And the problem is? So the government and people in the know will finally realise that kids that go crazy shooting everyone in school havnt been affected by computer games(unless they are driving go-karts through the halls throwing turtles). Lets get the same as the movie ind and then the game ind might get taken serious. Arnie's films can then be blamed for psycho killers instead the evil that is Doom.

Anything that protects our kids is a good thing. As parent's we only have control of what they do in our own homes and can't always protect them from their peers at school. I think it's about time the games industry grew up and with that comes some responisbility.

The ratings and fines are worth supporting, it doesn't prevent older gamers from playing the games they want.

Is there any definition of the scope of violence? Will they be able to restrict sale of Pokemon (which is all about fighting) and Mario Galaxies and space invaders and.... When you start to think about which games have violence and which don't, those that don't are easier to list.

Hello Dan,

You have hit one of the nails on the head. In the US, violence, or indeed any extreme media content, is defined as obscene or not by way of three-pronged test known as the Miller Test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_Test).

This test is not applied to video games, because they are rated by an independent body (ESRB).

California wants a similar test to the Miller Test to be applied to video games, but the test suggested in the pre-existing but unused law has a lot of language that is vague in relation to video games.

It says that extreme aggressive acts committed against images of humans should be considered obscene.

But what about superhumans or cartoon characters or the like? Is Mario being blown-up by a bob-omb not extremely aggressive?

This is, in my opinion, something of a flaw in the argument California is presenting.

No other medium is regulated by the government like this in the US. And studies show that retailers actually do a better job of not selling M-rated games to minors than they do of not selling inappropriate movies and music to minors. Sounds to me like self-policing is working relatively well. This law won't stop parents from buying these games for their children, which is much more likely to be the issue when it comes to not being able to supervise your children when they're over at their friends' homes.

I'm pretty sure they really mean extreme agressive acts GTA, Manhunt, and perhaps as far as Unreal, Fallout dismemberment (Headshots) etc.

I doubt very much if they include cartoon like violence your likely to see on kids TV hence

"extreme aggressive acts committed against images of humans"

Sounds perfectly reasonable and correct to me so long as common sense is used in the evaluation of the games and their content.

I started working in the games industry about 15 years ago, With the exception of perhaps kingpin it took a while for standard to drop to the level that they are now. Sure games like Barbarian on the Amiga were pretty graphic in the 80's. But Nothing like games today where hardware and technology pushes for more and more realism whilst games become more and more simplistic and rely more on shock value and cheap gimmicks to sell games rather than quality.

When only about 10% of games are profitable, it's not surprising that publishers try to make a quick buck out of hyping mostly rubbish games, sometimes spending more on marketing budget than the development of the games themselves. It's unfortunate that most developers quit the industry before they reach 35 so the people making the games often havent lived long enough to see the consequences of being irresponsible with what they are doing.

Adrian, I disagree with your first comment.

These ratings will not deter parents from buying age restricted games, violent or otherwise, for their children.

I'm currently working at Gamestation while studying my degree and it's my job to make parents aware of the content they are buying for their children. In addition to this, I feel I have a moral obligation to be as honest with the parents as possible with the specific content of a game because I understand how games can be considered a bad influence.

However, I find that no matter how much I highlight the mature content, the parent will buy the game in 99% of the cases. I even described Mafia 2 as "containing pornographic images" because of the Playboy collectibles to some parents and they still bought the game for kids who looked about 10 - 12 years old.

This, to me, seems like another case of looking for somewhere to blame. It's a shame to see that we could potentially waste a lot of money in such a volatile industry for something so void. It's not the industry that needs to take responsibility - it's the parents. No matter what content is put into a game (or any medium for that matter), it is not forced down our throats. There is a choice to buy the product and as long as people are ignorant to it then there'll always be enough people to make the wrong choice.