Video Game Legislation from the Other Side of the Isle
Sep 29th, 2006 by Brian A. Thomas
While most video game control measures have come from Lieberman and Clinton, we not get a bill from the other side of the isle. A Republican Senator this time is trying to effectively control content of video games. His bill would cost tax payers tons of money so the government can have oversight of the ESRB, the industry’s game rating board. It would require the ESRB to play the entire game to the finish before it assigns a rating. Let’s explore just how stupid this part is (one would hope that you see the fallacy of government oversight costing taxpayer tons already):
- Of the thousands upon thousands of games reviewed by the ESRB, only 2 have ever been re-rated, so it is a fairly effective review process already. Of those two games, one was re-rated only because a modification made by an outside person. The other because the publisher failed to mention a few things. (The game that got re-rated due to the mod got re-released to stop that mod and got it’s old rating back, so if you want to count that, that would make 3 times the ESRB re-rated a game)
- Not all games have an end and many of those that do have many endings. MMORPGs for example never end. How do they rate it if it doesn’t end? Many of those MMORPGs get several upgrades in their lifetime, how do they rate those? Do they need to re-rate the game itself or just the add-on? And the time it takes to see every bit of content on every game would be just too much, and they would probably have to see it at every difficulty level, which makes it even harder to do.
- Lots of content, such as the “Hot Coffee” mod for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which got that game re-rated are made by outside third parties. Does the ESRB need to re-evaluate the game for each modification that comes out? For a game like Half-Life 2, this would mean tons of hours every day to keep up with all the content coming from people on their home computer, let alone stuff that comes out through official channels. It’s not like the publishers of Grand Theft Auto approved the of the “Hot Coffee” modification, and had it not came out, the content never would have been unlocked. (To be fair, the content in question was in the game itself, not added by the modification. It was a mini-mission that they abandoned fairly early on, which was made obvious by the bad textures and animation. Why they forgot to remove the content when they abandoned that part of the game who knows…) Anyhow. What do they do about content not created by the developer or publisher that actually adds to the game and doesn’t just unlock some hidden item? It isn’t reasonable to expect them to review all those.
- This will put major delays on games and their ability to define a release date, which is essential for promoting purposes and information purposes. The game will get stuck in a waiting line of other games to wait it’s turn. What if they find a problem before it gets reviewed? Do they get to keep their place in line or do they have to start at the end of the line again?
- Who pays for all the above? While us taxpayers will pay the tons of money to the FTC and GAO, who pays for all the extra employees the ESRB would have to hire? In the end the consumer. This forces the price of developing and releasing a game substantially (already a game’s budget is nearly like a movie budget) which would mean they need to pass the price on to the consumer. So we pay more in taxes and more for the game.
It is a bad bill and needs to be stopped. The ESRB is doing fine. Most stores are enforcing the game ratings, just like most movie theaters enforce the movie ratings. Most of the M and AO rated games are purchased for kids by their guardians, so we can’t really complain about it since the guardian obviously approves of the content for their child. (It is impossible to miss the huge rating on the game, it’s not like it is in small print, it takes up a huge chunk of the box space all things considered… far more then a movie rating takes up on a DVD or VHS tape.) It all gets back to the “it takes a village syndrome” that I talked about before.
What amazes me is people support these idiots. The government messes everything it touches up, and they want the government to take over parenting kids from parents? They can’t properly educate our children, do these people really think the government can parent the kids? Perhaps it is the pro-big government education system and mass media that makes people such dolts.
