There is no consensus on whether there is an effect on players’ brains if they indulge in gaming playing too long. However, almost ironically, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, who created Donkey Kong, Mario Brothers and numerous other “fun” video games of the past, has charged the industry with relying too strongly on violence and sequels for content. Miyamoto would have them reach out to a wider spectrum of players. He made these statements as the keynote speaker at the Game Developers Conference in March. After the controversy had quieted in the immediate wake of the shootings, two US congressmen introduced the Video Game Decency Act of 2007 (HR 1531) to prohibit deceptive acts and practices in the content rating and labeling of video games. The AAMA explains the content of the legislation. “It is illegal for any person to ship or distribute, while conducting interstate commerce, any video game displaying a rating label containing an age-based content rating for that video game where the person, with the intent of obtaining a less restrictive age-based content rating, failed to disclose content of the video game that was required to be disclosed to the independent ratings organisation that assigned such age-based content rating, and which resulted in the video game receiving a less-restrictive age-based content rating than it otherwise would have resulted.” This measure appears to be largely aimed at consumer games, as is video content legislation that has been introduced in the state legislatures of Missouri, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Delaware. “These new measures are similar to those that have been introduced in other states recently and/or passed into law and struck down by the courts,” reported AAMA.

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