Industry is Billed, Reported On

Attempts to legislate the games industry aren't showing signs of letting up. Senator and former first lady Hilary Clinton (D-NY) has announced her intention to present her Family Entertainment Protection Act to Congress in two weeks. The bill will be presented along with fellow Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT), for years one of the more outspoken politicians on the subject of video games. Clinton's legislation has five main points, focusing on both retailers and the ESRB, the industry's voluntary ratings board. The FEPA puts a prohibition on the sale and rental of Mature- and Adults Only-rated games to those under the age of 17, resulting in fines for violating retailers. It also allows the Federal Trade Commission the authority to conduct a yearly random audit of retailers to guage the effectiveness of retailers in upholding the new policies. Clinton's bill maintains the ESRB as an appropriate ratings system, though it seems to include provisions allowing for that to change. It gives the FTC a mandate to investigate the problem of misleading or incorrect ratings, such as those found in the Hot Coffee incident. If that is found to be widespread, the FTC may take ambiguous "appropriate action." Additionally, the bill demands an annual analysis of game ratings to ensure that the ESRB maintains its standards and "does not change significantly over time." Finally, it requires that the FTC receive complaints from consumers regarding alleged misleading practices in regards to ratings; such complaints would be presented to Congress. Of course, the industry responded, and unsurprisingly did so by way of Entertainment Software Industry president Doug Lowenstein:

"While we are gratified that the Senator holds the ESRB in such high regard that her bill would give these ratings the force of law, the courts have made clear that giving a private party governmental powers is unconstitutional. Beyond that, the bill clearly infringes the constitutionally protected creative rights of the video game industry. Thus, if enacted, the bill will be struck down as have similar bills passed in several states. So while this bill is positioned as a pro-family measure, in truth it will leave parents no better off."

One of Clinton's justifications for her bill is the latest annual report card on filed by National Institute on Media and the Family, which gives the industry a 10-year cumulative grade of D-, based on factors such as Ratings Education (C+), Retailers' Policies (B), Retailers' Enforcement (D-), Ratings Accuracy (F), and Arcade Survey (B-). It notes unhealthful effects of games, stating, "Increasingly, it seems that the average gamer is getting heavier," but did not qualify that gamers are also widely known to be getting older. There was a response to this as well, coming from Interactive Entertainment Merchant's Association president Hal Halpin, who raised doubts as to the scientific validity of sting operations conducted by the NIMF. He noted that yearly requests to the organization to disclose its methods have been denied, and claims that its findings are informed by a poor sample rather than "actual real-world market value." He pointed out that the industry had vast improvements in retail, with underage "secret shoppers" in sting operations being turned down 56% of the time attempting to purchase M-rated games compared with 19% in 2000.