Thursday, December 01, 2005

Video Game News - December 1, 2005

Apologies for not posting last night. I was watching my car's engine catch fire from the side of the road and after the fire department put it out, police took the report, and tow truck finally showed up, it was late and I was too wiped to do anything except eat a sandwich and watch "Lost" (Netflix - playing catchup - season 1 episode 3 &4).

It seems there are other fires to be extinguished though... Senators Clinton and Lieberman are calling for a federal ban on sale of games rated M and AO, and the National Institute of Media and the Family issued a list of 10 games to avoid (note: all 10 games are rated M; isn't that kind of a no brainer for a parent that isn't not going to be appropriate for a child? Especially, y'know with the big M on the front of the box, and the reasons WHY the rated was assigned detailed on the back! The National Institute of Media and the Family's article makes NO mention of the fact that these are M rated games they are critiquing.) Now might be a good time to contact your senators to let them know on how many grounds this is unconstitutional. Find your rep at http://www.senate.gov/

Sex in video games up 800 percent, Minnesota watchdog says
AP 11/30/05
"Violent, sexual content is exploding in video games."

Senators Propose A Federal Ban On Explicit Video Games

by Stephen Totilo, MTV.com 11/30/05
"Capping off a year during which several states have passed laws to criminalize the sale of explicit video games to minors, Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) announced Tuesday that they will introduce a federal ban on the sale of such games to children when Congress resumes in mid-December."

Hilary Targets Violent Games
News 24 11/30/05
"Backed by gruesome shots of computerised cannibalism, police beatings and violence, campaigners on Tuesday warned parents that their children were increasingly at risk from "sadistic" video games."

Group Challenges Video Game Ratings
by Mike Doria , 13 WHAM TV 11/30/05
"Video game ratings are not getting a good grade in a watchdog group's annual report card."

by Llew-Ann Phang, Emily Tan and Anansa Jacob, Sun to Surf 12/2/05
"You pummel the bad guy to a pulp, causing his blood to splatter. Or you steal a car and run down some policemen, and shoot them to death, too."

1 comment:

Beth Gallaway said...

This just in ...
Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association responds to Clinton/Lieberman Game Bill:
http://www.iema.org/news.php

"The impetus for this piece of legislation appears as fundamentally misguided as it is fatally-flawed."