[spoiler]New York Senate passes game bill
Proposed law would require all games sold within state to carry ratings, establish advisory council to assess ESRB performance.
By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot
Posted May 22, 2007 10:49 am PT
Last month New York state Senators Andrew Lanza and Martin Golden promised that they would be introducing legislation that would "crackdown" on violent games. That bill surfaced last week, breezing through the Senate in just four days. Now it moves on to the state Assembly, where it must again be approved before it can go before the governor to be signed into law.
As expected, the bill would establish an advisory council to appraise the effectiveness and accuracy of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) rating system, as well as parent-teacher antiviolence awareness program. While Lanza and Golden originally said the parent-teacher program would be formed to work on issues related to violence in games, the text of the bill makes no mention of games in that program's duties. According to the bill, the parent-teacher program is being established "in order to recognize and appropriately respond to students at risk for developing a propensity toward violent conduct."
The bill would also make rating labels mandatory on all games sold in the state, with punishments established for anyone selling or renting a game at retail "in contravention of the rating affixed thereto." On the mandatory labeling part of the law, no exception is specifically made for digitally distributed games or used games that predate the ESRB.
If passed, the ratings restrictions would take effect January 1, 2008, while the advisory council and parent-teacher program would be created immediately. [/spoiler]
ESRB ratings are now required in New York for all games. I'm basically going to put my comments from the Gamespot article here too.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6171292.html
http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=16241
What about indie developers?! So nice to force them into waiting for a rating! And how long does that even take?! I already found out that it costs a couple thousand dollars!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESRB#Rating_process
The government needs to stay out of crap like this and let parents deal with it! This won't even change a single thing anyway!
Yes, almost all games sold in stores have ratings... but what about PC games? I'm not sure cause I don't do much PC gaming. And look at this...
"On the mandatory labeling part of the law, no exception is specifically made for digitally distributed games or used games that predate the ESRB."
So are they going to start fining NY residents for selling unrated games online? Fines for selling used NES games? I don't think NES games had ESRB ratings. OH, and what if another company wants to form a video game rating system? Would that not be allowed since the ESRB is supported by the government?
Proposed law would require all games sold within state to carry ratings, establish advisory council to assess ESRB performance.
By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot
Posted May 22, 2007 10:49 am PT
Last month New York state Senators Andrew Lanza and Martin Golden promised that they would be introducing legislation that would "crackdown" on violent games. That bill surfaced last week, breezing through the Senate in just four days. Now it moves on to the state Assembly, where it must again be approved before it can go before the governor to be signed into law.
As expected, the bill would establish an advisory council to appraise the effectiveness and accuracy of the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) rating system, as well as parent-teacher antiviolence awareness program. While Lanza and Golden originally said the parent-teacher program would be formed to work on issues related to violence in games, the text of the bill makes no mention of games in that program's duties. According to the bill, the parent-teacher program is being established "in order to recognize and appropriately respond to students at risk for developing a propensity toward violent conduct."
The bill would also make rating labels mandatory on all games sold in the state, with punishments established for anyone selling or renting a game at retail "in contravention of the rating affixed thereto." On the mandatory labeling part of the law, no exception is specifically made for digitally distributed games or used games that predate the ESRB.
If passed, the ratings restrictions would take effect January 1, 2008, while the advisory council and parent-teacher program would be created immediately. [/spoiler]
ESRB ratings are now required in New York for all games. I'm basically going to put my comments from the Gamespot article here too.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6171292.html
http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=16241
What about indie developers?! So nice to force them into waiting for a rating! And how long does that even take?! I already found out that it costs a couple thousand dollars!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESRB#Rating_process
The government needs to stay out of crap like this and let parents deal with it! This won't even change a single thing anyway!
Yes, almost all games sold in stores have ratings... but what about PC games? I'm not sure cause I don't do much PC gaming. And look at this...
"On the mandatory labeling part of the law, no exception is specifically made for digitally distributed games or used games that predate the ESRB."
So are they going to start fining NY residents for selling unrated games online? Fines for selling used NES games? I don't think NES games had ESRB ratings. OH, and what if another company wants to form a video game rating system? Would that not be allowed since the ESRB is supported by the government?
