I have to agree with this well thought out post. I'm from the old'n days. Back then,at least with my parents,there was no crying and moaning period. You just did'nt ask twice and if you did it was getting spanked with the belt. To me it was nothing but discpline and if I got spanked,I probably deserved it. @on topic-if you go to a movie theater,most of the time they ask to see your ID,if you go to an R-rated movie.Some places do this anyways,with video games,but all this law does is fine retailer's if they don't check someone's ID,they think could be a minor. It would just force retailer's to do there job. I see no problem with this law. I hope it passes and think it could be a good think,in my personal opinion. lol

Why shouldn't a twelve year old play GTA? Seriously you have to ask. If a kid can't watch a rated R film why should they be able to play an M rated game? Drug abuse, alchohol abuse , sexual abuse not to mention cop killing and language. If all this content were in a movie it would be 18A (Canadian rating) or R (21 American rating). As such why should a child be playing such a game? Now I agree with others that games don't cause people to go commit crimes, they don't. But what about a child having time to just be a child, I remember having the innocence of a child and now that I know about everything you just wish for a period where you weren't subjected to everything.

Also while video games don't create criminals some games do desensatize. What I mean is games , movies and music have an impact on the childs life. For example as a kid another kid would hear swear words all the time so he would then use swear words to express himself. Media impacts children psychologically and they are too young to understand most of what is being thrown at them in a game like GTA.

Also can't the industry be trusted to regulate itself. Yes it can I'm not pro this law but I don't really think its bad either. Here in Canada kids can't buy games such as GTA on their own because the retailers will not sell them the games, that is self regulation and I think it works great. But at the same time I don't see why video games can't be regulated like movies are? Movies are an expression of free speach and art but are regulated to my knowledge. Has that really effected the film industry?

Since kids can't watch rated R films without parents has that killed the film industry? Have adult films or higher rated films suffered big drops in sales due to that regulation? Infact I know in the 90's several directors wanted their films to get R ratings because high ratings boosted sales, that sounds like the exact opposite happening sales increasing thanks to regulation.

As for should the state raise all children and we can't trust parents. I myself think its bad parenting for a mom to buy her 6 year old GTA. But that parent is responsable for that child and if the parent thinks its right then I guess I have no right to judge. But the problem with that is that parent's don't take that responsability. Remember the Hot Coffee debacle and all the angry parents and grand parents who had bought GTA for their under age children? It was a huge mess and why not because of the developer/publisher but because the dumb ass parent's didn't look into the product they were buying their kids or at least pretended to not have known.

I think its best if children just didn't play GTA or ManHunt or Duke Nukem (Pornographic content is in Duke and its illegal to show a minor porn). It just makes a mess it causes contraversy and leads to morons like Jack Thompson critisizing our industry.

Their are more then enough of age consumers to sell GTA, Man Hunt and Duke. Look at sales of GTA4, as far as I know EBGames, GameStop and BestBuy/Walmart had all introduced self regulation policies not selling the game to minors and guess what, did the game die? Was it the apocalypse? Without those little children did the industry collapse.

No, the industry was just fine. It will be fine after a single state imposes state regulation it will be fine if the whole country imposed state regulation. Parents will continue purchasing it for some kids the only difference is now the parent can't say "I never knew what was in this game, (Insert accusation of publisher)". The game will not be sold directly to minors whoop-de-do.

Listen the worlds not going to end, the industry already for the most part doesn't sell to minors making it state law isn't going to be armagedon!

how many copies would MW2 have sold if they had to be sold to adults only at porn shops?

Games get made under first amendment rights

games get rated, they can also (in theory) be banned by the ratings board depending on their content (imagine a rape game involving the KKK *shivers and barfs a little*)

the ratings serve as an advisory to parents, this advisory is not currently strictly enforced afaik.

enforcing the advisory by law might infringe the rights of the parents to decide what they can and can't expose their children to media wise (within reason).

for instance sale of alcohol to minors is prohibited, but parents can still opt to get their child a glass of wine (or a shot of Vodka if that's their culture) ocasionally - under parental supervision.

The state is not the parent of the child but needs to keep children from being abused and mistreated

it's a fine line

I think that such law might just be an infringment; but I'm not a Supreme Court judge.

This is incorrect in terms of the US. There are still legal limits on what a parent can expose their child to. Willingly exposing a minor to pornography is considered "Contributing to the delinquincy of a minor", and is a crime. Likewise, for your alcohol case, that is not permitted either. Federal law stipulates at a minimum, a large fine to the parent for it. Many states do other things, ranging from suspending/revoking the parent's license, to up to a period of 10 years in jail. Some states even have ad programs reminding parents; one of the ones I remember is "Parents who host lose the most." (This was in a state where first offense was 90-day license suspension of all adults present in the house, in addition to the federal fine.)

Uh... couldn't some kids older brother in college get him a game?  This is a non-issue.  Just have an adult get you the game.  Plus - how many stores will just say "w/e" to that law and let kids buy them anyways.  Non-issue indeed.

QFT.  Sad sad truth.

Despite there being some federal law regarding underage drinking, states appear capable of various interpretations and regulations, so in some of them, under certain circumstances, underaged can drink alcohol.

from http://www.alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/Furnishing_Alcohol_to_Minors.html

Well, the same applies to R-rated movies, I suppose, except that for a movie to receive said rating, it must be significantly more notorious than a game which receives an M (which, from what I've seen, is pretty much every game with even a small amount of violence. Again, America really needs a rating between T and M). I suppose you're right about GTA, but GTA, as a movie, would be an R/18/whatever. Modern Warfare 2, though? Really? Because you kill civilians in an airport in an optional scene? 

Also, giving a game/film a high age rating due to profanity is the most ridiculous thing ever, because your average 12 year old will probably be fluent in the swear words of fifteen different languages, including several which older adults have never heard of. Certainly, there's some disagreeable stuff in GTA, but is anyone without a serious mental deficiency really going to think that GTA is a moral guide? Hello, you're a criminal. Criminals don't tend to do nice things. But I'm not going to try and argue my excessively liberal viewpoint. GTA can be a 17. Restrict its sales to minors. Sure.

Okay, I'll argue it briefly. Age is no indication of maturity. A mature 12 year old will handle GTA better than an immature 18 year old. Indeed, how many of these "GTA killings" have been orchestrated by 18 year olds?

The trouble in America with this particular law is that it violates the First Amendment. Why shouldn't games be regulated in America when movies are, you ask? Well, movies aren't. It is perfectly legal, in America, to show a child of any age an R-rated movie. I don't personally agree with that, but the cinemas self-regulate, so it's more or less the same thing. I don't remember the last time I bought a game in America, but I'm sure most stores would perform an ID check to ensure that you are sufficiently old to play the game.

The trouble here isn't GTA; it's MW2. Or Mass Effect, if you prefer.

Both relatively mild games, right? Both games blown ridiculously out of proportion by sixty year old Fox pundits who have probably never played a game, but need something to distract people from the extent to which they are complete morons with no sense of compassion or logic, as displayed by the fact that they host a show by Sean Hannity, but that's a topic for another time. People who have never played a game will be deciding whether or not games are age appropriate. Is that right? Doesn't the ESRB have a greater knowledge of how a game works? Sure, they don't play the games themselves, which is pretty stupid, but they have played games in the past.

That is the problem with this law, the problem which makes it far worse than the laws in Europe, and only slightly better than the laws in Australia.

I must be misunderstanding the law. When the lady told me about it at PAX she said the law would restrict the sales of video games to minors. I never heard anything about the Government telling parents they can't let their children play an M-Rated game with their permission or in their supervision?

Now Duke Nukem Forever for example actually had pretty much nudity in the trailer I saw at PAX. As such I would think the same rules as pornography would apply to said game. You cannot show a minor pornographic content so their for Duke even under parent supervision should not be played by a minor. I'm sure the finished version will lack that nudity to make sure it doesn't recieve an A-rating.

In the cases of pornography the state does impose strict regulations that forbid a child from watching it or a parent from showing it to the child. If a game recieves an A-Rating (Which almost never happens) maybe the state shouldn't let the children play it. I remember a few years ago a couple adult games were being released and a few of them actually got rated A. Retailers refused to carry the games which is a great example of self regulation.

In the end I don't think Government has the right to tell parents that they can't let their child play an M-Rated game. But they sure as hell should be able to restrict legally the sale of M games to under age individuals. If a parent chooses to let their child play the game knowing the ESRB ratings tthen thats up to them.

If the industry already self regulates why not allow the state to make it legally binding. Nothing will change as far as I know based on what I have been told. Its not like the state will take your kids away for letting them play GTA. Or am I totally misunderstanding the legislation?

The problem lies in what is pornographic? From what you said it sounded like you consider any flesh shown to be pronographic. I would disagree, there is nothing wrong with a child seeing a naked body, in fact its this notion that all nudity is bad for kids that is part of the problem, its seen as forbidden fruit. I can understand overly graphic sex scenes, but just nudity should not be a problem.  Its best to let parents decide what their kids can handle and keep governemnt out of it. I would hate to start getting watered down or out right banned games like austraila.