The,California,Video,Game,Law, computer The California Video Game Law Trials
----------------------------------------------------------Permission is granted for the below article to forward,reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website,offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as longas no changes a Gone are those times when the companies and the organisations didn't need a hi-tech system to handle them. Owing to the considerable increase in the business sector and thus, an enormous increase in the complexity of the organisational struc
It was really lucky for game developers that the SupremeCourt turned down a Californian Video Game Law. According to this law it was acrime to sell violent video games to minors and the punishment for doing sowould be a hefty fine. The law was challenged on many levels and finally theSupreme Court wrote it down on the accounts of it undermining the freedom ofchoice and expression. But what if this law had gone through and wasimplemented? What would it mean to Video Game Developers and Game Testers? How would it affect the cost of production and overallprofits of a game? It is not a secret that minors are a large consumer base ofthis industry and account for a large volume of annual sales in many differentvideo game categories. If this law was implemented, even just in California, itwould result in huge losses for game developers, especially those whoproduction action games that contain scenes of violence, like first person shooters.These violent action games are among the most popular kind among teenage videogame players. After all, very few teenagers these days would be interested inplaying Pokemon or Mario Kart. Furthermore, this may have an effect ofincreasing piracy, since even if a game is completely banned in a certainlocation, it will not deter those who want to play it. Since it would hard toobtain it legitimately, many gamers would simply resort to downloading itthrough illegal channels, which is something that is already contributing tosome rather large losses in both the general software and video gameindustries. Another scenario would be for developing separate gameversions for California if they want to sell the game in the State which wouldrequire large investments in game quality assurance to assure that they obey the law. Many publishers wouldnot be interested in that but for those who would be it would require siginificantefforts which can sometimes be close to developing an entirely new game by itself. There is also no guaranteethat a non-violent version of the game would sell so well. After all, who wouldplay Grand Theft Auto if you couldn't shoot or beat people up in the game? It was a sigh of relief for many developers and gamepublishers who were left with a dilemma to choose between lesser profits orhuge investments in Game Programming. However the law itself exploited andabolished many other laws. One such accusation was that the state cannot choosewhat the parents want or may want for their kids, which is what this law wasdictating when it comes to video games. Although game developers, testers andthe QA team always develops a game with the rules in mind, the CaliforniaGovernment has shown that it isnt satisfied with it nor with the rating systemthat rates the games according to age appropriate content.
The,California,Video,Game,Law,