NEWS: Wil Wheaton's Geek in Review: Carded.

GEEK: Wil Wheaton's Geek in Review: Carded.

My wife and I are both in our mid-thirties. We have two kids, one of whom is in college, but we must look young, because we still get carded in restaurants, bars, and even at the market. It happens so frequently, we’ve made it into a contest, to see who can get carded most often, and in the most unlikely circumstances.

This last weekend, I pulled ahead in our contest, when I was carded at the mall, while attempting to buy a video game.

“Wait.” I said to the cashier. “You’re carding me for a video game?”

“Yeah,” he said, “It’s an M-rated game. I have to.”

“I’m 35,” I said. “This is hilarious.”

“I’m sorry, but my manager is standing right there, so . . .” he said.

“Well, I don’t want to be a dick, and I don’t want to get you into any trouble.” I said. I reached into my wallet and handed him my ID. “But isn’t this sort of lame?”

The manager nodded. “It’s the stupidest thing in the world, and it’s all because of the Grand Theft Auto thing.”

“Hot Coffee, right?” I said.

The cashier handed me back my ID, and turned around to get my game out of the Big Drawer of Games We Don't Want People To Steal.

“Did it strike you guys as a little weird that parents groups and politicians were totally fine with the violence and criminal behavior in GTA, but as soon as their precious little children – who shouldn’t have been playing the game in the first place – could see some crappy simulated sex, they lost their fucking minds?”

They both laughed. It was clear that this was a regular topic of conversation in the store, among employees and customers alike.

A young couple walked up to the cash register next to me. The guy excitedly held a copy of Madden in his hand, while the girl – clearly a long-suffering Xbox Widow – patiently waited with him.

“I mean,” I continued, “don’t they know that their precious little children have access to far more explicit sexual material online? They’re worried about a simulated polygonal sex act while little Timmy can get all the bukkake he wants with three clicks?”

The guy next to me stifled a laugh as the manager finished ringing them up.

As they walked out of the store, the girl said, “What’s bukkake?”

The three of us at the counter didn't try to stifle our collective laugh.

“That’s not even the worst part,” the manager said to me. “Check this out: if I sold a minor alcohol, I’d get about a $300 misdemeanor fine. But they’re trying to pass a law in New York and here in California that would make it a $1500 fine and a felony for me to sell this game,” he held up the game I was buying, Dead Rising, “to the same kid.”

“That’s fucking retarded,” I said. “Laws like that have already been struck down in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Michigan, and Illinois!”

“Oh, we know,” he said, “but that’s not stopping them from trying in pretty much every state.”

“Thank you Jack Thompson,” I said.

The cashier laughed. “That guy’s an idiot.”

“And get this,” the manager said, “if a kid comes in here and tries to buy an M-rated game, we have to tell him that he has to come back with a parent, but when he comes back with a parent, I can’t sell the game to the parent, because he’s going to give it to the minor.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” he said, “try to figure out the logic there.”

He handed my game to the cashier, who put it into a bag while I signed my credit card slip, no doubt joining a long list of potentially dangerous future criminals who will one day go on a zombie-killing rampage across the country, armed with hockey sticks, pie plates, and cash registers. I held my breath, and wondered if anyone would read the Minority Report.

“Well,” I said, as I put my wallet back into my pocket and picked my subversive contraband, “thanks for being our nation’s eleventh line of defense against children with parents who aren’t involved enough in their lives to pay attention to ratings and decide what’s appropriate for them.”

When I got home, I had my staff send me some Internets with information about this proposed New York law. What I read was chilling:

Do these politicians even know what they’re doing, anymore? Or are they so busy pandering to the authoritarian nanny-staters that they’ve lost their collective minds? It’s bad enough that they think video games are as harmful to minors as alcohol abuse, but they actually want to put people in fucking jail for up to four years for selling a game? The only thing that surprises me, to be honest, is that I haven’t heard any of these opportunists invoke 9/11 (9/11! 9/11! 9/11!) as some justification for this insanity.

Look, I’m a parent, and I am also a gamer, so I know what my kids are playing, and when they're playing it. I also know that there are thousands of parents who aren’t gamers, who rely on ratings to know what’s appropriate for their children. I also fully support retailers not selling M titles to children, the same way I support movie theaters not selling tickets for rated R films to minors. But making it a felony to do so? That’s outrageous.

It's especially stupid and wasteful, too, since it will most likely be struck down in New York like it has been everywhere else, because, according to common sense and the judge who granted a preliminary injunction against the effort in California:

There are real problems facing children in America, like underfunded, overcrowded schools, a criminal lack of health insurance, abusive parents, and Hannah Montana. If lawmakers are really going to try to “protect the children,” they should stop wasting their time and our money pandering to those who think video games are the new heavy metal music.

Wil Wheaton has a warm, secret, fuzzy heart. In a box under his bed.

don't most of these politicians know, that the simple fact, none of them have been killed, for what they are trying to do, prove that there case is bullshit? i mean, it's not like us video gamers are pro-lifers who kill doctors....... you would think, if video games are as dangerous as they seem to say, a few of these assholes would have been assassinated by now? what with my incredible sniping skills from battlefield 2142, shouldn't be a problem or anything.... since they barely regulated guns..... damn those evil video games though

Dead Rising rules!

what clownshoes! i'm re-playing manhunt in protest.

Don't you mean 'suffer through' rather than re-playing?

As for the article, I fully support felony prosecution should you allow your child to watch Hannah Montana.

Good ol will, always a good read.
I must admit after reading some of the stories posted here on the newswire American's cop way less stick overseas for their stupidity and ignorance than they really deserve. Priorities need to be adjusted slightly one thinks.

But then again it is the same with everything you get a few absolute idiots making everyone else look bad

Well I think it's a good thing to jail people for selling this filth. Once the precedent is set, then it will be much easier to jail all other smut peddlers, alcohol peddlers, etc. Jail them for life without parole. Can't they see that alcohol prevents our children from being able to go out in the world and become something? In fact, we should just execute the offenders who sell these violent games to our dear children. We should do whatever it takes to show that we are against violence and killing.

The government over here in the UK have launched a study to determine what effect video games have on children. Our media have gone apeshit and are promoting the idea that games have a serious effect on the youth of today. One TV presenter was interviewing the psychologist who is running the study. He said, 'It is known that games make people violent isn't it?'
The lady psychologist replied, 'No, there is no evidence anywhere in the world to suggest that is the case.' Which took the wind out of the sails of that segment. This woman says she is approaching the study with an open mind and wants to look at all sides. So, not everyone is anti-gaming. Although the media has certainly jumped, yet again, on the band wagon.
I'm 36, am well educated and have a good professional job. i don't want to be told what to read, what to play, what to watch or what to listen to.
Perhaps if people were sufficently educated and were more thoughtful and responsible in their attitudes and treat people with a modicum of respect and allow that the majority of people are sensible enough to do the right thing with regard to games and censorship, we wouldn't have these idiotic proposals being made.
My job- I'm a teacher and also being a gamer has allowed me to touch base with a lot of my students. Every kid I have taught knows the difference between the fictional world of a game and reality. It is the adults who don't seem to be able to tell the difference. This being the case, there is at least some hope for the future!

I tend to keep mine on a shelf in the living room.

Whatever it takes, like, possibly, violence and killing.

Wil, you are my hero.

Would've been cooler if you got carded buying a T rated game.

And I for one feel much safer thinking of cops staking out the Best Buy parking lots trying to spot kids toting ill-gotten copies of God of War, rather than try to catch serial rapists or something.

I have no comment, you've stated exactly what I feel on this subject. Seriously Wil, I think you are one of the things I will miss the most when I have to leave this wonderful (but expensive for a college student) community. Thank you for being you and I hope you are still writing when I come back.

(P.S. I still believe, and will until the day I die most likely, that people should have to pass a parenting class in order to have children. People are just too damned lazy/self-absorbed for kids anymore. Why watch my kids or interact with them in any way when the TV/computer/video games will do it for me?)

Or, in California, already overlfowing and understaffed prisons. Honestly, we wouldn't have anywhere to put these so-called "felons." California is a primary example of how simply locking people up for everything is not a sustainable practice. Of course, it could conceivably work if facism keeps growing in the States and it becomes legal to starve and torture inmates.

Yeah, I know. I'm a fucking ray of sunshine, aren't I?

Heh, friends of mine at work were carded at a restaurant bar a few days ago. One is 54, the other is 45 or so. They asked why they of all people would be carded and were told that carding one patron and not another had resulted in complaints. So they asked the bartender to speak up when asking for their IDs. He obliged -- "May I see some ID young lady?" -- and was tipped handsomely.

-TTm

Sooooo...let me know if I'm getting this right.

For selling a game to a minor that shows "rape ..., physical torture, mutilation", they're gonna put you in prison with a bunch of guys who want to rape, torture and mutilate you...is that correct?

We are living in Bizarro world .. here in Maine they are carding 65 year olds for cigs and beer ..

And a felony for renting GTA is absurd ...

Just as long as I can keep playing the Elder Scrolls series all is ok . But I'd love to drop a bomb on most parents I see , does this make me a bad person ?

Ironic that some people don't think the state should be giving our kids to have health insurance seem perfectly alright with the state doing the parenting job instead of knowing what games their kid is playing. I want to know where these kids are getting like $60 for the games and if it is the parents why aren't they asking what the money is for.

I just love how many Hannah Montana digs I've seen just in the last 24 hours.

I'm going to assume you're a master of sarcasm, otherwise you've just won the idiot of the year award.

That was response when I read the article. That and "Jesus sweet goddamn that's so rediculous."

I love the girl asking her boyfriend what bukake was lol.
Hannah Montana is a serious problem for sure. But in all seriousness, it comes down to parents being involved as you said. My parents were always involved, and I'm glad they were.