The United States, Puerto Rico, Samoa, Guam, Virgin Islands, and Northern Mariana Islands all voluntarily comply with the ESRB rating system.
History The first major controversy over video games in the United States was in the early 1990s, when games such as
Mortal Kombat and
Night Trap released, which were known for scenes that would be considered too violent or too sexual for kids. The issue regarding video games eventually made it into the United States Congress. After a proposal to have a government commission to establish video game ratings, the
Interactive Digital Software Association was established by major video game corporations and presented the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) to the Congress, which was approved and would become the standard of video game ratings.
Jack Thompson has criticized "violent video games", claiming that playing violent video games leads to teenagers replicating those behaviors in the real world. He often represented victims or parents of victims in cases regarding shootings, usually blaming the actions on the perpetrator having played violent video games. Thompson also supported a campaign that tried to stop the release of
Bully. In 2013, the
Entertainment Software Association, the lobbying group for the video games industry, had enlisted over 500,000 members to the "Video Game Voters Network," a "grassroots" lobbying group to mobilize gamers to act against public policy that may negatively impact the gaming industry. The VGV was launched in 2006 by the ESA, and uses social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to inform members of allies and opponents. In 2013, the ESA spent over US$3.9 Million on lobbying, including but not limited to against VVG legislation. This included opposing a bipartisan federal bill that would direct the
National Academy of Sciences to study the effects of all forms of violent media. Such bills themselves had come under criticisms from some scholars for pressuring scientists to find specific outcomes rather than studying the issues neutrally
US government legislation The regulation of video games have been historically supported by politicians such as
Joe Lieberman and
Hillary Clinton, who have pushed legislation for regulating video games. No video game console manufacturer has allowed any game marked AO to be published in North America; however, the PC gaming service Steam has allowed AO titles such as
Hatred to be published on its platform. No major retailers are willing to sell AO-rated games, although the immensely popular
PlayStation 2 game
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was briefly rated AO after the presence of the
Hot Coffee add-on became evident. The add-on was later removed, with the game's rating returning to
M. In the
109th Congress and
110th Congress, the Video Games Enforcement Act was introduced to the US House of Representatives. The act required an identification check for the purchase of M and AO rated games. The bill and others like it did not succeed because of likely
First Amendment violations. Although no law mandates identification checking for games with adult content, a 2008 survey by the
Federal Trade Commission showed that video game retailers have voluntarily increased ID verification for M- and AO-rated games, and sales of those games to underage potential buyers decreased from 83% in 2000 to 20% in 2008. A further survey in April 2011, found that video game retailers continued to enforce the ratings by allowing only 13% of underage teenage shoppers to buy M-rated video games, a statistically significant decrease from the 20% purchase rate in 2009. On 7 January 2009,
Joe Baca, representative of California's 43rd District, introduced H.R. 231, the
Video game health labelling act. This bill called for a label to be placed in a "clear and conspicuous location on the packaging" on all video games with an ESRB rating of T (Teen) or higher stating, "WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior." The proposed legislation was referred to the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection. On 24 January 2011, Joe Baca reintroduced the
Video game health labelling act as H.R. 400 of the 112th Congress. The bill was once again passed onto the subcommittee. On 27 June 2011, the
Supreme Court of the United States ruled on
Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association. Video games were protected speech under the First Amendment. The case centered on a California law that sought to restrict sales of violent video games to minors. The video game industry, led by the
Entertainment Merchants Association and the
Entertainment Software Association, successfully obtained an injunction on the bill, believing that the definition of violence as stated in the California law was too vague and would not treat video games as protected speech. This opinion was upheld in lower courts, and supported by the Supreme Court's decision. The majority of the justices did not consider the studies brought to their attention as convincing evidence of harm, and stated that they could not create a new class of restricted speech that was not applied to other forms of media. However, Justice Breyer's minority decision found the evidence more convincing. Deana Pollard Sacks,
Brad Bushman, and
Craig A. Anderson objected to the ruling, claiming that the thirteen experts who authored the Statement on Video Game Violence on the Brown side were considerably more academically merited, and had on average authored over 28 times as many peer-reviewed journal articles about aggression/violence based on original empirical research as the signatories supporting the EMA, whereas the over 100 signatories supporting Brown had on average authored over 14 times as many. Richard Hall, Ryan Hall, and Terri Day replied: "It is not surprising that Anderson and Bushman found their own qualifications and the qualifications of those who agree with them to be superior to the qualifications of those who disagree with them", and claimed that they might have used methodology which have undercounted contributions of some scholars. On 3 April 2013,
Dianne Feinstein, a Californian senator and Democrat, spoke in San Francisco to a group of 500 constituents about gun violence. She said video games have "a very negative role for young people, and the industry ought to take note of that" and that Congress might have to step in if the video games industry did not cease to glorify guns. ==See also==