Illinois Game Law is Banned

I completely agree with the reason for the strikedown of this law. Finding a causal relationship is quite difficult in these situations, but I would not consider this a open-shut case. I think this issue needs to be studied further becuase as much as we all hate "the man", three things are changing that make this topic more complicated:
1) Games are becoming more mainstream and reaching a broader audience, both young and old
2) Games are getting more violent, GTA, Manhunt, etc, represent significant increases in the portrayal of violence in video games
3) As technology gets better, the realistic nature of violence in video games is going to increase
While I don't think violent video games cause every kid to go out and gun down innocents, I can't accept that beating people with bats and crowbars does nothing to the impressionable mind. Its a shame we can't rely on parents to do their part to help us all in this matter.

This is a good and a bad thing.

As far as selling/renting violent video games to minors, I have no problem with there being legislation as there is with R rated movies. In fact I fully support such efforts as maybe video games could be seem as more of an all ages medium like movies are, some are for kids, some most definately are not.

But on the other hand if the judge had ruled the other way it would have set a precident that could have been used against the whole thing...

So damn frustrating... Why can't the ESRB ratings be legislated in the same way movie rating are? Is that so hard? At the very least it would stop comments like "today's games are "more extreme" and more easily available to underage kids than ever before." from being so common...

This is probably the only time in my life I'll ever feel this way. For once, I'm proud to be from Illinois.

All agree to a universal rating system for books, movies, games and music. Am I forgeting anything? No? Good. Simplyfy everything for the masses and Sh!t'll get done.

It seems wrong that the answer to "We can't determine whether or not this is harmful to our society" is "so we let it go." Certainly if you had "Unable to determine outcome of pulling cord" stamped on your parachute, you'd err on the side of caution. And how does this restrict constitutional rights? Kids can't do a whole mess of things, like buy cigarettes and drink alcohol and go to strip clubs.

Parents are not going to get any better. Saying that "it should be up to the parents" is suicide, because they have already been shown to be incapable. Besides, the good parents aren't the ones with the bad kids (generally speaking of course). I don't see anybody saying that it would be good for a 7 year old kid to play violent games, so why can't we just say that you have to provide ID to buy mature games? Perhaps color code those things, with large posters on Gamestop or Best Buy explaning them. Really, we're talking minimal work here. Some kids will stick get a hold of Mature games sure, but there would be some parents who normally wouldn't give a crap who might think twice. And that's what we're talking about here: it's not some miracle solution to crime, it's just a small step that could be very easy if people would get over their Big Brother nightmares.

Holy crap, a district court judge actually understands correlation and causation.

Get this guy on the Supreme Court.

Why does this issue never get compared to sports? I've never seen someone make the connection. Minors play contact sports, which cause agrressive behavior.

I was damn aggressive after a game, especially a loss, as was the rest of the team, resulting in fights with the opposing teams a few times. Any normal person is going to be aggressive after any contact sport game.

It would be easy to make the case that more violence occurs after a sporting event than after playing video games.

nelson: HAAAAAHA

I think the majority of thse issues will fix themselves once my generation, who was raised on games, all become parents themselves. It seems most parents think of games as pac man and mario and dont even bother to see what the game is when they buy it.

"it is impossible to know which way the causal relationship runs: it may be that aggressive children may also be attracted to violent video games"

Thank God. A judge who understands establishing cause and effect, rather than casual link.

I agree of limiting M rated games sales to minors, the ESRB does a good job of this. The problem lies in where the parents are stupid and can't seem ti figure out what M 17+ means. OMG it's not that fucking hard, either get educated or stop breeding these stupid people.

Clearly, I suspect, that politicians understand that the chances of thier bills passing is slim to none, yet the lure of appearing to care for society's children is simply too strong. What a complete waste of my tax dollars.

Is it against the law to sell/rent rated R movies to minors???

If it is, how the hell does one get protected my consitution? and the other not?