California
Assemblymember Leland Yee has a long political reputation for being
extremely responsive to those living in his district. Holding a PhD in
child psychology, his legislative efforts are often family-oriented and
child-protective. He has passed a bill that mandates medical records be
available to patients in their native language, and another which
allows foster parents to adminster medical, life-saving injections to
their foster children. To game developers, however, he's better known
for AB 1179 -- a proposition that many developers view as restricting
their medium.
Yee
spoke on a panel at the 2006 Game Developers Conference: “Murder, Sex
and Censorship: Debating the Morals of Creative Freedom.” According to
Brenda Brathwaite (game designer, professor, and panel moderator),
although a large number of political figures, including Sen. Hillary
Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger,
were invited to speak at GDC, Dr. Yee was the only one who agreed to
participate in the discussion.
Rounding
out the panel were prominent linguist and education-and-games proponent
Dr. James Paul Gee (University of Wisconsin at Madison) and Jason Della
Rocca of the IGDA.
The
discussion remained relatively professional and orderly in the first
half of the session, but grew more heated once audience members were
given the opportunity to ask questions--though some used the
opportunity to sound off against the politician, stemming the on-stage
dialogue and instead placing pressure on only Yee to respond.
Each
panelist holds a very different stance on the subject of violent video
games, which they shared in their opening statements. Yee, whose bill
has made it illegal for vendors to sell “ultra-violent” video games to
minors in California as well as mandate the type of informative signs
that are displayed around video game retail shelves, holds firm that
interactive video games that simulate real-world illegal actions (such
as urinating on a dead body or decapitating a human) can be harmful to
minors who play them due to the unique interactive nature of video
games.
Della
Rocca is against political interference on the game industry, holding
that games should be treated as any other entertainment medium, such as
literature or film.
Gee,
in a hopeful turn of opinions, advocates that researchers, game
developers, and politicians alike should focus their energy and money
at finding ways in which games can be useful, educational, or just
plain good.
“We
all agree with each other that we don't want 'M'-rated video games
handed out with lunch boxes,” said Brathwaite, uniting the panel early
on in the session. “We're here to discuss the issues and find some
common ground, to talk about what does this legislation mean for game
developers.”
But
Gee, easily the most positive of the panelists, resisted talking too
much about politics, spending more time explaining how the issues can
be approached differently. “I'm a person who has argued that playing
video games in the right context and the right way can be good for
you,” he said. “In the public discussion, we talk about when, where and
how they can be bad for you, but no time talking about what good they
can do.” When politicians and the media discuss game legislation, he
said, there's a lack of discussion about how legislators can bring the
positive effects of games into schools.
“How
many people do you think have been hurt by video games? How many people
have been helped by video games?” Gee asked. “This technology will
allow us to have a full spectrum chemist, or a full spectrum virus,”
which school children, scientists, or doctors are able to experiment
with in a safe environment. Gee also noted that, socially, legislators
should care not only about keeping children from harm, but also about
helping them.
“Every
time you deal with the media, you're asked: ‘Are video games good for
you or bad for you?' And the answer is neither. It depends what you do
with them,” Gee said, relating the example of televion and whether
children are active or passive watchers.
Yee,
on the other hand, tried to explain to the developers in the audience
that his bill only targets a small subset of games on the market,
calling it “very narrowly targeted.”
“Basically,
the bill I was able to pass... limits the sale of ultra-violent video
games to children. It does not prevent the sale of video games,” Yee
said.
Della
Rocca, who was surprised by a fairly strong turnout at the session,
said, “The ironic thing is that at this very moment Eric Zimmerman is
running his Game Design Challenge on the Nobel Peace Prize,” which pits
developers in a race to create a theoretical game that would, in this
case, literally change the state of the world for the better.
Della
Rocca, who said he has actually grappled with the issue of how the game
industry is or should be under governmental control, queried, “At the
same time, I have to question the political agenda in general. Is it
helping the youth? Is it hurting the youth and the parents?” He also
raised the problem of hype that surrounds games--how that hype actually
increases sales while adversely affecting the public perception of the
industry. “In a way, politicians are really helping the industry sell a
lot of crap games” due to their shock value, he said. “Politicians are
helping those crap games survive.”
Della
Rocca also spoke of the voice of many game developers, trying to
represent to Yee how those who make games feel about the political
controversy. “Some developers feel dirty; they feel ashamed to be a
game developers,” he said, noting how they have become “blacklisted” by
the media and culture at large. “Every time they encounter a journalist
or a family member ... it devalues the creative power of the work
force. I think that's really unfortunate and is holding back the
industry.”
Brathwaite,
mediating the discussion, asked the panelists to also consider the
stance taken by many which puts the responsibility of game purchasing
and playing on parents.
“All
of us in governement are not all that interested in getting deeply
involved in determining how kids should be raised,” said Yee; yet, the
consequence of not being involved deeply is the problem of negative
childrearing. “We have a responsibility to protect children.”
“We
shouldn't somehow interfere with parents raising their children... but
when there is significant information that children are being harmed”
it is the responsibility of the legislators to take notice and curb or
prevent the possibility of harm," Yee said. And with ultra violent
video games, “this is about the piecemeal behavior of mastering how to
hurt someone.”
Yee
cited examples of parents who work multiple jobs and simply are not
present enough to monitor their children's entertainment. “At least as
a child psychologist who cares about kids, we have got to do our part.
It's a central part of the public policy,” Yee said.
Gee
agreed that Yee's concerns were “very important” and would be discussed
for the next decade at least. “The issue that was just brought up is
the absolute crucial one. For normal kids playing video games, there is
no issue here. Of course, there are children who are living with
cultural violence or in violent homes,” said Gee. “But they're just as
likely to [commit violent acts] if they read a book, or if they see a
movie, or if they are insulted by a friend.” Gee also cited statistics
of urban violence in American decreasing in the 1990s, at the same time
that violent video games were first becoming widely popular.
“Let's
worry about the real world circumstances,” said Gee, noting that global
economic affect the level of violence seen more than any other factor.
For
audience question and answer session, more than a dozen audience
members lined up behind a centrally-located microphone to ask
questions. All the attendees who were able to ask a question (due to
time constraints) directed their questions at Yee.
One
question in particular on the research that supports Yee's
propositions, encited a confusing and misunderstood debate about
semantics of research. Yee commented that “there is no evidence that
smoking causes cancer” was jumped on by vocal members of the audience
before the child psychologist clarified (though still confusingly) the
difference between cause and effect findings in research and
correlational findings. The debate that ensued, spurred by further
audience outbursts, was ineffective and seemingly uninformed.
As
Brathwaite restored order in the large conference room, she turned the
talk back to its original question: What can we all do together to make
sure video games are sold in a responsible way?
Most
panelists agreed that the answer largely lies in educating parents
about what games are and what they do--and that includes all games, not
just the less than one percent of ultra-violent ones.
Yee,
whose composure was rattled slightly during the question and answer
session, recomposed himself to conclude, “I'm very respectful of the
kinds of technology that you've developed. ... I don't see this as
being adversarial.”
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