New York and several anti-gaming bills

[Blitzkommando]

Earlier this month, the New York state Senate approved a bill that would make rating labels on games mandatory in the state and establish an advisory council to appraise the job done by the Entertainment Software Rating Board and a parent-teacher program to identify kids at risk for violent behavior.

The bill passed the Senate and was moved to the Assembly in just four days. With momentum like that behind the issue, two more bills were introduced last week, one from the Senate, and another from the Assembly.

After his rating labels bill met with such swift acceptance, State Senator Andrew Lanza last week introduced S5941, which would make it a class E felony to sell or rent to minors any game including "depictions of depraved violence and indecent images."

The bill defines depraved violence as "any photographic, photorealistic, or other similar visual representation of the rape, dismemberment, physical torture, mutilation, or evisceration of a human body." Indecent images would be any such visual representation "of a person or a portion of the human body which depicts nudity, sexual conduct, or sadomasochistic abuse and which is harmful to minors."

The next day, some of Lanza's colleagues in the New York state Assembly offered their own take on his legislative efforts, as Assemblyman Joseph Lentol introduced A8696 (as reported on by Game Politics). The new bill included Lanza's felony proposition with the same definitions for depraved violence and indecent images, as well a proposal for establishing an advisory council as set forth in Lanza's original legislation from earlier this month. Assemblyman Sheldon Silver and Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer cosponsored Lentol's bill.

One new passage in Lentol's bill would put restrictions on console sales. It would mandate that all home gaming systems sold in New York include parental lockout controls that will limit access to "certain content." The bill specifically excludes PCs and handheld devices.

A representative for Lentol told GameSpot that he proposed his bill because he felt Lanza's was too vague in areas, and he felt strongly about including the parental restriction requirement. As for why handhelds like the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable were excluded from the law, the representative said it was because the parental control technology has not been fully implemented in the current systems on the market.

Both newly introduced bills would take effect 120 days after being signed into law. Both of them were referred to committees upon introduction and have yet to be voted on.

Looks like Hillary is going to get her wish of massive restrictions on videogames within her state.

I can't say it surprises me that New York would be the first state to pull stuff like this as they tend to make rather... crazy decisions every so often. All I can say is, good luck to all of you in NY and hopefully you all can speak out about this to your representatives.

I tend to have a pretty conservative base so my feeling is that there should be as few regulations as possible on any sort of media. My feeling is that the ESRB rating system was a bad enough blow to the gaming industry, but this could very well kill it for NY entirely. I mean, come on, a "V-Chip" for consoles? How the hell are Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony going to develop the blocking system they are asking for in a mere 120 days, especially if it would require an update to the console before it could be sold. I also got a kick out of how handhelds and PCs are excluded as if the exact same games that appear on them are somehow different enough not to warrant the changes. Perhaps because for the PC it would border on illegal?

Source

[Weeaboolits]

Dumbass politicians. -_-+

[Skuda]

Politicians are retarded...

Even though this is happening in newyork, it will have just as big an impact up here in Canada. That's pretty stupid considering we wouldn't have any say in it what so ever.

[KodiaX987]

Not selling violent games to kids who aren't of age is nothing new, but I wonder just how one one state will push entire gaming corporations to stick parental control features in their games.


...oh wait, I already got that shit on my Wii!

[ABDUR101]

It all stems from parents with too much time on their hands, but not enough time to babysit their children. It's so much easier to have laws in place that fuck everybody, if it means covering someone's ass and having the ability to sue someone else for what you were unable to stop in your own home. "It wasn't my fault he was sold the game; even though I've prolly seen or heard him playing it for the past week in his bedroom...but as parents we have a busy life with work and trying to keep things together, we don't have time to watch what our kid does every second of every day."

Oh no, 15 year old Johnny is playing a game with those thunder-rods and boomsticks again, surely he's going to grow up beleiving he can shoot people and bang whores! What ever will we do? Our parenting and morals aren't ingrained into him and made him a mindless duplicate of ourselves yet!

Newsflash: For all of you new to the gaming scene and the laws which have been stacking up to help keep the 'violence' under control; it's only going to get stricter. There's always some nutjob out there who wants to wave a banner and create a devil for everyone to crusade against. Personally, I get all my "visual representation of a person or a portion of the human body which depicts nudity, sexual conduct, or sadomasochistic abuse" from the internet; for free. If I want to buy a game that depicts that, well it better be a damn good game; and I dunno about everyone else, but I don't go looking for a game that just lists that stupid shit in the parental advisory box. "Oh joy, my copy of Cheerleader Rape and Mutilation-fest X2 came in today! OH HAPPY DAY!!" I think anyone that games for the right reasons(fun-factor, relaxation, etc) doesn't care if the game was meant for minors; if the game is fun and attention grabbing enough, thats the point.

But then I'm 23, and I would'nt really give a shit if they made all gaming require that you be 18; so oh well! Not like kids aren't going to have someone older buy the damn games for them if they really want it anyway. I'm glad my parents never cared; they always knew I could distinguish fantasy from reality. Same with my nephews, they've been playing GTA on console for YEARS, and they're very caring and decent kids.

Oh well. America needs a mental flush; or we need to just start taking warning labels off everything and within afew years we should have our system properly cleaned. =]

[Solstis]

The only problem is, that some kids that are jerks become even bigger jerks when they play violent or misogynistic video games.

(Are there any misogynistic video games? Owait, the Guy Game, but that was stupid)

Still, stupid kids will be stupid, regardless of how they get their kicks.

And, Abdur, I don't think that it's a good idea to completely desensitize children in America to violence and all manners of depravity; look how cynical and narcissitic we turned out to be. We kinda suck.

I can only imagine what a bunch of jerks the next crop will be.

[HUnewearl_Meira]

I'm not sure that we've reacted properly to this. They're not really restricting the game industry, but they seem to be pretty much just creating laws to enforce what the industry is already doing.

As far as the ESRB having been a hit to the industry... I disagree with that, Blitz. It can be argued that the ESRB allows game makers added freedom, because they don't have to worry about holding back. If it's for adults, then it is clearly labeled as such, and if some grandmother buys it for her 10 year old, then it's her own damn fault. It's why our translations now tend to be better.

[VanDarkmind]

Well. Look at this report and afterwards at the German law concerning that topic. We have the strictest system for censoring Videogames in the World. There have been loads of Videogames, once containig rather violent stuff, cut down into a snotty, lame special german version! Not a singe drop of blood can be seen in most of the German Games that once have been containing souch. And STILL here are discussions about banning Computergames containing violence completely just because 2 persons gonde mad --- Because their social surroundings were bullshit. But hey! It's the videogames! never the parents that failed, never the teachers or/and his classmates who mobbed him. No! It's always the videogames. Mush.... There have been some games in the past that can be bought officially all over the world, but are banned in Germany. And thinking of being imprisoned in the future, just because of playing Counter Strike (Politician's favourite for their "crusades") just feels riddiculous!
You're right, every limitation concerning Videogames sucks, but just take a look at our stupid laws and thank whoever that you are more free about that over there.

It's not my fault, that freaks cannot handle their own feelings. And I suppose it's not your's as well...


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: VanDarkmind on 2007-05-31 09:19 ]</font>

[ABDUR101]

We don't kinda suck, we do suck. But thats an unrelated issue I think. As for being cynical, so what? I'm not an all the time happy-go-cheery person; I like seeing the world the way I do; and I'm not always cynical; I just prepare myself for what backlashes can occur.

As for desensitizing children to violence. We have 24/7 news that tells of suicide bombings, of our war efforts to bring democracy to other nations(who often enough, don't even want it for the most part); of school shootings and of murderers, of rape victims; everything possible to be done to someone or something is on the news, and explained in as much morbid detail as they can.

The difference between that and a video game? Atleast the videogame is a fantasy; a kid of 'appropriate mental fortitude' can play GTA and realise that when they turn the game off, the game is OFF. That it's fun to speed down a suburban street in a stolen car in GTA, but in real life it's illegal and dangerous not just to yourself, but to others.

Thats really all it comes down to, whether someone can filter when the game stops and when reality starts. If kids are running around wanting to shoot people after playing a game like GTA, guess what, that kid is fundamentally fucked up; because if he did'nt get it from a videogame, he'd sure as hell have gotten it from a movie or TV.

I grew up watching gorey, raunchy horror movies, mobster movies, war movies, from every era. From a young age I've been a gamer, I've played just about every kind of game there is to be played; and I don't regret any of it because I know I'm a damn decent person with a good head on my shoulders; even if I don't feel the need to show it to everyone I come across.

However, when it comes to my nephews; I want them to be shown things; I want them to watch scarey movies and be afraid of the dark, I want them to play violent games and if they enjoy the game, fine; and through all of that I'll be there to tell them "ok, when the movies over, there's nothing to be afraid of, it's fake, it was computer generated/anamatronic." and "I'm glad you had fun running down people in GTA and setting off car bombs, but thats a game and when the game goes off, you're back to the real world" and then explain to them what happens to people who do those things, explain laws and other people's rights and that you can't go do things to other people just because you felt like it.

Desensitizing children in America to violence? The news does a good enough job of that; but it's all unabated and not for children's eyes; because they don't get an explanation other than "oh well they're bad people, they don't like us, etc". I'd rather my nephews learn early the significant difference between fantasy and reality, and with proper guidance from a parental figure and someone they look up to; than to not be allowed to play the stuff except when they go over to a friend's house and then they get a skewed view on how cool and awesome it is to do all these things, without the proper counter-balance and a reality check.

All I see with these laws being passed are someone's personal crusade to get their name in the spotlight and garner support for candidacy(and ignoring the bigger issue, which is people are stupid and once swayed in one direction, hard to stop the momentum). Hillary Clinton doesn't give a shit if her husband cheats on her(which he has all through their marriage), so why would she give a shit about some no-name kid in bumb-fuck America enjoying alittle bit of violence in a videogame?

Either way, thats my view on it; and thats how I handle it.

[Weeaboolits]

If the kid can't tell the difference between the game and real life, he'll likely have some problem whether they try to censor crap or not. :/

Also, why is it that they get so damn pissy about violent games? There's violent movies and books they could be harping about too, spread the love, doods. ;]

I think it's primely the fact that it's interactive, but the ESRB actually does MORE than the MPAA, yet they catch way more flack. :/