Spector's fears for US violent game ruling
Epic Mickey dev concerned games might be denied first amendment protection
Junction Point boss Warren Spector has highlighted the need for the games industry to battle political efforts to bar the sales and rental of adult-themed videogames to perceived minors.
"November 2nd could be the start of a timeline where we're the first entertainment medium denied first amendment protection," the Deus Ex and Epic Mickey creator claimed at the PAX conference.
Although the motion from assorted states, including Californian governor Arnold Schwarzenneger, has previously been denied, a further Supreme Court ruling is due in November.
11 states are believed to be pursuing tighter regulation.
Major games industry figures fear that tagging violent titles as adult-only will lead to their removal from store shelves.
Spector claimed that it was important for the games industry and gamers to embrace the mainstream (perhaps referring to his own Mickey Mouse project for Wii) in order to achieve social acceptance and become "an art form worthy of study."
"We spent 20 years trying to convince people that we were cooltrying to show them just how cool games were ... and we won," he claimed of traditional gamers and fellow developers.
"But we need to get past not wanting to let other people in the club. We won, and we feel bad about it."
Despite this, he felt gaming was moving into something of a golden age. "When your grandmother and little sister are playing games, it's harder for people to look at it as a way to make political points."
Warren Spector's full PAX keynote may be viewed here.
No wonder we've got things like 4chan and the various hacking communities that have no rules, and they're all taken up by minors: Incompetent parents and even more incompetent politicians.
As per James above, AO reeks, and as Warren has highlighted, it's bad for the industry, especially if retail won't stock AO titles.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Lee Ward on 6th September 2010 6:44pm
From my perspective though, I don't think making sure games made for adults aren't sold to 11 year olds should be seen as a bad thing. It actually gives a better image when some polititian tries to score points about evil game nasties corrupting kids if you can say, "we didn't make these for kids, they shouldn't be able to buy them, and if a parent bought it for a kid, they were warned it may not be suitable".
It also should allow for more freedom if you can make an adult themed game without having to answer to the charge of putting the content in a childs hand. It puts more onus on the parent or shop keeper to make sure they are acting responsibly rather than the creators.
But like I said, I appreciate I come from a different cultural perspective.