FC: Should video games be required to come with warning labels?

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

[The threat of legislation by the U.S. Congress prompted the videogame 
industry to form the Recreational Software Advisory Council circa 1994 
(http://www.rsac.org/, though it is now trying to reinvent itself for web 
ratings and you won't see much videogame stuff there anymore). I believe 
there is no current law requiring video game creators to label for violent 
or other content. See also: http://www.politechbot.com/p-01353.html and 
http://reagle.org/joseph/commerce/singles/rsac7.html and Sen. Lieberman's 
"report card" at 
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/tech/DailyNews/internetgames981201.html --Declan

---

Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 14:59:12 -0500
From: Clayton Carter <crcarter () cs indiana edu>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>
Subject: [POLITECH] Warning Labels for Video Games?
User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5.1i

Hi Declan,

        Long time lister, etc.  I haven't played computer games in
years, but I still found this story[2] rather interesting (and
ridiculous) and thought that might be of interest to the rest of the
list.

        The summary is that some poor guy (with a documented history
of mental illness) in Wisconsin was supposedly addicted to
EverQuest[1] and, having commited suicide, his mom (he was 21) has
decided that Sony (which publishes EQ, I guess) needs to put warning
labels on the game because

        ``...they are all the same. It's like cigarettes. They need to
          come with a warning label. `Warning, extensive playing could
          be hazardous to your health.' ''

        The simplest (and, perhaps, most cynical) of the multitude of
questions that this brings immedediatly to mind is: I presume she
thinks that warning labels on video games will be more effective than
those found on cigarettes?

        Thanks for running the great list.  Take care.

Clayton

PS - It appears that K5 already ran something on this[3] (back on the
first).

[1] http://www.everquest.com/           (redirects to:)
    http://everquest.station.sony.com/
[2] http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/mar02/31536.asp  (same text as:)
    http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/3022603.htm
[3] http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/1/16133/05371

--
Clayton Carter   crcarter at cs dot indiana dot edu
"My mom says I'm the handsomest guy at school.""




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