The Parent’s Television Council, an organization dedicated to telling other people what to do, has applauded Arnold Schwarzenegger’s decision to appeal to the US Supreme Court over the dismissal of his hypocritical 2005 violent videogame law. The law would make the voluntary ESRB guidelines a compulsory and legally enforced measure, which was deemed unconstitutional and struck down.
“This California law was designed to enforce the videogame industry’s own voluntary retail guidelines … Our own research found that videogame retailers sell M-rated video games to minors 36% of the time. Clearly, this law is needed,” claims the PTC, before outright lying. “The industry doesn’t follow its own rules, and they don’t want a consequence for violating them.”
These rules that the game industry don’t follow? Would they be the rules that demand everything be passed through the ESRB for rating? The rule that’s, y’know, followed by everyone looking to release a retail game? Perhaps the PTC would be taken more seriously by the industry if it didn’t feel the need to embellish and lie. For such a morally upstanding group, they don’t seem too fond of telling the truth.
The violent videogame law is unconstituational and will never pass. Not only is it disgusting for a man who has profited from many violent movies to suddenly target videogames, it’s also disgusting that millions upon millions of taxpayers’ money has been sunk into the black hole of attempted videogame legislation. We are in a frigging recession and cash is just thrown around like candy to support a self-serving politician’s pet peeve. Applauding such a huge waste of money is absolutely pathetic and the PTC should be ashamed of itself.
