California State Senator Leland Yee, author of the controversial law regulating the sales of violent video games, recently had a chance to talk to the Los Angeles Times and answer some questions. The Supreme Court decided last Monday to hear the state of California's appeal of a lower court's decision to overturn Yee's law. The law itself is currently under an injunction, but is being avidly watched by lawmakers as a test case for the governmental regulation of video games. In response to the Supreme Court's decision, Yee himself said, “The Supreme Court has never heard a case dealing with violent video games. I am hopeful that the high court will determine our law to be Constitutional, but regardless, states are now certain to receive direction on how to proceed with this important issue.”
Yee, a former educator and child psychologist, denied that he would ever seek the ban of violent games. "I'm never going to be the person who stands up and says we should ban these ultra-violent video games." says Yee. "I'm just saying children ought not to be allowed to access them unless a parent buys it for them. Otherwise, video games are just as worthy under the 1st Amendment as movies." He also defends his view of the effects of video game violence on children. "One reason is the interactive nature, the fact that you can push a button and make certain horrific things happen. If you demonstrate to a child that you can do these things, it becomes part of their repertoire for dealing with anger."
Yee is not above viewing video games as art and believes that, "the interactive nature of [games] and the technology behind them can have great educational value." He also acknowledges that his law has not changed with the times, as it only applies to titles purchased in brick-n-mortar retail stores. "It's true that the current law I have will not keep up with that, so there is leakage. But we made a conscious effort not to go after games you download. Once you're dealing with regulating the Internet, that's a whole other can of worms."
4 Comments
May 4, 2010
What, another ignorant politician, he is so out of touch that it's pathetic. ALL major systems on the market today have some form of parental control settings. It should be the parent’s responsibility to set the limits of what is available to their children. It is very unfortunate that we as a society let these knee jerk politically motivated subjects grant the ignorant the ability to take our rights away one small law at a time. When are we going to hold the parents accountable for letting little Johnny play GTA. A responsible parent knows what game their children are playing, an irresponsible parent does not care and another law on the books is not going to change that. Sure it "sounds” good to have a law on the books "protecting" the poor children from the evil minions that will corrupt them, but I'm sure that we could be better served if an IQ test was required before you became a parent or a politician…
May 4, 2010
Here here! Well said Stephen.
May 5, 2010
I guess I just don't see what all the outrage is about? He's not saying he wants violent video games banned, quite the contrary. He's saying he doesn't want anyone under 18 buying them. How is this "taking away your rights"? Unless you are under 18, at which point you shouldn't be buying M rated games anyway. Basically what you just spouted was a lot of hyperbole, in opposition of what amounts to a completely harmless statute. You want to be angry, just to be angry.
Not that it really matters, but most major game retailers already do this. My local GameStop cards anyone they think is under 18 buying an M+ game. Last time I checked, so does BestBuy and Wal-mart.
May 5, 2010
He wants a law to impose fines on retailers for selling games to minors. There's no such law for R rated movie tickets or explicit lyrics in music, or any other entertainment medium. Games are being unfairly singled out. If retailers know there's going to be a fine for some clerk possibly selling an M-rated game, they could decline to carry such games sort of the way all retailers refuse to ever carry AO titles. This would have a serious chilling effect on the game development community because if the retailers won't carry M, then the publishers will not look to get them to the retail buyers and the developers won't be able to create the games they want to.