I first heard if this lousy excuse for a California politician about a month ago. I then proceeded to write off an email of which he will never read or even reach his desk. But I needed to vent to him on a somewhat controlled manner. My email follows:
Dr. Yee,
I read the interview that you gave with the website
www.homelanfed.com and disagree with your proposed bill very strongly. After looking over your website, you look like you would be a member of the senior citizen age group. The ones who have never had anything to do with games unless they were computer programmers until now. This bill of yours is nothing more than a shot to make you look better for a re-election to the mass voters (usually 30+ age). But what many fail to realize, is that age group is very quickly being flooded with gamers my age who grew up on games in the eighties.
These gamers (those who know the difference between games and life) are always being trounced on because of some nitwits who choose to think that they can relive the activities in the games for themselves. Why punish all of us because of the moronic actions of a few.
Your examples are heavily flawed. It sounds that you feel that since Grand Theft Auto (GTA) has come out, there has been a new activity called car jacking. Sorry, but it dates back to at least the 1920's with organized crime which is also present in GTA. And crime lords like Al Capone are nothing but fiction. Medal of Honor, which is mentioned in the interview, does not have any blood or gore in it. Yes it shows shooting people and the beaches on D-Day. That is real history, sorry.
You claim that these games with violence in them causes a rise in violent behavior, well I heavily beg to differ. Why at QuakeCon, any Professional Gamers League tournament, or any Cyberathlete Professional League tournaments are there never any outbreaks of violence with all the violent games being played by hundreds of people of all ages? They play games such as Quake, Doom, and Counterstrike. All three of those are first-person shooters. In fact, back in 1998 when you held a position on the Francisco Board of Supervisors, there was a Professional Gamers' League championship held in San Francisco at Club-i, a cybercafe. There were almost 2000 competitors and no incidents of violence of any kind.
The problems are the store employees and the kids' parents. My parents would not let me buy my own games when I was younger. They bought them all. I have played all types of games by now and have never been in a violent confrontation or situation. Retail stores are required to ask for identification when games rated M are brought to their register. It is their obligation to be informed on the products that they are selling and to inform their customers of their purchases. Parents have the right to watch over the child's gameplay activities because they are minors and it is in the parent's house. It is my belief and many others that parents have gone soft in recent years with watching over their kids. It is lawmakers like yourself that make these laws that help to take the responsibility of being a parent out of parenting.
You are not trying to make it "better" for the kids. If anything, it will cause more violence from the kids who will try and steal the games that they can't buy. It will cause retail companies to lose sales. You are trying to put a mark on an industry you know little to nothing about. You even state in the interview:
"I have not personally played these games, however many of my staff members have. I have seen numerous footage pieces of these games, which clearly shows the need for such legislation."
I'm willing to bet my bank accounts that you have never been to an organized gaming event. You have not even touched a single one of your targeted games. If you want to gain any type of backing for this bill and earn respect for your voters, you have to put yourself in the situations to see what it is like. Otherwise they will not give you the time of day with apparently ignorant remarks and bases. I sincerely hope that you will do some more personal research and find that your bill is off base and completely not needed.
Gamer and resident of San Jose, CA,
Robert Miller