In this week's news: game-related lawsuits.

That's right, people are suing each other again, surprised? Given that it's a US lawsuit, a country where you can sue companies for coffee being too hot, or sue homeowners for injuries sustained during home invasions, is it really that surprising? In this case, the lawsuit is over something that I'd assumed was behind us. The case of the terrible case of the GTA advertising on Chicago public transit vehicles and locales.

For those that need a recap, this started in April, when the CTA refused to run ads for GTA IV, breaking a contractual obligation established with Take Two Interactive to advertise the game on their public transit vehicles (The creator and publisher of the GTA series, for those who live under a bridge.) The matter was eventually settled outside out of court, and Niko Belic made a return.

The affair seemed finished, that is until these rumblings of the ESA filing suit against the CTA emerged yesterday morning. The city has apparently passed an ordinancet that prohibits the advertising of all M or AO video games on public transit vehicles and property, much like ads depicting alcohol and tobacco use. Apparently, according to the CTA, the ads could "incite imminent lawless action", almost as if they expect some law abiding citizen to see Niko Belic and start frothing at the mouth whipped into some sort of violent frenzy.

Even more disturbing is the suggestion by the CTA that games are somewhat equivalent to advertising alcohol or tobacco. Read that part over again. Isn't that more than a little scary? Video games are now mentioned in the same breath as alcohol and tobacco, and are for some reason still viewed as gateways to violent behaviour, despite no causal link between violent images and behavior. It's as if parental responsibility has no place in today's society, almost as if parenting is some sort of foreign concept.

At the end of the day, it's far easier to blame outside factors than to blame yourself. It doesn't matter that even if children see the ads and want a game like GTA IV, they'd need to get the money from their parents, most of the time, or their parents would just buy the game. It doesn't matter that R-rated movies are advertised freely in CTA vehicles and on CTA property, sometimes depicting the characters in the movies with (gasp) weapons. It doesn't matter that you can't even advertise tobacco anyway, no, all that matters is saving the poor children from the evil of video games, or rock music, or movies, or whatever-the-fuck-else people have used as scapegoats in the past. Hey, they can violate the first amendment, right? Because the ads are somehow more deplorable
than the gratuitous sex used to sell products to boys and girls alike, or overly sugary drinks, or R-rated TV and movies.

My main question here isn't even "why?", at least not at the moment. I still can't comprehend the CTA's reasoning behind this. What I want to know most of all is...

Who exactly does this ordinance protect, really? The children? Or lackluster parenting?