Spare a thought for our hapless gaming brothers over in California. Sure, they might enjoy sun, surf and the possibility of running into Zac Efron when out shopping for Paris Hilton branded speedos, but they also have to contend with Arnold Schwarzenegger running the place. Case in point: the Governator is attempting to ban the sale of violent games to children (a good thing) which many believe will force major US retailers to withdraw from selling M rated titles altogether (not a good thing).
Never fear, guys, there’s one somewhat unexpected and valiant protector of your gaming rights who is willing to stand up to the giant Austrian cyborg. Enter the arena Activision’s very own poster-boy of all that is pure and virtuous in the gaming industry, Bobby Kotick. Not too happy with the possibility of losing countless sales if this nefarious law is passed, the super-publisher CEO has spoken out on the issue.
“Our First Amendment has survived intact for 219 years amid far greater technological, historical and social challenges.
The argument that video games present some kind of new ominous threat that requires a wholesale reassessment of one of our nation’s most treasured freedoms and to take that freedom away indiscriminately from an entire group of our population based on nothing but age is beyond absurd.
These are the same attacks Americans have witnessed against every previous emerging entertainment medium and genre including books, comics, rock ‘roll, movies, TV and the Internet. In each case, freedom prevailed.”
Activision has also filed an amicus brief (a document presented by someone interested in influencing the outcome of a lawsuit but who is not a party to it) asking the Supreme Court not to rule in favour of The Oak in the Schwarzenegger vs the Electronic Merchants Association case. EA and other expert groups have also voiced their support against the proposal.
The irony of the situation is not lost on us. This is, of course, coming from a man who once portrayed a character that actually beat another person to death with the victim’s own arm.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz
hazelam
kotick knows how many of his call of duty games are bougth and played by kids, all he cares about is his bottom line, definitely not us the gamers.
i don’t know about anybody else, but i think making it ilegal to sell adult rated games to kids is a good thing.
we have that law in place here and it seems to work pretty well.
i’m guessing ms won’t like it either because that would hurt them too, i don’t have numbers but i bet a large percentage of live subscribers are under 18, and the most played games on live are fps games.
of course kotick and ms would not have the best interests of the children at heart, just their money.
kevatron400
We do have that law here yes, but I’m not sure that it does work pretty well. Media’s always going off on one about GTA or CoD ruining our children’s brains.
hazelam
yeah but they always ignore the fact that it’s illegal to sell the adult only games to kids, and i’ve seen store refuse to sell adult games to kids so it does work.
the trouble is the parents usually buy these adult games for their kids, i’ve seen people in the shops warning the parents that the games they’re buying for their kids are suitable for children, some old lady was buying san andreas for her grandson and the guy in the shop told her that it was adult only and there was a hell of a lot of swearing, but she still bought it.
jikomanzoku
The law and the medias portrayal of things are very different things. As are the law and parents who choose to completely ignore it and buy kids unsuitable material, be that games,films and so on.
minerwilly
Its the adults that need protecting from the kids playing games like CoD , if only they could have separate servers i might reconsider booting up Cod for a game one day .
NotALegend
I never thought I’d say that, but Kotick isn’t that bad after all
jikomanzoku
On a similar note, video games have a far cooler defender of their rights at the moment in the shape of the legendary Stan Lee :D
http://videogamevoters.org/StanLee?source=20100914stanlee
MegaBonez
If Kotick was the head of Disney interactive, he wouldn’t give a shit!
Boomshanks
Get to the Choppa!
Oh I just couldn’t resist