This. Even with store policies requiring an ID check on purchases of M rated games, lets face it, retail is retail. Hell, just today I saw a co-worker blatantly ignore company policy. I pointed it out to him and he just said "I'm busy".

@Alaisiagae: A few things

1- The law carried a fine. NOT a Prison sentence. (http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/06/27/scotus.video.games/index.html?hpt=us_c2)
2- Way to blow things out of proportion. Violent Video Games would still be allowed to be sold on store shelves. It would just require cashiers to legally check ID for anyone purchasing Grand Theft Auto, Duke Nukem Forever, etc. That's it.
3- Slippery Slope arguments are a fallacy.
4- Violent movies are also different in that there is a difference between passively seeing the violence, and actively taking part in it in a video game.
5- In the interest of fairness, I'm going to point out that my parents bought me Mortal Kombat 2 when I was 6. I see nothing wrong with children playing violent video games, so long as the parents are actively aware of what the game is, and why it is rated a certain way.

http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp

Ours does work like that, the only difference is that it's the job of the retailers and the parents to enforce it.

One of the main problems I have with it is that I think the government should be focusing on stuff that actually matters (something they're already doing a pretty bad job of I might add), rather than what may or may not be appropriate for Little Jimmy (which also depends on the individual case by the way, I've met 12 year olds that act like mature advlts and vice versa).

And what really irks me is the fact that it's UNBELIEVABLY easy for a parent to enforce the ratings themselves, so there's absolutely no need for something like this. You've got parental controls on consoles, user account settings on PC, and detailed guides to any game within the past couple years (anything earlier than when they started doing that just has the generic content descriptors) on the site I linked.

I was just taking the law at face value, and could see little difference to how it is here, which is why I don't have a problem with it. Like I said, I do have a problem with the level of punishment that could be faced by individuals for breaking it.




I don't think they should be differentiated between when it comes to selling them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTeuCBms4Jc&feature=fvst

This from earlier back, and one thin they bring up that video games are a different media is they are interactive.

I don't know about you guys but books and movies that make you think can make you very active in thought and such.

I was confused as to what this law would do since parents buy these games most of the time for their kids anyway.

Well as a kid a bike ride down to the local video game rental store after saturday morning cartoons was pretty much a ritual. No parents, just my little brother and a head full of recent review scores.

Meet Tommy, he's old enough that the parents are happy with him walking around the mall to go and buy a game when they're all out shopping

Tommy buys PsychoKillerX. Parent isn't at the transaction, doesn't know the content. Game box is kept out of sight by the kid, and when asked if he got the game he wanted doesn't offer the game title, or lies about it. Maybe Tommy doesn't even tell his parents he's buying anything, just takes some of the saving he's got lying around from chores.

Most retailers wouldn't let Tommy actually buy that game. If it's rated M you usually need an ID.

If the parents put parental controls on the console, Tommy wouldn't be able to play PsychoKillerX anyway.

Great, so this debate over the law pointless because most retailers are doing it anyway. Where's the problem?

All this does is makes all retailers do it - at the moment they do not.


So Tommy's smart enough to buy a game, but too dumb to google?
http://www.xboxhacker.net/index.php?topic=9743.0

First link I clicked after searching for "bypass parental controls xbox 360"

Bad parenting for letting the kid run around a mall by himself/herself, and potentially allowing the kid to be another statistic.

Thats not bad parenting. Bad parenting is smothering the kids... Heck, have a look what kids got up to back in the day by reading some Enid Blyton books - 12 year olds on cycle holidays staying with strangers...

If it comes to that, the Xbox 360 also lists all games that Xbox Live account has ever played.

Tommy would have a good deal of explaining to do when PsychoKillerX showed up on that list.

There's more then one flavor of bad parenting. Giving them too little attention can be just as bad as giving them too much.

Tommy would have to give them a reason to look.

Is probably what Aligsahfadsjajs was referring to.

I'm glad they struck this down. We don't need any more red tape and the ESRB does a good job with the ratings. It should be up to the parents to decide what game is suitable for their kids, not the state. I don't want the US to end up like Australia because that would've eventually happened if they ruled otherwise.

It's statements like this that make me want to slap most lawyers so hard their false teeth fall out of their head. Every SINGLE time I buy a game from target I mean EVERY SINGLE TIME I have to present my license as a form of ID to prove i'm over 17 years of age. Kids can go around this by going online which has been the norm for quite some time.

I've said it once and i'll say it again for the crowd at large. Parents need to parent their dang children not other people, not other parents, and certainly not the government. Right now imho that's what's wrong with alot of stuff today is most people expect of have their kids parented for them and when they screw up their first idea is "Who can I sue to get some money."

I think you misuderstand the law. It wouldnt have banned a single game, just forced retailers to enforce the ESRB rating system.

There's no reason a parent can't check once a month or every couple months. It takes about a minute to bring up that panel and skim through it.

My point is, there's an easier solution that doesn't involve passing an unconstitutional (as well as unenforceable for the most part) law or even getting the government involved an any way. It's called good parenting.

Parents have got more important things to do and I would hope actually give their kids a little trust unless there is a reason not to give it.

See my point about it taking less than a minute. If parents are concerned enough that it's apparently worth the government's time, I'm sure they can spare 60 seconds.

And if the kid finds a way to bypass the parental controls, then that qualifies as a reason not to give a little trust.

How?

Every case that challenges a law from an unexpected direction sets a precedent. Often times a judge will make a ruling based not on the law itself but on another judges interpretation of it. This is why you see legal experts citing the case of Smith vs Jones and applying it to a current issue, despite the fact that Smith vs Jones may have taken place over 120 years ago. For example the phrases "Separation of Church and State" and "Yelling Fire in a crowded theater" are often used in court cases regarding the first amendment, neither of which are actually in the Bill of Rights but were once a judges idea of what they meant. This in my mind is the very basis of the Slippery Slope argument, or at the very least the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Personally I felt that this was a bad idea if for no other reason than being superfluous. Why spend the time and money to draft and enforce a law that has already been de facto adopted by the private sector. If the stores already have a policy in place prohibiting the sale of select items to minors, then why have a law that does the exact same thing? Why not have a law that grocery stores must provide shopping carts to its patrons? It's stupid and a waste of money.

However I fail to see how this case is a first amendment issue. I would think that a violation of the first amendment would be to pass a law saying that game companies cannot make violent video game, restricting who they can sell them to is completely different. My understanding is that the government cannot limit what you say, but they cannot guarantee you an audience.

100% THIS.

Its not as if most major chains don't already have company policies disallowing sale of M rated games to minors. Most of us have experienced that ourselves.

HOWEVER, like was explained, this would REMOVE THE FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS OF VIDEO GAMES IF ALLOWED. That means the government could SAY WHAT WAS ALLOWED IN A VIDEO GAME. Meaning they could mandate just about ANYTHING that they wanted, because video games would NOT be free speech. You'd see different restrictions for different states. It would RUIN the business because you'd have to have 50 different versions of a game because each state has a different idea of what should be allowed in one. One state might disallow any show of drugs, while another any show of six, while another any violence, or a specific kind of violence, or ANYTHING.

That is NOT acceptable.


No, it is not. No form of media, save pormography, is mandated by the US government to be sold or not sold to any specific groups of people. If video games had been refused sale to minors, then they would be put on the same level as pormography, where NO other media has been placed.

This.
I had no problem picking up games for my kids. If I thought their maturity level was applicable to the game they wanted, they got it.
If not, tough luck. I am the parent, I have more knowledge of my children's individual weaknesses and strenghts, the descion should be mine.
Other parents can decide what games are best for their children. I viewed the ratings not as a strict formula but more of a guideline.


Criminalizing it is just idiotic. If your kid goes out and obtains a game from a retailer without your knowledge or permission, you the parent are at fault. You should know what your kids are doing, communication is key to parenting.


I actually was in the store once, and a kid told me he wished I was his mom, as I was buying games for my children. I replied to him that If I were his mother, he would not be in a videogame store by himself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope