I have just released a new PFF white paper on “The Perils of Mandatory Parental Controls and Restrictive Defaults.” It points out the dangers of government mandating that parental controls be defaulted to their most restrictive position. I’ve gone ahead and just pasted the entire text below (but without the footnotes):

During ongoing debates about parental controls, ratings, and online child safety, there have occasionally been rumblings about the possibility of requiring that media, computing and communications devices: (1) be shipped to market with parental controls embedded, and possibly, (2) those controls being defaulted to their most restrictive position, forcing users to opt out of the controls later if they wanted to consume media rated above a certain threshold.

Imagine, for example, a law requiring that every television, TV set-top box, and video game console be shipped with on-board screening technologies that were set to block any content rated above “G” for movies, “TV-Y” for television, or “E” for video games, which are the most restrictive rating designations for each type of media. Similarly, all personal computers or portable media devices sold to the public could be forced to have filters embedded that were set to block all “objectionable” content, however defined.

If “default” requirements such as this were mandated by law, parents would be forced to opt out of the restrictions by granting their children selective permission to media content or online services. In theory, this might help limit underage access to objectionable media or online content. Such a mandate might be viewed as less intrusive than direct government censorship and, therefore, less likely to run afoul of the constitution.

For these reasons, such a proposal would likely have great appeal among some policymakers, “family” groups, child safety advocates, and parents. But mandating parental controls and restrictive defaults is a dangerous and elitist idea that must be rejected because it will have many unintended consequences and not likely achieve the goal of better protecting our kids. You Can Lead a Horse to Water, But…

As I have pointed out in my book on Parental Controls and Online Child Protection: A Survey of Tools and Methods, there has never been a time in our nation’s history when parents have had more tools and methods at their disposal to help them decide what constitutes acceptable media content in their homes and in the lives of their children. And this is true for all forms of media, from TV and music to video games and the Internet.

That being said, one of the enduring mysteries about parental controls is why many parents do not take advantage of the tools and options at their disposal. It’s the proverbial “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink” problem. There are a few reasons why this may be the case.

First, many households may not take advantage of parental control tools because they instead rely on a variety of non-technical “household media rules.” In chapter 2 of my book, I identified four categories of household media rules that surveys show almost all parents use in some combination to control their children’s media consumption: (1) “where” rules; (2) “when and how much” rules; (3) “under what conditions” rules, and, (4) “what” rules.

Second, in many homes, technical controls and rating systems are viewed as unnecessary if the kids are below or above a certain age. Many parents of children under 4 or 5 years of age, for example, do not let their kids consume much media, or they at least have much tighter control over their children’s media consumption habits. And after kids reach their mid-teen years, many parents eschew technical controls because they either trust their kids, or better yet, they constantly talk to them about media content or their online experiences.

Of course, it could also be the case that some parents do not use technical controls or rating systems because they find them too confusing. That may be true to some extent, but it is important to note that these controls and rating systems are getting increasingly easy to use. Most parental control tools are just one or two clicks away on most TVs, gaming systems, or personal computers. And although there are different rating schemes for different forms of media, those rating systems share much in common and are all quite descriptive. Setting up parental controls is certainly no more difficult now that programming a personal video recorder or uploading digital photographs to the Internet.

Finally, it may be the case that some parents are simply not aware of the controls or ratings. This too, however, is increasingly unlikely. Survey data suggests a growing familiarity with most rating systems, although some more than others. And companies and non-profit organizations are increasingly offering more information and tutorials along with the parental control tools that are typically embedded, free-of-charge, in almost all modern media devices. In any event, the answer to low awareness issues is not mandatory defaults but, as I explain below, increased educational efforts.

Forcing the Issue

Still, for whatever reason, many parents are not using parental controls or rating systems and, at the same time, many feel or express some concerns about being able to manage media use by their children. Regardless of the culprit—and it could be a combination of all of the factors listed above—what more could be done to encourage these parents to use these technical controls and rating systems to limit children’s access to potentially objectionable content or communications? There are two general options.

Increased Education & Empowerment Options One way to increase parental comfort levels is through better education and awareness-building initiatives. As mentioned, many companies already offer detailed information and tutorials along with the parental control tools they offer, but more could always be done to promote awareness of the tools and how to use them. Many parents may feel media use in their homes is unmanageable because they are unaware of their options or unsure how to utilize the available tools.

One sensible first step is the inclusion of easy-to-understand instructions in all user manuals. “Tip sheets” could also be bundled along with the products, which provide a summary of how set up parental controls, or what relevant ratings meant. Most vendors already offer this and much more on their websites, but sometimes the URLs for those pages can be difficult to find. All media companies should consider placing clearly labeled links on their websites to guide visitors to parental controls, ratings information, or online safety tips. Finally, customer support hotlines—whether automated and human-based—could probably be improved and expanded.

Again, most companies are already moving in this direction today. It’s simply a smart business practice since many parents increasingly expect such services to be available. To the extent some companies aren’t keeping up, others—policymakers and child safety groups, in particular—are increasing putting pressure on them to provide such tools and assistance.

Mandated Controls & Maximum Defaults The second approach to encouraging more widespread use of parental controls and rating systems would involve the sort of legal mandates described above. Presumably, this would require a law or regulation that would: (1) spell out what sort of controls or filters would be embedded in every “media or computing device” and then, (2) determine how restrictive the default control settings would be before the hardware or software in question was marketed. In essence, this would be a mandatory “opt out” regime for parental controls / filters.

The first portion of the mandate is largely unnecessary; almost all major media devices marketed today already contain some sort of parental control tools. All TVs include V-chips, all set-top boxes include additional TV screening controls, and all video game consoles include blocking tools for both games and movies. With PCs, filters and monitoring tools have been made ubiquitously available by ISPs and non-profit entities for little or no charge, and operating systems like the new Windows Vista have included parental control tools. Importantly, almost all of these tools are free-of-charge. A variety of supplementary tools can be purchased online or from electronics retailers or computer stores. As a general matter, moreover, it is rarely sound public policy to have governments—rather than markets—select a particular technology or service as a mandatory feature. This risks locking in less effective technology and, in a worst case scenario, creating financial windfalls for well-connected technology vendors.

The real debate, then, comes down to the question of how effective those embedded controls are at meeting the interests of parents, and whether the embedded controls should have pre-established defaults set to the most restrictive setting available before they are shipped or downloaded. Of course, any company could voluntarily offer such an alternative today. It’s worth asking, therefore, why are no companies currently doing so?

Enforcement Hassles

There are many reasons why no media or communications companies are currently offering such maximally restrictive defaults when they ship their products to market, and those reasons are instructive when considering the wisdom of mandating that such defaulted controls be imposed by law.

To begin, there’s just not as much demand for this as some might think. Again, not all parents see the need to use parental controls or ratings, usually because they rely on household rules or tightly monitor or restrict access to media and communications devices.

Second, not all homes have children in them. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, almost 68 percent of American homes do not have any children under 18 years of age in residence. Obviously, there is less interest in parental control technologies in adult-only homes.

Third, because there are many adults who purchase media devices for their own use, it would be illogical to ship all devices or products to market with the controls set to the most restrictive setting. In fact, many consumers (even some who are parents themselves) would likely find it annoying, and perhaps even somewhat insulting, to be forced to opt out of such controls when they purchase new media hardware or software. And it’s likely that as soon as such devices or services hit the market, consumer complaint hotlines would light up like Christmas trees due to calls from irate users griping about what they imagine to be defective hardware or software.

Could companies offer multiple versions of their hardware or software products to solve this problem? For example, some set-top boxes, gaming consoles, and PCs could be sold and labeled as “Kid-Friendly” (or “locked”) while others are “Adult-Only” (or “unlocked”). It goes without saying that this would represent a major expense to many vendors (especially hardware vendors). It could also create potential confusion when the devices are labeled and marketed for sale. And what would the penalty be for a mislabeled device, or the accidental sale of such a device to a minor?

Perverse Incentives and Possible Evasion

It may be that there is a market for such “kid-friendly” devices or services. There are, for example, some wireless device and service options designed for kids that have limited features, or some toy (and toy-like) devices that have filters on by default, or only work with certain age-appropriate internet services. Many social networking services designed for kids have strict settings on by default. These may well be fantastic choices for some parents and kids. But whether that is the case seems to be best determined by the market.

Mandating such a dual-version approach, particularly for mass-market general use devices like PCs and Televisions, seems likely to create perverse incentives, both for consumers and for media and technology providers. If services and devices are sold with the highest levels of restrictions active by default, many parents might seek to avoid the annoyance associated with the “kid-friendly” versions of the device and just purchase “unlocked” hardware or software. And kids would likely get quickly to work cracking the defaults on the locked / kid-friendly versions of the hardware or software. (Witness what happened in Australia within a few days of the government releasing subsidized filtering software). The result would be some significant degree of consumer dissatisfaction with high-default services and, except perhaps in the case of households with very young children, dissatisfaction with locked/kid-friendly services and devices.

Among the possible consequences would be a perverse incentive for service providers and device makers to avoid investing in parental control tools. If setting controls to the highest default level is mandatory, but at the same time most consumers don’t prefer that default level, some consumer backlash is inevitable. And when consumers are unhappy about a service feature—but companies are not permitted to address that unhappiness by turning off the higher settings—a likely result could be for companies to weaken or even not offer parental controls altogether.

There are other issues associated with enforcing such a mandate. Regulators would need to grapple with the possibility of widespread evasion in terms of offshore sales and black market devices. For example, would it be illegal for an eBay vendor located in Hong Kong to sell a U.S.-based customer an “unlocked” PlayStation Portable without first verifying that they are indeed an adult? If so, that’s another layer of regulation that needs to be considered in terms of online age verification.

Of course, governments could forbid the development of “unlocked” devices or software and mandate that every media or computing device sent to market had mandatory defaults set for maximum restrictiveness. Even assuming such rules would not run afoul of international trade rules, many of the same problems would still develop, however. It will likely be difficult to stem the flow of “illegal devices” or software, and hackers would likely only work harder to defeat existing controls. And what about all the existing “unlocked” devices already on the market? This mandate might breathe new life into older devices and discourage some consumers from making the jump to new hardware and software that includes superior parental control tools.

A final enforcement question relates to how broadly “media devices” are defined for purposed of this mandate. TVs, set-top boxes, gaming consoles and PCs would all be covered, of course. But what about mobile phones, iPods, MP3 players, PlayStation Portables and GameBoys, and so on? If Congress or the Federal Communications Commission defines “media devices” broadly, it would bring an unprecedented array of consumer electronic devices and communications technologies under the purview of federal regulatory authorities. Each class of devices would likely have its own set of enterprising hackers and renegade device makers, eager to evade the mandates. Presumably, financial penalties would be required and various enforcement actions would be sanctioned in an attempt to thwart such activity. Finally, as a result of these new mandates, the prices all the affected media devices would likely rise for consumers.

Unintended Consequences and Constitutional Concerns

At this point, some supporters of such an approach might be thinking: So what? Regulation is often difficult, even expensive, but we find ways to enforce many other laws if for no other reason than to try to teach the public, or kids, a lesson. In this case, some slippage in the system might be viewed as an acceptable trade-off for the increased awareness among some parents about parental control tools or potentially objectionable media content or forms of online communications.

But this mentality is quite myopic in that it ignores the many unintended consequences of such a regulatory regime. The fundamental problem with a mandate of this sort is that, while well-intentioned, it threatens to upset the current balance of things and could leave parents and their children less well off.

As was stated previously, there has never been a time in our nation’s history when parents have had more tools and methods at their disposal. It would be foolish, however, to think that this situation might not be retarded or even reversed by misguided public policy prescriptions. One of the most unfortunate consequences of such a mandate would be that it might lull some parents into a false sense of security. If parents came to believe that because a filter was installed they need do nothing more to help their children go online safely, or become engaged in their media choices, that would be an extremely troubling outcome.

Moreover, as was noted above, a rule mandating restrictive parental control defaults might create perverse incentives for industry to not rate content or build better controls at all. After all, it is important to remember that the ratings and controls that government is seeking to regulate here are voluntary and private; there is no reason they couldn’t be abandoned tomorrow. Of course, if they were abandoned that might lead to calls for government intervention / regulation and the substitution of some sort of universal ratings regime for the voluntary systems that exist today. If that scenario developed, lawmakers will be forced into making content-based determinations that would likely run afoul of the First Amendment.

But even if voluntary rating systems remained in place as the basis of a new federal enforcement regime, there are some constitutional issues in play here. Namely, it would be unconstitutional for government to enshrine a private ratings scheme into law or use it as a trigger for legal liability. That is what several courts have held in past years after some state and local governments attempted to enact laws or ordinances based upon the MPAA’s voluntary movie ratings system.

For example, in Borger v. Bisciglia a U.S. District Court held that “[A] private organization’s ratings system cannot be used to determine whether a movie receives constitutional protection.” Similarly, in Swope v. Lubbers, the court held that “[t]he standards by which the movie industry rates its films do not correspond to the… criteria for determining whether an item merits constitutional protection or not.” Roughly a dozen court cases have come to largely the same conclusion: Government cannot co-opt a voluntary, private ratings system for its own ends. Recent video game cases have reached similar conclusions. Thus, a law mandating parental control defaults based on voluntary ratings systems will likely end up in court and become the subject of another protracted legal battle between government and industry.

Is This Really Necessary?

Finally, it’s worth noting that most media, communications, and computing devices cost substantial sums of money. Televisions, movies, video games, cell phones, MP3 players, computers, and so on, do not just drop from high-tech heaven into our kids’ laps! When our kids want those things—or want things that are advertised on those media platforms—they must come to us and ask for money (usually a lot of it). This “power of the purse” is, in many ways, the ultimate parental control tool. If parents are shelling out money for such devices, presumably they are also in a good position to set some rules about the use of those devices once they are brought into the home. Whether those rules take the form of informal household media rules or technical parental controls is, ultimately, a decision that each family must make for themselves. There is no reason for government to make that decision preemptively for all households by mandating highly restrictive parental control defaults.

Moreover, there are better ways for government and industry to encourage the diffusion and adoption of parental control tools and rating systems. Instead of spending money litigating cases against the government, industry should plow their resources into improved, easier-to-use parental control tools and consumer education efforts. And, as was mentioned above, government education and awareness-building campaigns could go a long way toward improving consumer adoption. In the past, government has helped change public attitudes about safety in other contexts by undertaking (or lending support to) various public awareness campaigns, including: forest fire prevention efforts (“Smokey the Bear” campaigns); anti-littering efforts (“Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute”), and seat-belt safety. Those campaigns have helped forever change behavior and improved public safety as a result.

Policymakers should tap these more constructive, constitutional solutions and steer clear of mandating parental controls and restrictive default settings that would, ultimately, have many unintended consequences and leave parents and children worse off in the long run.

Today and tomorrow I am attending a terrific conference at Penn State University called, “Playing to Win: The Business and Social Frontiers of Videogames.” It features panel discussions about various legal and business issues facing the video game industry, as well as discussions about how video games are used to aid teaching and learning. There are also panels on multiplayer online worlds and virtual reality environments and the issues surrounding both. [They will apparently be posting videos from the conference on their site shortly.] The folks at PSU were kind enough to invite me to deliver the luncheon keynote on Day 1 and I decided to provide a broad overview of the policy issues facing video games that I have covered in some of my past work. My presentation was entitled, “Video Games, Ratings, Parental Controls, & Public Policy: Where Do We Stand?” and the entire 36-slide presentation is now available online here. Down below, I thought I would just outline a couple of the key themes I touched upon in my presentation.

ESRB: Strengths & Challenges

One of the things I did in my presentation was to provide a brief sketch of how the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), the game industry’s voluntary rating and labeling system, works. After doing so–again, you can download the entire presentation if you want those details–I outlined the strengths of the ESRB system, which I listed as follows:

Then I discussed some of the challenges facing the ESRB system…

General Thoughts on Ratings vs. Government Regulation

Later in the presentation, after walking through how various parental control tools worked, I talked about my general feelings regarding critiques of private rating systems and the ESRB in particular:

Future Issues & Controversies

I concluded by throwing out a few predictions about future issues and controversies that I think we will be debating in coming months and years.

I suppose I should provide some more details regarding this last slide since it will be of the most interest to many readers. Here’s some more explanation regarding each of my 7 predictions:

(1) Renewed push for universal media ratings: This issue has always been hanging out there and I think we will continue to hear calls–from both policy makers and media critics–for some sort of universal rating system for all media. God only knows how that would work. The last Star Wars movie (“Revenge of the Sith”) yielded several distinct media products: a major theatrical motion picture, a video game, a book, a comic book, and even a musical soundtrack. Should they all be rated the same way using the same system? I think that would be difficult to pull off. More worrisome is the fact that any move toward a universal rating scheme would undermine much of the education and awareness-building efforts that have helped familiarize consumers (especially parents) with the ESRB and other existing private rating and labeling systems. Finally, because it is unlikely we will ever see a voluntary movement by all major media producers to abandon their existing rating schemes and adopt a universal system, such a move would likely only come about because of action by government officials. Of course, that raises a host of First Amendment issues. For that reason, we might instead see a push for…

(2) Oversight of ESRB by Congress or non-profit / academic groups: Some critics say that the ESRB needs more “objective” oversight by either a regulatory agency or some of the third-party group, like an academic institution. As I point out in some of those slides above, ratings will ALWAYS have a subjective element to them since raters all bring different values and insights to the task of judging artistic expression. So making the rating process more bureaucratic isn’t going to make matters any better. Instead, it will just politicize the system and slow it down. [See my lengthy essay on this issue from a few weeks ago.]

(3) More FTC oversight of retailer enforcement: The Federal Trade Commission already conducts secret shopper surveys and issues an occasional report about the “Marketing of Violent Entertainment to Children.” Those reports has shown that retailer enforcement of the ESRB rating system is improving, but still needs to improve. [Here you will find my detailed thoughts on the conclusion of the last FTC report.] But there have been some calls in Congress for stepped-up FTC oversight, and potential penalties, for retailers who fail to enforce the system properly. (Remember Sen. Clinton’s “Family Entertainment Protection Act”?)

(4) Mandatory age verification for MMOGs & online activities: Here’s one to keep a close eye on. With a debate raging about the wisdom and effectiveness of age verification for social networking sites, it’s only a matter of time before online video games are brought into the discussion in a major way. The recent Bryon report in the UK included a discussion of this in the online gaming section of their final report. Stay tuned, this debate is set to explode here in the States.

(5) Mandatory parental controls defaults: One of my next white papers discusses the perils of government mandates that might force media & technology providers to not only embed parental controls in all their devices, but also turn them “ON” when they are shipped to market (meaning they would set to their most restrictive position as a defaults). For example, it could be required that every video game console be shipped with on-board screening technologies that were set to block any games rated above “E” (i.e., “Everyone”-rated games). Similarly, all personal computers or portable media devices sold to the public could be required to have filters embedded that were set to block all “objectionable” content, however defined. If “default” requirements such as this were mandated by law, parents would be forced to opt out of the restrictions by granting their children selective permission to content above a certain ESRB rating. In theory, this might help create another roadblock to underage access to some objectionable content, but it would also create an enormous consumer backlash and lead to a great deal of regulatory hassles and console hacking. Again, I’ve got an entire paper coming out on this issue from PFF next month that addresses my reservations with such a mandate.

(6) What happens when “AO” games hit consoles? I created some controversy recently when I noted that: “Whether any of us care to admit it, the fact that AO-rated games are currently kept off the major consoles and off the shelves at some major retailers (ex: Wal-Mart and Target) is probably the most important thing holding back a full-on legislative assault on video games.” Some took that to mean that I was advocating rigorous self-censorship of “AO” (Adults Only-rated) games. To the contrary, as I told MTV Multiplayer News, “I am in no way advocating that the industry hold off in terms of allowing complete creative expression.” And I also told MTV Multiplayer that I thought that eventually one of the major consoles–probably Sony–would cave and allow some AO-rated games on their platform. But make no doubt about it, when that happens, all hell is going to break loose. Not only with the typical pro-censorship crowd kick their complaint-generating factories into high gear, but a lot more average parents will protest the move and likely petition lawmakers for greater regulation of games or consoles.

(7) What about virtual reality games? And finally we come to virtual reality. All these other video game debates we have been having pale in comparison to the heated debate we can expect during the coming decade as virtual realities games and devices proliferate. And we all know they are coming. I fully expect that something like the Star Trek “holo-deck” will be in my living room by the time my kids are teenagers. We are already seeing more “tactile” devices coming to market, such as steering wheels and video game guns, that add a new layer of involvement to the games we play. Most recently, video game vests are hitting the market that simulate the sensation of being shot while playing a game. Once you combine these tactile technologies with more visually immersive visual display technologies, we will be well on our way to a serious VR world. And once they figure out a way to make it fully online and interactive, a huge policy debate is going to develop over the wisdom of letting people (especially kids) play holo-deck games where they actually feel like they are inside Halo or World of Warcraft, mowing down competitors with plasma rifles and broad swords. (Personally, I am very eager to try out “Resident Evil” this way!) Regardless, this debate is coming and it will be a very heated affair.

PFF has just releasing an updated edition of my booklet on “Parental Controls and Online Child Protection: A Survey of Tools & Methods.” The new version, Version 3.0, includes two new appendixes and updates to each section to reflect new parental control tools and programs developed in the last nine months.

The updated report is timely as it comes on the heels of the recently-announced Internet Safety Technical Task Force, which is being chaired by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. I am privileged to serve as a member of the Task Force, which is evaluating various online safety technologies and strategies and then reporting back to state attorneys general with our findings.

Those issues and much more are covered in the latest edition of my report. The report explores the market for parental control tools, rating schemes, education efforts, and initiatives aimed at promoting online child safety. I believe that the parental controls and content management tools cataloged in the report represent a better, less restrictive alternative to government regulation. As I conclude after evaluating that state of the market: “There has never been a time in our nation’s history when parents have had more tools and methods at their disposal to help them decide what constitutes acceptable media content in their homes and in the lives of their children.”

Version 3.0 of the special report, now over 200 pages, contains over fifty exhibits and numerous updates in all five sections of the book. Major updates have been made to the Internet, social networking, and mobile media sections, reflecting the growing importance of those sectors and issues. A greatly expanded section on video empowerment technologies has also been included. Finally, two appendices have also been added: a comprehensive legislative index cataloging over thirty bills introduced in Congress on these issues (complied with John Morris of Center for Democracy & Technology), and a glossary of 35 relevant terms and cases.

The report is available free-of-charge on the PFF website, as are the previous editions. And I am happy to provide hard copies to those who are interested.

Over at the popular gaming site 1up.com, a gentleman who worked briefly for the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has posted a provocative article entitled, “How to Fix the Game Ratings System: An insider’s take on what’s wrong with the ESRB.” In the piece, Jerry Bonner, who worked at the ESRB for 6 months according to GamePolitics.com, argues that “Something desperately needs to happen [to reform the ESRB] because the alternative — a government mandated and controlled rating scheme — is a downright frightening concept.” He continues:

“let’s fix [the ESRB ratings process] before things really get out of hand and a new government-appointed ‘Secretary of Interactive Entertainment’ is making the decisions as to what we can and can’t play. I know I don’t want that. I know you don’t want that. And I know that the people at the ESRB don’t want that. Let’s all make damn sure it doesn’t happen, shall we?”

Well, I can certainly agree with Mr. Bonner that a “Secretary of Interactive Entertainment,” or any sort of extensive government regulation of video games, is a very frightening prospect. The problem is, the “solutions” he outlines in his essay could actual put us on that path.

Re-shuffling ratings & discarding labels

Consider his first recommendation:

the ESRB’s ratings system desperately needs to be updated.” .. “The ESRB should be flexible, ready to change quickly or move forward as fast as this rapidly evolving industry. They did adopt the E10+ rating in 2005 and hired six full-time raters this past spring. While these changes are nice, I believe they need to go a bit further.

Well, as he points out, the ESRB system has been updated occasionally, and it will almost certainly continue to evolve in the future as needed. But Mr. Bonner has two suggested changes that he says will immediately improve the system. First, he wants the “Adults Only” (“AO”) rating wiped out and the current ratings scale adjusted such that Mature (“M”) becomes the new AO:

My suggestion is this: Change the letter ratings to E(veryone), E(veryone)10+, T(een)13, T(een)16, and M(ature). AO goes the way of the dodo and Mature now becomes the top of the scale, recommending that players be 18 and older to purchase.

His rationale is that the Adults Only rating has become the equivalent of the death penalty for some games since they cannot be played on major consoles or sold in store due to voluntary commitments. In one sense, that is a fair point. How can adults who want to play adult-rated games play them? The answer, of course is: on a PC. But there will be increasing pressure on console makers to change that policy to accommodate adult-only households.

But wouldn’t the better approach here be to just lobby console makers for some flexibility in that regard? Why screw with the ratings system? Indeed, the change Mr. Bonner suggests will invite far more pressure by critics and lawmakers for oversight or direct regulation of games since they will make the old “ratings creep” argument and say that the industry has done little more than water-down the upper ratings designations in an attempt to make AO-rated games more accessible.

Moreover, whether any of us care to admit it, the fact that AO-rated games are currently kept off the major consoles and off the shelves at some major retailers (ex: Wal-Mart and Target) is probably the most important thing holding back a full-on legislative assault on video games. Still, I think Mr. Bonner makes a fair point about finding a way to accommodate AO games, but his solution would lead to undesirable results in the form of even more pressure from critics and politicians on game makers and the ESRB.

Mr. Bonner also says that, “My other strong suggestion is to do away with the static content descriptors (“cartoon violence,” etc.) and use a more free-form approach like the Motion Picture Association of America, which tailors its descriptors for specific movie content.” I could not disagree more. The more than 30 content descriptors that ESRB applies to games provide consumers (especially parents) with highly detailed information about the games they are buying or letting their kids play. By simply glancing at the back of each game container, parents can quickly gauge the appropriateness of each title for their children. How can that be a bad thing? The more information the better, I say.

Play It All?

Mr. Bonner’s second recommendation is that “raters play the games to completion and carefully log their findings throughout the playtest.” He argues:

What the general public may not know is that the ESRB’s current pool of full-time raters (six people: three men and three women) does not actually play the games that they rate. They just watch submitted videotapes or DVDs of someone else playing the game. Now, when the switch was made from the use of a large pool of part-time raters to the current group of full-timers, the ESRB did decide to have the full-time raters actually play games as well, but these were rarely games that we dealt with in the rating process. They were just “random” titles from the vast ESRB archive, culled for busywork. And the raters were only required to play the games for four hours, anyway. For some titles, this is more than enough; for others, it is woefully inadequate.

Let’s get serious. Games are not linear media like TV shows or movies. Gameplay is highly unique and multi-dimensional, and often there is no clear “end” to the game. Raters would have to spend days–perhaps weeks–trying to “finish” some titles. This just isn’t practical. But Mr. Bonner anticipates this response:

I’ve already heard the ESRB’s argument on this one: “That’ll take way too long and it will compromise our turn-around time.” My solution to that is simple: Hire more people. The ESRB is a relatively small organization with about 30 full-time employees. This can be bolstered a bit, and I’m sure the developers and publishers can wait an extra week or so for their ratings if they know that a better, more thorough job is being done.

Mr. Bonner is underestimating the challenge at hand here. The ESRB would have to hire a small army of new, full-time raters to play ALL games ALL the way through, whatever that means. Who’s going to pay for all that manpower? Answer: Gaming companies. And they aren’t going to be very happy about it. Many developers are already seriously pissed off about having their artistic endeavors rated at all. This would make them even more angry. More importantly, it would likely slow down a system that is fairly responsive right now. Are game developers or gamers themselves going to tolerate weeks of delay waiting for raters to play a game “all the way through”? I don’t think so.

Transparency: The Unintended Consequences

It’s nearly impossible to be against transparency, no matter what the context. The more visibility about a process, the better. So, in one sense, it’s easy to sympathize with another of Mr. Bonner’s recommendations: Make the ESRB less secretive. He says:

I never understood why the board was so secretive about their modus operandi and why we, as raters, couldn’t be known to the general public or ever speak to a reporter. I finally asked about this and was told that it was for our protection, to ‘save’ us from unscrupulous publishers or journalists who might offer us money for a favorable rating or some inside information. The idea of it sounded absurd to me — people going to those shady lengths over game ratings? Seemed a bit excessive. Realistically, there is nothing to hide at the ESRB. Everything was above board as far as I could tell and all the employees are well-adjusted adults who can handle themselves in complicated situations. But by acting in a secretive, mysterious way, the ESRB creates an appearance of impropriety. This serves no purpose. And if the day does come when the ESRB drops the curtain, then the general public would be in a position to offer its own ideas on improving the system as well.

But let’s think this through a bit because there are actually some very good reasons for the ESRB–or any official rating system for that matter–to not be perfectly open as Mr. Bonner suggests.

With private, independent rating and labeling systems, those assigning ratings or labels are intentionally isolated from lobbying or other interest group pressures. If greater “transparency” meant forcing raters to be exposed to endless special-interest lobbying or other pressures, one wonders if that would really produce a better system. It would more likely produce a system that bowed to those pressures when they became intense enough.

For example, if those assigning video game ratings weren’t anonymous, they might be harassed by both game developers (who want to make them more lax) and game critics (who want to make them more stringent). This does not mean the raters ignore public input. To the contrary, most private rating boards and labeling bodies poll the public and monitor what critics are saying to adjust their systems occasionally. But if the ESRB was forced to make their ratings process completely open to anyone who cared to provide input (including the public policymakers themselves), it would result in a circus-like atmosphere and little content would get rated in a timely manner.

Think about it. Imagine if the ESRB was required to put out a public notice before the next installment in the “Grand Theft Auto” series was about to be rated. The raters would assemble in a public place and “play the game all the way through” in front of whoever cared to show up. Then they were to vote on their rating for the game. Can you imagine? You’d have Jack Thompson screaming bloody murder (literally!) from one side of the aisle while the guys from Take-Two would be going nuts on the opposite side claiming their First Amendment rights were under fire. Pro-censorship groups like the Parents Television Council would simultaneously be cranking their e-mail complaint generation machines into overdrive and flooding the raters with online petitions telling the them to “think of the children” or else they were all going to hell. Not to be outdone, gamers would unite with a vengeance and start sending the raters all sorts of irate messages and pasting the raters’ images into online shooting gallery games, or worse. Again, it would be a complete circus. Meanwhile, nothing would get done in a timely way. The assignment of ratings would get back-logged, especially for controversial games that “deserve more consideration,” as critics would certainly demand.

Moreover, calling for more transparency in the ratings process actually leads us right back to the grim prospect of increased government oversight of the ratings process in ways Mr. Bonner has not considered. The Federal Trade Commission or Federal Communications Commission would likely be asked by Congress to “rate the raters” using some subjective socio-political scale. And you’d have the raters hauled in front of regulatory commissions and into congressional hearing rooms to “account for their actions.” Sen. Brownback and Sen. Clinton would engage in a heated war of words about who really loved our children more, and then they would both lambaste the raters for “not doing a better job” (i.e, for not censoring games).

So let’s be careful about calling for “transparency” without thinking through the consequences.

Ratings “Competition”

Mr. Bonner wraps up by suggesting that what the ESRB really needs is some competition in the ratings business:

Who is to say that some upstart entrepreneurs couldn’t contest the ESRB’s status, especially now? Who says that the ESRB has to be the only game in town? The threat alone of a competing ratings entity would force the ESRB to take a long, hard look at how they are doing things and, in turn, make the necessary changes to move forward. Some may say that a competing system would just confuse things further, that it could invite government regulation because politicians could claim that the industry no longer has the ability to field a single, dependable regulating body. But what I’m suggesting here is capitalism at its finest — the American Way, if you will. Compete or perish.

Well, I’m about as rabid of a capitalist as you will find and believe passionately in a “compete or perish” market system. But capitalism also depends on standards. Many businesses and business methods get built upon standards that bring certainty to the occasional chaos of the marketplace. And when it comes to official industry rating systems, standards make a great deal of sense. If you hope to build acceptance and awareness about a voluntary rating system, you need a certain amount of stability and scale. Everything needs to be rated according to a widely understood benchmark and then branded accordingly. That’s how you get people to use it–both the industry, who must affix the ratings to every game, and the public, who ultimately need consistent, reliable information.

Importantly, however, I am just talking about official industry rating systems here. There is no reason that other private systems cannot develop to supplement the official rating system. And I’m happy to report to Mr. Bonner that there is a lot of competition out there already in this regard. As I reported in my book on “Parental Controls & Online Child Protection,” a wonderful and growing diversity of independent game rating services exist today. Organizations such as Common Sense Media, What They Play, Gamer Dad, Children’s Technology Review and MediaWise “KidScore” provide detailed video game reviews and information about the specific types of content that kids will see or hear in a game. Parents can use information from those sites and services to verify ESRB game ratings independently, or just to get more details about what might be in the games they buy their kids.

But if Mr. Bonner seriously believes that an entirely different, competing rating system is going to develop from within the industry as an official alternative to the ESRB, I think he’s dreaming. Developers would never tolerate it. And, as he suggests, it would lead to more pressure from critics and regulators for a single government regulatory standard.

Final Thoughts

What critics consistently forget—or perhaps intentionally ignore—is that media rating and content-labeling efforts are not an exact science; they are fundamentally subjective exercises. Ratings are based on value judgments made by humans who all have somewhat different values. Those doing the rating are being asked to evaluate artistic expression and assign labels to it that provide the rest of us with some rough proxies about what is in that particular piece of art, or what age group should (or should not) be consuming it. In a sense, therefore, all rating systems will be inherently “flawed” since humans have different perspectives and values that they will use to label or classify content.

Much ink is spilled over how rating systems can be improved. Everyone seems to have their own ideas about what “the best” system would look like. But, at the end of the day, someone has to (1) create a standard and (2) enforce it as broadly as possible so that (3) the public accepts and uses it.

The ESRB has done that quite effectively in my opinion. In fact, in many ways, although it is the newest of all industry content rating and labeling schemes, the video game industry’s system is in many ways the most sophisticated, descriptive, and effective ratings system ever devised by any major media sector in America. Is it perfect? Of course not. Improvements can always be made, but we should not lose sight of the fact that the ESRB system (1) is highly descriptive, (2) rates virtually all game content sold today, and (3) is widely understood and used by game consumers and parents today.

We should not underestimate that accomplishment. And in seeking to refine or improve the system, we should be careful not to upset the current balance of things and open the door to excessive interference by pesky politicians and censorial-minded gaming critics.

UPDATE: There’s a very interesting discussion taking place over at GamePolitics.com about these issues.

GamePolitics.com reports on a murder trial in Alabama in which the attorney for a disturbed teenager is blaming video games for his barbaric behavior:

The lawyer for a man being tried for murder is trying to convince an Alabama jury that the defendant believed he was acting out a video game when he murdered an 80-year-old man on Halloween, 2005. As reported by the Decatur Daily, Andrew Reid Lackey, 24, does not dispute that he stabbed, shot and gouged out the eye of his victim, Charlie Newman. However, Lackey’s attorney, Randy Gladden, is pointing the finger at video games. From the newspaper report:

Actions that led to a deadly confrontation between a defendant and an 80-year-old widower resembled a video game to the accused… [Attorney] Gladden described Lackey… as a computer geek who had immersed himself in video games and lived in “a different world than you and I.”

Tapes of a 911 call made by the victim during the fatal confrontation, however, indicate that old-school greed may have been the motive. Lackey is heard to demand of the victim, ”Where’s the vault?” seven different times. Charlie Newman’s grandson had previously told Lackey that the victim kept a large sum of money in a vault under the stairs. However, no such vault existed.

It’s just disgraceful–but perhaps not all that surprising–that this desperate defense attorney would employ tactics like this. Video games have become the universal excuse du jour for violent behavior. It’s absurd for all the reasons I have pointed out here before. It’s abundantly clear that old fashion greed and a disturbed mind motivated this particular crime, and if you think that sort of thing didn’t happen before video games came along, then you just haven’t read any history. Of course, they instead just blamed movies, comics, and books for the crimes back then! There’s always someone else or something else to blame. It’s the never-ending search for a universal scapegoat for irrational or criminal behavior. The twisted logic = Don’t blame the individual, blame the media.

Pathetic.

Anthony Prestia of Laws of Play, a blog dedicated to covering legal developments in the gaming industry, somehow got some face time with Supreme Court Justice Scalia and was able to ask for his feelings concerning the constitutionality of recent state video game legislation. “In particular,” Prestia says, “I asked him whether as an originalist he believed that state laws banning the sale of mature-rated video games to minors ran afoul of the First Amendment.” Here’s Prestia’s summary and analysis of Scalia’s answer:

In his most succinct reply of the day, Justice Scalia replied that he did believe such legislation was constitutional. He began by explaining his belief that sound constitutional precedent holds that minors may be subjected to prohibitions that adults are not–-he instantly drew the parallel to regulation of pornography sales. However, Justice Scalia emphasized that unprotected speech, such as obscenity–which he was unwilling to define for reasons that are immediately evident to any constitutional scholar–-can be prohibited from sale regardless of the purchaser’s age. I think the important thing to note here is that Justice Scalia did not suggest that violent and/or sexual content in games rises to the level of unprotected speech. In fact, he did not even suggest that video games themselves are not protected by the First Amendment despite his strict originalist beliefs.

That’s an interesting response in that Scalia’s latter comments imply that even older, more conservative judges are coming around to understanding how video games are a form of artistic expression deserving the protection of the First Amendment. But Scalia’s earlier suggestion that state laws banning sales of certain video games to minors maybe constitutional deserves a response.

Scalia is certainly correct that states have passed laws banning the sale of pornographic material to minors, but their are two important differences between those bans and a ban on the sale of video games to children. One is obvious: No video game has ever been defined as “obscene to minors.” Now, it may be the case that some game will be defined as such in the future. But for now, the primary concern about video games to sales has related to the violence in video games, not the sexual content. And violence has never been equated with obscenity, although Kevin W. Saunders of Michigan State University has been making the argument for many years that the two should be equated in an effort to ban violent video game sales. And there are others who agree with him. But no legislature or court has yet agreed with that reasoning. So, that’s the first difference that Scalia ignores.

The second difference Scalia ignores is the mechanism of controlling the sale of video games to children. Every legislature that has so far sought to regulate the sale of video games has proposed that the bans been linked to the sale of games rated a certain way by the game industry’s private rating body, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). And every one of those measures has been struck down by the courts as unconstitutional. One of the reasons the laws have been overturned is because other court precedents have held that the state may not give a private, voluntary rating system the force of law.

Again, when state governments regulate obscenity, they are not doing so by co-opting some private industry rating system. In the case of video games, however, the states would seek to use “AO” (Adults Only) or even “M” (Mature) ratings that were assigned by the ESRB as the trigger for the law to kick in. That’s generally been forbidden by the courts when some states in the 1970s and 80s sought to use the movie industry’s private rating system (the MPAA system) to regulate or ban the showing of certain movies or their sale. The reason the courts have blocked such enactments is not just because it would be misguided to allow a private labeling code to become a tool of public censorship. The other reason is actually more compelling: As I pointed out in my big PFF study on video game regulation, if a state sought to use a voluntary rating system to ban certain types of content, it would likely kill voluntary rating systems:

why would game developers continue to voluntarily rate their content if the threat of fines or prosecution looms overhead? Fearing such liability, there is a real risk that many in the industry would likely stop rating games altogether since there would be no penalty for refusing to label content. If this were to occur, parents and all game consumers would lose valuable information about the age appropriateness and content of the games that they are thinking of buying.

So, these are just a few of the factors that Justice Scalia and the Supreme Court would need to consider if a case came before them dealing with the constitutionality of regulating video game sales to minors. This is not to say anyone is in favor of actually selling mature or adult-oriented games to minors. It’s just to say that there are more sensible (and constitutional) ways of handling this problem. Parents have many less-restrictive means of dealing with underage access to potentially objectionable games—such as the industry’s private rating and labeling system, third-party ratings and info, console-based controls, and the fact that they don’t have to buy the games in the first place! [See my study and parental controls book for more details on all these things.]

I have an editorial appearing on CNet News today about “New Mexico’s video game nanny tax.” Quick background: The New Mexico legislature has introduced a new tax measure that would force consumers to pay a 1 percent excise tax on purchases of video games, gaming consoles, and TVs. The revenue generated from the game and TV tax would be used to fund a new state educational effort aimed at getting kids out of the house more. True to the aim of the measure, they have even given the bill the creative title, “The Leave No Child Inside Act.” In my editorial, I argue that:

legislators shouldn’t be using the tax code to play the role of nanny for our kids. It is the responsibility and right of parents to determine how their kids are raised. Many of us would agree that more outdoor time is a laudable goal. But should the government be using the tax code to accomplish that objective?

I point out that the proposal raises serious fairness questions that makes a constitutional challenge likely since older court cases dealing with other media have also made it clear that public-policy makers are forbidden from using the power to tax in an effort to discriminate against speech or expression that they disfavor. Moreover, on the fairness point:

Why just blame video games for kids not getting enough time outdoors? How about a tax on social-networking Web sites or instant messaging? Many kids are spending almost as much time online right now as they do playing video games. And what about other types of non-digital games that might keep kids indoors? My daughter spends a lot of time playing Sudoku puzzles, for example. Perhaps we should tax Sudoku books, chess boards, and even arts and crafts! After all, the goal here is to do whatever it takes to get kids outside, right? Or is it really just to get kids to stop playing video games?

Read the entire piece here if you are interested.

One of the things I find most interesting about calls to regulate “excessively violent” content on television, in movies, or in video games is the way critics make massive leaps of logic and draw outrageous conclusions based on myopic, anecdotal reasoning. I was reminded of that again today when reading through an interview with Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va), one of the most vociferous critics of all sorts of media content and a long-time proponent of regulation to censor such violent content in particular (however it is defined). (I have written about his past regulatory proposals here and here).

Here’s what he recently told the editorial board of The Register-Herald of West Virginia:

Violent content has a way of desensitizing impressionable minds, he said, alluding more than once in the interview to school shootings, especially the horrific massacre at Virginia Tech. To buttress his point, the senator told of an 80-year-old World War II veteran who visited him at home and described his wartime experiences, how he helped blow up German troop trains. “He said that he just got numb, that he lost any feeling,” he said. “One thing was that he couldn’t see them. And that’s also true with troops on the ground. It gives them post-traumatic stress disorder.” Then the senator borrowed a line from Gen. George Patton’s obscenity-laced rallying speech to troops, about making the other man die for his country — except Rockefeller omitted the salty-tongue warrior’s allusion to the enemy’s paternity. “That is the point — you get immune to it,” he said.

Except that you don’t–at least not entirely, and Sen. Rockefeller’s examples prove that point. How is it, after all, that these brave soldiers witnessed and endured unspeakable acts of violence during those years and yet came home and became known as “The Greatest Generation”? They rebuilt post-war America and turned us into the greatest economic powerhouse on Planet Earth. But if we are to believe Sen. Rockefeller’s logic, they should have instead come home and turned America into a nation of murders, thieves, and thugs. After all, it’s “monkey see, monkey do,” right? If you witness violence, you will later perpetrate violence, or so the theory goes.

But, again, they didn’t. Why is that? It’s a really interesting question and it is one that many folks continue to ask with regards to exposure to violent media content in movies, TV shows or video games. After all, many people find something intuitively appealing about “monkey see, monkey do” explanations. Namely, it provides one possible and simplistic explanation for why some people do engage in violent behavior.

In reality, however, most humans possess a sort of moral compass or moral check on their behavior. They can witness something extremely violent–whether it is real or just a dramatization–and process that information in a rational way. Millions of soldiers throughout history have witnessed (and many have been forced to engage in) horrific acts of violence on a battlefield, and yet they would never think of carrying out those same acts on a public sidewalk. Similarly, millions of average folk have watched countless acts of violence in plays, movies, TV shows and games, and yet would never consider carrying out those same acts in public. Simply stated, most people can separate fantasy from reality–even children as they come to understand social norms about acceptable behavior.

I hate to use anecdotal reasoning here but I’m going to since I think my case is not unique. I grew up watching plenty of movies and TV shows jammed packed with senseless violence. In fact–and some people with think this is sick–my Dad and I used to have a fairly impressive horror movie collection on VHS tapes and would often discuss which “slasher movie” was better or had more blood. A little sadistic? Perhaps, but we found it all quite funny. The important point is that neither of us ever picked up a machete or a chainsaw and decided to take a stroll down to a summer camp to chop up teenagers! Same goes for the millions of other people who grew up enjoying those movies.

And where do I even begin to summarize how much violent video game content I have seen through the years? From my Atari 2600 in the late 70s to my current Xbox 360 and Sony PS3, I have probably played just about ever type of violent video game imaginable. The “Resident Evil” series was a favorite and I have played every one of them start to finish, but I enjoyed most of the popular “first-person shooter” games as well. Again, there are millions of others like me out there and somehow the vast majority of us grew up, got good jobs, created the Internet, so on and so forth. We didn’t take to the streets and start murdering each other just because we played a lot of Duke Nukem or Doom.

So, while the world isn’t perfect, it isn’t the hell-hole that the “monkey see, monkey do” media critics say it is either. Matter of fact, the world seems to be getting better in many important ways–and ways that it should not be if we are to believe all those “world-is-going-to-hell” critics. Just look at the facts about leading social indicators. A new article in Commentary magazine by Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin entitled “Crime, Drugs, Welfare—and Other Good News” points out that just about all the important social indicators (murder, rape, robbery, etc) have witnessed steady decreases. (I provide all the supporting statistics in this paper, starting on page 20). They point out that:

In attitudes toward education, drugs, abortion, religion, marriage, and divorce, the current generation of teenagers and young adults appears in many respects to be more culturally conservative than its immediate predecessors. To any who may have written off American society as incorrigibly corrupt and adrift, these young people offer a powerful reminder of the boundless inner resources still at our disposal, and of our constantly surprising national resilience.

Again, how can this be happening if violent media spawns violent minds and violent acts?! After all, there’s just as much violent media content out there today as there was in the past; some critics claim much more exists now than in the past. So how is it that the kids are alright? Why are things getting so much better when the “monkey see, monkey do” theorists tell us they should be getting so much worse?

The critics, like Sen. Rockefeller, have no answer. They just continue to arrogantly ride around on their moral high horses and tell us that were are all just ignorant sheep who are being programmed to be killers by the media that we enjoy.

In the real world, of course, the rest of of us just yawn, turn off the TV or video game, go to bed happy, and wake up the next day to live a normal, productive lives. Sen. Rockefeller and his fellow media critics should try doing the same thing and leave the rest of us alone.

PFF has just released my latest paper entitled “Parental Control Perfection? The Impact of the DVR and VOD Boom on the Debate over TV Content Regulation.” In the report, I focus on the extent to which new video technologies, such as digital video recorders (DVRs) and video on demand (VOD) services, are changing the way households consume media and are helping parents better tailor viewing experiences to their tastes and values. I provide evidence showing the rapid spread of these technologies and discuss how parents are using these tools in their homes. Finally, I argue that these developments will have profound implications for debates over the regulation of video programming. As parents are given the ability to more effectively manage their family’s viewing habits and experiences, it will lessen—if not completely undercut—the need for government intervention on their behalf.

This 16-page report can be found at: http://www.pff.org/issues-pubs/pops/pop14.20DVRboomcontentreg.pdf

Seth Schiesel of the New York Times seems to be channeling me in his piece yesterday entitled, “Courts Block Laws on Video Game Violence.”

As video games have surged in popularity in recent years, politicians around the country have tried to outlaw the sale of some violent games to children. So far all such efforts have failed. Citing the Constitution’s protection of free speech, federal judges have rejected attempts to regulate video games in eight cities and states since 2001. The judge in a ninth place, Oklahoma, has temporarily blocked a law pending a final decision. No such laws have been upheld.

I’ve been doing a lot of writing on this subject in recent years and have pointed out that every single court that has reviewed the constitutionality of video game regulation has concluded that:

(1) Video games are a form of expression protected by the First Amendment.

(2) Not a single court in America has supported the theory that a causal link exists between exposure to video games and real-world acts of actual violence.

(3) Parents have many less-restrictive means of dealing with underage access to potentially objectionable games—such as the industry’s private rating and labeling system, third-party ratings and info, console-based controls, and the fact that they don’t have to buy the games in the first place! [See my paper and book for more details on all these things.]

Unfortunately, that’s not going to stop other states from trying to regulate. As Schiesel points out,

New York will probably be the next state to try its chances in court. Gov. Eliot Spitzer has declared regulating children’s access to video games a priority. The State Assembly passed a game-regulation bill in June, and the Senate could take up the measure when the Legislature reconvenes as soon as next month. The New York bill has been phrased in an attempt to pass constitutional muster, but it will almost surely be challenged by the same game-industry legal team that has successfully opposed game regulations around the country.

You can bet the bank on it. And they will win again.

The video game industry’s string of unbroken First Amendment court victories continued this week with a win in the case of Video Software Dealers Association v. Schwarzenegger. [Decision here.] In this case, the VSDA and the Entertainment Software Association brought a suit seeking a permanent injunction against a California law passed in October 2005 (A.B.1179), which would have blocked the sale of violent video games to those under 18. Offending retailers could have been fined for failure to comply with the law.

The court’s decision overturning the law was written by Judge Ronald Whyte and it echoed what every previous decision on this front has held, namely:

• “even though mere entertainment, are nonetheless protected by the First Amendment.” (p. 5) “[T]he Act is a content-based regulation and it is presumptively invalid.” (p. 12)

• “Neither the legislative findings nor the evidence submitted by [the State] suggest that the expression in violent video games is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action…. In addition, neither the legislative findings nor the evidence shows that playing violent video games immediately or necessarily results in real-world violence.” (p. 6) “[A]t this point, there has been no showing that violent video games as defined in the Act, in the absence of other violent media, cause injury to children.” (p. 15)

• “The State has also not shown that the Act will accomplish its goal of protecting the physical and psychological well-being of minors more effectively than the existing, narrower industry standards.” (p. 14) “To pass the strict scrutiny test, therefore, the state must demonstrate that the industry labeling standards, either alone or combined with technological controls that enable parents to limit which games their children play, do not equally address the state’s interest in protecting the physical and psychological well-being of children. The State has not demonstrated that the Act is narrowly tailored to address its purpose. Therefore, the Act cannot pass strict scrutiny.”

So, for those policy makers who have not been listening, let’s make it abundantly clear what this decision and the 10 slam-dunk decisions that came before it have ALL concluded:

(1) Video games are a form of expression protected by the First Amendment.

(2) Not a single court in America has supported the theory that a causal link exists between exposure to video games and real-world acts of actual violence.

(3) Parents have many less-restrictive means of dealing with underage access to potentially objectionable games–such as the industry’s private rating and labeling system, third-party ratings and info, console-based controls, and the fact that they don’t have to buy the games in the first place! [See my paper and book for more details on all these things.]

And, so, I’ll again ask the question that I have posed in every essay I write on this topic: When are state and local lawmakers going to stop wasting taxpayer dollars with unnecessary regulatory enactments and fruitless lawsuits aimed at censoring video games? After all, as I calculated before in this essay, the video game industry has recovered roughly $1.5 million in legal fees and that number doesn’t include all the money that state and local governments have wasted litigating these cases through the courts. All that money could have been plowed into educational efforts to help explain to parents and kids how to use the excellent voluntary ratings systems or console-based parental control tools that are at their disposal.

[As always, for the best coverage of this recent decision and its impact, check out the reports over on GamePolitics.com, like this, this, this, and this.]

Today, PFF has released my latest book: Parental Controls and Online Child Protection: A Survey of Tools and Methods. The entire publication is online and can be downloaded at http://www.pff.org/parentalcontrols (Note: I will be making constant updates to the book in coming months and will post them to that site).

As the title implies, the report provides a broad survey of everything on the market today that can help parents better manage media content, whether it be broadcast television, cable or satellite TV, music devices, mobile phones, video game consoles, the Internet, or social networking websites. I put this report together to show policymakers, the press and the public that many constructive options exist that can help parents control media in their homes and in the lives of their children.

While it can be a formidable challenge to be a parent in an “always-on,” interactive, multimedia world, luckily, there has never been a time in our nation’s history when parents have had more tools and methods at their disposal to help them determine and enforce what is acceptable in their homes and in the lives of their children. And that conclusion is equally applicable to all major media platforms. In the past, the OFF button was the only technical control at a parent’s disposal. Today, by contrast, parents (like me!) have myriad tools and methods to restrict or tailor media content to their own household tastes and values. Those restrictive tools include: the V-Chip and TV ratings; cable and satellite set-top box screening tools; DVD blocking controls; cell phone blocking tools; video game console controls; Internet filtering and monitoring tools, instant messaging monitoring tools; operating system controls; web browser controls; search engine “safe search” tools; media time management devices, and so on. You will find an exhaustive discussion of all these tools and many others in my book.

But that’s just part of what I discuss in the report. I also highlight how enabling or tailoring tools are what makes today’s parental control market so exciting. By enabling or tailoring tools I mean any tool or method that a parent might use to enable their families to see, hear, or consume content they would regard as more appropriate, ethical or enriching. For example, for televised media, VCRs, DVD players, and personal video recorders have emerged as important parental control devices. These technologies give parents the ability to accumulate libraries of preferred programming for their children and determine exactly when and where it will be viewed. Pay-per-view options also help parents better tailor viewing choices for their kids. And don’t forget about the huge and growing market for educational DVDs, video tapes and computer software.

I also spend an entire section of the report discussing the importance of informal household media rules. Oftentimes, debates about inappropriate content get so caught up with disputes about technical controls, ratings or even regulation that we forget that parents often view all these things merely as backup plans. In my book, I identify four categories of household media rules that surveys show almost all parents use some combination of to control their children’s media consumption. These household media rules include:

(1) “where” rules (assigning a place for media consumption); (2) “when and how much” rules (creating a media allowance); (3) “under what conditions” rules (carrot-and-stick incentives); and, (4) “what” rules (specifying the programming kids can and cannot watch).

Certainly most of us are familiar with widely used household media rules like, “No watching TV or playing games until your homework is done,” or “You can’t watch that movie until you complete your chores.” Such household media rules can actually be more effective in controlling children’s media habits than technical controls. But debates about parental controls and media policy treat these informal media rules almost as an afterthought, if they are mentioned at all.

Finally, and most importantly, I discuss the importance of education and media literacy. As I discussed here last week, education is a vital part of parental controls and online child protection efforts. In fact, if there is one point I try to get across in my new book, it is that, regardless of how robust they might be today, parental control tools and rating systems are no substitute for education–of both children and parents. The best answer to the problem of unwanted media exposure is for parents to rely on a mix of technological controls, informal household media rules, and, most importantly, education and media literacy efforts. And government can play an important role by helping educate and empower parents and children to help prepare them for our new media environment.

I also spend a lot of time in the book debunking myths about social networking sites and online dangers in general, which I believe are greatly overstated. Part V of the book deals with those myths and fears and shows why regulatory proposals like age verification, data retention and mandatory website labeling won’t help matters any.

If you’re a parent, I hope you find this book to be a useful resource and will let me know if there are ways I can improve it since, as I noted before, I will be posting occasional updates online to keep it fresh. And I hope I will have proven to you (and to policymakers) that there are many constructive alternatives at your disposal that you can tap before turning to government and asking for regulation “for the children.” Parents have been empowered. It is now their responsibility to take advantage of the tools and controls at their disposal to determine what is acceptable in their homes and in the lives of their children.

Some lawmakers at the federal, state and local level have advocated video game industry regulation in the name of protecting children from potentially objectionable content, usually of a violent nature. In my opinion, the better approach–and one that doesn’t involve government censorship or regulation of games–is to empower parents to better make these decisions for their own families. And the key to that effort is an effective rating / labeling system for game content that parents understand and use.

Luckily, there are good signs that the video game industry’s voluntary ratings system–the ESRB (the Entertainment Software Rating Board)–is doing exactly that. The game industry established the ESRB in 1994 and it has rated thousands of games since then. (The ESRB estimates it rates over 1,000 games per year). Virtually every title produced by major game developers for retail sale today carries an ESRB rating and content descriptors. Generally speaking, the only games that do not carry ESRB ratings today are those developed by web amateurs that are freely traded or downloaded via the Internet.

The ESRB applies seven different rating symbols and over 30 different content “descriptors” that it uses to give consumers highly detailed information about games. Thus, by simply glancing at the back of each game container, parents can quickly gauge the appropriateness of the title for their children.

So, how effective is this system, as measured by parental awareness and usage of the ESRB ratings and labels? Since 1999, the ESRB has asked Peter D. Hart Research Associates to study that question and conduct polls asking parents if they are aware of the ESRB ratings and if they use them. As this chart illustrates, the results are impressive with both awareness and use growing rapidly since 1999:

Better yet, all gaming platforms and most PCs can read these ratings and labels and allow parents to block games rated above a certain level they find unacceptable. But the real strength of the ESRB’s ratings system lies in the content descriptors, which give parents plenty of warning about what they will see or hear in each title. That way, parents can talk to their kids about those games or just not buy them for their kids until they think they are ready.

The game industry deserves credit not only for creating such an excellent content rating / labeling system, but also putting significant resources into public education / awareness efforts to ensure parents know how to take advantage of it. So then, why are lawmakers continuing to waste millions of taxpayer dollars litigating unneeded regulatory efforts?

Over at National Review Online today, Peter Suderman has a good discussion of the current state of video game politics. As usual, a lot of politicians are playing games; political games, that is. Suderman notes that:

…attacking the video-game industry has long been a favored sport amongst politicians eager to shore up their credibility with the concerned parent crowd. At the state level, at least ten laws banning the sale of certain video games to minors have been brought to life. In California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a guy who made his name hacking and slashing his enemies to a bloody pulp on the big screen, apparently didn’t want high schoolers doing digital imitations: He tried to ban the sale of violent games to minors back in 2005. Oregon is currently considering a similar law, and New York Governor Eliot Spitzer recently stated that he intends to pursue one as well. But these laws go down like a final level boss once they hit the courts. To date, not one of the dubious proposals has stood up to a court challenge. Some lawmakers can’t even be bothered to worry about anything so insignificant as considering whether a law is constitutional. Regarding one video-game ban, Minnesota state legislator Sandy Poppas shrugged off any such responsibility, saying, “Legislators don’t worry too much about what’s constitutional. We just try to do what’s right, and we let the courts figure that out.” The recurrent bashing of the game industry tends to resemble a major league team taking on a troop of t-ballers: Politicians get to knock a couple of balls out of the park in front of parents, but the whole thing is just a show.

Indeed it is. I made a similar argument in a piece for NRO last year as well as my big PFF study, “Fact and Fiction in the Debate over Video Game Regulation.”

It is too early to say for sure but there are some encouraging signs that our public policymakers are finally starting to get the point went it comes to the sensibility (and constitutional futility) of trying to regulate video game content. Just yesterday, for example, lawmakers in the District of Columbia passed legislation that establishes a program to educate consumers about existing video game ratings and console-based controls. This represents a major shift away from the regulatory approach originally floated by incoming D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty. While serving as a D.C. Councilman, Fenty introduced a bill that would have proposed the old regulatory combo of mandates and stiff fines on game retailers who didn’t enforce the city’s approved regulatory scheme.

But the new version of the bill, entitled the “Consumer Education on Video and Computer Games for Minors Act,” takes a very different approach. The bill requires the city to “Develop a consumer education program to educate consumers about the appropriateness of video and computer games for certain ago groups, which may include information on video and computer game rating systems and the manner in which parental controls can enhance the ability of parents to regulate their children’s access to video and computer games.”

In a phrase, D.C.’s new approach is “education, not regulation.” And while some might object to the idea of government promoting education efforts about video game ratings or console controls, that approach is infinitely more sensible (and constitutionally permissible) than government censorship.

What makes D.C.’s turnabout particularly noteworthy is that is comes just a week after the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Entertainment Software Association v. Blagojevich, the Illinois case I discussed here last week. In that decision, judges once again held a state law unconstitutional for attempting to regulate video game speech. Specifically, the Circuit Court argued that the statute in question in the Illinois case was not narrowly tailored and did not represent the “least restrictive alternative” available to serve the interest of protecting children from potentially objectionable content. The Court noted that the industry’s voluntary ratings systems works quite effectively and that if the state wanted to adopt a less restrictive approach it could have simply could have adopted an educational approach. Noting that the parents are involved in well over 83 percent of their children’s video game purchases, the Court went on to argue that:

“If Illinois passed legislation which increased awareness of the ESRB [Entertainment Software Rating Board voluntary ratings] system, perhaps through a wide media campaign, the already-high rate of parental involvement could only rise. Nothing in the record convinces us that this proposal would not be at least as effective as the proposed speech restrictions.”

Again, such an approach has the added benefit of likely remaining within the boundaries of the Constitution and the First Amendment since government would not be seeking to restrict speech but simply inform and empower parents regarding the parental control options already at their disposal.

Let’s hope other lawmakers heed this advice before they waste more money litigating video game cases through the courts. According to the Electronic Software Association (ESA) which represents the video game industry and defends its rights in court, state lawmakers have had to shell out over $1.5 million in legal fees to the video game industry after losing cases in the following five cities or states:

Illinois–$510,000 Washington State–$344,000 St. Louis (8th Circuit)–$180,000 Indianapolis (7th Circuit)–$318,000 Michigan–$180,000

To be clear, that’s $1.5 million taxpayer dollars that have been squandered on fruitless efforts to censor video game content after several courts had already held similar efforts unconstitutional. And that’s $1.5 million that could have been plowed into educational efforts to help explain to parents and kids how to use the excellent voluntary ratings systems or console-based parental control tools that are at their disposal.

Say it with me, state lawmakers, and repeat it 3 times so you don’t forget it:

“Education, Not Regulation.” “Education, Not Regulation.” “Education, Not Regulation.”

It’s the right answer, and the less expensive one!

Washington Post technology columnist Mike Musgrove reminds us in his column today that the video game industry’s voluntary ratings system–the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB)–continues to come under fire in Washington and in the states. Musgrove notes that:

“Earlier this year, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) was one of several lawmakers who introduced bills that would take the video game rating system away from the ESRB, but those bills never made it out of committee. Last week, at a summit on video games, youth and public policy, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) trashed the game industry’s ratings system and called for a new, independent system. Brownback and McCollum agree that the current system–because it’s run by the game industry–can’t be trusted.”

This is nothing new, of course. I have written extensively about the politics of video game regulation and discussed how the video game ratings system has been criticized for a number of supposed shortcomings. Most recently, I wrote about Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (D-CT) “Family Entertainment Protection Act” (FEPA, S. 2126), which would create a federal enforcement regime for video games sales and require ongoing regulatory scrutiny of industry ratings and practices. (Note: There was also a House version of the bill).

What critics like Brownback, McCollum, Clinton and Lieberman consistently forget, or perhaps intentionally ignore, is that all media ratings and labeling systems are fundamentally subjective exercises. They are based on value judgments made by humans who are being asked to evaluate artistic expression and assign labels to it that provide us with some rough proxies about what’s in the title or what age group should (or should not) be consuming it. There will always be “flaws” in such a system because we humans all have different sets of values. Consequently, there will always be critics who argue that they can devise a better system.

But what would a “better system” look like for video games? Honestly, as someone who is both an avid video gamer and a parent of two kids, I just don’t understand what more the critics want. The video game industry’s ESRB labeling system is highly nuanced and does the best job of any major ratings system of providing parents and all consumers with very detailed information about what they can expect to see and hear in the games before they bring them home. The ESRB ratings system includes seven major age-based designations and over 30 different content “descriptors” that give consumers highly detailed information about games. These ratings and content descriptors are affixed to every title produced by major game developers for retail sale today. Generally speaking, the only games that do not carry ESRB ratings today are those developed by web amateurs that are freely traded or downloaded via the Internet.

Thus, by simply glancing at the back of each game box, parents and consumers can quickly gauge the appropriateness of the title for their children. If parents want to do additional research in advance of a purchase, the ESRB’s website allows parents to type in the name of any game and retrieve its rating and various content descriptors. If you want independent verification of the ratings or feedback from other users and parents, you can go to the wonderful Common Sense Media website for comprehensive reviews. Likewise, Metacritic.com offers a one-stop clearinghouse of reviews about video games from dozens of websites across the globe. Or even just check out the countless user ratings for most games that can be found on Amazon.com.

Still, some critics apparently think they can do it better and have suggested a role for government in terms of rating video game content. How? Well, they’re a little short on details, but I suppose they will probably ask the FCC or FTC to do it or to oversee some independently appointed body that will be tasked with doing so.

Either way, those approaches would raise some serious First Amendment concerns and would likely be challenged and struck down in court. That’s especially the case because we know that government regulators would not be able to resist the urge to censor if the ratings system was nationalized.

But here’s a more practical question: How long do you think it would take for the government to assign ratings so that game developers can get those games out the door and on store shelves? Can you name any government regulatory process that gets the job done quickly? Can you imagine what a circus the whole process would become once various activists groups started petitioning the government to rate games in the ways they desired, or ban them altogether? (Just look at what a fiasco the broadcast indecency complaint process has become in recent years).

Some might argue that the government could force the industry to be more “accountable” and “transparent,” but what exactly does that mean? For example, should the industry be forced to reveal the names and background of all the game screeners? Their identities are currently kept confidential to ensure they can be independent, and that’s the way it should be. Can you imagine how some of them might be harassed (by both game developers and game critics) if they were forced to divulge their identities?

Or I suppose government could establish some sort of “blue-ribbon” task force made of academic experts, media critics, child psychologists, and so on. But how would that work? Would a game not be allowed to go to market without their approval? How long would it take to get that approval? And would the panel really be independent of government influence? Even if their role was more informal and merely advisory in nature, what would government officials do if they rated a game as “adult-oriented.” Would lawmakers take that as a cue to ban it altogether? Finally, I think it’s worth mentioning that there is currently nothing stopping someone from voluntarily bringing together such a group of independent experts right now to provide alternative guidelines. Why must the government do it?

Again, we’ve got a pretty good system today. The industry has created a comprehensive ratings and labeling system that offers parents and consumers extensive information about game content. And self-regulation need not be perfect to be superior to government controls. The ESRB system is constantly being tweaked and improved and it certainly represents a better way of addressing this issue than would a convoluted and likely unconstitutional federal regulatory regime.

I’ve been out in Los Angeles this week attending “E3,” the video game industry’s annual trade show. It’s the first time I’ve been able to attend the show and I am finding it very interesting. Indeed, as I walk the halls of the L.A. convention center and chat with gaming companies and gamers themselves, I am struck by several things:

(1) This is one heck of an innovative industry. There are some remarkably creative minds working in the electronic gaming sector. As a life-long gamer who was part of the “Pong” and “Pac-Mac” generation, I am just flabbergasted by how much more highly developed games are today (in terms of graphics, narrative and gameplay) than they were 30 years ago when I first started gaming. There was a moment in my life when I thought that games just couldn’t get much more sophisticated than Activision’s “Pitfall” or Atari’s “Adventure.” What a fool I was! Some of the massive multi-player online roll-playing games (“MMORPGs”) I saw at the show were just jaw-dropping in terms of their graphical detail and narrative sophistication. And all of the new high-definition titles for the X-Box 360 and PlayStation 3 are nothing short of stunning. Old favorites of mine like “Madden” football and “Gran Turismo” are now rendered in ultra-crisp 1080p HD resolution. There are moments during those games when you really think you’re watching a live feed from a real football game or road race.

And even the games which featured a more simple premise were exciting. Consider “Table Tennis” by Rock Star Games. The same company that brought us the infamous “Grand Theft Auto” is now producing a decidedly less controversial title based on the classic game of Ping Pong! If you think it sounds silly, wait till you play it. It is addicting in a “Tetris-like” fashion. I hope they eventually make it for my PlayStation Portable!

Speaking of my PlayStation Portable… one of the coolest things I was able to do on the floor of the show was to directly upload games wirelessly onto my PSP from various Sony kiosks around the show. To demo new games, I just turned on my PSP’s wi-fi sharing system, got within 15 feet of one of the Sony kiosks, and then called up numerous “channels” of video game content. The games uploaded directly to my PSP and I was playing them within seconds. Very, very cool.

And Nintendo’s new “Wii” (pronounced “We”) console features the most innovate game controller ever. It’s a little wireless stick that you wave at the screen to move things around on the screen. You can use it to swing an imaginary golf club or baseball bat to hit balls on the screen. Or cast an imaginary fishing pole into the water. Just incredible.

I wish I could also mention all the cool computer and wireless hardware I saw at the show from other vendors, but it would take long. But what I took away from this show was that all this innovation in the electronic gaming sector is helping to drive still more innovation in other sectors ranging from computers, processors, video displays, wireless devices, and various other electronic or computer devices and accessories. It wasn’t surprising to me, therefore, when Electronic Software Association (ESA) President Doug Lowenstein noted in his “State of the Industry” opening address that a new study commissioned by the ESA reached similar conclusions. In “Video Games: Serious Business for America’s Economy,” economists Robert Crandall and Greg Sidak found that beyond the $10.3 billion in sales of video games in 2004, the video game industry stimulates an additional $7.7 billion in spending each year in the US, bringing the total economic impact of the game industry on the US economy alone to $18 billion. So this industry is now a major player in, and contributor to, our modern Digital Economy.

(2) The video game industry and Hollywood are rapidly converging. While I was walking through the aisles of the show, there were moments when I thought I was at a movie convention instead. These days, game and movie development are increasingly going hand-in-hand. Many movies and TV shows now become games (“Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Superman Returns,” “The DaVinci Code,” “24: The Game,” and yes, even “Desperate Housewives: The Game!”) and some games are turned into major motion pictures (“Tomb Raider,” “Doom,” “Resident Evil,” and “Silent Hill.”)

In some cases, games are being used as movie sequels to continue plot lines first developed in famous movies. “Scarface” and “The Godfather” were two prominent examples at this year’s show. Similarly, “The Matrix” and “Lord of the Rings” have spawned several game sequels. Likewise, “Stranglehold” is the video game sequel to director John Woo’s famous 1992 action movie “Hard-Boiled.” Actor Chow Yun Fat reprises his role from the movie in the video game. That’s another sign of convergence: Many major Hollywood actors are now routinely “starring” in video games. Vin Diesel stars in a new game called “The Wheelman,” and The Rock stars in “Spy Hunter.” And even Paris Hilton (if you can call her an “actress”) stars in a new video game. (I think I’ll pass on that one).

So, Hollywood and the video game industry are really coming together. So much so that there was even a workshop held during the show called “When Media Giants Muscle In: Why the Game Industry Should Care About the Acquisition Appetite of News Corp., Viacom, and Others.” (Seriously, I’m not making that title up). But I don’t think the industry has anything to fear from movie and media studios getting more involved in this industry. It will just mean even more capital will start flowing in their direction.

(3) The gaming industry cares as much about intellectual property law and enforcement as much as Hollywood. A lot of people like to demonize the music and movie industry for taking steps to better protect their copyrights. But it’s funny how no one ever talks about the importance of IP rights to the gaming industry. People certainly were talking about it at the show, however. In light of what I said above about the convergence of the movie and gaming sector, this really isn’t surprising. There’s an enormous amount of IP and licensing rights tied up in games today. Consequently, when hackers sell pirated games or “chip-mods” are made to consoles that allow pirated games to be played, it really can hurt game developers.

Todd Hollenshead, CEO and Co-Owner of id Software (makers of “Doom” and “Quake”) really drove that point home while speaking on a panel entitled “Game Piracy: Latest Strategies to Protect Your Product.” He noted that it was obviously impossible to stop all piracy (especially since many games are leaked by developers during production), but that catching the most egregious offenders was important to shore up the problem and send a message to others. But he and others noted that it’s really becoming an uphill battle because the cracking tools are growing more sophisticated, the hackers are getting more aggressive, and distribution systems and networks are growing faster and more ubiquitously available. Offshore piracy was also an issue that panelists said they are struggling to address.

I also chatted with developers and attorneys with Sony, Nintendo, Activision, and other game companies who talked about how they have used the DMCA on occasion to try to deter “chip-modding” (console hacking) and some other activities. During the panel discussion, I got up and asked the speakers if they planned on being more aggressive in their use of the DMCA but didn’t really get a clear answer. Some said they are already using it as needed, but others said even when they do use it do it doesn’t help as much as they wished. Sony, for example, recently won a $6 million civil judgment against a chip-modder, but because the guy has no real assets, there’s not really any way to enforce it effectively and recover damages.

Regardless, I think the video game sector is poised to become far more aggressive on the enforcement front to defend their copyrights. But it will be an uphill challenge. One possible solution that was discussed during the piracy panel was the idea of using more “CD key authentication / registration” techniques for consoles like users already do to register their legitimate copies of games and other software. But this would require that the consoles be connected to the Net, something that some gamers might not want to do.

(4) The debate over the impact of gaming on kids / society is only going to get more intense in coming years. I’ve been writing some papers this year about proposals to regulate video game content. There are dozens of measures pending at the federal, state and local level that would regulate the industry in one fashion or another.

The industry has won a string of solid First Amendment victories after challenging some of the major state and local enactments over the past five years. But that’s not going to stop legislators from proposing more regulations. That’s especially the case in light how much more life-like games are getting. I’m not going to get into all of this again right now, but there is no doubt in my mind that as gaming gets more and more like the “holideck” on Star Trek, legislators are really going to start turning up the regulatory heat. It’s certainly going to keep First Amendment advocates like me busy for years to come!

(5) Gamers are normal people (for the most part!). There are a lot of misperceptions out there about gamers. Most generalizations you hear are way off base. Indeed, gamers are now as diverse as the American population itself. Back when I starting gaming over 30 years ago, it was mostly the province of geeky white kids like me who had a great deal of familiarity with pocket protectors and 20-sided dice! (Yes, it’s true… I was Dungeons & Dragons nerd before I was an electronic gamer. I won’t reveal the name of my ranger character because it would qualify me for the Dork Hall of Fame.)

Today, by contrast, I see all races, sexes, ages and cultures represented in the gaming community. And the vast majority of gamers strike me as very level-headed, well-adjusted and quite productive members of society. As a first generation gamer who is raising a couple of third-generation gamers, I think video games are on their way to becoming almost as commonplace and widely accepted in our society as music and movies. It’s not just kid’s stuff anymore.