Opening door for video games

Yay a day off work!  Now I can talk about something that happened a couple days ago.

If you haven't heard, the United States' Supreme Court overturned a law in California banning the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.  Under what grounds?  Free speech.

We can think of this as a big step in the video game industry.  First of all, one of the three branches of the U.S. government recognizes video games as free speech.  This is akin to broadcasting, journalism, and art.  ART people!  It helps in that argument, that video games are an expression of ideals and feelings, not just a mindless entertainment box (thought there's nothing wrong with those either).

Also, although for certain things there will be appeals and ignorance to the law, there will be some arguments stifled by this.  There is nothing illegal about a violent video game, no matter how you feel about how immoral they can be.  It's not akin to committing murder or rape, it's a medium that is experienced as a cerebral experience.  Consumers must protective themselves from mediums they don't like to view, not the government doing constant surveillance or monitoring.

This doesn't mean that video games are home free.  We do need to have more games that are thoughtful, artful, and make the players engaged intellectually.  Because even if the Supreme Court says something is protected by freedom of speech doesn't mean that people will take it one hundred percent seriously.  Hopefully, developers, big and small, can produce something that will captivate people with something more substantial and lasting than overworked spectacle.  Prove it, industry!

Parenting parents is NOT the answer.

GamePolitics.com has lead me to another interesting article about a law in New Zealand where parents can be arrested for allowing their underage kids to access R-18 (M) rated video games.  It's supposed to shock parents into caring about what their children play.  In other terms, it's supposed to get parents to be parents.

I can't believe that we have to tell people how to raise their kids.  I'm not saying that just anyone can raise a kid, but at the same time if someone is going to introduce their kid to an kind of media that involves mature content, the parent should monitor it.  I don't see anyone doing anything similar with books, movies, magazines, or even violent toys.  Maybe those laws were proposed in the past, but that doesn't mean they are legitimate.

I do understand that for some reason today we like to blame everyone but the parents when trying to figure out why kids go bad.  It's good to support the idea of parents actually parenting.  Threatening people to parent with $10,000 fines or jail time is not the way.  That's just being a dick.

What are your opinions, dear readers?