factor (e.g. exposure to violent video games) influences the main outcome variable (e.g. aggressive and violent behaviour); (b) a good theoretical model of the underlying processes; and (c) empirical evidence linking key theoretical processes and variables (e.g. aggressive cognitions) to the main outcome variable. At a general level, the huge media violence research literature has all of these components in place (Anderson et al., under review).Three major types of studies have clearly and consistently linked media violence to aggressive and violent behaviour: experimental, cross-sectional (correlational); and longitudinal.Social-cognitive models of human aggression clearly link exposure to media violence to subsequent aggressive and violent behaviour at both the theoretical and empirical levels (e.g. Huesmann, 1988; Anderson & Bushman, 2002a; Anderson & Huesmann, in press).
The same theoretical structure works for understanding violent video game effects.But when one considers violent video game research by itself, a glaring empirical gap emerges: the lack of longitudinal studies.It is a mistake to dismiss existing longitudinal studies of media violence effects, of course, because they are highly relevant to understanding and predicting the effects of repeated exposure to violent video games.Nonetheless, it is imperative that future video game research includes longitudinal designs.

Honestly, I couldn't follow all of this article (my stats knowledge is not the best) but it's there for you to read.

The thought that violent video games increase violence in kids - OK so they may have more violent thoughts. But how does this translate to society as a whole? Will this harm society? In the case of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris - it absolutely did. But Eric Harris was a sociopath and Dylan Klebold a severely depressed teenager who would probably would not have conceived of the Columbine shooting on his own. So certainly mental health plays a large part in how our outside world (be it TV, movies, video games, our social interactions, etc) impacts us. I haven't done a literature search on all of the studies conducted in this area but certainly looking at kids with diagnosed mental illness vs. those without and the impact of video games would be more thorough (in my opinion). God forbid though you should have to fill out a mental health assessment before you can pick up a video game.

I would personally worry as a parent (if I were one) if my child were exposed to much violence - in any medium (TV, movies, games, the Iraq war..) but that would be my job to check my kids exposure. We could legislate for every possible problem that may come up but I for one do not want to live in a 1984 world.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Reality Bytes: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked
Henry Jenkins, Director of Comparative Studies at Massachusets Institute of Technolgy; author, From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games; hardcore gamer.

A large gap exists between the public's perception of video games and what the research actually shows. The following is an attempt to separate fact from fiction.

1. The availability of video games has led to an epidemic of youth violence.

According to federal crime statistics, the rate of juvenile violent crime in the United States is at a 30-year low. Researchers find that people serving time for violent crimes typically consume less media before committing their crimes than the average person in the general population. It's true that young offenders who have committed school shootings in America have also been game players. But young people in general are more likely to be gamers — 90 percent of boys and 40 percent of girls play. The overwhelming majority of kids who play do NOT commit antisocial acts. According to a 2001 U.S. Surgeon General's report, the strongest risk factors for school shootings centered on mental stability and the quality of home life, not media exposure. The moral panic over violent video games is doubly harmful. It has led adult authorities to be more suspicious and hostile to many kids who already feel cut off from the system. It also misdirects energy away from eliminating the actual causes of youth violence and allows problems to continue to fester.

2. Scientific evidence links violent game play with youth aggression.

Claims like this are based on the work of researchers who represent one relatively narrow school of research, "media effects." This research includes some 300 studies of media violence. But most of those studies are inconclusive and many have been criticized on methodological grounds. In these studies, media images are removed from any narrative context. Subjects are asked to engage with content that they would not normally consume and may not understand. Finally, the laboratory context is radically different from the environments where games would normally be played. Most studies found a correlation, not a causal relationship, which means the research could simply show that aggressive people like aggressive entertainment. That's why the vague term "links" is used here. If there is a consensus emerging around this research, it is that violent video games may be one risk factor - when coupled with other more immediate, real-world influences — which can contribute to anti-social behavior. But no research has found that video games are a primary factor or that violent video game play could turn an otherwise normal person into a killer.

8. Video game play is desensitizing.

Classic studies of play behavior among primates suggest that apes make basic distinctions between play fighting and actual combat. In some circumstances, they seem to take pleasure wrestling and tousling with each other. In others, they might rip each other apart in mortal combat. Game designer and play theorist Eric Zimmerman describes the ways we understand play as distinctive from reality as entering the "magic circle." The same action — say, sweeping a floor — may take on different meanings in play (as in playing house) than in reality (housework). Play allows kids to express feelings and impulses that have to be carefully held in check in their real-world interactions. Media reformers argue that playing violent video games can cause a lack of empathy for real-world victims. Yet, a child who responds to a video game the same way he or she responds to a real-world tragedy could be showing symptoms of being severely emotionally disturbed. Here's where the media effects research, which often uses punching rubber dolls as a marker of real-world aggression, becomes problematic. The kid who is punching a toy designed for this purpose is still within the "magic circle" of play and understands her actions on those terms. Such research shows us only that violent play leads to more violent play.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

BTW, here's at least one (albeit old) reason to be f#&king infuriated by how the media are handling cashing in on this issue:

Coming up next: Ambushed on "Donahue"! by Henry Jenkins | Salon.com, Aug. 20, 2002

I am the director of MIT's new comparative media studies program. I've been writing about video games for more than a decade, have testified before the Senate Commerce Committee and the Federal Communications Commission, have conducted workshops with game designers, spoken to PTA meetings and the American Library Association, and been interviewed by more reporters than I can count. I agreed to appear on "Donahue" to talk about games because I knew I should have owned the issue. But I blew it.

....the first question goes to White, who uses it to remind viewers that she is a concerned mother. Never mind that I am a father and have raised a son successfully through his teenage years. On Donahue, activists are moms and intellectuals are presumed to be childless.

White explains how parents across the country had purchased Grand Theft Auto 3 for their children without any idea of its distasteful contents. Hello! The game is called Grand Theft Auto 3. It's rated M for Mature Audiences -- not appropriate for children under 17 -- "violence, blood, strong language." The hit men and prostitutes are right there on the package. If you are a thoughtful -- er, I mean, "thinkful" -- parent, how much more information do you need before alarm bells start going off in your head?

White notes that the Federal Trade Commission had cited overwhelming evidence that video games were aggressively marketed to youth. The same FTC study found that 83 percent of all video game purchases were either made by parents or by parents and children together. Moms and dads still control the purse strings on what remain high-ticket items in most family budgets. As parents, my wife and I took responsibility for knowing something about the media we bought our son. We didn't expect the storekeeper to protect us from ourselves.

[Melanie68]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Reality Bytes: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked
Henry Jenkins, Director of Comparative Studies at Massachusets Institute of Technolgy; author, From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games; hardcore gamer.

I remember that study now. I'm glad you posted that article. Many researchers focus on the extreme examples of kids who play video games and then go out and commit real life violence without taking into consideration that these kids had problems beforehand. It has also become the norm that the news media glorifies these stories of school shootings, etc. so that it seems like it is more prevelant when it isn't.

It is always an inherent weakness in research in making sure your sample population is truly an randomly selected, unbiased selection of the population as a whole. It's difficult to do. So when these studies get published, many take them at face value and don't critically evaluate them.

EDIT: Also, the correlation vs. cause. Many studies (in many fields) show a correlation between X and Y but that is only the start. The next step (at least in my field) is to show mechanistically what is happen. If you start with X, what are the actual steps that lead to Y. Then, will you truly have a thorough understanding and can make informed decisions.

(I need to take off my science hat now... )

[Manhunter71]

Originally Posted by Crunchy in milk

I see nothing wrong with restricting the sale of such material to minors. If parents want to buy it for their kids thats fine.

A few years back I remember reading a rant from some parent (I think it was on the JA forums) who whas complaining about age restriction policies in video game stores.

The details are pretty sketchy, but from what I can remember, his 2 teenage sons (I think they were around 13 ) had tried to buy a video game with an 18 rating - the shop assistant refused to sell the game to them as they were clearly not 18 - a few minutes later when they gave the game to their parents to buy for them, the assistant even refused to sell it them!
The adults complained to the manager of the store and he still would not sell them the game, claiming that he knew that they would give it to their kids to play!!
The parents left the store feeling very angry, but decided to return a cuople of days later and actually bought the game from the very assistant who had earlier refused to sell it to them!