Bill targets videogame retailers

Would criminalize renting some games to minors

By Paul Sweeting -- Video Business, 12/1/2005

DEC. 1 | WASHINGTON—The “Hot Coffee” mod that caught the makers of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas with their pants down over the summer is about to bring new political heat on videogame retailers.

Citing the downloadable patch that unveiled X-rated content hidden on GTA: San Andreas discs, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) said they will introduce legislation later this month to ban the sale or rental of M-rated and Adults-Only games to minors.

The Family Entertainment Protection Act also would require the Federal Trade Commission to conduct annual retail stings to monitor retailers’ compliance with the industry-backed ratings system for games and empower the agency to investigate “misleading” ratings.

The law would impose fines on retailers found to be not enforcing ratings.

Another provision would require an annual “analysis” of the ratings system, currently overseen by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, to ensure the system “accurately reflects the content in each game.”

The provision does not specify who or what agency would conduct the analysis.

“I have developed this legislation to empower parents by making sure their kids can’t walk into a store and buy a videogame that has graphic, violent and pornographic content,” Sen. Clinton said.

She said she was motivated to act in part by the discovery earlier this year that Rockstar Games had left sexually explicit material on the release version of GTA: San Andreas. Game companies often leave material from early versions of a game in the final product but code it in a way to make it inaccessible to users under normal circumstances.

But in Rockstar’s case, third-party hackers came up with a modification program, or mod, that unlocked the material on GTA: San Andreas and released the program on the Internet.

Retailer and game industry groups strongly condemned the proposed legislation.

“It is ironic that Senator Clinton’s response to the ‘Hot Coffee’ incident is to punish retailers,” the Video Software Dealers Assn. said. “Nothing about that incident suggests any deficiencies in retailers’ programs to assist parents in choosing games wisely for their children or to enforce voluntarily the game industry’s ratings. Retailers did not author the material embedded in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and they could not reasonably have discovered it.”

Though the Clinton/Lieberman bill would give ratings-monitoring authority to federal regulators, the substance of the proposed measure is similar to several state bills, such as those in California, Illinois and Michigan, which have been struck down by the courts on constitutional ground.

“While we are gratified that the Senator holds the ESRB in such high regard that her bill would give these ratings the force of law, the courts have made clear that giving a private party governmental powers is unconstitutional,” Doug Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Assn., said of Clinton. “Beyond that, the bill clearly infringes the constitutionally protected creative rights of the videogame industry. Thus, if enacted, the bill will be struck down as have similar bills passed in several states.”

Clinton and Lieberman announced their plans to introduce the bill one day after the National Institute on Media and the Family released its annual report card on game ratings and retail enforcement.

A long-time critic of the industry, the Institute this year gave the ESRB an F for the accuracy of its ratings, although retailers fared somewhat better, earning a B for enforcement.

At a press conference in support of the report card’s release, Lieberman condemned games such as Sierra Entertainment’s F.E.A.R. and Aspyr’s Stubbs the Zombie: Rebel Without a Pulse for featuring graphic scenes of cannibalism.

“It’s just the worst message to send kids,” Lieberman said. “They can be dangerous to your children’s health.”