US Supreme Court considers violent games rules case

[Sir T]

Just putting this here on the off chance it wont wind up in politics

Supreme Court considers violent games rules case

The highest court in the US has heard arguments over whether children can be stopped from buying violent video games involving murder and sexual assault.

The Supreme Court case centres on a ban in California on selling or renting games to those under the age of 18.

Opponents of the measure says it breaches the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech.

But supporters say the law is necessary as violent games can cause harm to children.

Supreme Court justices appeared split on Tuesday over whether the restrictions are constitutional.

"We do not have a tradition in this country of telling children they should watch people actively hitting schoolgirls over the head with a shovel so they'll beg with mercy - being merciless and decapitating them - shooting people in the leg so they fall down," Chief Justice John Roberts said.

But other justices appeared to be worried the law, which was never put into effect, could have larger, damaging implications for the US constitution.

"I am concerned with the First Amendment, which says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech," said Justice Antonin Scalia.

He added: "It has never been understood that the freedom of speech did not include portrayals of violence. You are asking us to create a whole new prohibition which the American people never ratified when they ratified the First Amendment."

Paul Smith, a lawyer for the Entertainment Merchants Association, added there was no proof violent video games were any more damaging than television, books or movies.

"We have a history in this country of new mediums coming along and people vastly overreacting to them, thinking the sky is falling, our children are all going to be turned into criminals," he said.

'Morbid interests'

The 2005 California law prohibits the sale of violent video games to children "where a reasonable person would find that the violent content appeals to a deviant or morbid interest of minors, is patently offensive to prevailing community standards as to what is suitable for minors, and causes the game as a whole to lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors".

Under the law, parents can still purchase violent video games for their children, but retailers caught selling the titles to minors can face a fine of up to $1,000 (£625) for each game.

After a legal challenge by industry groups, a district court and then the court of appeals stopped the law coming into effect.

Courts in six other states have also reached similar conclusions, striking down bans.

The Supreme Court, which will make a decision next year on the case, may have to decide if California is required to demonstrate "a direct causal link between violent video games and physical and psychological harm to minors" before stopping games being sold to them.

Outgoing California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is supporting the legal case against the Entertainment Merchants Association, with a number of other trade groups and rights activist bodies involved.

There is already a nationwide voluntary system of game classification.

My own view on this is that a system of age classification is a good idea. One of the finest moments on British TV was when they had the maker of Grand Theft Auto come on for a discussion of the 18 certificate given to the game, and he was asked if he agreed with it. "Yes I do" He said, which left the interview flummoxed, and then The guy and the person who was supposed to be against him had a pretty civil and decent discussion about gaming and what it meant.

His point about GTA is that its a game for people to come home from work after being stuck in traffic and feeling stressed and unwind. It was not made for kids, but adults. He agreed that if kids were allowed to play GTA it probably would warp their attitudes but it was not and never was meant as a kids game.

[Paelos]

I'm on board with legal restrictions to children purchasing games without the acknowledgement of their parent or guardian.

I would want the board who actually decides such things to be actual developers and gamers though, not politicians or government officials.

[Sky]

I find it funny that Schwarzenegger is making a big push against violent entertainment. What a hypocritical douchebag.

The problem with even just having an M-rating label system is that then games get M-rated and not stocked at Walmart and the game does shit numbers. Enforceability would be limited to entrapment cases and ambulance chasers.

The worst part is that this is the stupid Hot Coffee thing, which was a game mod, for fuck's sake.

[01101010]

I'm on board with legal restrictions to children purchasing games without the acknowledgement of their parent or guardian.

I would want the board who actually decides such things to be actual developers and gamers though, not politicians or government officials.

While I am a damn liberal, I too think age restrictions on "adult" themed entertainment is probably a good thing. We have age limits on store-bought porn, cigarettes, alcohol, pharmacy drugs, even movies. Don't see why games should not be in there too... that said, I think the board also should contain devs and certain industry types, but also have to have some politicians, sadly. The question is always coming back to enforcement - hardly a responsible group working after school at Game Stops or Toys R Us. 

[tgr]

While I always react with a strong "you're fucking crazy, sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up" each and every damn time some asshat starts to drone on and on about how "teh gamez be training our kids to kill!", I agree with there being at the very least an age ratification. I couldn't care less if it's an actual restriction, but there should at the least least be a ratification so that if some soccer mum decides that "MY son isn't going to shoot pixels in the face!", at least she has the possibility to see at a glance if she wants to buy/allow her kid to play said game.

The main reason I'm against a full-on restriction is that I've yet to be convinced that violent games cause people to become violent sociopaths, instead of violent people seeking out violent games. Shifting blame for children/adults misbehaving over to games is, in my view, purely people being lazy fucks who don't want to admit that THEY are part of the problem.

I've played a vast majority of all FPS games, including Doom etc when I was far younger than 18, and I've yet to rape, murder, run over or in any way, shape or form hurt anyone, and I don't think I'm all that special in that regard.

[tazelbain]

I just can't support something like this when a significant portion of the country thinks Harry Potter is deviant. 

[Chimpy]

Harry Potter is deviant, just not in the way the people you loathe see it 

[SnakeCharmer]

The problem with even just having an M-rating label system is that then games get M-rated and not stocked at Walmart and the game does shit numbers.

Which is why the rating systems of games needs a serious revisit.  Personally, I haven't played a game that had more 'mature' content (sex, blood, gore, drugs, etc) than your average Saw slasher flick, but Saw is still 'only' rated R and sold at your friendly neighborhood Wal Mart.  Hell, you can buy the unrated version of Saw (or any other movie) at Wallyworld.

I don't 'get' the ratings system for games....

[Sky]

Warning labels are as far as I'm ok with. Like the stupid PMRC debacle of the 80s. Putting legal penalties and age restrictions just seems stupid, the law should not be in loco parentis, motherfuckers. Let the parents know there's boobs and swearing (let's not kid ourselves that people really care about violence) and make up their own minds. If they send little Jimmy to the store with a wad of twenties, and don't pay any attention to what he does, the law ain't gonna fix that.

[ghost]

I'm an orthodontist, so I deal with teenagers and pre-teenagers every single day.  Some of the games these 9 and 10 year olds say that they are playing make me cringe a little.  I don't know if having something like the cigarette age limit or beer age limit is going to work too well though.  How do you police it?  Most of the parents of these kids could give a shit what they do and would buy them the games anyway. 

[Sky]

How many of them have seen Saw? Who cares? Worry about your own kids.

I listened to Ozzy, played AD&D and violent video games. I should be chopping up people, not wood.

[Lantyssa]

We have a ratings system.  It should work the same way movies do.  Will the ticket seller get fined for admitting an underaged kid?  No, but the theater will probably bust their arse if not fire them, because they don't want to have to deal with upset parents.  It's bad PR.

If a ten year old can get $60 to buy games they shouldn't be playing, then I have to ask where the hell are their parents?  Of any legitimate purchases made, it's mostly parents who don't bother doing any research or even reading the back of the box buying them for their kids.  If they can't take the time to read a single letter rating, then their little brats deserve to get away with it.  If the parents do read it and decide it's okay, then they're welcome to do so since they made the informed decision about what their own children are playing.

The State has no vested interest in this.  If the State wants to claim such, then it needs to look much deeper than retailers selling games and into the parents' who cannot supervise their children properly.

[Khaldun]

One of the things that was interesting in the arguments was that the case for the law ultimately rested on the proposition that video games are a fundamentally different medium that has completely novel effects on consumers, and ergo, needs regulation that books, music and moving images do not.

The tricky thing for me is that I'm unsympathetic to that claim when it's made in this context (that interactive media like games influence real-world behavior in a way completely different from other mass media). That's just flatly wrong: almost all the research that suggests this is so is very seriously flawed or has been shot down by other research. On the other hand, I *do* think that games or interactive media are a different kind of expressive culture with different properties than anything else. So I don't want to argue so strongly against the proposition that games are different that I completely rule out that games are different.

[Lantyssa]

Games are different, just as each of those is different from one another.  That doesn't mean any of them have such influence over people that there is a need for classification different than the others.

Especially when several are evolving with modern technology.  Video embedded into text documents.  Electronic books.  The term and use of multimedia.

[Morat20]

lol. I had just posted this as a new thread in politics, but picked a far more amusing description of the arguments. Dahlia Lithwick's report:

Kagan and Justice Sonia Sotomayor take turns being the hippest justices today. "Have you heard some of the lyrics about some of the rap songs?" Sotomayor asks in horror. Why not regulate them? Kagan, playing to the law clerks, asks Morazzini whether Mortal Kombat would be banned under the law, describing it as an "iconic game which I am sure half of the clerks who work for us spent considerable amounts of time in their adolescence playing."

Ten minutes into the argument, Morazzini is barely visible beneath all the blood spatter. He's been assailed for the statute's vagueness, its overbreadth, and for the state's failure to show that playing violent video games is any more likely to engender violence in children than watching Bugs Bunny. Justice Samuel Alito can't fathom how California can set a standard that is the same for a 17-year-old and a 10-year-old. Morazzini posits that the jury be told to imagine the "average minor." Scalia takes aim: "Is the average minor between zero and 18—is that 9 years old??" Joke power surge: 300 points.

Justice Clarence Thomas is conserving his energy.
[...]
Level 3: Scalia is in full sniper gear at the top of a deserted Capitol building. He tells Morazzini: "You are asking us to create a whole new prohibition which the American people never ratified when they ratified the First Amendment. … What's next after violence? Depictions of drinking? Smoking? Movies that show smoking can't be shown to children?" And suddenly Alito is there with the punch line: "Well, I think what Justice Scalia wants to know is what James Madison thought about video games? Did he enjoy them?" Nobody looks more surprised than Justice Alito that he has just brought the house down. Sudden-death orginalism smackdown: 3,000 points.

When Alito later says that video games represent a new medium that "couldn't have been envisioned when the First Amendment was adopted," Scalia looks as though he has been stabbed in the back with a rusty bayonet. Mastery of the first originalist defense of living constitutionalism: 5,000 points. Alito advances to the next level.
[...]
Level 6: Roberts asks whether Smith would object to a rule that said all the most violent videos "have to be on the top shelf out of the reach of children," noting they already do that with cigarettes. Smith replies that "cigarettes are not speech, your honor." Roberts snaps back: "I know that cigarettes are not speech, Mr. Smith." Silently adding "Because. You. Can't. Smoke. Speech."

It's a strange morning. Testy exchanges and unlikely alliances. Scalia lines up with Kagan and the liberal ladies while an angry Breyer joins forces with an outraged Alito and Roberts. I count only three votes to uphold the California ban, which again raises the question of how the court scraped up the four votes to hear the appeal in the first place.

It doesn't look very good for the California violent video ban, but if video game manufacturers are smart, they'll get to work on Mortal Kombat 7: The Revenge of James Madison.

[ghost]

How many of them have seen Saw? Who cares? Worry about your own kids.

I listened to Ozzy, played AD&D and violent video games. I should be chopping up people, not wood.

From watching the kids in the practice I can state with relative confidence that stuff like Jackass is much more detrimental than Saw or AD&D. 

The other issue with gaming is that some kids are playing at a very, very young age.  I'm not super confident that there aren't some negative effects from that as well as TV watching to effect neural development (not necessarily a content thing).

[DLRiley]

I fully support jackass being available to every freshmen student in highschool world wide. Let natural selection work its magic, so in ten years we won't have this annoying video game discussion every 5 years.

[ghost]

I fully support jackass being available to every freshmen student in highschool world wide. Let natural selection work its magic, so in ten years we won't have this annoying video game discussion every 5 years.

That would be an excellent, excellent point if we wouldn't have to hear all the bitching and whining from the shitty families that would be involved.

[CmdrSlack]

I wrote an article for The Escapist about this shit when it was the Illinois version of the law. It's about time the SCOTUS took this one on, this is a "Judas Priest is killing our kids" scare and it's time to put it to rest.

[Morat20]

I wrote an article for The Escapist about this shit when it was the Illinois version of the law. It's about time the SCOTUS took this one on, this is a "Judas Priest is killing our kids" scare and it's time to put it to rest.

It was worth taking the case to hear Alito knife Scalia over originalism.  Actually getting a firm ruling is just a fringe benefit, but unless Lithwick was really distorting the questioning (which does not really seem her style), it looks like this will go down the correct way.

Watching the occasional moron try to twist reality to decide games aren't a work of speech or art is amusing, but getting old.

[Koyasha]

We have a ratings system.  It should work the same way movies do.

I'm not an expert, but from what I've read about this it works pretty much the same.  The obvious difference is that reviewing a movie takes sitting down for two hours and watching it.  Reviewing a game with equal thoroughness takes playing it for two to six weeks.

But as far as the review process and standards are concerned, they are from my understanding pretty similar.  That is to say, the people making the game and movie only get told its final rating.  They don't know why it was given that rating, they get no explanation or details on the topic.  This applies to both movies and video games, from my understanding.  The fact that they aren't given any actual information is insane, but it's likely because...there are also, from my understanding, absolutely no solid guidelines or rules that they must abide by.  Which means ratings are entirely subjective based on the group of individuals that rated that particular product.  If they said exactly what the rating was earned for then people could dispute the ratings more easily, which they don't want.

Rating systems seem to be a black box in which you put in a movie/game and the other end spits out a rating, with absolutely no insight into the process or guidelines by which it is accomplished.

Personally I don't give a damn whether games are allowed to be sold to kids or not from a personal standpoint, but I really agree with Scalia's quote in this situation in that any actual law abridging freedom of speech concerns me, and about the fact that freedom of speech does include portrayals of violence.

[Ratman_tf]

FUCKING BOWLING ON INTELLIVISION MADE ME INTO THE PSYCHO I AM TODAY!!!

[IainC]

I'm not an expert, but from what I've read about this it works pretty much the same.  The obvious difference is that reviewing a movie takes sitting down for two hours and watching it.  Reviewing a game with equal thoroughness takes playing it for two to six weeks.

But as far as the review process and standards are concerned, they are from my understanding pretty similar.  That is to say, the people making the game and movie only get told its final rating.  They don't know why it was given that rating, they get no explanation or details on the topic.  This applies to both movies and video games, from my understanding.  The fact that they aren't given any actual information is insane, but it's likely because...there are also, from my understanding, absolutely no solid guidelines or rules that they must abide by.  Which means ratings are entirely subjective based on the group of individuals that rated that particular product.  If they said exactly what the rating was earned for then people could dispute the ratings more easily, which they don't want.

This isn't the case at all, at least in the US where the ESRB rates games.  This page explains the process. Note that the 'specially trained game raters' mentioned are volunteers and aren't necessarily part of what would normally be described as the computer gaming demographic.

[Morat20]

This isn't the case at all, at least in the US where the ESRB rates games.  This page explains the process. Note that the 'specially trained game raters' mentioned are volunteers and aren't necessarily part of what would normally be described as the computer gaming demographic.

They're better than the movie ratings board. :)

[Lantyssa]

It's not as if the ratings are usually in dispute, small fringes excepted.  It's that the ratings are a guide and not a mandatory requirement that bothers these people.  (Though once a requirement then of course you need a regulated agency determining the ratings...)

[Koyasha]

Hm, interesting.  I remembered what I described being posted by someone else around here a long time ago, but didn't bother looking it up.

Has it changed, or was I merely misremembering or wrong?

Edit: Even though the process described there is much more reasonable (maybe it's the movie process that I was thinking of and got confused with games?  Unless I'm mistaken about that too.  I'm sure I read something on the matter at some point) I still think ratings systems are a bad thing in general.  There are things in pre-rating games that took the better part of a decade to be seen in major games again, some of which still aren't done.

The problem with rating is primarily that there becomes a 'highest acceptable standard' and anything above that instantly fails commercially since so many stores refuse to carry it.  I don't know if the rating system or the stores should be to blame for it, really.

Regardless, at least rating systems as they exist in the US are voluntary.  Any law-mandated rating really gets into entirely different territory, where games can become entirely illegal and such.  We hardly need anything other than the craziness we hear from Australia periodically to show what government-mandated rating systems can come down to.

[Grimwell]

The core of this isn't "Should there be some kind of regulation on access to certain games for children?" it's "Who should regulate this and what are the penalties for breaking it?"

Giving this regulation to the government is bad. Constitutionality aside, you don't go to jail for sneaking a minor into a rated R movie. You shouldn't go to jail for giving them GTA.

The note about it being bad PR above is the key point. This is why movies have ratings. This is why TV has ratings. This is why music has advisory labels. This is why comics had that code...

The ESRB is what we need. It gets the job done and can adapt over time. Don't want kids playing bad games? Don't buy them for kids. Want to do more? Boycott stores who do.

Don't call the government. They muck everything up. 

[tgr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLqjQ55tz-U

4:00 and about a minute out is relevant to this discussion.

[Sky]

I wrote an article for The Escapist about this shit when it was the Illinois version of the law. It's about time the SCOTUS took this one on, this is a "Judas Priest is killing our kids" scare and it's time to put it to rest.

Oh, good point! Have you tried playing GTA:SA backwards??? You're a genius, Slack.

I heard Carl say "Do it!"

Or it may have been "Schmer mesch" Whatever.

[Numtini]

I just can't support something like this when a significant portion of the country thinks Harry Potter is deviant.

That's exactly it.

Voluntary ratings are bad enough. They tend to turn into some form of censorship. Theaters won't book NC17 movies. Stores won't stock M games. Or whatever. Involuntary government enforcement? No thank you.

I also disagree with the overall notions that most of these ratings are based on. Serious significant and realistic violence is bad for kids and cartoon violence is a-ok. Naked women are PG13 and naked men are NC17. Two teenagers screwing is PG13, unless they're lesbian when it's R or gay men when it's NC17.

Let parents figure out what they want their kids to read, watch, or play.

[Nebu]

Let parents figure out what they want their kids to read, watch, or play.

Shitty parents don't.  That's why these issues come up and ruin life for the rest of us that actively parent our children. 

This law is basically meaningless.  It just means that parents need to purchase the game for the child.  I don't find this particularly problematic as it gives me a chance to filter material should I choose to (I don't, by the way).  Like many have said above, the only thing laws like these change is marketing and availability.  Perhaps that's what the watchdog groups are after. 

[tgr]

I'm just going to point out, in case people didn't view that video link (their loss, I found it interesting regardless of just the following), that David McCandless saw that november and april were seemingly "whine-about-how-games-kill-babies" months. We're now in november, and it's right on schedule.

[ghost]

Don't call the government. They muck everything up. 

This sentiment probably won't fly around here.   

[Paelos]

Entertainment needs to be rated for informational purposes. I use that information to figure out which movies to avoid and which to buy. I use it to figure out which golf courses to play and which to avoid. I think TV ratings are generally useless, but there are there just in case you had concerns or something. Hell, even restaurants are rated.

Games need a better rating system.

[IainC]

I just can't support something like this when a significant portion of the country thinks Harry Potter is deviant.

That's exactly it.

Voluntary ratings are bad enough. They tend to turn into some form of censorship. Theaters won't book NC17 movies. Stores won't stock M games. Or whatever. Involuntary government enforcement? No thank you.

I also disagree with the overall notions that most of these ratings are based on. Serious significant and realistic violence is bad for kids and cartoon violence is a-ok. Naked women are PG13 and naked men are NC17. Two teenagers screwing is PG13, unless they're lesbian when it's R or gay men when it's NC17.

Let parents figure out what they want their kids to read, watch, or play.

I agree which is why I prefer the PEGI system of rating rather than the ESRB system. PEGI tells you what things are in the game that you might want to consider before purchase - sex, strong language, gore etc rather than simply giving it an age rating - the age ratings are also there but the reasons for the rating are provided on the box.

Given that games are often bought by people who aren't the end user and can't be expected to know what content is in a particular title before purchase, ratings systems are inevitable and needed. This way the responsibility is (correctly) put onto the purchaser (parent) when they claim they didn't know that Hellbitches of the Chainsaw Apocalypse wasn't appropriate for their precious cherub.