There was a good bit of high-fiving in the gaming community last week when the U.S. 9th Circuit Court upheld a lower court's ruling that California's 2005 violent video game statute is unconstitutional.
But author Jonathan Salem Baskin (left) takes a dissenting view.
Writing for Information Week, Baskin likens the video game industry lobby to the NRA. That is, victorious but perhaps not entirely blameless.
Approaching the issue from a marketing background, Baskin has an unusual take on the potential influence of violent video games:
How is it that companies spend billions each year to expose people to 15- and 30-second snippets of advertising, and then expect them to be influenced to change their purchasing habits, yet 12 straight hours of intensive, immersive, video game violence has no effect?...
As for the merits of industry self-regulation, well, I'd say they've been dicey, at best. Check the stock market for proof.
Images and ideas matter... So I think it's rather disingenuous for the video game industry to claim otherwise. A better approach would be to acknowledge that lots of the stuff isn't appropriate for kids, and really work to make it impossible for them to get their hands on it. For real.
Winning court battles like the one in California puts them in the same league as the NRA or, going further back in history, the cigarette lobby. How long was "the jury out" on whether smoking was causally bad for you, even as its defenders coughed themselves into early graves?
Comments
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
"How long was "the jury out" on whether smoking was causally bad for you, even as its defenders coughed themselves into early graves?"
Dunno, how long was the jury out on Rock and Roll, Comic books, Elvis, Horror Films etc before deluded people were convinced that the world wasn't going to end?
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
From our cold dead hands, you prick!!!
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
He's right in a way - advertising does work - it tends to make people want to buy the product that's being advertised. But where he goes wrong is that he fails to realise that videogames work in EXACTLY the same way - they make people want to buy more videogames.
Now if smoking ads made people want to go out and murder someone by exposing them to tobacco smoke, I'd say that this guy might have a point when he says that videogames are dangerous. The problem is, people who play videogames don't commit violent crimes.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
I 've read his blog, He's not only Anti-Game or Anti-Gun, He's anti-consumer(believing the govt shall Rape the consumer reguardless) and seriously conspircy theorist
The guy that made the blog post is Seriously addicted to Communisum, Somthing that our favorite punching Bag(you know what I mean, JT)
The guy in Question(While you guys were in a uproar over him) also has an obsession With Brands and asking Wall Street to tell the truth
Watching JT on GP is just like watching an episode of Jerry springer only as funny as the fights
Watching JT on GP is just like watching an episode of Jerry springer only as funny as the fights
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
I don't know about likening the ESA to the NRA... Does the NRA sue people and cheer when they arrest people for modding their guns?
I thought the NRA is more like an ECA community rather than a group dedicated to helping the manufacturers soley, whereas the ESA only cares about publishers and no one else.
Oh well, this blogger, unfortunately, is pretty clueless about games and guns as well in either case.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
Stretching argument much are we?
Guns are legal tools that are only lethal to fools, cigarettes while unhealthily are like any other legal vice and video games are like any other form of media.
Once you censor media for the sake of censor media you start censoring other things for the sake of censoring...
Gore,Violence,Sexauilty,Fear,Emotion these are but modes of transportation of story and thought, to take them from society you create a society of children and nannys, since adults are not required.
http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com
I have a dream, break the chains of copy right oppression! http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/what-is-cigital-disobedience/
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
Being influenced to buy something and being influenced to murder someone are two very different things.
People who play Guitar Hero may decide to become musicians, but people who play Manhunt aren't likely to run out and kill someone, because starting a band doesn't harm anyone. Murder and violence does. People are quite capable of noticing that difference.
And what does the stock market have to do with retail ratings enforcement? Is this person attempting to suggest that were it not for the purchases of children, the gaming market would sink? Has he forgotten the many adults who indulge in interactive entertainment?
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
seriously, there's something really wrong with society, when we can compare products like smokes, and guns to video games. like video games are as dangerous as the actual gun, or as addictive as cigarettes that causes disease...
There's plenty of bad things going on in life, why are they picking on video games...
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
Easy targets. Pick on something that all the whiners hate, and you'll win their votes.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
'''How is it that companies spend billions each year to expose people to 15- and 30-second snippets of advertising, and then expect them to be influenced to change their purchasing habits, yet 12 straight hours of intensive, immersive, video game violence has no effect?...''
.. yeah but do you REALLY think that somebody deciding to buy something they have been informed of and made aware of thorugh adverts (and still made up their OWN MIND to buy) has any kind of relation to violent games causing real world violence?
Sorry dont buy it.
I watch adverts EVERY DAY for things, THAT I DECIDE NOT TO BUY, OR THAT I DONT WANT.
It isnt like i watch an advert n say 'MUST BUY... MUST BUY...'. I still make a concious decision to buy it. Im just aware of things that i wouldnt not have otherwise heard of. It doesnt 'influence me with subliminal messages' to the point i cant make my own mind up over it.
If i can resist an advert designed to make me want it (its EASY). Then i can quite easily avoid making the slightly more significant decision of casuing real world violence/ killing somebody.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
This line of thinking has unfortunately been altogether too influencial, but betrays a fundamental lack of understanding about what advertising and marketing does. From the American Marketing Association:
"Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large."
Advertising does not cause people to buy things that they don't want, but endorses specific brands. Thus someone who likes cola is more likely to buy Coke/Pepsi, than a generic, say. But no one with any "common sense" really thinks there's anyone out there saying "Hey, I never knew I liked cola, until I saw that commercial..."
Ultimately it's a facetious argument. The video gaming community should be more proactive in pointing this out.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
Game Biz = NRA? I wish the the industry was that effective!
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
I must disagree with his line of thinking. Those 15 to 30 second commercials don't render us helpless to make our own choices. It's not like we have no option but to go out and buy Viagra when we see a commercial for it. Those spots are meant to equate a brand to a need. When we have the need, we will think of that brand. Will we buy it? Maybe. But it remains our choice.
Now take little Johnny Twelveyearold. Unlike second hand smoke, his parents have some degree of control over what he is exposed to. Lets say he manages to play GTA. He has no choice but to find a gun or break into a car and steal it right? No. He has a choice. If his parents have taught him the difference between a good choice and a bad choice, he makes a good choice. The idea might certainly occur to him though. Maybe a law needs to be passed limiting a persons right to have children. That way we have some degree of control over the quality of citizen we will be allowing to join our society.
The problem is little Johnny can get the idea of kiling people from the news, on t.v., movies, or even the Bible. I'd certainly be interested in a study of the Koran and its ability to turn some people violent. Then extend that study to the Bible. I'm envisioning a day when you have to be 18 to read the "good" book. Be careful what you wish for over there Mr. Baskin, you might get it. Once that precident is set, expect other things to fall victim to the ban hammer. Some of them may be things you have an interest in.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
"How is it that companies spend billions each year to expose people to 15- and 30-second snippets of advertising, and then expect them to be influenced to change their purchasing habits, yet 12 straight hours of intensive, immersive, video game violence has no effect?..."
This guy's logic boils down to "since it's possible for commercials to influence people's purchasing habits, it is therefore possible for any kind of content to produce any kind of change in people's behavior".
He'd never phrase it that way, of course, but it's the only way you can get from "commercials make people want to buy things" to "video games turn kids into killers" without having to establish a specific common mechanism between the two.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
>"commercials make people want to buy things" to "video games turn kids into killers"
Taking that logic one small step further, lets say "commercials make people want to turn kids into killers". I think I like how that one comes out.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
"Winning court battles like the one in California . . . ."
Baskin overstates the case. The videogame industry didn't half as much win before the Ninth as Leland Yee and his patently unconstitutional law lost. I suspect that if the attorneys for the industry had chosen not to say a word in support of their position, the Court would have still ruled in their favor. Hardly accurate to call that one a "court battle."
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
I'm getting really sick of this crap. Being a gamer makes us porn addicts, killers, unemployed losers, virgins, and akin to cigarette addicts.
These assholes are ruining videogames for me. I seriously cannot enjoy my game time, because every time I sit down to play, I think of all the horrible things these jerks say I akin to. I'm tired of being made to feel like a gun-nut or cigarette smoker by playing them.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
-Lets not forget the BK games makes us hungry
-Or that we play the hero because we envy that life
-Or we take pride in our accomplishments, even resorting to downright cheating (Looks at certain World at War players)
and I kinda disgree w/ the whole virgin thing, particularly with amount of adult content out there...
there, that's 8 deadly sins....
There is nothing we can do but ignore these assholes, as long as the whole "Freedom of Speech" holds up.
I know how sometimes it can be a downer to hear others critizing things you love (games, TV, music, websites and flashes, etc.) But the best you can do is find others that enjoy the same things with you, and you'll see how quickly such hatred dissipates.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
I can't take comfort in the "Free Speech" thing anymore in the USA. There are only 2 meaningful political factions and both want to supress speech for different reasons (Nanny State vs The Bible).
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
The NRA is to guns what the ECA is to video games. It's just a bunch of people who have no hand in the manufacturing of video games trying to protect their hobby. The NRA is just an organization tierd of the leftist attidude from schools and politicians saying "guns are bad cus guns=violance and violance=bad".
This guy managed to attack two different groups that I like. Guns and video games. Congrats.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
American manufactures have considerable clout with the NRA and their lobbying efforts, they are a somewhat more benign ESA.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
Yes, but they're often on opposite sides of issues. For instance, some domestic firearm makers favor import bans and bans on "cheap" handguns because it reduces the competition and keeps prices high. Then there's people like Bill Ruger, who supported the so-called "assault weapon" ban since his Mini-14s, Mini-30s, and 10/22s were exempt. By getting AR and Kalashnikov variants out of the way, he was apparently hoping to increase his share of the self-loading target, varmint, and plinking markets.
The real "gun lobby," with regards to industry, is made of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) and Sporting Arms and Ammunitions Manufacturers Institute (SAAMI). The Info Week author's use of the NRA as a bogeyman and scapegoat is, at best, an exercise in intellectual laziness.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
I said more benign.
I know all the crap that manufactures pushed through with the help of all the big groups.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
Oops, sorry. I'm not arguing that they're not more benign, my poorly made point was just that SAAMI or NSSF are the equivalent of the ESA, while the NRA is more like the ECA. In both cases there is usually considerable overlap between business and consumer interest, just as there are cases where industrial interests diverge in the name of profits.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
Video games are note capable of maiming or taking lives, so likening the industry or the consumers to the NRA is just, weird.
ANd I thought the NRA was enthusiasts, not manufacturers.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
compareing the NRA to the cigerrete companys? Well, I don't need any more proof than that this guy is just a crazy moonbat.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
Wow, that's some really good trolling. I give him 7/10. Looks like we need more practice.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
How is it that companies spend billions each year to expose people to 15- and 30-second snippets of advertising, and then expect them to be influenced to change their purchasing habits, yet 12 straight hours of intensive, immersive, video game violence has no effect?...
Probably because advertising that something is available to increase the odd of interested people buying it is pretty different than fundamental behavioral changes?
As for the merits of industry self-regulation, well, I'd say they've been dicey, at best. Check the stock market for proof.
Apples and beef. Last I checked, financial trouble the movie industry was having was not related to their enforcement of their MPAA ratings system.
Images and ideas matter... So I think it's rather disingenuous for the video game industry to claim otherwise. A better approach would be to acknowledge that lots of the stuff isn't appropriate for kids, and really work to make it impossible for them to get their hands on it. For real.
That's exactly what they've been trying to, and been pretty successful in doing. You're just unhappy that they're doing it without needing laws to do it, and that they're trusting parents to judge if something is appropriate for their kid.
Winning court battles like the one in California puts them in the same league as the NRA or, going further back in history, the cigarette lobby. How long was "the jury out" on whether smoking was causally bad for you, even as its defenders coughed themselves into early graves?
Similar to the above, comparing the videogame industry to the cigarette lobby is comparing apples and oranges.
-Gray17
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
If you look at actual statistics on violent crime committed by juveniles over the past 30 years, You will see a substancial DROP in violence, including a >70% decrease in murders committed by 14-17 year-olds. Legislating video games in not about public health or safety, it is about legislating taste, and there is no question that doing so would violate the first amendment.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
"I'm sure this propaganda was included in the court briefs that convinced the judge responsible for the reversal that "none of the research establishes or suggests a causal link between minors playing violent video games and actual psychological or neurological harm.""
Or maybe it was the fact that "none of the research establishes or suggests a causal link between minors playing violent video games and actual psychological or neurological harm."
"How is it that companies spend billions each year [on] advertising, and then expect them to be influenced to change their purchasing habits, yet 12 straight hours of intensive, immersive, video game violence has no effect?"
No one's saying video game violence has no effect. We're saying video game violence does not have an effect on minors that would make keeping these games away from them in everyone's best interest.
Can advertising influence purchasing decisions? Of course it can but it doesn't control purchasing decisions. Ads don't make you buy stuff. That is still your choice.
"So slaughtering scantily-clad female zombies has absolutely no carryover influence to real-world experience?"
Sure it does. You may exclaim, "Hell yeah!" Or perhaps even high five the person sitting next to you. Is it going to make you go out and slaughter scantily-clad female zombies? No.
"Try blinking your eyes after playing a game for more than a few minutes."
Sorry, what?
"As for the merits of industry self-regulation, well, I'd say they've been dicey, at best. Check the stock market for proof."
I don't get this one either. What's the stock market have to do with "dicey" self-regulation?
"Images and ideas matter... That's what makes the things we see and listen to have meaning. So I think it's rather disingenuous for the video game industry to claim otherwise."
It's not.
"A better approach would be to acknowledge that lots of the stuff isn't appropriate for kids, and really work to make it impossible for them to get their hands on it. For real."
Already done. ESRB ratings. Parental controls. Oodles of easily accessible information.
Andrew Eisen
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
"As for the merits of industry self-regulation, well, I'd say they've been dicey, at best. Check the stock market for proof."
I don't get this one either. What's the stock market have to do with "dicey" self-regulation?
Andrew, he's likening the video game industry and its self regulation with the self-regulation of the banks. Except unlike the banks, who were basically forced to give loans to people who didn't have good credit if they were a minority, there's no one having to force stores to sell us video games.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
Oh. So blacks ruined the economy? Thank you for clearing everything up.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
Actually, litigation that forced banks to give loans to people with bad credit as well as giving a legal basis for sub-prime lending ruined the economy. It just so happened that the Democrat party used the 'they're denying me loans because I'm black, not because I make 6.25 an hour' argument when they forced the banks to make bad loans.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
It's not the whole story though. After making sub prime loans, they packaged them up as triple A investments alongside other better loans and sold them to other banks and that is why lots of banks didn't know the sheer amount of bad debt that they had. It is also a key factor in the reluctance of inter-bank lending.
It's very easy to say one thing caused this crisis, but the truth is there were a bunch of things done incorrectly. It is also true to say that the trillions that were spent during a time of plenty were bad economically as now people have to spend even more and increase national debt (both sides of the atlantic I mean, not just the US) at a time most would like to cut national spending.
I know you are a pro-republican man, but if we can leave aside party politics for a moment, can we at least agree that a man who bankrupted 3 texas oil companies probably wasn't the best financially minded person to make president?
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
I'll concede that that man may not have been the best to fix the fiscal/banking problem created by his predecessor, or that leaving Barney Frank in charge of the problem was such a keen idea. But isn't that the core definition of a politician? Someone who has no other marketable skills?
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
and look it worked, now we are all lucky if we make 6.25 an hour. the playing field has been leveled, just like they wanted.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
Ah, but, he doesn't expect a parent to have to do any work whatsoever, and that Video Games should do it all for them apparently.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
So, wait, he's anti-NRA, and yet blames Video Games?
That's a wierd set of priorities right there...
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
Many anti-NRA folks believe that guns have a magical forcefield that penetrates a normal person's mind and compells them to kill indiscriminately. This is lock-step with what anti-games people think- that games magically turn normal people in cold blooded killers.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
Obviously criminals won't illegally obtain weapons if we make them illegal. Because they don't illegally obtain them now when they are legal. This argument makes perfect sense and if you don't agree with it you are a facist. /sarcasm
But seriously, I find it funny that people have such strong opinions about topics they are completely ignorant on. How many anti-NRA advocates can tell me how to properly purchase, store, clean, maintain and operate a firearm? How many anti-NRA advocates can tell me what type of gun I should purchase for home defense, or maybe for hunting small game? Now take those questions and apply them to games.
How many anti-game advocates hold knowledge on what a game is and how they are used and made? I don't think many could give a decent response to any question about games. Why should we listen to someone that is obviously ignorant?
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
^ That first point is exactly why I favour illegal gun control [control of illegal guns]. In the US, possession of cocaine has higher penalties than possession of an unregistered handgun. Thousands of murders are committed with unregistered handguns every year, many more deaths than those caused by cocaine overdoses. Registered weapons are used relatively infrequently for murder, so legitimate gun owners should not be "cracked down" on.
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Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
For a really funny experience, ask someone who supports the Assault Weapons Ban, the Brady Campaign, or any other jackass anti-gun organization or law what a barrel shroud is. Most of them don't know a barrel shroud from their ass.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
How so? Sounds like he blames guns for crimes and videogames for making criminals. Sounds like your average anti-gun jackass to me.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
Stil ldoesn't hold up if you blame games for criminals.
Rap, metla ,hell ,every piece of media was blamed for creating criminals.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
Neither of the arguments I presented hold any weight in the minds of any except the emotional or the idiotic.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
People should go over there and leave him a rational, calm, well written responce explaining why he is wrong.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
It really isn't worth registering on yet another news site that does not like free and open debate.
E. Zachary Knight
Oklahoma City Chapter of the ECA
http://www.theeca.com/chapters_oklahoma
E. Zachary Knight
Divine Knight Gaming
Random Tower: Game News and Commentary
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
Hmmm, sounds like a slippery slope argument since you can make the leap (logically or illogically, depending on your belief) that books, movies, music, and art could all have a subversive effect on the individual. If that's the case, then everything will warrant some kind of regulation and oversight to ensure little Timmy isn't being immersed in something horrible.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & ...
They should be glad to be in such good company, then.
Re: Info Week Blogger Looks at California Court Win & Likens
He calls the causal link common sense? Even IF (and its a really big IF) you could prove that video games caused a single person to go on a killing rampage where they would not have done so before.....that's one person out of how many? 15-25 million gamers?
If that isn't a "statistically insignificant" statistic, I don't know what is....
"You know what I wish? I wish all the scum of the Earth had one throat and I had my hands about it."