Rhode Island wants to lose money and a court case, too

The Rhode Island Senate is apparently considering a bill to criminalize the sale of M-rated video games to minors (GamePolitics, PDF of the bill) In fact, knowingly selling to a minor could be punished by up to a year in jail (PS, selling alcohol to minors only gets you a fine).

Given other states' (Minnesota, California) successes in passing similar laws, I've decided to save Rhode Island a few thousand dollars by talking them out of it. I'm not a RI resident, so I don't have a specific representative to email... so I just went straight to the top, Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed.

Dear Pres. Paiva Weed,

I am not one of your constituents, nor even a resident of Rhode Island. However, I felt the need to express my concern over the bill S.2156, which would criminalize the sale of violent or sexually explicit games to minors. There are four important points I feel both you and your fellow senators who have backed this bill should consider:

First, the Parent Television Council recently announced its support of this bill, citing "far-too-frequent" noncompliance by retailers. However, a 2008 study by the FTC found that of all entertainment sales to minors, games had the best denial rate - 80%, vs. 65% for movie theaters and 50% for unrated or R-rated videos (LINK). This percentage has only improved in recent years, and there is no reason to believe that trend will not continue. All major retailers have policies in place to deny sales of M-rated games to minors.

Secondly, while studies have sought to link violent games with such issues as violent behavior, aggressiveness, bullying, and desensitization; no study has ever shown causality and links that have been shown tend to be tenuous or - worse - the result of biased research or faulty methods. While tragedies like Columbine tend to draw news stories claiming the shooters played or even "trained on" video games, the fact is that most children and young adults play games. A better indicator of a problem might be that the person does not engage in the social act of gaming, as was the case of the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007.

Time and again, psychological evaluations have found issues such as depression, anxiety, family trouble, etc. to be a far better barometer for violent behavior than gaming. The simple fact is that most children and young adults play games, and are not adversely affected by them.

Third, there is the simple constitutionality of the bill. Many state legislatures have implemented bills that sought to criminalize the sale of M-rated games to minors; every single one has been overturned as unconstitutional, usually at great expense to the state. In these economically troubled times, pursuing this bill is simply fiscally unsound.

Lastly, I hope you agree that no legislation can or should take the place of sound parenting. ESRB game ratings, like movie ratings (which are not legislatively enforced), are designed to be a guideline for parents to make informed decisions about what their children experience. A 2007 FTC report showed approximately 90% of parents were aware of the ESRB system, considered it easy to understand, and used it when making purchasing decisions for their children (LINK). Rather than invest state funds into a bill that will undoubtedly dissolve after a costly legal battle, why not use that money to further improve awareness of a ratings system that already works?

Thank you for taking the time to read my letter, and I hope I have persuaded you and Sens. Ciccone, Jabour, Lanzi, and McCaffrey to take a second, more scrutinizing look at this bill.

Mariokart: Blur

Last week I snagged a code for the Xbox Live multiplayer beta of Blur, an upcoming racing game from Activision and Bizarre Creations - and by "racing game" I mean "kart racer."

Bizarre, who you might know as the creators of Geometry Wars, did something pretty funky with Blur - it looks like a modern, real-life racer but it plays like Mario Kart and Burnout Paradise went out to a club together and finished off a bottle of tequila in a dark corner together. The cars and track feel like Burnout, absolutely - but the gameplay is all Kart, from the homing missiles to the mines to the lightning storm you can call down on the leader.

But on top of that, Bizarre has applied the delightfully addictive Modern Warfare formula: experience, in the form of Fans, that you accrue and keep from race to race. Rank up to gain access to new cars and new mods, customizations that tweak how your car performs, how your powerups behave, or how you gain fans. Even at Rank 7 in this limited multiplayer beta, the choices available to me are compelling: do I use a shield that heals me, or one that turns incoming attacks into powerups I can use? How about more damage when I ram someone, or a bigger blast radius on my Barge ability? Do I gain extra fans when I use powerups, or perhaps based on my finishing position?

And speaking of fans, Blur borrows a page from Borderlands as well by offering "challenges" that are tangential to the race itself. Hit enough people with powerups to complete that challenge. Get several successful Shunts (red shell) to complete that challenge. A long drift, a clean Nitro boost, blocking or dodging incoming fire... they're all rewarded with extra fans, essentially rewarding you *again* for playing not just well, but with style.

The developers are soliciting feedback to help fine-tune the balance and the overall feel of the game. Personally, I'm soliciting people to play with. :D I don't know if I'd put this on par with Doubledash... yet. But it's a lot of fun so far.

Day 1 Patch

What's a Day-1 patch? It's the game industry's way of shipping on-time a product that still has bugs. It's why you boot up most games these days and immediately have to update them via Xbox Live/Playstation Network. It's the quintessential unfinished product that goes to market anyway.

Unfinished product? Given the evidence of my last blog, that seems pretty fitting. Sorry about that.

The purpose of this blog is simple: keep me doing something (maybe even daily). Games I'm currently playing, gaming industry news, recent art projects, interesting events - they're all game. Hopefully they're all worth reading about, to some degree.