Irony reached new heights in the video game industry this week. On Monday CNBC published interviews with various game industry executives about the prospect of the Supreme Court curbing the sale of violent video games. "Nightmare," sums up most of their thoughts on the April decision by the court to review a California law that would prohibit the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.
Currently, the games industry is self-regulated through its association, the ESA. If the Supreme Court upholds the law, it would mean that certain games could have their sales restricted on a state by state basis, wreaking havoc on a game's ability to be sold at huge retailers like Wal-Mart, and essentially decimating a violent game's chance to succeed. Since a significant portion of the industry's best selling triple A console titles are loaded with violence, it could mean a huge drop in profits for major game publishers.
Unfortunately, just as industry leaders decried the possible ruling, a juicy bit of game news was being flaunted. Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar Games' hit western epic announced with Gamespy that players clocked 131 million murders in two weeks of game play. That equates to 109 kills per second. While these two issues aren't the same, the timing is pretty uncanny. Knowing that the industry is facing government scrutiny for violence may not be the best time to issue a story that boasts the statistic, "15,072,596 Human Executions -- 15,000 times the number carried out in Southern States since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1975."
Does violence in video games equate to a desensitization of violence in the real world? There are thousands smarter than I who have an opinion (including, this fall, the justices of the Supreme Court). I do know one thing, however -- propagating violence through entertainment hasn't been a problem until recently for the governor of California, who happens to have signed this into law. I guess violence is okay by Arnold Schwarzenegger -- as long as he's the one pretending to do the killing.
Follow Jessica Rovello on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ArkadiumGames
As for the gaming industry, if this goes through, the only one who may benefit would be Nintendo. Their policy is fun over violence.
Go watch Penn & Teller's show on Showtime that covered this. 'Nuff said.
http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/215790/academic-study-says-violent-games-reduce-stress/
;P
The brick and mortar game store chains and the large retailers have demonstrated in the past an unwillingness to carry any games with AO ratings and some M rated games that have what they consider offensive or objectionable content.
If states are allowed to simply make up whatever rules they want regarding age restrictions, it has the potential to influence what kinds of games the big publishers would be willing to fund for development.
Games!=Real Life. Also games are not automatically for kids. Some are made for--and targetted to--adults. Their rating indicates that they are for Mature audiences--like movies rated R. If a kid is playing them, it's a parental failure at cause.
Why don't you federally regulate violent movies and TV shows while you're at it.
Similarly I don't buy that it is a restriction of free speech. The law says nothing about what you can put in a video game, it only regulates the method of sale of the content. It is a restriction on commerce, not free speech. Again just like movies.
Finally the video game industry has followed the same template with different artwork for too long. Maybe this restriction will force the video game industry to look at other gameplay possibilities than yet another Doom remake.
"
There is no government enforcement of the movie industry's MPAA rating system. The MPAA rating system is just like the videogame industry's ESRB rating system -- 100% voluntary.
I find it amazing that so many people believe that the government regulates the sale of movies to minors. Look at all the DVD movies that are sold that don't even have ratings at all (In fact, they are marketed as "unrated") In fact, no DVD movie even has an age rating on the case other than in very small print on the back.
As for new gameplay possibilities: There are plenty of games that have little-to-no violence (and no, I'm not talking about simple flash games) in them whatsoever. Just because people refuse to seek them out does not mean that they don't exist.