Where Politics And Video Games Collide

@Canary Wundaboy:

Why are you Americans so adverse to this? Look, if a game is rated for a certain age group only, why is it wrong that retailers be banned for selling that game to people under the age limit? This is not the problem that faces us today. If parents don’t their 16 year old playing GTA, then they can exercise their parental judgement, and buy the game. The problem that faces us as gamers today is not that games are rated at all, it’s that the media seizes on the fact that it is too easy for kids to get games, either through their parents or through dodgy retailers.

The UK laws are fair, 12 year olds SHOULDNT be allowed to purchase GTA and there SHOULD be penalties for retailers that don’t enforce it. Ultimately, our ratings arent bound by US religious conservatism anyway, hence why Mass Effect is a 12 over here and a 17+ over your side of the pond. The difference is that our ratings are properly enforced, yours arent.

Having been a retail clerk, I can see the other side of the coin. I don't want some minimum-wage clerk being slapped with a $5000 fine because he sold a violent video game to a teenager - especially if selling similar content in a movie wouldn't get similar treatment. And they're not.

If we were talking about porn, that's a different matter (and probably shouldn't be, but that's an entirely different discussion), but a 13-year-old kid can walk into Wal-Mart and buy a copy of, say, the Terminator Trilogy without being carded. These are R-rated movies. Games with a similar level of violence would be ranked as M-rated games. Should the punishment for selling the game be greater than the punishment for selling the movie?

It is my opinion, apologies for not making that clear.
And yeah, I believe that kids shouldn’t be able to purchase games that are deemed by impartial classification boards to be unsuitable for their age group.

As a lifelong gamer, 19 year old and somebody who was only able to play 18 rated games when his parents deemed me ready, that is my opinion. Slate it at will.

Who gets to make those decisions? And why should a government agency make decisions that affects all people by an arbitrary age standard without consideration for a child's maturity level? What makes a 12-year-old different from a 13-year-old? Or a 17-year-old different from an 18 year old?

Why should this not be the parent's decision? That was apparently sufficient for your household...