Massachusetts Bill To Restrict M Rated Game Sales

Despite an official ratings board that must give a game an official category before its released, there’s little to no mandatory control on how these ratings affect sales. Some vendors require their workers to check the IDs of patrons attempting to purchase M rated games, but these are relatively few. Beyond this scant control there’s only the supervision and diligence of parents to ensure that the impressionable youths remain unscathed from the evils of video games. The state of Massachusetts is going to be holding a hearing on Thursday to decide the fate of a bill proposing the criminalization of M rated game sales to minors. This would put video games on the same level with cigarettes and pornography as far as age restrictions go. Thomas Menino, the mayor of Boston, has thrown his full support behind the bill, the original draft of which was penned in part by anti-video game crusader Jack Thompson. Despite my strong support for video games in general and my beliefs that they are relatively harmless, I fully support this law. Mostly I like the idea in that it’ll hopefully get parents a little more involved in paying attention to what media their children are consuming.