I Play Video Games And I Vote. And Occasionally I Drink. But Not To Excess.

I remember going to my local EB Games to buy the Playboy game. I’m not particularly a big perv but I though it’d be interesting and fun. It wasn’t until I got there and saw the box till I thought how embarrasing it kinda was to buy this. There were moms and kids about, ya know .. a family atmosphere. Here I am buying what everyone knows as porn.
So I take it up to the counter, the guy pulls out the real copy and the store is packed. Well that asshole clerk held the box, with the word PLAYBOY, high in the air for everyone in the store to see and started offering me the return policy plan or some shit! Needless to say, during his shpeel he got quite the annoyed look.
–So vote YES to keeping porn where porn should be … IN BROWN PAPER UNMARKED BAGS and/or CONTAINERS.
–And vote NO to dumb politicking and campaign ideas.
Thank You For Your Support. *Thumbs Up*

To give a little more information about the group doing this: the Video Game Voters Network is sponsored by the ESA, which does happen to be one of two or three lobbyists who spend serious time in Washingon (as well as innumerable state capitals) fighting anti-game legislation. That being said, this website is ESA trying something new – they are trying to get those of us who play games to actually speak up – because if everyone who played games actually mentioned this to our senators, maybe our congressmen would stop treating video games as something only played by deviant freaks who would be running over hookers and taking their cash if they could be bothered to get out of their mother’s basement.

As for your comments, Amber, lobbying is how the ESA has operated for years, and while effective at stopping legislation as it arises, it has been ineffectual at preventing this legislation from arising at all. The ESA is trying to prompt a groundswell of grassroots support. Go to the website, and you’ll see that they don’t want your money, they want you to contact your senator.

Does this mean I have to stop taking cash from hookers?

Can someone remind me again what’s so bad about penalizing retailers for selling Mature games to minors? The games are already being rated anyway right? Pick your battles?

Sure, as long as you penalize movie theaters for each and every unescorted punk they let into R-rated features. How about every supermarket who sells a copy of FHM to a 15-year-old too, for that matter. These things are obviously bad if we don’t want children to have them, adults probably shouldn’t either. Why not just ban them outright?

I’ve never been a big fan of slippery slope arguments but it’s hard to deny the logic of “when you paint with a very large brush it’s hard to stay inside the lines”. Provide everyone a means to identify the type of content they can purchase and let the market do the rest.

Long ago I worked as a tech in retail… Management required all employees to check ID before allowing someone they believed to be a minor to purchase M (or R) titles. While I can’t speak to how close they were to 100% I do know I witnessed cashiers carding people so at least SOME of them were doing their jobs. That’s how this stuff is supposed to work. The industry has a good ratings system that can tell any retailer or parent anything they need to know about the game. A retailer who practices discrectionary salesmanship can take that to the public as a message of: [i]“WE care about your kids and want to ensure that the decisions you make are honored. Your 14-year-old won’t get a copy GTA from us unless YOU buy it for them.”[/i]

I can’t wait for one of the parties to adopt a “Br!ng B4|

You people act like anyone but Democrats has a real chance in an election against any half way respectable democratic candidate.

New York votes lefty and by a huge majority basically every election.

I still trudge to the booths and get my vote in regardless how much of a waste it is. New York should be on the left coast with California.

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New York should be on the left coast with California.
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Maybe the 38.2% of Texans that voted against George W. Bush should split up and move to Ohio and Florida.

I was in my local mall’s GameStop last night, just when some teenager brought in a used PS2 and some games to trade in. The clerk told him that they couldn’t buy his copy of GTA3:SA because it was “Hot Coffee” capable. (I bought it off him instead) The clerk and I got talking about game ratings, parents, kids, etc. He mentioned that he has had parents buying M-rated games, such as 25 to Life, for pre-teen children — in one case, a child that looked to be about 6. He always asks them if they know what it is that they’re buying. They do. They’ve looked at the box. But it’s what little junior wants, and what junior wants, junior gets.

We have laws against selling alcohol to children. Teenage (and increasingly pre-teen) drinking is a massive problem, and most of those kids get their first alcohol at home. We have laws against selling tobacco to children. I’m too lazy to google for the exact numbers, but once again, there are millions of teenage (and earlier) nicotine addicts. And once again, many of them are supplied by adult family members.

Just how far do we want to go in giving the State control over how parents see fit to raise their children?

How about punishing parents for buying such games? We as a country, especially the more conservative politicians, believe that parents should be able to decide to confine their children, commit assualt and battery on them, send them to re-education camps, brainwash them, control every aspect of their lives from what food they can eat to what science they can learn. So why are those parents suddenly unfit to decide what games their children should be allowed to play?

Nor do I accept the idea that a game like GTA3 is “harmful” to everybody. I’m female, 43 and reasonably normal, or at least good enough at faking it to fool my mother-in-law. I grow orchids, love my cat, own my own business, and currently have a stack of cages of little field mice that have gotten into the house awaiting relocation because I prefer to avoid killing them if I can. I also love the GTA games, I play WoW as a Horde warrior on a PvP server, and my liking for a movie is directly related to how many things blow up. Despite that, I have a spotless driving record (not one single hooker squashed!), my violence against idiotic store clerks is limited to writing irate letters to their employers, and although I’ve known how to make pipe bombs since I was about 15, the only things I blow up come from the Atlas Fireworks Co. store.

I’m reminded of the Meese Commission and their year-long study of pornography. They studied more of the stuff than the average person will ever see in a lifetime. Yet somehow, they survived … in fact, I believe no member of the Meese Commission has been arrested for rape, serial killing, or whatnot. Then there are the authors who put themselves inside the heads of murderers, terrorists, psychos, over and over again. I don’t believe that mystery and thriller writers have any higher crime rate than the general population. Or how about actors, who physically act out the roles of these lowlifes for weeks on end? If watching a violent movie can turn you into a psycho killer, why doesn’t that affect the people who make them?

It’s the fallacy of “post hoc ergo prompter hoc” — after, therefore because of — mixed with guilt by association. Just because two things are found together in the same place, or the same person, does not mean that either caused the other. They might be totally independent, or they might both result from some other cause.

But try explaining that to a politician, or, worse yet, a voter.

Trackback: Lum recently put out “a call to action for game makers to aggressively engage the political process” and remove the big bullseye…
http://www.secondhandlands.com/blog