On the flipside, you rarely see a Blockbuster clerk refuse to rent a high-school freshman a R-Rated movie. People just don’t think that way.

In the end, we need to keep the government out of the job of parenting. That’s the major problems with schools these days, is that government is overly involved in education. Parents should be responsible for what their children are watching, reading, and playing. If you aren’t, then you suck as a parent.

The main reason that video games are seeing the negative publicity they are now is because inadequate parents need someone to point the finger at besides themselves, and games are the convenient scapegoat. Until we escape this attitude, it’s going to continue.

Case and point : http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2006/5/7/3874

Tallyho.

And you people want even stricter rules on it?

There’s an easy solution… KILL LITTLE KIDS and prevent people from breeding. Little kids are freaks anyway.

I think you just crystallized the whole issue right there. The ESRB is inadequate as a rating system, but that doesn’t mean we need a government imposed system that will likely be just as flawed either.

Rating games is a hard thing to do, just like rating the content books, but harder than rating music or movies in many cases because they often deal in ideas and evolutionary concepts through their run. Books are long form entertainment, as are many games.

Why don’t we rate novels? Any of the later Anita Blake novels are indistinguishable from soft porn films (though far more descriptive) but a child can buy that book with no restriction. Is it because it does not have a visual component?

It raises the question of why we treat entertainment and information sources differently.. or is it because everyone watches movies and plays games and can immediately see the impact while few people (in relation) read novels and literature with the same veracity.

I think you’ve made a broad leap here, though I can’t speak for Eratoniel, I think he was referring to ratings and restrictions/criminalization of purchase for adults.. which is what the core of this problem was addressing.

We all (I hope) agree that minors freely gaining access to restricted material is bad.. this isn’t what the legislation is about – it’s about adults buying it and someone deciding the intent was to provide it to minors isn’t it?

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(I stole your layout)

I think that some video games should be considered as restricted content. What is the difference between some AO rated games and softcore porn movies?

And as for the lack of parental support, that gets into a whole different realm of politics. I agree that legislation prosecuting parents for letting their children play mature rated games will not solve that core problem…but there is no quick fix for this, and I think it could easily be debated that there is no fix for the problems the US finds itself in today.

P.S…give me a job.

I don’t mind the security, but the liberty they’re taking isn’t theirs to take. Video games are art, and if they need to be rated, I demand that books and paintings be rated to be sold or shown to minors.
# Matt says:
July 27th, 2008 at 3:31 pm

So you don’t want movies to be rated either? Your okay with children going and seeing porn?
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I think you’ve made a broad leap here, though I can’t speak for Eratoniel, I think he was referring to ratings and restrictions/criminalization of purchase for adults.. which is what the core of this problem was addressing.

We all (I hope) agree that minors freely gaining access to restricted material is bad.. this isn’t what the legislation is about – it’s about adults buying it and someone deciding the intent was to provide it to minors isn’t it?

This is a good example of both because it uses a socially defined problem – access to violent games by minors – one that society feels is bad, not commerce or government – and moves the representatives to grandstand on the issue to create legal impact and regulations.

How do you enforce parental choice? How do you force someone to take responsibility for parenting decisions or a lack of those decisions? Criminalize sales to adults with intent to distribute them to minors then you have to find a way to prove intent.

This is one of the core questions we face in society.. how do we improve the core of the foundation – spawning future generations and indoctrinating them into our society? We struggle with that all the time because there is no way to maintain the basic liberty of society if you go to far toward fascist doctrine and governmental mandates.

We’re not talking about a simple commercial decision here, but a moral and ethical parenting decision. How do you regulate that? How do you create boundaries in society without impinging on individual rights?

Isn’t the lack of parental support and responsibility today one of our societies core problems? How does legislation effect a problem like that?

I want to make sure you understand I’m not trying to undermine your position here, I’m enjoying this lively debate. You and the other commentators discussing this article is great. I’m not working from the position that you’re wrong and I’m right or anything of the sort.. I’m trying to encourage consideration with my questions and retorts.

This is one reason I love writing for this site..

And Shawn, you call it an artificial label. Well why don’t we make it a real label? Why not make something concrete, something that is actually enforced. I don’t think that any American can, in their right mind, stand up and say that parents parenting their children is the best way to solve this issue. It just won’t happen. There are millions of parents who are completely unattentive to their children, and simply expecting them to do the job just isn’t going to work. This is like saying that drugs should all be legal, and we should just monitor ourselves because we KNOW its dangerous.

That’s why I think the artificial dividing lines we use to describe politicians are funny these days.. they all end up at the same place just with with different motivators. Its like the Roman Circus.. the society could stomach human inflicted cruelty because the politicians found a way to sell it to the masses as recreation and sport.

Sorry, this is devolving a bit.

“Any society that is willing to give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.”