Video Games Ratings Enforcement Act rises again

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Bill would force retailers to check ID for purchase of M-rated games. Let's hope it passes

Here’s what I think would happen if Rep. Matheson’s bill passes (and I hope it does). Some publishers would make, say, $490 million dollars in the first week of the release of a flagship gaming franchise instead of $500 million. Meanwhile, every time a blockhead goes on TV to rail against violence and sexual themes being peddled in videogames, the gaming press can simply say: “Ladies and gentlemen of the Fox News Network audience, these games aren’t intended for minors, and can’t legally be sold to them. So I think your issue is with Joe’s Video Game Shack.”

In that respect, this bill actually helps gamers. I mean, what can we say now? “Oh, but this game in which you can murder cops by the bushel, suffocate a guy while stabbing him repeatedly in the face with a piece of broken glass, and, yes, even beat a hooker to death and steal back your money, is clearly labeled “Scenes involving aggressive conflict”!

After enduring so much unfair criticism and staring slack-jawed at the TV as some smooth asshole in a blazer tells America that this game or that gives you points for driving drunk and running over a grocery bag-toting single mother of four while doped up on heroin you got from the large-breasted topless hooker girlfriend you met while kissing boys in the playground, we gamers are beginning to sound like the very thing we’ve been defending ourselves against: unreasonable, reactionary boobs.

It’s time we started acknowledging that adult life means compromising with people who have legitimate concerns regardless of whether or not we share those concerns ourselves. Worrying about your children being exposed to video game violence is a legitimate concern, and it doesn’t matter if we know that Call of Duty 4 actually punishes reckless violence. Worrying about your children being exposed to nudity and sexuality is a legitimate concern, and it doesn’t matter if we think that there’s nothing wrong with being naked or that a gay kiss shouldn’t be regarded on the same level as humping on the bed in time to music.

People have a right to be concerned about what their children are exposed to, retailers have a responsibility to the communities they serve, and if we gamers are grown up enough to start debating the nature of the United States Constitution, then we’re grown up enough to accept that asking retailers to insist on proof of age when purchasing M-rated video games doesn’t impinge on the rights of adults to play them.

May 12, 2008