Jack Thompson's Game Bill Moves Forward

Gamespot reports that the Jack Thompson-penned anti-games bill currently being considered by the Louisiana Senate Judiciary Committee has been approved, and will now go to the full Senate for debate. From the article: "According to the text of the bill, it would be illegal to sell, rent, or lease a game to a minor if it met the following three conditions: (1) The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the video or computer game, taken as a whole, appeals to the minor's morbid interest in violence. (2) The game depicts violence in a manner patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community with respect to what is suitable for minors. (3) The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors."

Is that it?

[Spy der Mann]

This is the controversial, censoring, extreme-right-wing menace that had been haunting us?

Sometimes I wonder who has more irrational fear - Jack Thompson or the gamers themselves.

Re:this is crap

[MrSquirrel]

Mario is a BAD influence. Jumping on turtles? Eating mushrooms? Playing with fire? I don't want my kid around that. When I drop my 12 year old off and give him $60 (~price of a new game) at the mall to do whatever he wants for 12 hours while I go spend the day at my crackhouse, I don't want him buying garbage like that Mario character! Honestly... there is already a rating system in place - enforcing that is easy and it is actually based on real criteria (rather than saying "any game that we think at any place and time is bad"). Last time I checked, no one under 16 could drive a car -- so how the heck are kids getting to these game stores to buy violent video games? And how are they paying for it (I don't know many places that load up on little kids as employees)? Oh, that's right... parents. But why actually be a good parent when you can have laws do your work for you? Go-go-gadget-government!

Re:this is crap

[Anonymous Coward]

there is no standard, no definition, of what is offensive or objectionable.

So? I think Jack Thompson is a real dickhead, but the definition there is similar to obscenity laws in many countries, including the USA. It's true that there's no rigid definition of what is offensive to society - because that changes over time and with context. It's the court's job to determine what is offensive in each particular case.

I hate vague laws as much as anybody, but in some cases, you simply can't come up with a rigid definition.

Here's an exercise for the knee-jerkers: when do you think it's acceptable to sell a game to a minor that appeals to a morbid interest in violence AND is patently offensive to adult standards AND has no literary, artistic, political or scientific value? Do you also support selling scat porn and other obscenities to children too?

I can't think of a single game which would be illegal to sell to minors under this law, because apart from anything else, you can consider virtually all of them have artistic value.

The law isn't the sole purpose of the bill

[Crash Culligan]

And now the eternal question: what the fuck would be wrong with simply enforcing the existing, objective, ubiquitous rating system? You know, like we do here in Britain? It sounds to me like he's deliberately avoiding this because he wants to create a situation in which he can sit back and pick targets at his leisure.

While that would be a big win for him, look at the bigger picture: he keeps introducing legislation which says basically that OMFG TEH GAMEZ ARE TURNING UR KIDS INTO KILLAHS!!!1!!ONE!ELEVENTY. It gets reported on. And those who don't know better buy the subtext and become that much more worried.

It's said that if something gets repeated enough times, people will believe it. (As long as that phrase has been bouncing around, it must be true.) If he tells people enough people that video games are dangerous, then it doesn't matter if they strike down his dumbass laws now so long as they come to believe it eventually and outlaw them then.

It's meme warfare, pure and simple. And amazingly, it's so pure and simple that he probably doesn't even recognize it.

Re:So are Tetris, Chess and Checkers banned?

[Red Flayer]

AND() not OR().

Unless chess appeals to ther violent character of kids -- you know, horsies trampling on bishops. Which brings out the fact that chess is part of an attack on Christianity[1]!!one! Ban it!

[1] You do know chess came from Arabia, right? Chess is conclusively a terrorist game, expect to hear all about it on O'Reilly Factor soon.

Re:Or...

[HumanisticJones]

You mean like we had to do when I worked at Circuit City? Every game that came across that counter that was rated M required me seeing some ID. What would have happened if I didn't get that ID and let the game slide back across to a 12 year old? Well it wouldn't be jail time, but I'd have been out of a job on a serious offense. This is an issue for the commercial sector, and it always has been. The game companies rate the games, they've covered their butts. The stores need the responsibility to regulate selling the games to minors. This just takes adding warnings into the product databases of retail chains, it doesn't take a government agency eating up tax dolloars.

Re:Or...

[Surt]

Well, in fairness to Jack, he got laws passed to do just that, but they were overturned on free speech grounds. Now he's modelling his legislation on the laws that restrict the sale of pornography to minors, hoping that by that route he will succeed where his other legislative efforts failed.

Why can't "society" butt out?

[Andy Somnifac]

(1) The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the video or computer game, taken as a whole, appeals to the minor's morbid interest in violence.

Great, "contemporary community standards." Do I want my bible thumping neighbors and coworkers deciding what is and is not OK? Answer: No. I can see it now: "Oh no! You can tell that woman has boobies underneath that armor! Boobies are bad!!!1!"

(2) The game depicts violence in a manner patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community with respect to what is suitable for minors.

Again, who is to judge this? I would guess that those people making these decisions wouldn't have let me see movies like Robocop as a child. But, last time I checked, I thought I was a well adjusted member of adult society. Violent movies (since there wasn't a large amount of realistic violent video games as I was growing up) didn't warp my perceptions and make me want to shoot up my office.

(3) The game, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minor

I can see it now:

• Literary or artistic: We live in a society where Britney Spears is a mind bogglingly successful recording "artist." Does anything else really need to be said to point out the fact that society as a whole would be most unlikely to spot something with artistic merit even if it was sitting on their nose?
• Political: It goes against the prevailing political norms, so it must be bad. How dare a video game put forth the idea that corporations are wielding greater and greater influence over the US government. It is teh bad.
• Scientific: And what percentage of Americans actually believe in the creationist theory that the world is only 6000 years old?

Why can parents not just step of and, god forbid, monitor what their children are doing? Why is it the governments decision to decide what is and is not OK for your children?