On 3/20/01 6:16 am Guy T. wrote:

Noooo! In the future, Spuzz may have to get government approval for his games! Story here.

--actually, after looking at the summary of the proposal, it appears Spuzz only has to worry if he wants to _play_ his own games. If he just wants to write them, no problem. :)

You do understand that by the time I finish my games, I'll be an adult, so this doesn't really apply to me. =)

Besides, I have no intention of selling my games, for which I need a license. If I get any money from them, however unlikely, it'd be on a nagware system (like you do so effectively in SpaceTug). Apparently, then, the license only applies to games that are sold! So if I were to distribute a game featuring a variety of ways to dismember, explode, and maim Jean Chrétien completely for free, then Big Brother wouldn't have any say in the matter. =)


In response to the legislation itself, I have two beefs;

First, they say that "Parents are the best mediators of their children's viewing. [...] However, as children acquire more and more technological savvy, they will make choices without their parents' knowledge or consent." Gee, really? That's all the more reason for parents to pay more attention to their kids! Thousands of juvenile criminal cases in B.C. alone are based off of parental neglect.

For example, I just rented Deus Ex. That game features a lot of blood and gore, moderate to heavy language, and mild to moderate suggestive themes (asking for information around town includes talking to a hooker, for example). But that doesn't mean that by playing that game, I'm suddenly desensitised to violence, that I would go out onto the street and obtain whatever firearms I could to kill imaginary enemies. Or that I would just suddenly blow off and call one of my parents a steady stream of slander. Or that I would say something excessively, erm, sexual.

In fact, I don't think games are a problem at all; rather, it's the person who plays the game. I feel just fine with killing someone in a fake environment because I know that that fake person doesn't have a family to go home to, etc. But even in Deus Ex, I try to knock people out rather than kill them (partly at Paul Denton's behest (play the game), and partly at my own). But then there's other people whom will play a game like Doom and then shoot up their local school because they were bullied (I don't think I need to explain further). If I or thousands of other Canadian and British Columbian kids and teens can play Doom, Quake, or any other of the violent games (I was going to use Postal here too, but I really can't play that game, it disgusted me), then why can't that person? It might not sound quite right, but I personally think that that person, well, has faulty wiring, if you catch my drift.

So in cases like that, it's ultimately the parents' responsibility. My mom knows what I look at on the 'net, which is almost invariably gaming- and programming-related material. I admit that I go visit illegal abandonwarez or just plain warez sites now and then, but only with a specific game in mind, which I usually delete after a while anyway. Which she also knows about. My mom couldn't know less about computers, but she is still capable of making sure that I don't get into trouble. That's probably the best explanation that I can give; you don't HAVE to keep up with the times to make sure that your kids aren't doing bad things. Just pay attention, teach them morals, and ask questions about what they're doing if it looks suspicious.

Second, they also say "Where a product is marketed in a diverse and international environment, cohesive public policy in the hands of the industry is a difficult, if not impossible, challenge." I couldn't disagree more. Now, not only is it not international policy to regulate games, but now B.C. is passing its OWN policy! Rather hypocritical, if you ask me...