With videogame violence seemingly never out of the news, either through high-profile releases or tenuous links to instances of crime, the Governor of New York, David Patterson, has brought forth a law that intends to slap restrictions on videogame content and enable parents to more effectively channel the software access of their children.
New York videogame law looks to clamp down on violent content. Image: acme/Flickr.
According to Governor Patterson, the new law will result in the forming of a special advisory council, which will scrutinise the effects of videogame violence on children, while also seeking the default inclusion of parental controls on videogame consoles by 2010. The law will also require game publishers to assist parents by including prominent age ratings guidance on retail software packaging.
However, the common weight of opinion associated with similar videogame-related bill proposals that have been dismissed as unconstitutional in other states suggests that Patterson’s attempt is politically motivated and overly vague and will be hard pressed to make it as law.
“The bill is unconstitutional and has been found that way in other states,” commented Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, while speaking with ABC.
Describing the New York bill as “moral preening,” Norquist went on to say that such bills looking to spotlight videogame violence are politically popular because “the average citizen will read a headline that says. ‘State Legislature is against violence in video games.’ They are unlikely to read a headline that says. ‘Legislature will waste $70,000 of your tax dollars,” when the bill is tossed out.
Similar criticism has been put forth by Richard Taylor of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), who complains that the bill unfairly singles out the videogame industry -- which has become an easy scapegoat for society’s ills -- while bypassing other potentially influential areas of the entertainment industry such as books, theatre and film.
It is also perhaps worth noting that Patterson’s bill calls for the videogame industry to act on two specific areas that have already been addressed by its mainstay manufacturers -- namely parental controls on hardware and an age ratings display system on retail packaging.
Specifically, current home console heavyweights the Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360 all come equipped with parental control features, while all modern videogames in the U.S. carry age recommendations from the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) on both the front and back of their packaging.
The bill has been accused of being watered down and ineffectual after one particularly hard-hitting content element, which would have made it a felony to sell mature-rated videogame titles to minors, was withdrawn from the bill’s initial outline following fervent lobbying in May of 2007.
Other states attempting to pass such bills limited videogame content have seen them fall flat due to courts dismissing them on the grounds of violation connected to the Constitution’s First Amendment, which protects free speech.
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