There was no violence in Washington DC before video games. Beleive me, I didn’t see it first hand or anything. :roll: This type of bureaucracy infuriates me actually. Look at the word they are using here. Poison… get real.
This is the government doing the job of parents in the classic sense of the word. DC is a violent place, no question about that, but it has been for a LONG time before Grand Theft Auto came around. We had the high honors of being the murder capital of the entire USA for a few years running back in the late 80s/ early 90s. I’m certain the prolific spread of crack cocaine had nothing to do with this and it had more to do with kids playing the then non-existent Mortal Kombat, Halo2, or GTA3.
Washington Post makes you register after about 24-48 hours of an article being initially posted to read it so I’d read this soon as registration is ultra annoying IMHO.
Maybe its because I’ve been over 18 for so long, but I really don’t care about this kind of outrage anymore. If they want to make violent games akin to porno and only sell them from underneath the counter in shady back alley stores, well… then I’m okay with that. It’s not like porn isn’t frowned upon just as much, if not more, but as long as you’re of age you can still buy it, and easily I might add. If it’s going to get these shrill, blame anything but the real problem types off of our collective backs then fine, take games off the shelves and only sell them in some sort of red light games district for all I care. I’m just getting tired of all the indignation from the “Won’t you PLEASE think of the children!” crowd.
The reason you should try to maintain some level of outrage is the old “When they came for the gypsies, no one said anything . . .” cautionary tale. Just because you are beyond being affected by something that is inherently foolish, immoral, or unconstitutional, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t protest it.
It reminds me of people who get married and suddenly become pro-lifers, because now they won’t need to have an abortion. It’s a wee bit hypocritical.
The reason you should be concerned about this kind of thing is the history of these movements. When this kind of negative attention focused on comic books, it basically destroyed the market for four decades.
If M-rated games get the porn treatment, companies will stop making M-rated games. Games don’t have the instinctual appeal of porn, so any impediment to purchase will lead directly to a reduction in sales.
When the CCA marking became the only way you could get your book to sell, and the market for mature content disappeared. I don’t mean no good books got made, obviously they did. Just that a lot fewer of them were made, and a stigma of “comic books are for children” was formed. (compared to the Japanese comicbook market)
What a time for comics. William Gaines, publisher of Mad Magazine, also published Tales From the Crypt and various ultra-gory horror comics. Those comics essentially were the scapegoat for the CCA (really, the uproar over some stupid “study” that essentially said that comics were evil and corrupting our youth), established in 1954. Gaines testified before a judge and, evidently, was all looped-out in a Diabetic delusion or somesuch. So, here’s the kingpin of horror comics, fat and sweaty and babbling incoherently in front of a judge and jury. Yeah, this guy you want peddling comic books to your kids. Thus, the CCA (that’s why Mad is published in magazine form - the CCA only applies to comics). I mean, look at how draconian those rules are (look at Part C, Costumes, #4 for the most ignored CCA rule ever)). Grant you, I agree completely with the section on advertising, but the other stuff is ridiculous. “Preserve the sanctity of marriage?” Why, my parents didn’t. It’s all 50s era Moral Majority bullshit, and it stood unchanged for decades. Sure, make some comics mature and labeled as such, but not all comics except indie adult stuff like the Freak Brothers. Crazily enough, Marvel introduced the Epic line, which did just that. It was Vertigo about ten to 15 years earlier. But since comics were all homogenized kiddie fare for so long, nobody bought them.
It’s also interesting that when the CCA was formed, the first five censors were women, ranging from a social worker fresh out of college to a tenured professor in the English Department at Hunter college.
The man who chose them said he wanted reviewers who weren’t “steeped in the habit and traditions of the old comic book technique.”
