May 9, 2000
8:16 AM   Subscribe

Along the same lines as Meg's post about the Panty Raider game, the governor or Illinois is trying, and succeeding, to get retailers to pull "M" rated games off the shelves. Makes you wonder when people are gonna wake up and stop blaming societal problems on all of our various forms of entertainment.
posted by schlyer (6 comments total)
 
S.O.S. (Same old...uh "Stuff"?)

It's like Columbine...everything was to blame except Kliebold & Harris' home environment.

I guess it's easier to put restrictions on things rather than make parents actually sit down and talk to their kids once in a while about what's going on in their lives....
posted by EricBrooksDotCom at 8:33 AM on May 9, 2000


I didn't need another reason to dislike Gov. Ryan - now I got it.

It's a whole lot easier to blame the entertainment industry than take parental responsibility.
posted by hijinx at 9:11 AM on May 9, 2000


It's not the Governor George, it's the Attorney General Jim (who coincidentally is also named Ryan).

If you read the story, there's a real point here. Sears and Monkey Wards chose to stop selling the games after determining that actively enforcing the ratings recommendations, i.e. only selling M games to 17-and-older, wasn't something they wanted to do.

Ryan did not actually ask them to stop selling the games, only to stop selling them to kids.

I have other problems with Atty. Gen. Jim Ryan (a botched death-penalty prosecution being one of them), but this isn't what it's being billed as.
posted by dhartung at 9:40 AM on May 9, 2000


On a separate but related note, I think it's unfair to say that an example of ostensible censorship is "along the same lines as Meg's post about the Panty Raider game".

Several people in the Panty Raider thread seemed to believe that as soon as feminists single out a game as offensive to women, it means they automatically want to ban it. NOT TRUE! The majority of feminists are totally against censorship-- it's only a small, vocal minority, like Catherine McKinnon & the like, who believe in banning things that're offensive to women. These women get lots of attention because they can be cited to effectively demonize feminism, and/or because their stance plays into other powerful agendas like the quasi-religious anti-porn movement.

Guys, feminists want to call attention to things that trouble us in society, culture & entertainment, but most of us do NOT want to censor anything-- and personally, I'm disturbed when anyone jumps to that conclusion.

Anyway, Dhartung is right... this is a case of retailers covering their asses and protecting themselves from liability rather than be accountable for what happens in their stores.

If more stores decide it's "not worth the risk" to sell M-rated video games, sales of those games could drop and we might have de facto censorship as video game companies avoid making M-rated video games that don't sell as well-- just like the movie industry avoids making NC-17 films now.

However, in this case I don't see this happening... there are plenty of online venues where you can buy games, so for most gamers those M-rated games will still be accessible. How many of you ever bought games at Sears?
posted by wiremommy at 11:04 AM on May 9, 2000


um, sorry, didn't realize that was so long!
posted by wiremommy at 11:11 AM on May 9, 2000


That's okay, wiremommy. We still love you & thought it was very well said. :0)
posted by EricBrooksDotCom at 11:41 AM on May 9, 2000


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