Megan Vrolijk

CALIFORNIA CONTINUES COURT BATTLE TO PROTECT CHILDREN FROM VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES

California Political Desk

The California Political Desk provides information, news releases, and announcements obtained from communication and public relations offices throughout the state.

California Political Desk
September 6, 2007
Yee applauds Schwarzenegger’s move to appeal video game ruling.

SACRAMENTO – Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Los Angeles) today appealed a ruling by United States District Court Judge Ronald Whyte that struck down a law to prohibit the sale of ultra-violent video games to minors. The law’s author, Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo), applauded Schwarzenegger’s decision to file the Notice of Appeal.

“I am very pleased to see the Governor’s commitment to this issue,” said Yee. “This is a common-sense law that empowers parents by giving them the ultimate authority over whether or not their children can play in a world of violence and murder.”

“We have a responsibility to our kids and our communities to protect against the effects of games that depict ultra-violent actions,” said Schwarzenegger. “These games are for adults, and the law I signed ensures that parents have the chance to determine which video games are appropriate for their children.”

The law was intended to prevent the sale and rental of extremely violent video games to anyone under 18 years of age and require that such games be clearly labeled. Retailers who violated the act would be liable in an amount up to $1,000. On August 6, 2007, Judge Whyte made a permanent order barring enforcement of the law.

In the ruling Judge Whyte stated, “The desire to regulate the exposure of minors to senseless violent acts is understandable and, perhaps, more important than regulating exposure to obscenity...Most parents hope that their children will grow up to be non-violent. If exposing minors to depictions of violence in video games makes them experience feelings of aggression and exhibit violent anti-social or aggressive behavior, the state could have a compelling interest in restricting minors' access to such material.”

“The deliberations in this case took over a year, which shows that the ever-growing body of evidence that violent video games are harmful to children is getting harder and harder to ignore,” said Yee, who is also a child psychologist. “The medical data clearly indicates that these ultra-violent video games have harmful effects on kids, and thus we have a state interest to protect them.”

Judge Whyte also stated that the State must prove that the video game industry’s rating system does “not equally address the state’s interest in protecting the physical and psychological well-being of children.”

Recent Federal Trade Commission studies suggest that the video game industry's rating system is not working. In fact, nearly half of the children under age of 17 were able to purchase M-rated games which are designed for adults.

“The $31 billion video game industry has fought any attempt at regulation every step of the way,” said Yee. “They fought efforts to publicize their rating system because they thought it would impact sales, and now they’re again putting their profit margins over the rights of parents and the well-being of children.”

According to the National Institute for Media and the Family, eighty-seven percent of children play video or computer games, and approximately sixty percent of their favorite games are rated M for Mature. Mature-rated games are the fastest growing segment of the video game industry; in fact the top selling games reward players for killing police officers, maiming elderly persons, running over pedestrians and committing despicable acts of murder and torture upon women and racial minorities.

Understanding Media

The article reflects a brief evolution of games within society. While noting that war games as well as other types of games have been utilized in more primitive societies as a "model of the universe," new technology has obviously changed how these games are played. And while there are points conveyed in the article that relate computer games to art (as reflecting culture) and to the more primitive games, it does not address in what ways a war game played on a computer effects the player compaired to a war game in real life as in New Guinea.

Computer games, more so than physical games, allow the player to step into a role much more outside of himself. Understanding Media indicates that this allows "new relationships and postures" and a "respite from customary patterns." The new patterns are chosen and could be expressions of repressed desires. As the author states, "it is the pattern of a game that gives it relevance to our inner lives."

I am commenting on the article called Software Firm's Got Game. The report covers ExperiencePoint, a company engaged in making "serious gaming." They produce a set of scenarios to train executives on how to handle business situations. It is explained as:

In a typical exercise, participants work in teams to gather information from the simulation. Then they have to work together to decide on the biggest problems facing the imaginary troubled company, what solutions are appropriate and how to implement them. The teams get immediate feedback as the sophisticated program shows how many employees accept the new strategy, and how many resist the changes.

"Abstraction in the Video Game" by Mark Wolf discusses the reasons abstraction in video games has become less and less common. Older games, such as Space Invaders, reflect the necessary use of abstraction in older games due to the inability to render more representational figures. While Space Invaders is representational in that the player can identify the surrogate-based space ship and the aliens, both are also an abstraction from reality so as to fit into the perimeters of the technology. However, while working to fit into the perimeters, the game is forced to render a playing space that is accessible to the consumer. In utilizing abstractions, Space Invaders keeps the player engaged and creates empathy. Scott McCloud's work suggests, "abstraction can help to increase identification, the game's diegetic world is easier to enter into if it resembles the real world." I think that it is necessary for their to be a balance between abstraction and representation due to the player's desire to access the game fairly easily. If a game were to ease a player into a more abstract world, this may allow it to become more accessible or have more empathy.

http://www.uh.edu/admin/media/nr/2007/09sept/091207neato_weightloss.html

NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: A demonstration of the NEAT-o Game is available on the Web at http://www.cpl.uh.edu/Neat-o-Games.
WEIGHT LOSS GAME LOOKING FOR ‘NEAT-O’ RESULTS
UH Professor Hopes Everyday Moves Inspire a New Addiction

HOUSTON, September 12, 2007 – Finding a way to motivate the billion people in the world who are overweight to lose excess pounds can be an overwhelming task, but a University of Houston professor is meeting that weighty challenge with a challenge of his own.

Ioannis Pavlidis, a UH computer science professor, and research assistants Yuichi Fujiki and Kostas Kazakos, have developed a computer game that translates physical activity into video games, such as races and logic puzzles. Dubbed Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT-o) games, they can be played on any hand-held personal digital assistant (PDA) with users wearing a lightweight, wearable sensor that detects movement like running, walking, bending over or even foot tapping.

That data is then transmitted to the PDA via a wireless connection, and the player can see his or her game avatar move in real-time to their movements. For example, in the race game, the player’s physical activity propels the avatar around the track – the more active the player is, the faster and farther the avatar goes.

“When you see the avatar move when you move, you really become connected to the game,” Pavlidis said.

Capitalizing on the buddy system for working out, users can link to other gamers by cellular phone networks and compete against multiple users in the next cubicle or the next state. The game can run all day in the background as users go about their daily routines while earning points and propelling their avatars as they walk to the copy machine, take coffee breaks or walk the dog.

The lack of daily mild exercise is largely responsible for the world’s obesity epidemic, according to James Levine, a Mayo Clinic physician and leading authority on obesity. Levine coined the ‘NEAT’ term to cover all physical activity that is not conscious exercise. Since hitting the gym for a regular workout might be too much to expect for those returning to the fitness fold, these games encourage small, everyday lifestyle changes, such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator or parking a few spaces away from a store entrance versus driving around to find the closest spot available.

“We hope the games can increase physical activity, add a dosage of everyday fun and embed NEAT in the modern lifestyle,” Pavlidis said. “We expect an almost ‘addictive’ behavior resulting from this game, much like the habit of playing solitaire during breaks is an everyday ritual for many people. Because of the way we live today, people are sitting all the time, so moving more is always a good thing.

“The allure of computer gaming and competition with other users encourages players to make small lifestyle changes that can add up to big health benefits,” Pavlidis said.

A computer science student who was one of the first to try out the devices lost 40 pounds in five months. The games also have been a hit with early test groups and received rave reviews from players at an April academic gathering of computer scientists.

Along with the straightforward racing game, Pavlidis also recently rolled out his version of Sodoku, a logic-based numbers puzzle that has become wildly popular. In this adaptation of Sodoku, the points players earn through physical activity can be used to fill in another square on the grid, providing clues to solving the rest of the puzzle. More games designed to appeal to a variety of age groups are in the works.

Levine’s lab at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., is gauging the games’ effectiveness in a large trial experiment that began in June. Financed by an endowed fund and a National Science Foundation grant, Pavlidis hopes the game will be available to the public before the end of 2008.

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I would like to investigate Tetris, because it has consistently maintained popularity as an abstract game.

While the story line was engaging, the graphics can be challenging for someone with a tendency toward motion sickness. The concept of a police state after a disastrous event has been illustrated numerous times in literature and movies. In many ways, the idea that technology will eventually create a situation in which human nature will become so repressed that the individual will obviously be faced with this oppression has been expressed as long as technology has been developing (most pointedly since the 1950's). I think Half Life 2 is a natural response to the feeling of oppression in a closed society. Science fiction has also been a popular form that has expressed these emotions. The closed world that Half Life 2 creates around the player exemplifies physical claustrophobia to express the confines a developing world imposes on those that live there. (A great book on these ideas is Closed World). I also think that violence is inherent in expressing the desire to break out of this system.

This book seems like it would be really interesting in terms of the class in that it explores the worlds that games create. It seems that examining the endless possibilities in game design in reference to what has been created is an important study from numerous perspective.

http://www.spacetimeplay.org/

Edited by Friedrich von Borries, Steffen P. Walz, Matthias Böttger

"SPACE TIME PLAY" IS A JOURNEY
THROUGH THE PAST, PRESENT
AND POTENTIAL SPACES OF
COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES.

Have you ever wondered what's behind a perfect Tetris-wall?
Have you ever freed a 3D world from terrorists?
Have you ever made polygon friends in networked fantasy realms?
And do you know what happens when these games never end?
_________________________________________________________

The richly illustrated texts in "Space Time Play" cover a wide range of gamespaces: from milestone video and computer games to virtual metropolises to digitally-overlaid physical spaces. As a comprehensive and interdisciplinary compendium, "Space Time Play" explores the architectural history of computer games and the future of ludic space. More than 140 experts from game studies and the game industry, from architecture and urban planning, have contributed essays, game reviews and interviews. The games examined range from commercial products to artistic projects and from scientific experiments to spatial design and planning tools.

"Space Time Play" is not just meant for architects, designers and gamers, but for all those who take an interest in the culture of digital games and the spaces within and modeled after them. Let's play!

I think that the video game America's Army affects the amount of recruitment and armed conflicts engaged in by the U.S. as much as the any other media system. While the level of realism within a first person shooter is more intense, a war movie can often serve the same goal as in Top Gun. I think that the role of media as a whole (video, photographs, video games) allow individuals to become detached from the realities of war. Often video and television play a large role in creating heroism having to do with the military. America's Army adds a different dynamic by allowing the player to see what the army portrays serving as. However, what I wonder is how much different is this portrayal than a movie like Black Hawk Down or Saving Private Ryan? Each of these movies embody the heroism that the military relies on. The difference between the video game and the film is how the audience relates to each.