FC: The problems of being a video game censor nowadays

[Declan McCullagh <declan@wired.com>]

[Note I'm having problems with my well.com account; mail to it may bounce for
the next hour or so. Until then, declan@wired.com works fine. --Declan]

***********

From: "Volokh, Eugene" <VOLOKH@mail.law.ucla.edu>
To: "Declan McCullagh (E-mail)" <declan@well.com (Declan McCullagh)>
Subject: Trouble with pre-screening of computer games
Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1999 18:27:17 -0700

        From "Computer Games Stump Censors," The Dominion (Wellington),
June 2,
1999, p. 3 (though note that the first I saw of this was in This Is True):

        . . . 

        New Zealand censors are struggling to police violence and sex in
computer games because they do not have the skills to reach the top levels.  

        Working under legislation requiring the whole game to be viewed in
order
for it to be classified, head censor Bill Hastings said his staff spent hours
conquering each game and looking into every virtual option.

        "It is impossible to apply the law to this medium. If I bought a
computer game and I could play the whole thing in say three, four or five
hours
-- I would be ripped off."

        Options to resolve the issue included requiring importers of the games
to supply "cheat sheets" to cut through each level, or hiring expert
shoot-'em-up game jockeys for the censors to watch play.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------ 
Eugene Volokh, UCLA Law School, 405 Hilgard Ave., L.A., CA 90095 



--------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology
To subscribe: send a message to majordomo@vorlon.mit.edu with this text:
subscribe politech
More information is at http://www.well.com/~declan/politech/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------