Yet Another Violent Games Ban 257
Gamespot reports on a proposed Tennessee bill banning extremely violent games. From the article: "The bill defines the phrase 'extremely violent video game' as 'a video game in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being," with a number of clauses specifying that a game would have to be patently offensive to prevailing community standards, among other things, to be considered extremely violent.'"
Like the Miller test of "adult" works (Score:5, Informative)
Guess this means [the developers of America's Army] can't peddle their wares in the volunteer state anymore.
Is America's Army any more violent than the 1998 film Saving Private Ryan? The patent offensiveness and lack of artistic value requirements of the bill [state.tn.us] as I understand it are similar to those developed in the Miller test [wikipedia.org], making the regulation more aligned with that of hardcore pornography than that of mere R- or M-rated fare.
O rly? (Score:2, Informative)
The Miller test only concerns prurient/sexual speech.
The Miller test, used to interpret federal and state obscenity statutes, says "prurient + offensive + not art = bannable". The test of Tennessee SB3981 says "specific types of violence + offensive + not art = bannable". Because the tests share the element of "category + offensive + not art = bannable", I reasoned that the Supremes might view them the same way.