http://www.computerandvideogames.com/30 ... games-law/

Bloody hell... Don't know what to make of that...

So on that basis it would also be against the movie makers rights to stop 7 year olds going to see 18 or R rated films?

or records being banned for profanity. Or having to have a warning label.

This is a stupid change and the original law was fine.

Shouldn't they now also allow 2 year olds to vote.

It will end the kissing of babies as they will demand tax relief on rusks.

No, because that's completely not what either the old law, or Arnold's bill, or the new law says.

The US has trod much the same path as the UK/EU, just in a slightly less sane way. The old law in most states was that games had their own 'rating' system, but it wasn't mandatory. So you could in theory put 18 rated content in any game and someone could sell it to an 8 year old. That was obviously not on. What Schwarzenegger's bill said was this - You Cannot Put 18 rated Content In A Game. Full stop. No exceptions. Games are obviously for kids, so we can't have anything adult in them. No no no. So basically, 18 rated games couldn't be sold in california. At all. Now, this does happen to a degree in EU - Germany for example has different rules to it's neighbours to do with violence in games. But this is a state, not a country. A law that says you can't sell this here but you can in that shop 100 yards down the road on the other side of this arbitrary line is pointless and unenforceable. But hey, it makes for a good headline in the right wing press. So what has happened now is that the supreme court has looked at the bill, thought 'Jesus, what has this idiot done now?' and come up with a reasonable compromise.

What will happen now in pretty much the whole of the US is, much like we had in the UK for a while, games will come under the same regulations as other forms of 'free speech' like films and books and can be restricted according to the same rules i.e. you can make an 18-rated game if you want to, but there will be legal restrictions as to it can be sold to.

Note the UK doesn't actually use the BBFC ratings on games any more - we adopted the EU wide 'PEGI' standards a while back. Personally, I think that is somewhat of a mistake as people are less used to the iconography and what each classification exactly means, but that's a separate argument.

I think the PEGI classification is really easy to follow
3, 7,12,16,18 ratings as a guidline. If you can follow the BBFC ratings PEGI are just as easy. Its just a shame so many parents completely ignore them.

I want to know what this game is! Only if it's something that isn't pretty pants otherwise like Postal 3

I was wondering that myself, Google isn't really helping

Yes but parents should have the final say. I think that games with excessive violence are not that great. I prefer my strategy games and my armies slaughter loads of units but it not the same as "popping a cap" in some poor buggers head.