September 5, 2007
Is the U.K. the most intense battleground in the debate over video game violence?Could be, following the June banning of Manhunt 2 as well as recent attacks on games from prominent political figures.
Last week, Conservative Leader David Cameron went on the offensive against violent games following the murder of an 11-year-old boy in Liverpool. Yesterday it was reported that England's new Prime Minister, Labour's Gordon Brown (left), has called for tighter controls on video game content. As reported by MCV:
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has jumped two-footed into the debate on violent video games – promising to review new rules for the advertising and sale of software to children.
...Brown said he was ‘aware of growing concern about the effect of screen violence on youngsters’, and that he was looking into drawing up new legislation for the promotion and sale of video games to minors.
The PM commented: "Parents are concerned about whether children are exposed to harmful violence and sexual imagery in games and on the internet."
Meanwhile, today's Guardian reports that a government review of media violence will commence immediately:
The impact of media violence on children will be the focus of a wider than expected government review being launched today. It may lead to new voluntary controls over excessive violence and sex on children's television and the internet and in video games.
Gordon Brown stressed that he did not see the review leading to state censorship, but hoped it would lead to a common agreement between parents, programme makers and internet providers that new controls are necessary...
He stressed: "This is not the government telling people what they should do ... this is society reaching a conclusion with all those people involved about what are the legitimate boundaries... I am not interested in censorship at all, but I think we do need rules governing some aspects of the internet and videos where children are involved."
The Daily Mirror isn't buying it, however:
The reasons young people commit violent crimes are many and complex. Bad parenting, social deprivation, poor education, cheap alcohol sold to underage kids, flawed policing and the knives and guns on our streets all play a part.
Yet there's no hard evidence that watching "video nasties" or playing distasteful computer games causes kids to go out and wound or kill.
Gordon Brown's decision to look again at films and games smacks of yet another gimmick, serving to win Mr Brown cheap headlines, not save lives.
Comments
Oh my. Google showed me a bunch of stuff with a failure rate between 50 and 80%. That's not good at all. One gov site said that "43% of retailers nationally had experienced some sort of violent crime as a result of refusing an underage sale." Which might explain why they're not refusing sales very often. :p Granted, most of that was probably alcohol sales, but, still..
And yea, adding more laws seldom works. If someone (in this case, retailers) are ignoring the first dozen laws, why would they pay attention to yet another? Especially if enforcement still isn't funded.
Wait a second....
"It may lead to ... voluntary ... violence and sex on ... television and the internet and in video games."
Okay, that was taken out of context, but my point still stands. ;)
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"sex on children’s television."
And they would know this, how?
Ok, just to be sure, that wasn't sarcasm, right?
I was going by the fact that say in the US assets of any kind cannot be seized without probable cause, and the anti game nut,s have none.
Why else would Richard Branson be using google images to find that guy who went missing in Nevada?
Me too, but I'm thinking more America or Japan (once i've learnt the language, that is)
Jack Thompson Says:
I've been talking about this on NBC with Larry King for 8 years. Dumb Brits finally GOT IT!
Hooah!
As was corrected for me, Scotland is partof the UK, however, Jack is still wrong, as Rockstar's assets cannot be seized without probable cause, of which the anti gamer idiots don't have any. If you're declaring victory before anything happens, you already lost.
Yeah, one of the reasons I liked that info you posted is because of the logical info where, as you said, the problem comes from the environment a person lives in. Heck, My neighbor has a child that has been exposed to violent video games since he was 7 but he's a good kid to his family and friends. Why? Part of it is because he was bred very nicely by his parents.
I hate britain, and I LIVE in it.
Good for the daily mirror, though.
How could you need more than that?
Elections are soon so Brown, like Cameron, is going to being spewing out crap like this for at least a half a year.
I'd say that's a failing on the Government's part and that Mr Brown should be helping them do their job by helping them enforce the very LAWS that the government defined by creating the rating system in the first place. Unless of course, he's already admitting he isn't up to the job of Prime Minister and wants to go hide in a corner and let other people do his job for him?
'Against Censorship' my arse.
And who's fault is that Mr Brown?
to be honest it does make me want to vomit a little.
And I absolutely LOVE the "I don't believe in censorship, but I think you should follow my own personal, religious, and/or political preferences when making decisions. Here, I'll help you make those decisions by making those the ONLY choices available to you." That, of course, the translation of that political burble that Brown spouted earlier.
Nightwng2000
NW2K Software
I agree, our country is just getting worse by the day. I'm getting this (---) close to moving to Holland.
Games are in a way similar to books or cartoons. You got some that are meant for kids, and some meant for adults. Family Guy isn't going to sit well with an 8-year-old and Pokèmon isn't going to sit well with a 26-year-old.
Then again, they're probably just doing it for the opportunity of bashing Brown, rather than any higher moral purpose...
but damnit brown, I knew you were going to be trouble, but not for my pasttime!
So I think that the government needs to review their own contribution to violence in the street before they look into scapegoating a medium.
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
Random Tower: Game News and Commentary
As for the cause, this seems like a way to waste a million pounds of the taxpayers money and do nothing but try and point a finger, instead of saying to the parents of the offenders "so where did you go wrong in raising him" or saying to the offender "what the fuck is your problem". Those are the parties with whom the responsibility lies in such an event, not some disc.
Or else GTA4 would be a disc of pure evil, made out of the hides of asian children.
I couldn't agree with this statement more.
Maybe the government should look into who is bringing these guns into britain and putting them in the hands of kids in the first place and use the money wasted on this bullshit research to better fund the police so they can enforce the laws that already exist and get the REAL criminals off the streets instead of looking for scapegoats
I'm famous! And so happy! ^_^
My god...where did you find those people? That site is scary.
Do...do they realize what their site name even means? I'm going to assume it means something different over there than it does over here. Regardless...
They're quite the black pots pointing fingers at our kettles with that bit about "commenting without reading the article". GoodRobotUs hit the nail on the head:
"And just saying ‘It isn’t Censorship’ doesn’t make it so."
Someone should explain to the 'twats that "rules governing some aspects of the internet and videos" (i.e. media --> free speech) is pretty much the definition of censorship.
When do things like the BBFC start to go wrong? When nobody questions what they are doing and slavishly say 'We back them up no matter what they say, because they are experts'.
I do support the BBFC, and I accepted their explanation of the Manhunt 2 ban, but that's because I contacted them and asked, not because 'they're the BBFC and they're good and anyone who doesn't agree is a moron'.
Be quiet!
Tightening enforcement of the existing restrictions of underage gaming sales WOULD be a worthwhile endeavor, but that isn't what he's after.
Honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing retailers become total Nazis (shut up, Godwin!) about M/AO game sales. I'm 25 - card me, I don't care. I'd rather you card me when I buy an M game, than not card the 16 year old trying to do the same, so that when someone asks me if I trust the system, I can reply with an emphatic, "Yes. Yes I do."
I still think the government having ANY say in this is wrong, in the UK or here in the U.S. Private organizations (like the ESRB) should be handling it.
The enforcement in the UK HAS got lax, but that's not the fault of the people creating the software, the Trading Standards Office is already bogged down with a huge pile of new legislation that is an absolute nightmare to decode, they do still carry out 'test purchases' using underage volunteers etc, but they are, quite simply, overworked and under-supported by Government. There's a massive problem in the UK with things like illegal sales of Videos and Computer Games at open air markets etc.
More legislation isn't the answer though, nor is encouraging Industry to tone down it's entire output. The answer is to actively and properly support that particular Governmental agency in order to allow it to properly do its job and deal with the retailers, which is where the problem is REALLY occuring.
http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/press_releases/u-z-releases/underage_video_sal...
Job Seekers Allowance (the only benefit where it is expected that you get a job, and can have it taken away for not putting in enough effort) is not enough to live on and is equivalent to 10-11 hours pay at minimum wage after tax. When I was on it (for quite a bit longer than I would have liked) I couldn't afford to drink or smoke. The troublemakers you describe are a minority, often they deal drugs and shoplift to make more money. The rest just struggle on, try to find/keep a job and not let the minority of vandals get them down.
Taking benefits away from everyone wouldn't change the troublemakers, the same as restricting access to games wouldn't make any difference.
As for the free house, housing is dependant on personal circumstances to some extent (Single people usually get a one bedroom flat, houses tend to be reserved for families). I had a one bedroom flat which had an insect infestation that no one else seemed to care about, horribly inefficient heating and other problems which are known to contribute towards ill health. I couldn't afford to sort out any of them on my own. I knew of other people that had housing that no one with any choice in the matter would live in.
Austin Lewis, do you have a source for your first claim?
HE said school related, not school shooting. Britain is not immune to the strange phenomena of kids pissing each other off at school then settling it off school grounds.
B.. bu... but Jack always tells us how superior the BBFC rating system is! How can this be? :p
What I basically got out of this article was 'our big government program is a failure, so we need another bigger government program to oversee the first.' From your description of the funding shortcomings and such, I take it I wasn't too far off..
Bones: "Austin Lewis, Proof of your School Killing Statement?"
I'm not awake enough to go find stats, but I did see this a couple of months ago: Teachers are demanding to be equipped with stab and bullet-proof vests. A quick googling found this.
That would put the number of young people murdered in London schools in two months halfway to what Chicago sees city-wide in a year. Yikes.
I was not saying to get rid of those programs or that they were the root cause. I should have claified my statement better, but I was nin a hurry this morning.
I met many people who abused the system and disgraced others who were legitimately using this system. I also met many people who were on disability or honestly seeking jobs to get out of those houses and situations. It is those who abuse the loopholes in the system that cause the council program to fail.
My point in my previous post was that there are more important areas that the UK government could be focusing time and resources on improving.
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
Random Tower: Game News and Commentary
Yup, that basically sums it up, simply Google 'Underage Video Sales in the UK' and you'll soon see that the UK system isn't even close to the level of enforcement of the Industry-regulated system in the US whether it be for Videos or Computer Games.
The problem is that the scope of Trading Standards is massive, and throwing yet more regulation at them will do nothing whatsoever to deal with the problem, it's not more rules to enforce that they need, it's the means to enforce the ones already in existence.
And the counter is something like this:
BlackIce says:
Brits watch NBC why? We have our own crappy BBC thank you very much!
Yeah, a lot of the violence is based around Tobacco and Alcohol sales, the kids go into the store in a gang of 5-10 youths, and if the store refuses to sell, then they trash the shop.
To be honest, the best way to deal with an obvious problem is the obvious answer, Policing, Community building projects and Education.