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I’ve previously written about how silly it is to restrict, by law, the sale of certain types of games to teenagers. Not because I don’t think some games should not be made because they are too violent and/or sexual and are way beyond good taste, but because these restrictions simply don’t work. Blaming video games for the surge in youth violence is just avoiding the real issue of bad parenting and poor education.

Illinois governor has signed in a law “meant to keep adult video games away from minors.” This is how this story is going to develop. Teens, now not allowed to waltz into the store and buy the latest installments of the likes of GTA, order them online or ask their older buddies to buy it for them. Illinois stores will record a decline in sales of adult rated games, especially by minors. Genius governor claims credit and announces he has solved the state’s crime problem. Governor runs on this false premise during the next elections and gets another term. After all, the parents-voters and politicians would like nothing better than blame video games for the delinquent children, instead of themselves.

The real affect, however, would be the opposite to the intent of the law. These “restricted” games will now become more appealing to Illinois’ teens just because they are restricted to them, making the games more popular and prevalent.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 27th, 2005 at 10:10 am and is filed under politics, rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.