Bottom Line: It doesn’t matter.
Do you honestly believe a group advocating “gamers’ rights” is going to get anything done in Washington? When a small group of obsessive hobbyists start churning out angry petitions to Congress, the only logical response is “Hahahahahaha! NNNNNNNNNERDS!!!!!” Legions of *edited*ed off parents will trump these *edited*ant organizations every time. This is a call-to-arms to about .001% of the population. I’m talking about geeks so geeky, they will never reproduce, nor should they. Of all the issues I am taking into consideration while contemplating who to vote for in the coming primary, the candidates’ positions on game legislation are not among them.
The trouble is that politicians don’t consider the complexity of the situation. The problem does not lie with the developers or the ESRB, but rather the retailers. It makes perfect sense that the parental groups are *edited*ed. Idiotic clerks are selling copies of M-Rated games to pre-teens behind their parent’s backs. I’m all for making the ESRB ratings legally binding. If some dumbass sells GTA4 to a kid, he should get fired and the store should be fined. Maybe then they’ll start doing their *edited* jobs.
On a similar note: There is absolutely nothing wrong with the ESRB rating system. AO is a necessary designation. In America, we do not ban games; we just keep them from being readily available. This means 1) Kids won’t see them on the store shelves and 2) Consumers can still buy them if they are willing to jump through an extra hoop or two. The AO rating has been given out only 23 times in the history of the ESRB. Almost all of them are PC porn games. Look it up. If you want to complain that you have to go all the way to the internet to order your copy of “WET – The Sexy Empire,” go for it, but be prepared to get singled out as a crybaby.
Before anyone says anything: I LOOOOOOVE GAMES. M-Rated games included. Two of my biggest interests are video games and politics. At times it seems the two subjects contradict each other, but there is no reason they can’t coexist. It just gets annoying how some people see it as some sort of civil rights issue.