
Originally Posted by
Yeargdribble
If the ratings were defined by a third party rather than any government body, would this change your mind? I can see the potential slippery slope of a bill like this. However, if they simply said that the ESRB was doing a good job and that stores selling games inappropriate to their ESRB rating warranted a fine... I really don't have a problem with that.
No, that's exactly WHY it's a problem. If the government wants to legally enforce age ratings, well, I'm not going to blow anything up; I don't really agree with it but it's not exactly unprecedented, and most jurisdictions allow either
de jure or
de facto parental override, which I find satisfactory enough to tolerate*. The problem, and something which to my understanding has been at the core of every single court review of such a bill that has led to them all, every last one, being struck down, is that the government cannot make a third-party ratings system a legal guideline.