As the GTA IV launch is once again trotted out as a controversy flashpoint, there's one thing the gaming audience tends to agree on: This game is not for children. Of course, just how zealous they are about enforcing such a mandate varies wildly.

Nonprofit advocacy group the Parents' Television Council takes their position on enforcement beyond just demanding legal consequences for retailers who sell M-rated games to kids under the age of 17. The council wants games like GTA IV locked up behind store counters, like cigarettes, tobacco and porn.

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Every time a teen commits an act of violence these days I find myself holding my breath, waiting for information to surface about his video gaming habits, and apparently I am not alone. The San Jose Mercury News caught up with ESA Board chairman and LucasArts president Jim Ward to talk about the state of gaming legislation today, and his concerns echo my own pretty succinctly.

And, by the way, at any moment, if some kid in West Virginia goes and blows away 32 people, and they find out that he played a video game, guess what, we've got a problem again. Just as if he had watched a movie and then done that. Or just as if he had read "Catcher in the Rye" and blamed it on J.D. Salinger. . .

That was in response to ESA president Mike Gallagher's belief that the tide of anti-gaming legislation is turning, and Ward is right. The industry isn't so much marching firmly towards the level of acceptance that music, movies and literature have achieved as it is walking a tightrope towards it.

Gaming exec assesses impact of technology, legislation [Miami herald via Game Politics]