In this three part article, I will be discussing the three major lawsuits and court cases that have been covered recently in gaming media, namely: The California Law Against Violent Video Games, The Infinity Ward Lawsuit, and the "Other OS" Lawsuit filed against Sony. In this first part, I will be giving information and opinions on the Infinity Ward Lawsuit between Activision and Infinity Ward, and speculating on what it could mean for us. In this first part, I will be giving my opinions on the California Law Against Violent Video Games that will be brought to the Supreme Court later this year.
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So I have a question: Do you need to play violent videogames to be violent? Of course not. Do they have some influence on your behaviour overall? Of course, everything does, from parents to media, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will affect you in a violent way. We've seen reports of people who've played a game like Manhunt where people have brought cases to the Supreme Courts of the world saying that it was related to one specific murder case. Uhm, hello, its one murder case. That sounds insensitive, but based on fact, it was one murder. One recorded case. One recorded case from a game that sold 1.7 Million copies in its franchising life. That REALLY adds up to an argument that it influences people to be violent, doesn't it?
Leland "The Games are Harming our Children, Blah Blah Blah." Yee, from San Francisco, has been pushing a law that he had tried to introduce before, in 2005 to be specific. The law specifically states that retailers can be charged if they sell a violent video game to a minor i.e. someone under the age of 18. Now this isn't the 'M' Rating. This gets convoluted and specific. "Violent Video Game: A Violent Video Game is a video game where the range of options available to a player include; killing, maiming, dismembering or sexually assaulting an image of a human being, if those acts are depicted in the game in a manner that depicts some or all of the following: A reasonable person would find it deviant or morbid, it is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the community, causes the game as a whole to lack serious literary and art aspects."
Will the courts be the gamer's ally or enemy?
Now, is it just me, or is that much too vague. What is the definition of a reasonable person? Someone with 'moral value'. Someone with 'intelligence of a reasonable degree'. Also, which community? Its much too vague. At the time, it was thrown out and deemed unconstitutional, and that its the parent's responsibility, but now its being heard by the Supreme Court again. But this is all in response to the 'Violent Video Games Affect Us.' As I've said, yes they do affect us, but they can desensitize us to violence, and whether this is a good or bad thing is up for argument on another day. They can affect us in a good way, or bad way, but it purely depends on the mental state of the person.
Whiskers angwy….
To get anecdotal, I'll admit I played Grand Theft Auto: Vice City at the tender age of eleven. That's seven years below the Age Rating of that game, both by ESRB and PEGI standards. Now, granted, that isn't one of the more graphic or violent editions in the franchise, but you can still go around with a sub-machine gun and blow people's heads off. That's violence. Have I gone on a violent rampage yet? No, and I don't plan to any time soon. I know, perhaps its not in my tendencies to be violent, and my mental state is desensitized to the violence in that game, but still. Each and every one of us gamers that have not gone and shot someone, or mauled someone, after playing a violent game depicting those acts, are living proof that those games don't affect our personalities to the extremes of us becoming murderous psychopaths.
Stephen Barry is a fairly opinionated gamer with a yearning to write…and rant, or a combination of the two. He also tends to get angry at people who complain about Nintendo's trend of systems with not-so-great graphics. Take that how you will. So if you ever read an article by him, expect one of two things: A rant or discussion about a relevant gaming topic, or hating on Ninten-haters.