Schwarzenegger v. EMA

I don't know if this has been discussed here, but I feel it's important to post. Basically, this hearing will be about if video games will still fall under the First Amendment right of free speech. If they do not agree, they way video games are sold will change. If you want sales methods to stay the same (which everyone here should), please sign this petition. Some of you might say "online petitions don't do anything, but this is going to be added to added to the official court documents pertaining to this case, so it's not pointless, the signatures will be seen.

http://action.theeca.com/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1781

 

Exactly what does this mean, though? That age ratings will be enforced?

 

Man... reading all these articles about games and politics is disheartening.

 

So burning-the-quran = still legal (not that you should do it)

But playing-games = gonna be illegal in the future?

Well this is fuck up, specially since the last guys who liked censorship and burning books were the Nazis

 

I am damned if I do , and I am damned if I don't. Sorry to those who takes offence by my next comment. But here goes anyway.

What you just said, ASSEMbler, gives me a bad taste in my mouth, when I hear your extremely beautiful national anthem´s last verse

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. When suddenly the brave are those who do not play by the rules, and the free are those who does not live in USA and bows down to the stupidity of some certain things and laws.

Again, I must say this, sorry to all whom I offended, unless you agree with what the meatheads are trying to do when it comes to crazy things and laws.

 

Money is the world's curse. May the Lord smite me with it! And may I never recover!

 

I'm not the least bit worried about this. There was a case last term concerning a man convicted of selling dog fighting tapes (U.S. v. Stevens) which ultimately ended up with SCOTUS siding with the defendant. If the court ruled there was a violation of the 1st amendment in that case there is no way I see them letting this case get by.

 

The specific law they're talking about is California Civil Code 1746: (link)
Essentially, they make up a definition of a "violent video game", require special labels for them, and forbid selling or renting them directly to minors. So far every court has struck the law down, but California is trying one more time at the Supreme Court.

 

And my friends say owning retro games is pointless.

 

So can someone explain why this is a bad thing? They're not outlawing videogames, just making sure the violent ones can't be sold to kids? I mean, what an outrage. I'd be more concerned about major retailers refusing to stock AO-rated games if I were an American.

 

It's a bad thing because right now the government can't forbid a store from selling any First Amendment-protected works - books, art, video games, etc - to anyone. (the only exception I can think of offhand is the ban on selling porn to minors) Any time we add a new exception, it's dangerous. The government may have good intentions in this case, but once you let them in the door, you'll have to trust that every future generation of politicians will use their regulatory power responsibly - and that's a bad bet. Remember, it wasn't all that long ago that we had the first "video game violence" panic in the '90s. What do you think might have happened if the government already had powers to regulate the sale of games based on their content?
And speaking more generally: though we more or less take it for granted that the government will let us buy whatever we want, it's actually a very new and fragile right that had to be fought hard for. Within living memory (right up through the 1960s) the US and British governments were still banning books. So we need to fight back hard whenever someone tries to take us back in that direction.

As for the retailers and AO games: as private businesses they're free to stock or not stock whatever they want, so I don't see the problem there.

 

I'm guessing the concern is that if this law (statute/code?), apologies if these aren't the correct terms, succeeds it could lead to others that not only restrict minors from purchasing games with violent content but also begin to restrict content itself. Other media containing violent content isn't subject to the proposed restrictions so video games deemed to fall under it would be treated in a way similar to pornography.

Being a Brit I'm a little confused by the free spech part though, judging by the BBFC there is no analogous protection here, am I right in thinking the state has to prove something is harmful in order to restrict it?

 

When it comes to our most important rights, such as the ones in the Bill of Rights, the standard of "strict scrutiny" is applied:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny
Which means they would have to not only prove that something is harmful, but also prove that their law does directly address the harm (and only the harm), and that there's no less intrusive law that would get the job done.

 

x

 

Playing devil's advocate here for a second: it's ok for a store to refuse to sell a particular game, but it's not ok for your government to enforce age ratings? I appreciate the practicalities of what you're saying (free market etc) but the end result is pretty similar. Placing your faith in commerce rather than government seems like a solid case of "out of the frying pan, into the fire". See also: GTA San Andreas and the AO re-rating debacle.

The term "free speech" means something very different when talking about the US constitution rather than normal colloquial use. It protects pretty much all media, and I agree that to be consistent it should protect videogames as well.

Correct.

I guess this is why I don't see the problem - I live in a country where age restrictions are part of the law, and that seems pretty sensible to me. The suggested Orwellian scenario where any of this becomes a real issue is unrealistic (I suspect that if we ever get to the point where swathes of inoffensive games are being yanked off the shelves by a tyrannical government we'll have much bigger problems on our hands). On a practical note, leaving adherence as a voluntary act from retailers (who have their profit margin in mind first and foremost) strikes me as a serious conflict of interest, but if the system works for you lot then I'm not going to knock it.

 

Alchy: are you forgetting something , that back in the 90´s UK basically controlled all the pal games, that came out. And it was the UK censorship that basically shafted us a lot when it comes to censorship in some games, one of those games were Soul Blade, were in the PAL version, the nunchuck was edited, thanks to YOUR country's censor laws, and NOT any other countries laws. I could of course go on, and mention other kinds of censorship, that has been going on in the UK for MANY years, but this thread is not a UK bashing thread, but the last irk from me about the UK is that, UK laws says, that foreign speaking language channels shall censor their motherfucking curses (even Danish ones) if the channels are being broadcast from the UK. Which is to me is fucking ridiculous. And that is what happening with three Danish channels being sent from the UK. I honestly do not know where TV3/TV3+ and TV3 PULS is being broadcast from, but they are also censoring so-called "bad" words, especially the English ones, with a few exceptions and the guy I am talking about is Gorden Ramsay ,even weirdly though enough I have seen some of the same shows with him being censored on TV3, so fuck me plentiful for now, and back to the main topic. Seriously what the fuck, if a 12 year old wants to get a game like GTA with fucks, and motherfucker and all that jazz, then let him have it. It is not like he is NOT going to hear the same words, out on the street. Does any one remember Hero Turtles ? well actually I do, but not on TV, there we saw it as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but I used to collect the chewing gum stickers with the turtles, and there I saw for the first time the "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles" name, and I was thinking back then "how odd", and then when I got the internet, I found out exactly why the "Hero" was there instead of "Ninja". Okay my rant is over (for now)

 

I have to disagree. Government moves slowly and with this type of problem tends to act out of hysterics and agendas rather than common sense. Also, once put in place government regulations are damn near impossible to modify if the situation changes. Add to that the speed that this type of technology moves at and the problem is made that much worse. Just look at the DMCA for a perfect example.

In this case commerce can act both easier and more swiftly then the government ever could. Commerce can also adapt in ways that isn't a "one size fits all" approach that government regulations are usually forced to take.

 

I'm not sure how you'd write an appropriate law to keep games in stores though. They have to be able to use some judgement about what to offer, seeing as not every store can (or should) stock every game out there.
And consider that there might be legitimate reasons for a store not to want to sell some games - for example I would imagine that a place like Nintendo World in NYC which mostly caters to little kids, they wouldn't want to carry AO games.