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IllegalPaladin on 25 March 2009
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dsister44 said:
IllegalPaladin said:
dsister44 said:
i was kind of hoping that this bill would be passed. i mean twelve year olds should not be playing grand theft auto.

I hope you're being sarcastic because the bill would try and destroy the progress gained by the ESRB and retailers to inform customers of the ratings and content in games.

The bill is really just a waste of taxpayer's money that would most likely get struck down in court.

 

how would it destroy the progress of the esrb? all this would do is fine gamestop(anybody) that whenever they sell a m rated game to a minor. they already do it for tobacco and alchohol, why should they be any different.

And look how that has worked in the other attempts of the lawmakers (most, if not, all of them have failed. Usually by being shot down as unconstitutional). 

This bill will fine the stores for selling an m-rated game to a minor, but that's only if the store advertises that they don't sell m-rated games to minors. Thus, stores wont get into trouble with this bill if they don't bother with ratings anymore, which undermines the whole idea of having ratings to begin with. Now, retailers could potentially still enforce the ratings, but they wouldn't be able to talk about it, but what constitutes as advertising the ratings? 

The bill is pointless overall. In fact, the FTC found that minors were only able to purchase m-rated games 20% of the time in a secret shopper study which was down from 40% from 2006. Sure, Gamestop led the pack probably because they were a video game oriented store, but the point is that the video game industry and retailers are doing a heck of a job in trying to keep inappropriate content away from minors. In fact, the same study shows that the secret shoppers were able to buy r-rated movie tickets 35% of the time, r-rated DVD's 47% of the time, unrated DVD's 50% of the time, and PAL (parental advisory label) rated music 56% of the time.

Probably the worst aspect of these attempted laws is that the lawmakers are using misleading information or outright lies to try and influence others (Just look at Thompson's role in this bill and EVERYTHING that he's done in the past).

Yes, I would agree that more can be done to try and keep retailers and parents informed about the ratings of games, but the laws that have been written are a step backwards in this effort. Why can't the lawmakers help the industry by informing parents about the ratings? Instead we get "Well, the killer played GTA so if we exclude the fact that he was mentally unstable, took a lot of drugs, and was abused, it's obvious that video games gave him the resolve to murder people."