ENCINO, Calif., May 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) blasted the New York Assembly for passing a video game bill that the association described as "ill-conceived" and "unconstitutional." The measure, Assembly Bill 8696, was approved today by a vote of 130-10 just five days after it was introduced and mere hours after it was considered in committee. EMA represents approximately 800 retail locations in the state of New York that sell and/or rent video games and DVDs.
A8696 would bar the dissemination to persons under age 17 of video games that contain depictions of "depraved violence" and "indecent images." A violation of the prohibition would be a Class E felony, which carries a penalty of up to four years in jail. The bill would also require all new video game consoles sold in the state as of September 1, 2009 to contain mechanisms to allow parents to prevent the consoles from playing video games with "certain content."
"This bill is ill-conceived and unconstitutional," declared EMA President Bo Andersen. "The proposal to jail retailers and clerks for up to four years for selling certain video games to persons under age 17 is apparently based on misunderstandings about what retailers are doing currently. The requirement that video game consoles include parental controls ignores the fact that the new generation of consoles include them already. Finally, nine similar proposals that have been enacted around the nation in recent years have all been blocked by federal courts on First Amendment grounds. For such an ill- conceived and unconstitutional law, ignorance is no excuse."
Major mass merchant retailers that sell video games have implemented policies to prohibit the sale of Mature-rated video games to minors. Likewise, rental stores assist parents through policies not to rent or sell or video games rated Mature to persons under 17 without parental consent. (As a matter of policy, major retailers do not sell video games rated Adults Only.)
Since the full implementation of these policies by video game retailers, the ability of minors to purchase Mature-rated games has been curtailed dramatically. The latest survey by the Federal Trade Commission, released on April 12, found that children the FTC sent into video game stores to buy Mature-rated games were turned down 58% of the time. Retailers have improved their enforcement of store policies restricting the sale of Mature-rated games by 362% -- from a 16% to a 58% turndown rate -- since the FTC's first shopping survey in 2000. The current turn-down rate is even higher, 62%, for the national retail chains where the vast majority of video games are purchased. http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/04/marketingviolence.shtm
According to Andersen, the requirement that all new video game consoles contain parental control mechanisms is unnecessary because the new generation of consoles -- Microsoft Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, and Sony PlayStation 3 -- all contain such mechanisms already. The parental controls generally can block games based on ratings assigned by the Entertainment Software Rating Board. In addition, in many games it is possible to adjust the intensity of game play.
Regarding the constitutionality of A8696, Andersen noted that liability would be predicated in part on whether a video game depicts "rape, dismemberment, physical torture, mutilation, or evisceration of a human body." "This bill is impermissibly vague," Andersen said. "A8696 seeks to apply real- world standards of violence to the fictional and fanciful world of video games, an environment in which they have no meaning. As a result, retailers and clerks will not and cannot know with certainty which video games could send them to jail under A8696. It was depressing to hear members of the Assembly note the constitutional problems with the bill and then state that they were voting for it."
For background on the Entertainment Merchants Association, see http://www.entmerch.org/.
Entertainment Merchants Association
CONTACT: Sean Bersell of EMA, +1-818-385-1500 x226,
sbersell@entmerch.org
Web site: http://www.entmerch.org/
