Two political developments as of late: right here in my backyard, the NY State Senate passed an ESRB Oversight Bill, seeking to "take steps to crack down on video game violence, and combat and reduce children's exposure to violent and inappropriate materials within these games." If the official release is too boring, here's a good summary of what they put into the books.

And over in the midwest, another case proved once again that legal efforts such as these often end up wasting money. Lots of money, money that could have been spent on after school programs or other actual efforts to reduce teen violence by positively directing their development. Instead, we end up in expensive, pointless, and typically unconstitutional cases that fail to assign blame, fault, or restrict the types of content video games can offer or represent. Even if one of these cases did succeed, would restricting or banning video games lead to a drop in youth violence? No. So, with all this in mind, go read the sad tale of how the Illinois Gov. pissed away $1,000,000 losing such a case against the gaming industry.

UPDATE: Looks like said NY Bill is really going nowhere, fast.

"[The bill] would place limits on who can see violent video games. It would make it a felony to sell violent and obscene video games to minors. In addition, manufacturers would have to equip game consoles with parental-control devices, retailers would have to label games that are violent and obscene, and the state would establish a committee to study the problem."

They're essentially requiring the status quo. The ESRB ratings label all games with warnings based on content, consoles already have parental controls, and good luck enforcing that felony charge (though I think it's a good idea, and wish they would or could). Oh well. At least they're pandering to the masses that think games are the downfall of society and want something done NOW (even if it's just putting the existing structure into the law books).

In a related story, the American Medical Association is looking to classify video game addiction as a disease. Which is fine by me (WoW players, take a break!), but I hope they're not looking at online gaming alone. eBay addicts and online shoppers, anyone? IM addicts? Blackberry addicts? The additions are all real, but let's only start calling them diseases if we focus on the addiction and not the particular (Jack Thompson-directly) manifestation. Boo AMA (they're addicted to medical studies anyhow).