NY Bill To Keep ‘Nasty’ Games Locked Up
New York politicians seem to have a fondness for creating video game legislation. Lawmakers are currently in the process of trying to get a tax for downloadable content. Earlier this month democrat Keith L.T. Wright introduced legislation intended to protect minors from games containing profanity and racist stereotypes. Now republican Brian Kolb has introduced another bill that, if passed would force game vendors to keep certain games in a sealed container or somewhere the public has no access to them.
The law would have locked up any game that glamorizes “the commission of a violent crime, suicide, sodomy, rape, incest, beastiality or sado-masochism”. This is where I start getting confused. Games like Grand Theft Auto definitely glamorize violent crimes, but I have never in my lifelong gaming career seen a video game that even featured rape or incest, much less glamorized them. I have no problem with the government regulating the sale of games as long as they don’t censor the content. What I do take offense to is when politicians introduce legislation on topics that they quite obviously know nothing about.