This week in San Diego it’s all about the geeks and the fanboys. There will be Klingons and superheroes. There will be people who know far more about Futurama, Groo, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and The Justice League of America than the people who created them. Sergio Aragonés will be up to mischief. Cast members from “Glee,” “Haven,” “Fringe,” “Chuck,” and next year’s shows will meet with fans. Stars of the 60’s and 70’s will be there to sign autographs. Great big movie stars will show up to cajole Comic-Con attendees to get the word about about their great big movies. And there will even be comic books.
And I will be there to tell you about it. Stay tuned!
Supreme Court to Rule on Limiting Sales of Violent Games to Kids
Posted on April 28, 2010 at 8:00 am
Is there a First Amendment right to sell violent video games to children and teenagers?
The California legislature said no. They enacted a law imposing a fine of up to $1000 on retailers who sell violent games to anyone under age 18. Games like the best-selling Grand Theft Auto contain explicit brutal violence and sex. The player directs his character to murder other characters with Uzis and have sex with prostitutes. The Parents Television Council reports:
The beatings are intense and the number of weapons available is staggering. One can use a baseball bat, screwdriver, machete, or even a chainsaw to attack pedestrians to get small amounts of cash. As you attack and beat innocents, blood sprays the concrete. If you wound your victim and they try to run, you can chase them by following the blood trail. You can also get quick money by hitting people with your car.
These games are rated for mature audiences by the industry’s ratings board, but that is not meaningful if a child or young teen can buy it in the store.
The federal appeals court threw out the law as invalid. They said that video games are protected by the same First Amendment rights as books and any attempt to restrict their sale was unconstitutional. They said there was no proof that these games were harmful to children.
This is a collision of two principles — our commitment to freedom of expression and our commitment to protecting children.
This week, the United States Supreme Court has agreed to consider the case. The New York Times reports that
Michael D. Gallagher, the president of the Entertainment Software Association, said First Amendment protections should apply to video games just as they do to books, films and music. Industry self-regulation is working, he said, and it is harder for minors to buy M-rated games than it is to buy R-rated DVDs.
This is a tough challenge for the Court. And it is an even tougher one for parents.
Spore is not just one of the most highly anticipated computer games of the year. It is one of the most highly anticipated works of art and entertainment in any category. Think I’m exaggerating? Sales last year were $9.5 billion. Sixty-five percent of American households play computer or video games. The average game player is 35 years old and has been playing games for 13 years. And forty percent of all game players are women and women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (33 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (18 percent). In 2008, 26 percent of Americans over the age of 50 played video games, an increase from nine percent in 1999. Super Mario Brothers has sold over 40 million units. Best-selling video games sell many times more copies than best-selling books and have as many viewers/users as top movies and music.
Games have gone way beyond blowing stuff up and killing bad guys and aliens. Spore comes from the people who did the wildly popular Sims series. It gives players the chance to create entire universes, starting with one-celled creatures who evolve into complex organisms. It allows for an unprecedented level of imagination and interactivity for the participants, even allowing players to exchange creatures and visit each other’s planets. Spore gives players (I think we need a new word here — maybe participants?) the change to be creative while absorbing lessons about logic, programming, and consequences. Executive producer Lucy Bradshaw said in an interview with the Washington Post
Every single planet you go to was going to bring this sense of surprise and awe to the game. That was central and why we made the creation tools the way we did. Not only that we’d made the building blocks and could tap into the creativity of a million players, but the fact that the content is so compressible. The model data for a creature is like 3 kilobytes, the thumbnail picture is about 18 to 20KB. So a grand total of 25KB, which means that we can actually share all of this content without bandwidth issues.
And then we did things like the YouTube partnership, the Planetwide Games deal involving a Comic Book Creator, and a make-your-own postcard system that we put in the Creature Creator that allows players to take things outside of just the elemental game play, share it with other players, and see where those players might take it. We even did a Facebook application that ties back to our servers. We really want to see what directions players take all this stuff. We’ve built a really strong tool that lets users share their experiences in different venues, and I can’t wait to see what unravels next.
I love the way that Spore creates a sort of universal Wiki game, with everyone who participates helping to direct it.
And this discussion of games gives me a chance to share one of the funniest video clips I have ever seen, from the wonderful Australian music group, Tripod:
This week in San Diego it’s all about the geeks and the fanboys. There will be Klingons and superheroes. There will be people who know far more about Futurama, Groo, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and The Justice League of America than the people who created them. Sergio Aragonés will be up to mischief. Cast members from “Glee,” “Haven,” “Fringe,” “Chuck,” and next year’s shows will meet with fans. Stars of the 60’s and 70’s will be there to sign autographs. Great big movie stars will show up to cajole Comic-Con attendees to get the word about about their great big movies. And there will even be comic books.