"Baruch Says:

Just because you think some form of media is bad doesn’t mean you can stop other people from accessing it. Sooner or later these politicians are going to have to face this and quit wasting time trying to crush free speech."

I don't think it's meant to stop people from accessing it. Rather, it seems meant to scare the companies into not producing it. Which I guess is sort of the same thing, depending on how you look at it. But if the companies don't fear the backlash, they can produce whatever they want and we can buy whatever they want. The bill only holds them responsible if someone commits an act as the result of the media. It's a liability bill, not a "forbidden from production" law.

woo0t I knew this would happen.

That's a relief, that bill was dangerous.

"At the end of the day, companies will have to stand before their customers and shareholders and explain why they are OK with the production and distribution of violent, forced, non-consensual sex acts."

... What companies are these? I mean, I know Microsoft has occasionally raped my wallet, but that's it. You've gotta love these non-specific examples. I'd bet he can't name a single one.

"At the end of the day, companies will have to stand before their customers and shareholders and explain why they are OK with the production and distribution of violent, forced, non-consensual sex acts."

Excuse, is that person serious here?

Since when do you distribute "violent, forced, non-consensual sex acts", its not as if companies are selling "instant-rape-in-a-can" here, they're works of art in a way, sure they may be violent, or otherwise disturbing, but that doesn't mean companies should be liable for what a crazy person does after "consuming" one of their products.

That person made a choice, and nothing a company does will change what a person may possibly do. (except perhaps medication).

Yeah, that didn't take long, glad to see some people in government still have common sense. Wasn't expecting that in this state.

"Wendy Briggs, a lobbyist representing various entertainment industries - including the video game sector - at the hearing, said: Uhhh What?"

Would have been a better and more realistic quote given the whole movie rape thing considering that the major opponent was video games.

If I were to write an anecdote about my childhood and mention that one day my sister and I were fighting and she kicked me in the groin (or maybe I kicked her, the details are fuzzy) would that fall under their violence clause?

Would any number of comedies be banned if someone organized a cream pie fighting contest?

This is good news. I don't think suing other people with money because the actual criminal is penniless is a defensible law. I feel really bad for the rape victims represented in the article, but money isn't the answer.

Crap, messed up the tags!!

Man this is kind of scary, I mean its crazy enough that they want to limit what Video Games can do, but now all forms of media? Ill take What is Free Speech for $500 please. And if anything like this ever did get passed, It would be a witch hunt!

I can see it now: "I was like, listening to this song right? and like it said 'I dont like the way you sound (when you scream at me)' and I so totally felt like you know, like suffocating someone so that they would like you know, not make an annoying sound you know? Im going to sue Pink Bunnie Band for 1 billion dollars for making me kill that old lady!"

Yes thats right kids, Its not the devil anymore, Media made me do it, Ill bet 5 dollars ole JT had something to do with this one too.

One more win for gamers!

Wow...4-2and a few didn't think it was explanitory enough to vote yes on....we=screwed in 09 when this moron rewrites it.
Why do the keep bringing up rape?

"with the production and distribution of violent, forced, non-consensual sex acts."

"[Makers of movies depicting rape] are atrocious in what they create."

Well...at least this explains why steven king came out against it,its geared twords books too

Holy zombie jesus. FREE SPEECH. FREE SPEECH. FREE SPEECH! It is the FOUNDATION of our society. Why are so many people so willing to throw it out the window to appease their own views on what is 'moral and right'? This was not a success. This was a stay of execution. 1/3 of the people voted for a bill that so OBVIOUSLY is unconstitutional. What will happen when it's not as clear that it's trampling all over the 1st amendment?

AND FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS SPAGHETTI, LAY OFF THE RAPE. It just makes you look even less informed than you already are.

4 - 2... scary. Absolutely terrifying that anyone could be for this.

I await 2009 - when this bill comes back stronger than ever - with utter terror.

Side note..

I wonder if AA (America's Army) will be exempt.

Good work, AZ, but let's not crack open that GTA party keg just yet. We're not out of the woods. They say they'll reintroduce a more specific bill; that probably means one that focuses on games, rather than cover books and movies.

How the hell was that a 4-2 win? 6-0 should be the minimum. Is there any way we can just unelect our government and get non idiots in there?

THANK GAWD. :) Sanity has now balanced itself in Arizona. And for the two asshats who voted yes, well, they should be voted out of office ASAP. Get to it Arizona voters.

[...] Link [...]

Seriously, how is it that all these people are playing rape games when i have never seen a single one from any major video game company.

@Christian Astrup

Japanese text games, maybe?

LOL! I think Ken Cheuvront read the GP article and caught the Bible referrence when he says, "But at the same time this bill is so broad based, we have to be careful about unintended consequences."

Nothing like making a law and then having it come bite you in the ass. You KNOW those politicians have a stake in the entertainment industry or their own religions at some level.

I'm betting the new "revised" bill simply targets games.

"[Makers of movies depicting rape] are atrocious in what they create. But at the same time this bill is so broad based, we have to be careful about unintended consequences."

This prick would censor art.

The nature of this bill is about as dangerous, atrocious, and un-American as it gets. Movies, books, music, tv shows and videogames DON'T LEAD TO HORRIBLE ACTS OF MURDER.!!!!!!!!!!

Imagine if someone who's heart was broken over a failed relationship successfully sued a book company over their romance novels, which featured betrayal and heartbreak.

Imagine if someone jumped of a building to their death because they read a Superman comic and the family succeeded in suing the comics industry.

This bill, if ever successful (and I have every reason to believe it won't) will be damning to the 1st Amendment.

"At the end of the day, companies will have to stand before their customers and shareholders and explain why they are OK with the production and distribution of violent, forced, non-consensual sex acts."

Rape in movies IS consensual, they aren't forcing the actors to have sex or depict rape.

Pixels do not need consent since, and this is important, THEY AREN'T REAL!

In fact all of this stuff is OK because IT'S NOT REAL.

Is it just me or do they sound like they're trying to say that games cause rape now?

So, if this were passed, what would they do about award winning movies?

The more we try to shelter ourselves from the evils of the real world, the more evil the world gets. What ever happened to open discussions about these subjects rather than our increasingly "hear no evil, see no evil" attitude? Movies, music, and games that contain controversial subjects open up the floor for discussion. Destroying art depicting the evils of the real world isn't going to destroy the evils themselves.

@ busydoingnothing

You know, death used to be a normal part of growing up. Killing animals for food was standard, and funerals took place in the parlor. (now it's called the living room... take THAT dead guys!) I wonder how much the lack of it's presence has affected the world.

@ Kris

The market should be allowed to regulate itself. Companies won't produce 'whatever they want' but instead 'whatever they want, which they also believe we want, assuming there is a beneficial cost:effect projection.'

"It’s a liability bill, not a “forbidden from production” law."

That's a pretty way to say forbidden. Game companies have a responsibility to their shareholders. They also understand the desire of some people to 'sue anyone for anything, always'.

Do you honestly think that there will even be a discussion as to the viability of an FPS if this is passed? If they tried to 'forbid' game makers from producing basically anything.. it would be a simpler case against the idea, more obvious than this.

They were clever to use liability in order to have the imminent forbidding on an economic level.

... although the 4-2 thing is disconcerting, to be sure. :(

Forget gamers, score one for human beings.

Re: previous post.
Before a flame war starts, I'm not bagging on christianity. Any nutjob can find a trigger in any book, movie, or peanut. The Bible has been used as an excuse by sickos to justify what they did, and therefore the distributors of the Bible would be liable under this law. If the AZ gov pulled his head out of his rear, he would understand where his legislation was leading.

Ya know, I actually just went ahead and read the actual text of the proposed law. It is not NEARLY as dangerous as I thought.

The law states that the material MUST first be "obscene" before the law can even apply. It defines obscenity in almost the exact language of the prevailing Supreme Court test from Miller vs. California:

"Obscene" means material that:

(a) The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the material, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.

(b) The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the material depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by state law.

(c) Taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

So this law actually set up a pretty high standard to pass before this law could be applicable.

Of course, if the material was deemed obscene the issue really should end there. Obscenity is not protected speech.

JACK THOMPSON IS ON THE CASE!

@nightstalker:

I read the bill too, and it doesn't make it any less dangerous. Who decides what is "obscene?" Who is the "average person?" The "average person" would probably find almost every game out there to be "obscene." Lesbians in Mass Effect, prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto, naked chicks and three-somes in God of War, surly drunks in Bard's Tale, stereotypes in Bully, plenty of blood shed in any war game, pinata cannibals in Viva Pinata (ok, that one's rather silly, but even so....). They've also been arguing the literary and artistic values of games for years. But just who decides that?

I never said the bill wasn't dangerous. All I said was that the bill was significantly less dangerous than I first thought.

This might come from the fact that I'm a law student and just have more knowledge about how the court has applied the obscenity test.

It is VERY difficult to have something declared "legally obscene"

The crux is the third prong, the lack of serious value.

The courts have employed that prong much more strictly than its language suggests. A document, taken as a whole, must be almost completely devoid of value beyond merely appealing to sex

For example: The Mass Effect "sex" scene might ON ITS OWN be considered "obscene" but the entire game itself would not be declared obscene because of "artistic" value and the fact that the game, as a whole, does not "appeal to the puriant interest in sex" (i.e. the average person is not playing the game purely to see the sex scene and nothing else)

The court has also held that you cannot separate such a scene from the work as a whole when evaluating obscenity.

Basically, the way the obscenity doctrine has been employed means that you have to show that the "game" "movie" "book" or whatever serves NO PURPOSE WHATSOEVER except to show sex.

It's an extremely difficult case to make, extremely difficult. There's a reason movies like "Showgirls" aren't covered by obscenity (NC-17 rating or not), its because even THAT movie has "artistic" value.

@ Kris specifically:

Sure those ELEMENTS of a game might be obscene, but the way the doctrine works, they do not make the game as a whole obscene. And the courts have held that you cannot ban an entire work because one part is obscene. You have to show that the work in its entirety exists for no other purpose than the obscene element. You are not allowed to ban based on a single, or even multiple, elements.

Wow if that did pass, can anyone say "Get out of jail free card"

Yes...but you still do not collect $200 if you pass go -_-

@ nighstalker160

Well put sir. This whole obscenity talk reminds me of the Dead Kennedys "Frankenchrist" trial.

[quote]Who ginned up the rape-game angle, and WHY IN HELL ISN’T THE ESA SCREAMING BLOODY FUCKING MURDER ABOUT IT!? There is no rape in games. Name one. And seriously, the counter to that false argument is TWO FUCKING WORDS - Name One.[/quote]

Battle Raper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Raper

RapeLay

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RapeLay

Biko 2:Reversible Face

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biko_2:_Reversible_Face

I could go on.

Most such games are Japanese exclusives.

The bill requires that the bill be "dangerous" or "obscene" the problem here is not "obscene", but "dangerous".

It has long been held that speech which presents a clear and present danger can be punished or restrained. However, this has always been construed very narrowly and tends to apply only to disinformation calculated to cause mass panic (yelling "fire" in a crowded theater) and political speech advocating violent action against the government or third parties. In times of war, it also includes political speech which advocates draft-dodging.

The bill that was written is obviously not intended to address those types of speech which are traditionally considered to present a clear and present danger. There already exist a myriad of criminal laws and civil torts which are more than adequate to punish those sorts of speech. Another tort would have been totally unnecessary. Rather, it is obviously calculated to provide an avenue to successfully sue makers of entertainment which depict and, in the opinion of the bill's sponsors, glorify various forms of violence. It is squarely and obviously an anti-Doom, anti-GTA ,and (probably) anti-Special Force bill that would have been used to punish game publishers and motion picture studios in the wake of the next inevitable tragedy had it passed.

Once again I feel the need to suggest that attempting to pass obviously unconstitutional laws should be an impeachable offense.

Where are our talking heads?

When are we going to get serious about defending ourselves?

When are we going to learn that the majority of the population doesn't educate itself on a topic before making a decission?

When will start taking offense to these suggestions that we create porn and intentionaly teach children to be violent?


When will we go on the offensive?



JBentley
Game Designer

@~the1jeffy

There is custard's revenge but that game is over 20 years old and is for an old system that is rare, (the atari 2600 specifically), the game itself is even rarer.

So really it's either Name two, or name one made within the past 15 years.

ok, it would appear to me that nobody read the original article (the one from yesterday's post) this bill, while i agree with everyone that it's far to broad and overreaching, was not written with video games in mind

the bill was written with things like online rape video's in mind, but they extended it to all forms of media so that they were not singling out a single form of media (something we always complain about them doing), i fully feel that the bill was written with the best of intentions in mind, which was to help rape victims. however the language used is much to broad based and basically any form of media could really be viewed as "Dangerous"

but please people stop complaining that these people are talking about rape in video games, they are not, they are talking about rape in media (which does happen)

There was certainly a lot of confusion over the bill. The wording relies on the previously established court definition of obscene.

The spirit of the bill as presented is admirable. The drafting seems poor.

My State Senator loves him some Tom Clancy, though.
Very concerned about Clancy's financial well-being.

"[Makers of movies depicting rape] are atrocious in what they create."

Well there goes every Lifetime made for TV movie.

I decided to watch the entire video, this was the longest part. That is sad considering some of the other issues put forth throughout it.

How hard is it to say, "Unconstitutional, move on."? I know, they gotta talk it out, explain it, decide, ect. But still, how many of these bills are going to be put forth before they start getting sick of it?

@hyzmarca

I just read the Wikipedia entry for Rapelay, and it's funny that the player's character is the son of a politician

@ GodKarma

Ya know I always wondered why "Lifetime: Televistion for Woman" Has an awful lot of rape and murders of woman.

@hyzmarca:

So, remind me; which one of those were officially released in america and rated by the ESRB?

Yeah. So the arguments about those games hold even less water than Custer's Revenge (again, good luck finding it, let alone a 2600 to play it on... Where are you going to hook it up to your HDTV, anyway?)

@DarkTetsuya

That really isn't the point. ~the1jeffy issued an open challenge (albeit unintentionally) to name one video game that contains rape. The assertion that such games don't exist is false. They exist and it can be played. Virgin Roster ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Roster ), however, has been translated into English and is available for purchase in the United states. It hasn't been submitted to the ESRB for a rating; there would be no point in doing so for an eroge game. Nevertheless, I believe that might satisfy your criteria.

It should be needless to say that such games are out there and available for those who know how to look. Japanese eroge games can be downloaded from various file sharing sites (if not from an official distributer) and fan translations are available for many. There also exist flash games, text adventures, and KiSS dolls with rape; in fact, such a flash game is the very first thing that pops up when you type "rape game" into Google.

That isn't to say that lawmakers who talk about games rewarding people for rape aren't idiots; they most certainly are. They make the mistake of believing media hype and distortions about the Hot Coffee mod and Mass Effect's lesbians (oddly, no one ever mentions Fear Effect's lesbians) and think that many mainstream games contain explicit violent sex when such material is limited to the small niche erotic gaming genre. People who believe that rape games don't exist drastically underestimate human perversity and ingenuity and startling propensity for the two to act hand-in-hand.

Of course, the existence of such games is not indicative of a problem and the idea that they cause violence is just absurd, as Kincyr pointed out. This attempts to punish the makers of such games are far more atrocious than anything in the games themselves.