Indianapolis Bans Violent Video Games

Dark Nexus writes "This article on MSNBC talks about how a City law restricting access to graphically violent or sexually explicit video games to those who are at least 18 or accompanied by a parent or guardian has been upheld by a federal judge." A ban on violent video games, more or less. It's important to note that this was just a preliminary injunction hearing; video game distributors filed suit to stop the law and the judge has refused to block enforcement of the law while the suit progresses. In theory at least, they could still win the suit. (In reality, the judge has already decided, of course.) If you want a dose of rhetoric to equal or exceed the DeCSS case, read the judge's opinion. Are video games speech? Is violence a new category of speech which receives no constitutional protections?

U.S. Congress Bans Voting!

In a related story, a reporter found that the there are actual federal laws in place in the United States of America that do not allow children under the age of 18 to vote.

Massive riots have begun due to the restriction that the government has put in place. It was previously believed that *everyone* was granted the right to vote, but as it turns out, US legislation believes that young, impressionable minds are somehow different than adults.

This is not a "ban," it is simply a "restriction."

It is completely within Constitution to restrict access to questionable materials, precedent in this area is well-established. Before complaining about this as a violation of "constitutional rights," please read the body of law regarding the limitations to the right of free speech.

Free speech is about censorship, and censorship implies "prior restraint." In this case, the material is not in any way prevented from being distributed, except a case where it is considered to be in conflict with local community standards (which is a provision applicable more properly to pornography), and even in that case, a legal adult can purchase the material, as can a minor, if accompanied by an adult.

What does this mean? It means that this has nothing whatsoever to do with censorship.

Please, save the angry protestations for true cases of prior restraint, where we actually have a real leg to stand on, as in the DeCSS case.

---sig---

Re:"Indianapolis Bans Violent Video Games"

this is the same as saying "R Rated Movies Banned in the US" , since access to an R-rated movie is prohibited to those 17 and under unless accompanied by an adult.

another typical slashdot headline that continues the trend of slashdot being emotional and inflammatory at the expense of accuracy, and not to be taken seriously by the outside community.

Only one problem

The cut-off should be 16. I'm not sure what the driving age is in Indianapolis, but the ability to drive is a significant venue toward independence and freedom. And it's often granted at age 16.

18 is chosen as it is the usual age of high school graduation. But it's often silly and overplayed. I, for one, graduated high school at 17, not turning 18 until after my first semester at college. I couldn't go to clubs, and, had I just started at school in Indianapolis, I couldn't buy a lot of games.

The (much maligned on these pages) movie industry gets this right, using 17 as the cut-off. Could you imagine the life of a college freshman who cannot get into an R-rated movie?

What is wrong with this?

Whatever happened to allowing communities to determine what is morally permissible in their respective areas. There are cities/counties where strip clubs are banned, alcoholic beverages are not served, movie theaters refuse to show certain films, etc. and this have been upheld by supreme court decisions as the rights of the communities to set their moral standards.

My question to jamie is this, "If a community/country can decide that people have to be a certain age to passively view violent behavior on a television screen, why shouldn't they be allowed to make the same decision for when the violence on screen is interactive with the user and not merely passive?"

Second Law of Blissful Ignorance

You misunderstand; and, it is *in effect* a ban...

The key point here is that it's the ARCADE business which is suing to stop this law. This is about ARCADE games, not about BUYING games RETAIL.

Let me repeat, since 99% of the people below, who are moderated up to 4 and 5 for pointing out that requiring a parent to buy a game for a child is not a ban, don't seem to have READ THE BLOODY POST and associated material. Here it it: THIS IS ABOUT ARCADES!!! NOT retail.

I hope we've cleared the confusion now, and I hope the people who misunderstood what this was all about get appropriately moderated down again. People shouldn't moderate something up if it completely misses the subject, whether or not it's an OPINION the moderator agrees with.

You see, this *is* a ban on arcades. It is not a *de jure* ban, it is a *de facto* ban. That is, the law itself does not ban arcades; the law does, however, made the business of running an arcade completely untenable, thus causing, in effect, a ban on arcades.

Here's why: The majority of those who frequent arcades are minors--mostly high school students, though this varies by location and type of arcade. As such, minors are an important, the most important, customer demographic in the arcade business. Without minors, arcades would go the way of the drive-in movie theater.

This law effectively prevents most minors from going to arcades. Let's face it: high school students, and most junior high students, are not going to arcades to play the latest mind-numbing soul-killing consumer-drone-creating Pokemon franchise. They play the good stuff, the Area 51s and the Mortal Kombats and the House of the Deads and the VR Gunfights. Keep them from those by this law, and arcades shrivel and die--and that's what these freaks want--the same freaks, BTW, who were with Charles Keating and the Moral Majority, who had no TRUE morals whatsoever (umm, can anyone say S&L scam?), when they tried to prosecute a certain respected art gallery for obscenity for exhibiting the photographs of a a certain controversial but respected artist. Brownie points for anyone who can name the artist AND the gallery (hint: Showtime recently made a film about it). Oh, and these were the same people who tried to ban the sale of HUSTLER which, while not always the most tasteful magazine, is protected speech. Anyone who thinks that Thomas Jefferson wouldn't defend HUSTLER in this day and age, should immediately read some of his writings, or preferably leave this country altogether for someplace more to your morally censorious liking, such as Iraq or Libya.

But, I digress. Back to the main line of reasoning, this is a *de facto* ban because there is no effective way to implement a system whereby under-18s are prevented from accessing such machines without parental consent, while still allowing parentally-consented (yes, I know, but I'm too tired to think of a better term) minors to freely access them. What, is a parent supposed to accompany Little Johnny and Jake to the arcade every time they want to play Mortal Kombat? Let's say a parent does; she goes up to the attendant and says "Let my kids in to the back room" while she shops. Johnny and Jake go get a drink 'cause they're thirsty, or go anywhere for a change of scenery--kids don't like staying in one place for long periods--come back to the arcade, and they can't get in. Different attendant, or attendant doesn't remember them, or maybe the policy is a parent is needed *every occasion*. Oops, sorry. Better yet, most teens drop by the arcade while doing something else. My friends and I would stop by after movies or while hanging out in the mall or after dining somewhere. Oops, sorry, no parents with you, can't get in, you'll go hang out somewhere else. Needing parental consent all the time adds up to a lot of lost revenue, most of which is from kids whose parents would have let them play any game. Fact is, most 16 year olds, a lot of 15 and 14 year olds, and almost all 17 year olds, are very mobile, but without their parents. They're teenagers, YOUNG ADULTS, with lives of their own. Mommy and Daddy don't accompany them everywhere, and don't need to because they're trusted, independant. What a great way it is to teach teenagers to grow into responsible, independant adults, to make them bring Mommy and Daddy with them everywhere they go.

The upshot is, it would kill the entire arcade business in the area except for 1 or 2 locations. Thus, it would be a *DE FACTO BAN* on arcades. If the authors of the legislation had mere reasonable regulation of arcades on their minds, they would have implemented a one-time system whereby a parent could give Little Johnny permanent permission to play whetever games he wants, with say a registration card. Of course, doing that would smack of America as a show-me-your-papers totalitarian sort of place--not that it isn't already... :-(

Re:You misunderstand; and, it is *in effect* a ban

Soryy, but you misunderstand where I'm coming from. For starters, I'm well into my 20s, not under 18. This is important, becaue I'm old enough and well-educated enough, having graduated from one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the nation in a mere three years--a feat no one at my college pulled off in any professor's memory, the requirements are so thick--to come from a mature and thoughtful perspective, rather than one tinged by being too young to do something. Just as importantly, I'm not so old that I can't remember my high school years clearly, along with the culture, behaviours, and attitudes which were commonplace a mere five years ago. The older one gets, the more divorced one is from the state of today's youth, in most cases. This taints viewpoints, because what was inappropriate teenage behaviour in 1962 is very, very far removed from what is appropriate teenage behavior today. Having children oneself also often makes one entirely unqualified to make a rational and impartial judgement about what is appropriate for young people, because parental emotions make one lose objectivity much of the time. Objectivity is important, because we're talking about the development into adulthood of another human being, not our own selfish wants and desires which sometimes conflict with what is most healthy.

That being said, the important misunderstanding lies not with my age/youth, but with your characterizations of this particular law. You see, the very same people have made this law, who have tried to censor Mapplethorpe's artwork from being displayed in public museums in their city, and who attempted to get adult magazines such as HUSTLER banned for being "patently obscene." This is the same city, and these are the same public officials. Given their history, it is more than reasonable to infer that their motives are not regulation, but eradication--in fact, it's not just "more than reasonable to infer," it's bloody obvious.

I have no objection to regulations, per se. I have numerous objections to this one, as well as others which have come along in recent years.

Regarding your example about movie ratings, I'm sorry, but it's not at all on-point. In fact, the entire movie ratings system as it stands today is successful precisely because teenagers can easily circumvent it. If you're 18 and your friend or girlfriend is 16, well, just buy her ticket while she waits out of sight. I have only once in my entire life run across a movie theater that wouldn't sell two, three, or half a dozen tickets to anyone who is old enough for the movie's rating, and then have no questions for the under-17s when they roll into the theater. The only other exceptions I've seen to this are regarding films which are unrated, or which are garnering direct protest right in the area.

This is what makes the MPAA ratings system fairly successful: it gives conservative parents warm fuzzies in their ignorant bliss that their 15 year old darling can't see some nasty sex-and-violence romp, while simultaneously giving teens the ability to see whatever films they want behind their parents' backs. This isn't of course applicable to very very young children, but is 100% true for teens.

Now, this arcade system on the other hand is an abomination, not because it actually works unlike the movie ratings system which is usually easily circumvented, but because it's clearly designed to kill all violent arcade games/arcades as we know them within its jurisdiction. The "violent" games must be segregated in a separate physical area from the rest of the games, with means to prevent unauthorized minors from accessing them. In other words, they have to be put into a "back room" as if they were hardcore pornography. There is no mechanism for giving teens a clear and easy way to have access to these games--as I said, much of arcade playing is done on impulse, to kill time, or otherwise by teens who are at the damned mall to get away from their parents and be independant in the first place. How is a parent who gives his teens enough independence to, well, be a healthy young adult, supposed to give this permission? It's unconscionable to expect a teenager to have to hold Daddy's hand every time he wants to play a HARMLESS VIDEO GAME. If you don't think they're harmless, I refer you to the statistics given by Jamie's /. story day before yesterday.

This is part of an alarming trend in the U.S. to artificially and unhealthily extend childhood. For example, if an 18 year old is an adult, why can't he drink alcoholic beverages? Well, the sole reason is that Elizabeth Dole and her conservative groups complained that 18 year olds being able to legally purchase liquor caused it to get into the hands of other, younger high school students. Even Ronald Reagan was initially against raising the drinking age--after all, it was lowered in the first place based on the premise that someone who is an adult, who has the right to vote in our Republic, and who has the responsibility to fight and die for it in time of war, should naturally be extended every right including the one to drink alcohol. That makes a lot of sense--either you're an adult, or you're not. Either you have rights, or you don't. But, raising the spectre of younger high schoolers drinking caused rights to be rescinded and taken away from supposed adults. Well, the result is that use of alcohol by high school students has increased many times over since the rise in drinking age--it simply didn't work. Rights were taken away, for nothing. And in the end, it probably contributed to the rise of underage drinking, because teenagers will very often do things just because they;re told not to.

Even more important and damaging, how is it that an 18 year old is an adult, when in certain locales purchase of sexual videos and magazines is restricted to those at least 21? Where I happen to live, the age is 18--but in many places it is 21. Now, no 18 year old can be prevented from making sexually explicit materials and being the subject of them, because he's an adult and has 1st Amendment rights to participate if he wants to in the adult materials industry. Any law restricting the age to 21 and over would be immediately called unconstitutional by the Court. And yet, if I am an 18 year old or 20 year old in such a jurisdiction, I could not legally purchase the sex videos I myself have starred in. This makes NO SENSE whatsoever. "Adult" and "age of majority" thus have little real meaning, and rights are rendered arbitrary in such examples.

But laws have been getting ever more restrictive on young people, especially 14-17 year olds. First a smoking age is set at 16, and then it's raised to 18--it hasn't stopped teen smoking, in fact after a brief decline it's on the rise once more. It just succeeds in making older teens, who are not children but really young adults, feel more boxed in, feel like they have fewer and fewer rights, feel like they're being treated with no respect and have no rights. And they're correct. And this comes from someone who HATES cigarettes and has NEVER smoked any.

Curfews are being set in more cities and towns all over the country, curfews which affect older teens and not just young children. Talk about the State interfering with the development of a 16 year old into a healthy adult, well, it may make the old people feel safe not to have a few young hooligans running about after dark, but it makes every teen under such tyranny feel like he or she has no rights and no worth as a person, no free will and no respect. Talk to young people about such issues. It demeans them, and the parents who should have a say instead of the State mandating curfews.

Even a basic teenage right of passage like learning to drive is under fire. Thanks to a media which plays up any incidence of teenage car accidents, especially if they involve alcohol, moves are underway in many states to raise the driving age to 17 or even 18 for an instruction permit. Of course, the DOT's own aggregate statistics show that 21-25 year olds are more likely to drive drunk than 16-20 year olds, but facts don't count when people go by gut emotion fed by an irresponsible press. Of course, 16-20 year olds DO have more accidents overall than 21-25 year olds--it makes perfect sense, because you're ALWAYS going to have more accidents on average in people's first few years of driving than after they've already had a few years of practice. Well, duh, but no one THINKS any more.

Even the most fundamental part of oneself, one's body, is a subject of much legislation and loss of rights in the last few years. Ages of consent have gone up, even though ages of sexual maturity (physically) and of first sexual contacts have been going down. Before the health and nutrition advances of the 19th century, average age of first menses hovered between 14 and 16. Today, it is listed as 12 in most textbooks, but the most recent studies have suggested it has been dropping swiftly, as low as 9 for African American girls in certain cities, and 10-11 for Caucasian American girls in some cities. A majority of middle school children now engage in oral sex, according to an article which recently appeared in the Washington Post Magazine. And yet, ages of consent are being raised and prosecutions are on the rise--not prosecutions of older perverts who deserve to be prosecuted for inappropriate contact, but rather prosecutions of young people for having consensual sex with members of their own peer group. One would hardly say that a boy who just turned 15 was out of the peer group of a girl who's almost 14, and yet such a boy was prosecuted, in Michigan if memory serves, for consensual sex with the girlfriend. Prosecutors called it "statutory rape" since the age of consent was 15 and he'd reached it but she hadn't, but most of us would call it a "normal teenage relationship." Now, even five years ago, much less 10, no prosecutor in the country would have prosecuted. But these days, no one uses common sense, and no one thinks of the real emotional health of our young people. Not just the boy--who is now, thanks to Megan's Law, a registered sex offender--but the girl will probably never develop into a normal adult with normal sexual behaviours. I can recount many similar cases, and even find URLs if you want. In my own state, the age of consent is still technically 15, but a new law makes it a serious crime for someone 18 or older to have consensual sex with someone above the "age of consent" but under 18. Not only is it confusing, it's been used to convict 18 year old high school seniors for having consensual sex with 16 year old high school juniors. Teenagers who are really young adults, now have not even basic rights over their own sexual development with members of their peer group.

We make our young people, kids as young as 12 and 13, responsible for upholding the responsibilities of adults. If they harm someone, they can be tried as an adult for assault or murder. Yet, we give them none of the rights of adults. How is it that we treat them like adults when they do evil, and like children when they do good? How can they have all the bad and none of the good that comes with being an adult? Why is it, at the exact moment we're treating teenagers more and more like children, taking away more of their rights, that we can simultaneously start punishing them as the justice system has only punished adults before now? I think it's because our society is selfish, and doesn't care about our teenagers. We want them to do as we say, and if they don't they get punished, but if they do they get no reward. We have lost sight of our teenagers. We treat them as objects, not human beings.

Not to mention the fact that we drug our young people like no other ntion does. We put them on Ritalin for just about everything--it's scary, the percentages of kids and teens on this stuff. And we put them on Welbutrin and Zoloft for depression--which is merely a usually harmless symptom of being a teenager. Most teenagers are naturally depressed from time to time--it's part of growing up. And we drug them for it. Do you know how many prescription drugs the Columbine shooters were on?

Everything for teenagers has been growing progressively worse. They've been given fewer and fewer rights--had more and more taken away. Is it any wonder, then, that some of them have felt so trapped, so put upon by external pressures, that some of them have snapped like at Columbine? Columbine was a wake-up call, not that teens are more violent than they've ever been--which stats show is untrue--not that we need to censor their films and video games, but that we're censoring them to death. We give them so little freedom that they don't value their own lives, or those of their classmates. We put them under so much presure to succeed, to get good grades, to get into college, to have cool friends and be in the right cliques--many also need to have jobs, too--and we have taken away their only freedoms and rewards. We have taken away all their fundamental rights.

And this is just another piece in that big puzzle. It's just another brick in the wall. And it's a very wicked thing to do to our teenagers, our supposed young adults. They get all the responsibilities and none of the rights. This is a small part of a much, much larger wrong. But it should be stopped. It all needs to be stopped, and thought about rationally.

The way that the ordinance is written...

it would make a video game based on classic Warner Brothers cartoons (eg: Road Runner, Bugs Bunny, etc) illegal for kids to watch/play without parental consent. Of course, that is probably why those of us who grew up watching those graphically violent cartoons turned out to be so warped.

A Good Thing.

Personally, I think the violent and sexual content of video games could be MUCH more intense, graphic, and sickening than it is now.

Game designers are being held back by the perception that kids might play their games, and the game company would get sued by parents.

With an adult rating on the game, it's the parent's responsibility, and the retailers, not to let kids get the product.

Then, game developers will turn up the violence and sex content (hopefully a horrifyingly grotesque and realistic mixture of the two) for a more thoroughly satisfying "first person shooter" experience.

I call on all developers to alternately watch "The Cell" and "Caligula" at leasdt ten times before desinging anymore boring games. Maybe that would get something throughly disgusting and enjoyable into the stagnant gaming industry.

After all, long before the moronic do-gooders of America had video games and TV to blame, people were hating, killing and raping each other. Who was to blame then? Newspapers? Books? Radio?

"Indianapolis Bans Violent Video Games"

Is it just me, or is this title extremely misleading? It makes it sound like *no one* may purchase them. Something like "Indianapolis prohibits Violent Video Games to Children" would be more appropriate.

not a free speech issue

I'm trying to see how restricting explicit video games to those under 18 (unless a parent/guardian is with them) is any different than doing the same thing for explicit movies. Alright, I give up... how are they different? This is not a ban on violent video games. It's not a free speech issue and it's not censorship. A 2 year old is allowed to play a game rated mature so long as [s]he has his/her parents' blessing.

If I had a 13 year old kid, I'd buy him Halflife or Quake3 if he wanted it. My parents let me have access to whatever video games I wanted, and I never walked into school with a shotgun. Why? Well I think it has something to do with the fact that I was raised well. This law still gives the parents the right to raise their child[ren] as they see fit.

Done to a certain extent in Utah

Well, here in good old Salt Lake City, Utah, this sort of thing is already happening to a certain extent. Not with arcade games, there's no regulation on that at all.
But a while ago I did a test. I sent my 10 year old sister into a computer game store to buy a copy of Q3. They would not sell it to her. They said it was too violent for someone that young. I had to go in there and buy it.
I'm not sure if it's a law here, but with the conservative attitude this state has it just sort of happens by itself.
I personally don't think it's that big of a deal of parents want their kids kept away from violent, bloody, whatever games. There's plenty of "rated E, for everyone" games out there. Take rollercoaster tycoon, the sims, the ever-classic simpsons arcade game. Non violent, fun, even addicting.
I personally don't want any future children I may have to be playing quake 3 at 10 and 11. And if they insist it's sure as hell gonna be on a linux box =)

The MPAA ratings...

...Are not backed up by force of law. A minor can watch NC-17 movies all day if he or she wants to (and they aren't covered under local pornography ordinances). The system is completely voluntary, the trick is that theaters or movie rental chains that break the rules can be cut off from their supply of movies by MPAA members.

My understanding is that the system would be unconstitutional were it legally enforced. Since movies are regularly cut down to make the R rating (or else face basically no market for an NC-17) the government would essentially be saying "censor your movies, or we'll not let you have a market for it", which seems like a pretty blatant violation of the First Amendment. It would be blocking speech between adults.

This ordinance though... The "harmful to minors" part is probably the week link. Can the city prove violent games harm minors? No, years of psychological research has still registered a big "inconclusive" on that. For any study the city commissions, the plaintiffs could cite 10 more that say the opposite. The likening of violence to pornography is the culprit here. It's pretty obvious that porn isn't nessesarily healthy for five year olds, but violence? Besides, even the most realistic arcade game is stil protraying something not quite realistic...and still something a kid could see far more of on television.

The ordinance itself is aimed at removing the machines, making them uneconomical to operate, not nessesarily keeping them from minors.

The wording of the ruling is also frightening. The judge comes very close to saying that video games aren't speech, or at least not protected speech. Does this mean that, in the future, if the government wants to censor something all they have to do is rule that it isn't protected by the First Amendment?

You'd think these politicians would be a little afraid. I mean, gamers are all trained snipers that have an insatiable appetite for blood, right?

Incorrect Facts

Slashdot and many readers are totally misinterpreting the facts of this situation. The "ban" applies to ARCADES, and works similar to the movies -- it says that children cannot play the violent games unless their parents consent.

For an accurate and more factual report, check out this article from the Indianapolis Star [starnews.com]. It is extremely bad form for Slashdot and its readers to continue to mislead and be misled about the facts.

Please, let's discuss the merits of what actually was proposed. Unless people are giving their kids money to go out and buy a coin-operated machine, this story is totally off-base and incorrect.

Speaking as someone who used to sell video games..

... I would probably say this is a good thing.

Unfortunately, parents don't tend to take the time to understand what their children are playing. The more info we can give them on the subject, the better they can prolly understand what their children are up to. I worked for Toys R Us in their video game department for two and a half years, and I repeatedly informed parents of the rating system. It was very rare that I found a parent who didn't think it was a good thing.

I guess the best analogy I could give was this one time I was working at the game booth itself. This woman in her mid-30's came up to me, holding a ticket for a copy of DOOM for SNES. I got her the game, and as I got her to sign the ticket, I casually asked her who it was for. She smiled, and said it was for her five-year-old son. I just looked up, and asked her if she knew what the game was about. She said no, and I proceeded to describe the game in detail. When I was done, she was noticably paler and wanted to know where she could get a refund (the cartridges themselves weren't handed out until the game was paid for). I'm firmly convinced that a lost sale is better than a refund later and an irate former customer. I guess my point here is that parents don't know about a lot of these games, and that at least this way they have a chance to take a look at what it is their kids are buying/playing, and gives them a say in it.

Age limits are a good thing

I really fail to see how anyone can argue that age limits on violent and explicit material are anything other than a sane policy. It has been shown that children are more vulnerable to these things than adults, and so limiting their exposure to these kinds of materials is nothing more than caring for our future.

When violence becomes a part of society that is tolerated, then we must make sure that it does not become accepted. Currently American culture, such as it is, tolerates violence as being an inevitable consequcne of allowing firearms to be possessed by people, but it hasn't gotten to the stage yet where people accept violence as a tool for getting ahead in life. So, in order to make sure that people don't begin to perceive violence as a valid socio-economic tool of advancement, we need to make sure that children don't perceive violence as being "cool".

These kinds of laws, whilst perhaps not being strictly Constituional, are very necessary. We cannot let our children fall into the trap that violence is good, and nothing shouls be allowed to stand in the way of ensuring this. When the Constitution was drafted, if they'd have realised the threats that children face everyday, I'm sure they'd have realised that sometimes, freedom of speech is not an abolute concept.