metagame

This is slightly stale in terms of news, but I didn’t see it until I returned home to the land of free­dom, Amer­ica. Where we (try to) ban books and video games. The good news? In Cal­i­for­nia, the rulng against age lim­its on game sales was upheld.

Pre­dictably enough, our gov­er­nor and the gray-haired folks in the state leg­is­la­ture lose another attempt at restrict­ing “patently offen­sive” vio­lent video games. The courts strike down the law. Same result as when other states try the last few years. And very likely, just like what would hap­pen if Lieber­man were to get a fed­eral law passed.

Let me sum­ma­rize the core of the issue: Peo­ple that don’t play video games, and gen­er­ally peo­ple over 40 (that means just about all elected offi­cials), firmly hold to the belief that video games are for kids. Period. In that view, there is no place in the world for GTAIV or any game that has the equiv­a­lent of R-rated con­tent. Adults that play video games are all deviants or losers liv­ing in their parent’s base­ment. (Is that a straw man attack? Sort of!)

Film suf­fered from other stig­mas grow­ing up, but never this one. I don’t have a clue how the gam­ing indus­try gets out from the trap. As soon as you say “game,” much of the world thinks “kids.” Ignore the fact that they play games on their black­berry or iPhone.