Horror bestseller condemns videogame sales limit law

WTF?!?!

Stephen King is talking out his arse!

He expects:

a) parents to take responsibility for their children!!!

b) the government to pass-off a chance to have more regulation on free speech.

Since when is it the parents responsibility to do anything other than blame everything other than themselves for the state of their kids. Well, now the parents can blame the government while the government erodes more human rights.

[note to the idiots; I'm being sarcastic]

How long before some human rights groups in China start kicking up a fuss about the removal of "fundamental human rights" of nations in the West?

In the mirror

I have had fights like this with my mother in-law on a regular basis. She seems to think that guns, music, games, books, comics, movies, tv are the problem. Look in the mirror. The reason the gov't is doing this is that they are afraid to admit that they have seriouslyl f'd up and cause the issue in the first place.

Be responsible for your children and punish them as required.

There is currently a 10 year old child in Alberta, Canada. Little fire bug started over 30 fires latest left a family homeless. Cannot be charged due to his age, and all the groups are wondering why is he doing this, what is the cause, we need to find out why. Simple some people are just bad. Some need help. Some need a swift kick in the a$$.

he's almost right

He's correct that parents should take responsibility, but that doesn't mean that the bill they are considering is pointless.

Here in the UK it's illegal to sell or let videos to people younger than the specified rating, why shouldn't the same apply to video games?

Okay, it won't solve the problem on it's own, but it's certainly not going to hurt is it?

RE:Mike

You're not in a minority, I've been reading his books for years, and the chap has a chronic problem with completing a story. How often have I gotten to the end of one of his works, and thrown the damn thing across the room? Often enough. Like a crack-whore, I keep going back for more.

I concur with the rest of your points though, as well as AC's sarky ones. It's unprecedented that someone of 'fame' says something remotely sensible...

Hardware angle

What's the hardware angle on this Register Hardware story?

"IT angle" icon because it's the closest...

re: he's almost right

Wrong. It won't work at all, and would actually make the games more popular for kids.

I remember growing up in the 80s. There were movies that ended up on the infamous "video nasties" list that became cult classics and much sought after for my age group. If you talked to people from countries where they weren't banned, most people hadn't heard of them or ignored them because many of them were rubbish.

The same thing would happen with games. It's much better to stop trying to push through stupid laws like this that could only be the thin end of a large wedge (why stop at games? why not movies? books? music? why stop at just restricting childrens' access to certain material?), and instead funnel those resources into the real social issues that lie at the root of the problems with society today.

true

god forbid parents actually take responsibility for themselves and their children, then they'd have to star suing themselves when their child gets hurt/goes to jail etc. Well.. if it was made to be that way in essex it would anyway....

@Jamie

The reason stories like that make the news is because they are the exception rather than the rule. Has it occurred to you that the kid might be mentally disordered? Pyromania and firestarting is frequently also associated with abuse.

Good on SK, by the way; he's always struck me as a very sensible man :).

I agree with him,

@steve.

Sad thing is over here it's illegal to sell alcohol and my local off licence is crowded by drunken hoodie wearing teenagers most nights, so there is no point in a law, all it will do is make the high street brands ask for ID, It won't stop online purchasing etc.

So what is the point.

And for a country that relies on some stupid law allowing everyone to carry a gun, a dodgy video game is nothing and won't stop anything.

Kudos for a big name to get involved, and one not directly involved. One can understand game writers, but he isn't directly involved, so is doing it on morals and principles.

I know, an american that has no angle or alternate reasoning behind it.

adult community

> “violence in a manner patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community” should carry a legally enforced age restriction.

Porn stars get to rate the games then?

(Paris - she knows all about the "adult community")

@ Liam & Robert

I think the point here is more than there is already an age-guidance system in the USA, like there is here. In both countries, these are voluntary rather than litigated. In the USA, currently, games can be rated "AO" - ie suitable for Adults Only, in the same way that a games can be rated here as "18" (though in some states, AO means 21+).

Many of us are saying "why introduce yet another piece of legislation to rule something that's currently working as well as the legislation will" - here in England regards the BBFC adding their rating to the existing one (so that parents aren't "confused" by the existing "18" badge, apparently...) and in America to replace the existing recommendations with another one, enforcable by law.

In both cases, kids shouldn't be getting hold of games they're not old enough to play, as things stand at the moment. OK, here a retailer is not allowed by law to sell it, whilst in America it's not actually illegal to sell an AO game to a minor, but most stores won't do it (if they even stock them - Wal Mart etc won't stock most AO games).

What we see in practice, is the retailer saying "no" to the kid, then the kid gets the parent/other adult to buy it for them. I've witnessed it dozens of times, and on one occasion the parent threatened the sales clerk for refusing to sell his 12-ish son the latest 18-rated FPS.

What we mean when we say "parents should take responsibility" is not "lock them in their room until they're 18", but "take interest in the games they're playing, the movies they're watching, restrict access to inappropriate material, don't leave them surfing/playing watching whatever they like, and don't buy them "Chainsaw Warrior IV: The Zombie Revenge (18)" when they're 9yo, just to shut them up whining about it. What we're saying is not "don't let them do anything", but "take some responsibility for what they are doing".

A new piece of legislation will not make the games more difficult for children to get hold of in general - they'll get them from parents who don't give a shit, or friends etc. So what's the point in a new and expensive piece of legislation that will do nothing but make the gov.uk/us look like they are doing something when they're patently not?

</rant>

Why does...

everyone assume that "taking responsibility" for children means "locking them up"? That's even dumber than assuming that every bit of violence a child sees will make the commit violence:

"Or are we expecting parents to constantly keep up with the increasingly transparent line between the adult world and their child(ren)'s world, and monitor ever-more esoteric and incomprehensible sources of inappropriate material?"

Yes, we are. In return for the tax breaks, tolerance of faecal matter, tolerance of constant inane goo-ing and gushing, tolerance of noise pollution... and all the other things we non-breeders give to parents, Yes. Yes, yes yes I expect a hell of a lot from them.

I expect parents - who after all, constantly rabbit on about the joy and the greatness and how it fulfills their life and bla bla bla - to spend most of their time with their kids, educating them, shaping their attitudes and generally sacrificing their lives for them.

Rather than what most do, which is plod about with a tired expression from DVD player to Games Console to bed to school.

Should I not expect more than this?

A message to parents: if you find children confusing, incomprehensible, shocking or unnerving then... don't have one!

If you cannot keep tabs on your child, nor can you find some way to strike deals with them about behaviour and appropriate subject material... then you're not cut out for it, face it.

If you find it a massive chore to keep up with and understand the world of your kids then... hang out with people your own age who you do understand, and don't have children!

I for one am truly sick to death of the moral high ground that parents claim for "raising" their kids, when all they actually do is plonk them in front of a TV set, stuff meals into them and hand them off to babysitters/teachers/whoever.

Raising kids is unbelievably hard. But I don't respect a majority of parents I see around me because they're NOT raising their kids.

As far as I'm concerned yes, you should kiss your life goodbye for 20 years. And if you're not prepared to do that then:

DON'T EXPECT THE REST OF US TO DO IT FOR YOU.

okay?

Honestly, this world is ruined by people who marry cos they want a party, and then have kids because they need the attention.

Its the parents, stupid!

Similar to the motto that got Clinton to beat Bush.

It isn't that the games need enforced ratings, its that parents are *buying* these games even if the rating suggests otherwise. Remember the granny who bought the "Hot Coffee-hackable" GTA and then complained about the game being unsuitable for a minor?? At least my dad knew what kind of games he was buying me when I was 14-ish. Even when I was 4, so I really got into "violent games" somewhere during my teen years, instead of age 4.

Point is, even if you enforce ratings on videogames, the parents are the ones buying the games. Parents who don't check on their kids will buy whatever the kid asks without checking, unless the title's blatantly obvious, say, "Peter the Pimp and the Crack-Whore Orgy" or something like that; and even then some parents will buy even that.

Same parents must also think all cartoons are for children, and let them watch "Happy Tree Friends"...

@ AC

I agree wholeheartedly. My wife and I are trying to have a child, and I firmly believe that if my kids want a video game / movie / cd, etc, I should be there with them when they go shopping. It's my responsibility to make sure they don't get anything questionable, and IF THEY DO, make sure they're mature enough to understand that whatever the media (meaning the game, etc) is "promoting" is NOT something they can do in public. If they buy GTA 12 (or whatever), they need to know that they can't take a gun or a baseball bat and randomly hit people in the real world.

It's not the state's job nor the retailer's job to make sure my children understand that. It's mine alone as the parent. If my kid gets a gun and kills (or breaks ANY law) someone before they've reached the "age of reason" (18 in the states), then I've failed them as a parent. If they do it after they're an adult, I've still failed them, but they're outside my control.

My father was a cop until I was 5, and a firefighter up until the day he died after that. I've never been arrested, nor have I even had a parking ticket. I believe it's because of my father's influence on my life that I've been on the right track so to speak. That's not to say I didn't do stupid things; I've been suspended from school, and threatened with expulsion because I was playing with the network in high school. But I never knowingly broke a law. AND my father and I used to play Doom co-op on our home network. That's one of the best memories I have of my late father.

All this law will do is further the "nanny state", giving parents the opportunity to dodge even more of their responsibility and pawning it off on the state. If parents don't step up and do what they SHOULD be doing, then they shouldn't have had the kid in the first place. Laws will never replace a parent, no matter how hard some jackass congresscritter or state senator try to do so.

"patently" offensive...

... is a highly subjective term. Personally I find that Christian shoot-em-up "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" to be patently offensive, since it incites religious zealots to murder innocent nonbelievers, but somehow I expect the courts in the USA would decide that /that/ kind of murdering is entirely harmless inoffensive fun, since it's done in the name of the "correct" religion.

@ Robert Grant

I know it might be quite a shock to many people but: if you have kids you are responsible for their lives untill they can make sensible decisions by themselves. In that spirit, If you don´t have the strenght to do so, DO'T HAVE KIDS ! But don´t expect the world to solve your kids problems. Don´t blame it on games, music, movies, magazines, books, etc. because they have and will always be available. EDUCATE THEM. Again, if you can´t do the time, don´t commit the crime !

@Daniel B.

Please drop me a note when "Peter the Pimp and the Crack-Whore Orgy" comes out as it sounds like the type of game I'd have an interest in playing.

Paris, cus she'd look like an amateur compared to a real crack-whore.

Either legalize Porn for Kids, or illegalize violent movies/video games

I don't understand the double standard.

Denying kids porn is democratic (at least no one questions whether that law should be removed) but denying them violent movies and video games is undemocratic?

Seems if we censor one thing for young people, we should censor the other.

Why society allows access to violence and not sexual content

The seemingly arbitrary decision to allow youth access to violence is because the U.S. (i.e., Exxon, Shell, etc.) needs access to willing cannon fodder (teens who feel immortal and heroic).

The seemingly arbitrary decision to deny youth access to pornography is because capitalists similiarly need labourers and consumers. Those who self-gratify more frequently are less motivated to work and to buy.... oh, and they are less likely to knock a girl up to create the next generation of willing cannon fodder.

Somewhere between 10 and 50 years from now, the capitalists will have destroyed enough of the world to make such issues a moot point.

Good Point.

The King has spoken.

Meh, whatever

Making the sale of copied games illegal ? Wow, thats going to make a lot of difference to all the kids out there that download all their games....

Go King

He's is absolutely right. Why should the government waste tax payers money doing a job the parent's should be doing. They thought they were responsible enough to pull of their cloths, they should be responsible enough to handle their kids. If a parent can't handle their children then why did they have em.

The government has to stop trying to ban this and ban that. Selling smokes to children under the age of 18 is banned. How well did that bill do. How much money is gone into that and still you see all theses kids smoking.

GO KING!!!!!!!!!!!!