> Television and Radio have had massive amounts of censorship in US history. And at every step there has been aggressive active resistance to that by the audie

> Television and Radio have had massive amounts of censorship in US history. And at every step there has been aggressive active resistance to that by the audience. Even just recently, book publishers floated an idea a few years ago to put recommended age ratings on books aimed at the childhood and adolescent markets. Readers, authors, and all fans of literature exploded. They launched boycotts (and unlike gamers they're not lying when they say they'll boycott something), they got loud. Publishers quickly backed down. Gamers would never think of resisting age prohibition rankings. In the movie industry, we had the Hayes Code for awhile and movie fans opposed it unceasingly until it was eventually repealed. And with games we face higher censorship than in any other medium. In movies, for instance, if the movie features animated characters rather than real people (as all videogames do), you can get away with essentially anything at all. Just look at the South Park creators and their movies. And you can get an unrated movie and pop it into your player and watch away. With videogame consoles the console makers have all declared they will never permit an unrated title to be licensed, nor will they ever permit any title given a rating that restricts it to an audience of 18+ gamers. And thanks to the DMCA section 1201, that edict of the publishers gives the ratings handed down by the ESRB the full force of federal law. And you have to consider the 'Chilling Effect' as well. You can't even propose beginning a project in the gaming industry that has a significant risk of being black-balled with an AO rating. Most gamers look at M-rated games, which are equivalent to PG-13 blockbuster action movies at their most 'extreme', and think its equivalent to an R rated film. They would never think of standing up and saying 'content on a screen is not harmful. Ratings are restricting what we have access to in significant ways and need to be stopped.' We don't have ratings on books. When you go to a bookstore, there is a 'childrens section'. That is sufficient, and no more is needed. No prevention of kids from grabbing books intended for an older audience, no group of 'concerned parents' declaring the appropriate age range of readers, no ratings agency charging tens of thousands of dollars to grant a rating which is used to determine whether a reading device will permit it to operate. Gamers are downright scared of such a system for games, though. And for no legitimate reason.