@ whothewu What the hell are you talking about? Tipper Gore? That woman hasn't been relevant to anything concerning politics in the last fifteen years. As for California being a red state, may I remind you, this is the same state that passed, and then revoked, Gay marriage rights. If anything, California is politically schizophrenic. It's also worth pointing out that this bill is being supported by Republicans AND Democrats. And sorry, but you missed the entire point of what's going on. This is a freedom of speech issue, not property rights. The government does have the right to determine what does and doesn't require a card (read: MINIMUM AGE) on goods and services. The government has tried this before, with films and comic books. And even back during the 16-bit wars. And what has always happened is that a self-censoring body of the industry had been created (MPAA, Comics Code Authority, and the ESRB), which the government had always been fine with. The is a freedom of speech issue because a system like what this bill proposes is already in place, and would require an entirely new method of rating video games.
@ ptown58 First, Schwarzenegger isn't governor any more, so no, he can't sign anything into law. Second, you seem to be completely unaware of the hypocrisy that is the Republican party (there is no such thing as the Tea Party). They want less government involvement in American's lives, but want to pass laws that make sure they are in as much control as possible.
A mighty fine slippery-slope. If the Supreme Court upholds the decision, it won't be long before other states adopt these laws (several have already tried passing their own). But it won't end there. It will snowball into print, television, film, and the internet. The thing that sickens me the most is the "science" involved. The studies detailed in this article deal only with university students, not actual children. Not only that, these studies can be taken out of video games and put into any other sort of activity and will practically get the same kind of results. Plus, anti-games critics have changed their arguments constantly since the '80s. First it was it turns kids into anti-social creeps. Then it was they grew up to be murderers or rapists. Now it's "violent games has an immediate effect on kids."
If you're truly worried about your identity being stolen or someone using your plastic to charge stuff out the ass, here's what you do: Pay attention to your credit/debit card activity. As soon as you see something strange, call your bank or credit agency. (you really should be doing this anyway). Wipe your CC/DB info from the PSN, and never use them on the PSN again. Use the PSN currency cards (in most states, they're still tax free). Never have a Web site or service store your CC/DC info, when you can help it. To guard against identity theft, access your free credit report. The US government made it so the credit bureaus have to - by law - offer a free credit report every calendar year. Visit http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre34.shtm. If you're 25 and older, you should be looking at this thing every year, anyway. As the link says, beware of fraudulent Web sites that offer free credit reports: those are just phishing sites. You might even consider signing up with one of the few true credit report sites for a couple of months. It's cheaper that way - each credit bureau charges at least $100 USD for a report after the free one. As for changing you CC/DC info, like some have already suggested, keep in mind: to completely change your card number, most banks charge you for it, especially if there's been no evidence of fraud. Although, explaining to them that you're a PSN user, they might wave the fee.
Funny thing: anyone who uses the internet should be worried at all times about your identity being stolen, regardless of secure they think they are. The only ones putting a price on this are the ones who suddenly realized that this can actually happen to them. That aside, rather than flaming Sony, maybe a good idea would have been to tell people how they can protect themselves and how to keep track of this stuff on their own. Especially since there are actually two threats here: monetary theft and identity theft. From their rhetoric, it appears Sony is more concerned with the thieves using our credit and debit card info to buy (read: steal) from online shops. The banks wouldn't be able to spot identity theft (unless a thief tried to change your information with them). The three credit bureaus can, though. And I haven't read anywhere that Sony has been talking to them.
@ Happy-Screamer You do know what an Op-Ed piece is, right? It's short hand for "opposite the editorial page," which means it's not meant as news and is, in fact, a person's opinion. A person, I might add, who isn't a member of the editorial staff. Tradition is that the editorial staff has their spot for weighing in on topics, and then someone decided to give other employees a sounding board for their opinions. As for Gamespot focusing more and more on "mundane" industry news, I first have to say that there's nothing mundane about 77 million people screwed out of functionality of their console. And certainly nothing mundane about potential identity and monetary theft. If no game site reported on this stuff, all we would have is a blog update from the companies comprised of whatever they wanted to tell us. Or not. And no focus on games? L.A. Noire has one feature exclusively about it, 28 videos solely about it or about it and other games, and 15 news articles about the game itself as well as three preview pages.
@ wavelength121 You know what that's called? Censorship. The only thing is, you personally don't have any power to do anything. While I can certainly understand your frustration with that point of view, people do have a right to express themselves, regardless if others may or may not like it. Do some people hide behind the curtain of free speech? Yes. But free speech is a two way street. Just as a person has a right to say - and express it by any means necessary - I have the right not to listen. Also, it's rude and intrusive to tell people that just because YOU don't like something, they shouldn't either.
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