Schwarzenegger v. EMA

I'm pretty busy with Uni work at the moment but just wanted to chime in with my thoughts on the matter. My worry is that if the supreme court rules in favour of Yee's bill, the debate as to whether games fall under the first amendment - like movies, books and music - will have officially been lost. This is America's big opportunity to look at the foundations of it's nation, and decide if irrational fear and lack of parental responsibility is reason enough to undermine the crux of it's country's freedom, and affectively place a leash on one if it's fastest growing industries. 

I hope that the people who have been lumped with making this decision can look at the arguments and evidence (or lack thereof) objectively, not through elderly, frightened eyes, and make the right choice. Because if they don't, there becomes a precedent for this sort of thing. It's almost as good as censorship, just in a very indirect, round-about way; they're forcefully discouraging true creative and intelligent expression simply because unwatched minor's might come across adult themes in an interactive form, regardless of the fact that game rating's are implemented more effectively than those of film or music. Even though I live in the UK this is still going to affect me; developers won't wan't to make certain more adult orientated games, which have their worth, because it's no longer a viable economic venture. It will dumb down a huge sector of the industry and its output, and perpetuate the ignorant perception of video games as children's toys. 

They'd rather place the responsibilities of parental judgement on retailers, rather than take the time to educate themselves on this young, developing medium, and allow themselves to make informed, sensible decisions about what is and isn't appropriate.

It won't end here, if games are vulnerable, who knows what's next.

I'm pretty busy with Uni work at the moment but just wanted to chime in with my thoughts on the matter. My worry is that if the supreme court rules in favour of Yee's bill, the debate as to whether games fall under the first amendment - like movies, books and music - will have officially been lost. This is America's big opportunity to look at the foundations of it's nation, and decide if irrational fear and lack of parental responsibility is reason enough to undermine the crux of it's country's freedom, and affectively place a leash on one if it's fastest growing industries. 

I hope that the people who have been lumped with making this decision can look at the arguments and evidence (or lack thereof) objectively, not through elderly, frightened eyes, and make the right choice. Because if they don't, there becomes a precedent for this sort of thing. It's almost as good as censorship, just in a very indirect, round-about way; they're forcefully discouraging true creative and intelligent expression simply because unwatched minor's might come across adult themes in an interactive form, regardless of the fact that game rating's are implemented more effectively than those of film or music. Even though I live in the UK this is still going to affect me; developers won't wan't to make certain more adult orientated games, which have their worth, because it's no longer a viable economic venture. It will dumb down a huge sector of the industry and its output, and perpetuate the ignorant perception of video games as children's toys. 

They'd rather place the responsibilities of parental judgement on retailers, rather than take the time to educate themselves on this young, developing medium, and allow themselves to make informed, sensible decisions about what is and isn't appropriate.

It won't end here, if games are vulnerable, who knows what's next.

It isn't undermining the foundations of freedom, it will end here, but it's still censorship.
 
The problem with the first amendment is that it offers no provisos.  This is a glaring omission in the document.  "Congress shall make no law," technically is supposed to apply to kiddie porn. But material declared harmful is censored, and "freedom" such as it is, keeps on a'trucking.
 
If they can prove this material is harmful to minors, our ass is grass. The government will decide what goes into games. The problem here is so unique to games that it will not transfer to other media. We like "games." Games are toys. Toys are for minors. Toys have very little potential for artistic merit. Toys must be regulated to insure the safety of minors.
 
But you and I know that these aren't toys and they do have artistic merit. This is censorship. This is something they would never do to books, and hopefully the supreme court will see that.

"It won't end here, if games are vulnerable, who knows what's next."

" @Ragdrazi:   I'm not entirely certain that you can censor people without "undermining the foundations of freedom."   The real worry is how easy it is to make a politically compelling case.  Look at what happened to the use of MDMA.  The studies used to motivate its criminalization were discredited soon after but it remains illegal.  Should marijuana be legalized?  It's a shitty situation either way."

Now, this is Schwarzenegger vs EMA. So isn't this only in California? If this is the case then basically don't sell the games in California. It'll be unfortunate for me because I live here, but I still have Steam, Xbox Live, PSN, and the internet. 
 
I doubt the case will go through, but if it does, then I will drive 4 hours out to Nevada just to pick up the game I want.

" @Asteroth:   
@Ragdrazi:   You both make good points, but I don't think you can equate child porn to a violent video game. It's just not the same. Even Leland Yee could tell you that. "