Will Games Be Regulated in the United States?

Dr. Michael Rich of Children's Hospital has declared, for a network television in the U.S., that when using the Wii "you are learning the muscle memory necessary to do those acts, to stab someone, to chop someone, to shoot someone. It's one step closer to a virtual reality in which you are actually doing these things to people." Dr. Susan Linn, the psychologist, declared that, while more and more kids are saying their favorite past-time are Mature rated games, parents "would have to play the game and you would have to get good at the game to get to the really violent parts". Both of them recommended restrictions on the time children should play videogames and on their time exposed to violence.

The debate about violent games and the effect they have on teenagers has been ragging for a while now. We now even have a debate about sex and games going strong. But opinions like those stated above do nothing to further these debates. It's absurd to think that violent games hide their most "vicious" content later in the game, so that the casual non-gamer parents can't reach it, while the child can "enjoy" all the blood and gore. If a game is designed to be violent, it will be so from the start. And previews will also make that pretty clear for anyone who reads them.

The Wii controller itself is a clever piece of design and its uses are up to the player. Different games have different control schemes and some minority requires motions mimicking violence, but that does not make it, in itself, a tool that promotes violence. It is just as absurd as saying that you learn to throw a right hand hook by playing tennis, just because the motions are pretty similar. If the parent considers a game to be too violent, he/she can ban the child from playing it. What we need and what the parents need is more information on games and not inflammatory remarks.

These kinds of statements appear as two candidates in the American race for the presidency seem to have plans regarding some regulations on the sale of videogames. Both Democrat Hillary Clinton and Democrat Barack Obama have, at certain times, referred to videogames as a metaphor for under achievement. And there are signs that they would move to regulate the sale of videogames. One of the most talked about ideas is to ban the sale of violent games to children under the age of 18. Their parents would still be able to buy the games for their children, though.