Video Game Health Labeling Act would force titles rated T or above to warn of link between violent media and aggressive behavior.

 

Politicians have previously portrayed games as a dangerous influence on par with smoking. Now one Congressman has taken the extra step to try and have them carry warning labels like cigarettes.

 

Representative Joe Baca (D-California) has introduced the Video Games Health Labeling Act of 2009 with the stated goal "To require certain warning labels to be placed on video games that are given certain ratings due to violent content."

 

If passed, the bill would require games rated T-for-Teen or higher to carry a label that would read, "WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior."

 

Although the goal of Baca's bill specifically targets violent games, the language of the legislation makes no exception for games rated T-for-Teen or higher that might have coarse language or sexual content, but no violence.

 

"The video game industry has a responsibility to parents, families, and to consumers--to inform them of the potentially damaging content that is often found in their products," the Congressman said in announcing the legislation. "They have repeatedly failed to live up to this responsibility. Meanwhile research continues to show a proven link between playing violent games and increased aggression in young people. American families deserve to know the truth about these potentially dangerous products."

 

After introduction, the bill was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Co-sponsoring the bill is Representative Frank Wolf (R-Virginia).

 

Source: Gamespot

 

Well I played Pacman this morning and have since been running around to repetitive music :rolleyes: Then I played Mario and started jumping around everywhere :rolleyes: Because you know people don't have a responsibility for themselves or anything do they? -_- Sounds like a cross between that and parents blaming something else on their kids' problems to me. -_- If people have psychological problems then they're going to hit, stab and kill people whether they bloody video games or not! Now excuse me I'm off to do the lotto before the Chelsea game and saw people's heads off with a chainsaw as I've just finished playing Gears Of War :)

 

I played COD5 today and then thought it would be a good idea to go outside with my STG 44 and shoot my next door neighbours cat! :cheer:

Ridiculous, these labels will make kids MORE likely to want to play the games

 

Carmageddon, Max Payne, Grand Theft Auto etc all got a massive boost thanks to the nanny state trying to prevent people from playing them

Exactly. It's like putting a red button in front of a child and telling it not to push it.

 

Put out a game with a label like; WARNING: EXTREME VIOLENCE!!!!!!!!!, it's going to make me want to buy it. :lol: What teenager looking for games for their console will be put off by that? :lol:

Carmageddon, Max Payne, Grand Theft Auto etc all got a massive boost thanks to the nanny state trying to prevent people from playing them

 

Agreed.... I played ALL those games purely because the Tabloids told me not to....... :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

WARNING: EXTREME VIOLENCE!!!!!!!!!, it's going to make me want to buy it. :lol: What teenager looking for games for their console will be put of by that? :lol:

 

Not just teenagers mate.... Trust me, blokes in their mid-30s as well...... :rolleyes:

 

A "Warning - Extreme Violence" label on a game is a recommendation for me.... Goes back to the days in the 80s when idiots put those "Warning - Explicit Lyrical Content" stickers on Metal albums..... :lol: :lol: Well, that just got me up to the counter with my money in my mitts faster than a Greased Weasel ....... :lol:

Not just teenagers mate.... Trust me, blokes in their mid-30s as well...... :rolleyes:

 

A "Warning - Extreme Violence" label on a game is a recommendation for me.... Goes back to the days in the 80s when idiots put those "Warning - Explicit Lyrical Content" stickers on Metal albums..... :lol: :lol: Well, that just got me up to the counter with my money in my mitts faster than a Greased Weasel ....... :lol:

I say teenagers from posting from my point of view :heehee: , but you're completely right, in fact anyone with a console will be tempted to by games with "Health Warning Labels". :lol:

 

They still do the Explicit Lyrical Content to, and it still amazes me even when they put them on an Eminem or 50 Cent album. "These albums contain naughty words", Really? On a Eminem album? :o :lol:

The new GTA IS very good though :P I just have to remember not to get second hand 360 games from Cex again as it kept crashing <_<

 

Mark my words btw, the tabloids are going to make a HUGE deal out of an upcoming Wii game called 'Madworld' It DOES look very fun though :P

... funny you post this, on the day where in america some youth is being tried for the murder of his mum and attempted murder of his dad. why? because she took a games console off him because he was addicted to it. his plea was insanity brought on by the game... im sure the news clip is around somewhere giving the exact details, but thats the gist of it.

... funny you post this, on the day where in america some youth is being tried for the murder of his mum and attempted murder of his dad. why? because she took a games console off him because he was addicted to it. his plea was insanity brought on by the game... im sure the news clip is around somewhere giving the exact details, but thats the gist of it.

So-called Halo 3 killer convicted of murdering mom

 

Most often, the media takes great pains to tie games to crime. Robberies of game retailers are given sensational treatment by local news outlets, while larceny involving other forms of entertainment--televisions, music players, and so on--are dismissed as routine. Often, even gruesome crimes are exploited if they have a game angle, as were the so-called "Xbox Murders" in 2004, when four Floridians were brutally slain by an ex-con who wanted to retrieve his console. (If he had wanted to get his toaster back, would it have been called the "Toaster Murders"?)

 

Unfortunately, though, sometimes games are central to a heinous crime. That was the case in October 2007, when then-16-year-old Daniel Petric (pictured) fatally shot his mother because she was limiting his Halo 3 playing time. Defense attorneys claimed the teenager was "obsessed" with the sci-fi shooter, growing irrational and aggressive when he could not play it. After being cut off by his parents, he retrieved his father's 9mm pistol and shot both of them, killing his mother and leaving his father with a major headwound. (The father survived, forgave his son, and even came to court to support him.) The younger Petric then went on the run, taking his copy of Halo 3 with him.

 

According to the Associated Press, Petric's lawyers argued that, after being psychically incapacitated for months following an injury, he was suffering from a full-blown addiction to Halo 3 and asked that he be ruled not guilty by reason of insanity. Today, though, an Ohio judge ruled that the juvenile was guilty of murder, even though he agreed that the youth was mentally unbalanced.

 

"I firmly believe that Daniel Petric had no idea at the time he hatched this plot that if he killed his parents they would be dead forever," Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge said in his ruling, according to the AP. However, evidence that Petric planned the murder for weeks led Burge to convict him in the non-jury-based proceedings. The judge will levy a sentence, potentially as severe as life imprisonment, at a later date.

 

For its part, Halo 3 publisher Microsoft gave a brief statement to the AP, saying only, "We are aware of the situation and it is a tragic case."

 

Source: Gamespot

 

So if this was Wii Sports or Mario would you link the violence to the game? No you wouldn't! The game brought on dangerous things like 'fun' which led to the dangerous emotion 'happiness' :rolleyes: The parents were just doing what every parent does including what mine did when I was younger and tried to limit their playing time so they could get him to go outside get some fresh air etc.

 

I had to give up Football Manager because I was so addicted to it that I didn't get much Uni work done at all. I haven't played it for months now and I've worked hard to try to get a job but the new one is VERY tempting. Video games can be VERY addictive if they are that good so it's annoying when you have to get off them sometimes but this person clearly had other issues with himself thus if the game was violent or not it wouldn't have made ANY difference.

It wasn't that game that influenced/persuaded(?) him to shoot his parents, it was the fact that he became addicted in playing the game. There's a difference.

 

Here's one question though, WHY did his dad have a gun in the first place eh?

'Cause it's in America ;)

'Cause it's in America ;)

:heehee:

They still do the Explicit Lyrical Content to, and it still amazes me even when they put them on an Eminem or 50 Cent album. "These albums contain naughty words", Really? On a Eminem album? :o :lol:

 

 

These days I'm willing to bet that it's the record labels themselves putting the stickers on to boost sales.... :rolleyes:

 

This proposal is on a level of ridiculousness of the Parents Musical Resource Centre and their "parental advisory" stickers to try and stop white suburban kids from listening to the "nasty black man's" Rap Music, and Heavy Metal... The PMRC was run by a Sarah Palin-style nutjob called Tipper Gore.... She was the wife of the eventual Vice President Al Gore.... And she was a totally silly, stupid bint whose actions achieved precisely NOTHING..... Her bullsh!t organisation persuaded people to bring court cases against the likes of Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne whom they alleged had written songs which had driven their young teenage sons to suicide... The cases were thrown out of court, and the PMRC were made to look extremely foolish indeed. They were made to look even more foolish in the 1992 US Presidential elections when basically Bill Clinton swept to power with the help of many of the same artists during the whole "rock the vote" campaign that got millions of young Americans out voting, that Tipper and her ludicrous, crusading organisation would seek to censor..... Her involvement with the PMRC basically ended when husband Al was sworn in as Vice President.... A victory for musicans, the right to freedom of artisitic expression and common sense.....

 

So, as with the PMRC and their silly stickers on album covers, these proposals will also accomplish absolutley NOTHING.... a bunch of fukkin' nanny state morons with nothing better to do than to spoil the enjoyment of children and adults alike..... They get the 80s Metallers' response - FOAD..... Fukk Off And Die.....

Here's one question though, WHY did his dad have a gun in the first place eh?

 

Precisely.... Oh, but you would be a fool and a Communist to suggest that there is something totally fukked up about the US Gun Laws..... :rolleyes: