Tales of the Rampant Coyote
Ye Olde Archives. Visit the new blog at http://www.rampantgames.com/blog/ - and use the following feed: http://rampantgames.com/blog/wp-rss2.php


(  RSS Feed! | Games! | Forums! )

Friday, November 17, 2006
 
Attack of the Zombie Game Legislation!
Oh, boy. Here we go again. The "Videogames Are Porn" bill is back here in Utah. Swell.

Won't someone please shoot this horrible piece of attempted anti-game legislation in the head? Because, zombie-like, it keeps rising from the dead.

It died in committee. They changed some "ors" into "ands" and snuck it back through when nobody was looking.

It died on the Utah Senate floor. Hogue anticipated bringing it back.

Then Hogue lost his bid for state senate (THANKFULLY). So he got a buddy to introduce it for him, all the while spouting almost verbatim Jack Thompson hyperbole as if it were fact. And now it's passed committee again. In spite of warnings from the Attorney General and others that it would most likely, like the similar state bills before it, get overturned for being unconstitutional after an expensive court battle.


(Vaguely) related tales of battling this undead monster:
* Games As Porn Bill Quietly Fails
* Games As Porn Bill Passes House
* Fragged the Bad Bill
* Cool! I get to be a FELON now!
* My Rant Is Printed

Labels:



Did you enjoy this post? Feel free to share it: del.icio.us | Digg it | Furl | reddit | Yahoo MyWeb

Comments:
I tried to find the bill number but it appears it's just a "proposed bill" for the 2007 general session at this point. So it could still get struck down before ever getting to the house or senate. It appears that Rep. Scott Wyatt is the guy pushing it through this time. I'd like to see the text of the bill, to see what the impact of this would be. I don't believe that extremely violent games are good for kids, but I don't think that criminalizing people selling M rated on unrated games is the answer. That shouldn't be their responsibility. Parents (who step up to the plate and "be parents" by getting involved and saying "no" sometimes to their kids) are the needed part of the answer. At least Mark Shurtleff seems to be one guy that has his head "screwed on straight" about this issue (see http://kotaku.com/gaming/mark-shurtleff/clips-utah-attorneygeneral-urges-parents-to-read-215454.php).

Also, the audio of the review commitee can be found here (http://www.le.state.ut.us/servlet/smil?int=39776 note it's quite long; over an hour).
 
I haven't listened to the committee audio yet. But the Mark Shurtleff commercial is AWESOME.

Now that's a pro-active political stance with video & computer games that I can totally get behind.
 
Holy cow. A politician with clue?

I'm totally in favour of pro-active stances like this, as opposed to the "videogames are the work of Satan and are corrupting our children" fear-driven politics we're all so sick of.
 
Post a Comment

Links to this post:

Create a Link



<< Home

Powered by Blogger