The Video Game Industry Goes Political 187
An anonymous reader writes "The video game industry is finally forming a PAC by the end of March to get some political clout. A story in The New York Times yesterday reports that the video game industry has finally woken up and realized that in order to stay strong going forward, it can't rely on 13-year-old pimple-faced kids to promote its agenda."
What? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)
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Which one can better push an agenda that will ultimately benefit the gaming industry and its consumers?
I'm thinking...
Actually is insensitive. (Score:2)
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Who has the lowest UID*Age on slashdot?
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Why not state it plainly? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Why not state it plainly? (Score:5, Funny)
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Sounds a lot like a new RIAA to me.
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I realize you jest, but this is really a double edged sword.
On the one hand you'll see them battling out for getting rid of censorship of gaming, which is a good thing.
On the other hand you'll see them battling out for making the DMCA even tighter than it already is. As much as we like to point fingers at the RIAA, and MPAA, Nintendo and Sony have both leveraged quite
The Third, Far More Dangerous, Possibility (Score:4, Insightful)
"On the one hand... on the other hand..." I see this comment all over this post; there will be less censorship and more DMCA! This is a double-edged sword! Yes, but there is also a knife in the gut.
What I think people are failing to note is that right now you're picking the issues that will be publicized by the PAC, and the political organizations that support or oppose it. Do you support the PAC because you hate censorship? Or do you support someone else because you hate the DMCA? Either way, the rest of the industry and the rules and regulations that are affecting it will be totally ignored.
Why? Because they're not going to have anything to do with gaming, per se. Tax cuts for the major game studios (we can't, after all, have them decide to hire game developers for way less than other industries would pay the same talent in another country), regulatory breaks for those same companies, and a million other little things that save large companies their bottom line at the expense of a thousand less wealthy individuals.
PACs are about the centralization of power and keeping the flow of influence and power through the hands of a few. This will help the 'game industry' if you consider the measure of health to be the economic well-being of that industry. However, do not expect it to either increase the quality of games nor the health and wealth of the common worker in that industry. Personally, I see this as a bad thing, because they're going to use the few major issues (Censorship, DMCA) that have little actual impact on their money to make a thousand far more insidious changes that will negatively impact everyone else who are too busy paying attention to only those selected issues that the politicos are fighting about.
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It's not the content that slashdotters care/don't care about it's the extremes by which these groups go to "protect" them, punishing the legitimate consumers in the process and making the pirate version superior by not hindering access.
A content's value is directly proportional to it's accessibility.
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As an NRA member I'm fine with using PACs. The video game and especially the computer industry should IMO be far more aggressive politically.
If you want results, do what gets those results.
MAFIAA again (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:MAFIAA again (Score:5, Funny)
Please use the correct name. (Score:2)
"GIAA" or, in gamerspeak, "Teh geyer!"
Hmm. Perhaps we may want to rethink that one.
Re:Why not state it plainly? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't expect it to ever change anytime soon however. What politician would bite the hand that feeds them.
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A CEO is going to be more then happy to throw the COMPANY'S money under the rugs to popular candidates, i don't see any CEO doing it with their personal funds.
Companies don't have the right to vote, yet they can donate?
The US doesn't allow non US Citizens to donate, yet they let companies do so?
I hate to be so cynical, but a large company doesn't care about whats good for the country,
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There are plenty of CEO's throwing their own money around. Take a look at OpenSecrets and start plugging away.
I hate to be so cynical, but a large company doesn't care about whats good for the country, only whats good for its bottom line, as such, they donate expecting political favors for their "donations"
It may be a little twisted, and I don
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Until political lobbies are basically outlawed, this country will continue to suffer. It's not the rich getting richer that is the true problem. It's that as the rich reach a certain level, they then get to start buying laws that favor them getting even more... richer.
Lobbyists and campaign contributions from corporations or cartels (read: *IAA) have never been so open with their
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Why not state it plainly? They've decided to form an organization to pool resources and pay off politicians.
They did. PAC == "Politically Acceptable Corruption"
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I concurr... don't you people start liking PACs now they are about something you have moderate interest in.. Frankly I think the game industry was doing fine as is.. sure there's bumps and stuff, but I don't see anything crippling on the horizon for most of the companies I follow.
And to put a damper on the idea.. guess who is going to have more clout in such a PAC?
Also, now there's a (better) avenue for the larger companies to try and push in legislati
Careful! (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm more worried that this brings the two most inefficient forces in the world closer together...video game developers and congress. It's only a matter of time until Duke Nuke'em forever becomes a pork barrel project. You think the bridge to nowhere was bad? Pffft.
Conflicts (Score:5, Insightful)
Looking at the entities behind this PAC--"Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo"--I doubt they're going to be fighting for the rights of gamers so much as the rights of game producing corporations. So issues that are important to ME (less censorship, rating restrictions, not using games as a scapegoat for school shootings) might take backseat to interests that are important to the industry from a business stand point (DRM/copy protection, criminalizing mod-chips, less regulation, certain taxes). That's the whole point of a PAC though I suppose, and what's good for the industry is good for people who play games in that more games can be made. In theory at least. I'd be happier if EA made less games, or stopped entirely.
Re:Conflicts (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't you think that EA et al. would like the politicians to stop telling their potential customers that their products will turn their children into mindless killers?
I agree that there are likely to be bad things that come from this, mod chip prohibition and such. There are also likely to be good things, like less censorship, or at least less sensationalized crusading for the "think of the childrens" b.s.
Re:Conflicts (Score:4, Interesting)
Quickly, now.
Name one - just one - developer whose name doesn't begin with the letter R that makes headlines for the violence of its video games. Whose PR trumpets the casts the player in the role of the psycho killer. The use of the Wii controller to mime torture porn kills. F.E.A.R, The Orange Box, Bioshock. These games and a hundred others enter the market to critical and popular acclaim and nary a whisper of complaint. You take Rockstar out of the picture and most of the problems disappear.
To take an example from television - and from Fox, of all networks: "The Sarah Conner Chronicles" has all the patented shock and thrills of the Terminator franchise. In a sense, the story begins with a shootout in a high school classroom. But there is a lot of fun to be had here too. You get to save Summer Glau by tossing her out of a twelve-story window. Fun is something we haven't seen much of in sci-fi since Battlestar Galactica turned so bleak.
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More than that, the controversy WOULD NOT go away if Rockstar went, because Rockstar is in many ways the lightning rod. They t
Doom (Score:2)
Doom defined the first person shooter.
The game play was intense and - in a loose sense - "addictive." It let you move in a plausible pseudo-3D environment. You could modify the game, introducing your own environments, characters and weapons.
What Doom did not have was a story or narrative that "framed" the action in anything but the most minimal sense. You goal is to shoot everything that moves.
The tactical or stealth shooter like S.W.A.T or Rogue Spear
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This is slightly off-topic but it might interest the
I recently bought a vintage / classic / retro 1981 arcade machine. Upon opening up the back I discovered an extremely thick manual book with instructions for doing everything you could imagine to the machine. It has full technical schematics for the PCBs and Monitor. Talks about replacing and modding components etc.
I was born in 1982 and in "my time" the back panel woul
Re:Conflicts-Principals. (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, because bribing politicians for hand-picked regulations instead of making competitive products is always better... or what?
Game companies doesn't necessarily want to create more games, they want money. If they can get that by forcing people to pay more for less by limiting competition in the field, then forming an alliance like this is a good way to do it.
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I don't know where you get better value for your entertainment dollar than in a PC or video game.
You could begin with Half-Life and continue on through its sequels, spending maybe $60 for the lot, retail boxed. $1 an hour or less on game play before you even begin with mult
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"13 year old pimple faces" (Score:5, Interesting)
Hands up. How many here are above 18? Eligible to drive, drink liquor and (most of all) vote? Ok, hands down again, I can't see the opposite wall anymore.
I think it's a good step. It's time the politicians see that it might not be a good idea to use games as the scapegoats anymore, because gamers vote. Computer games ain't for the 13 year olds anymore. Computer games aren't just for kids who don't matter because they can't vote. 20 years ago, computer games were a teenager pastime, today, more and more computer gamers are well above 18, many are interested in politics and many take their games, and their freedom to play the games they want, serious enough to consider it and the stance politicians take towards games important enough to have it influence their decision who to give their vote to.
There is a reason why politicians have no problem blaming every single thing that goes wrong with today's youths on games, but surprisingly few blame TV and movies. The reason is simple: TV and movies do have a political lobby.
While I'm not really a fan of political lobbying (it is so close to political bribing), it seems to be a necessity in today's political climate.
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Re:"13 year old pimple faces" (Score:5, Insightful)
I have two young boys (age 1 and age 3) who like to watch me play nearly any videogame I throw in (they're big fans of the Katamari series). Frankly, their perception of any violence or other supposed influences at this point is moot, considering their attention span is near zero at this age.
My 10-year old stepdaughter I tend to look out for more carefully. She watched a few hours of Bloodrayne and had nightmares so the horror games get played while she's at school. She likes to kill time playing any of the GTA series which I have no problem with. In fact, I usually have to kick her off the system because she's boring the shit out of me. She won't steal cars, hurt people, or open fire on unarmed civilians. She doesn't want the police to come after her and tends to wander the streets aimlessly on foot or joyride on top (yes, on the ROOF) of CPU vehicles.
I can take care of my children and control what I think they should view and participate in. I would rather keep it this way and somehow I think that a PAC, while helping get some pols on our side, will ultimately be a net loss for gamers. You cannot legislate personal responsibility.
Re:"13 year old pimple faces" (Score:4, Funny)
Jesus tits, it's people like you that enable the think-of-the-children advocates. By the time your kids grow up scientists will probably have found out that K.D. is the thalidomide of our generation [xkcd.com].
Re:"13 year old pimple faces" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Legislation (Score:2, Informative)
That the way it should be. However, more time and money is spent trying to ban games completely, edit content or hold game manufacturers responsible for society's ills. None of these lawmakers, parents and other "concerned" groups direct their attention towards the parents of those whose criminal actions have brought so much negative attention to the gaming community over the past several years.
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Waking up? I'm too young to have been in the absolute first wave of gamers...I was damn close (I'm 33), but just a touch too young for Pong. At that, I'm old enough to have gone through college, and had a kid who would be 12 by now. In the next 10 years, whenever you "Think of the Children" you're going
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In case you didn't notice yet, our rights are being taken away piece by piece. It's the boiling-frog thing.
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Restricting minors from being able to purchase certain things has nothing to do with our otherwise, agreed, eroding rights. Unless you're a teenager or currently wearing a tinfoil bodysuit.
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If what the video game-opponents are saying is true, and kids really do subconsciously model their behavior based upon what they see in games, your kids are going to have some hilarious tendencies [xkcd.com] when they're older.
Attention span (Score:2)
Ever think there might be a causal relationship behind that complete lack of an attention span?
Re:Attention span (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you figure?
Your going to blame short attention spans on an industry accused of putting out games so addictive they compell mothers to neglect their children in order to obsessively play the game?
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Are computer games that addictive? Or are some people just crap at parenting?
I suspect this is a new version of "the devil made me do it!"
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When everquest came out, I know people who dropped out of university, and others who who took letter grade hits. I know a guy who lost his job... just started calling in sick to keep playing. There are countless stories of broken relationships over that game. And extreme cases involving parental neglects and suicides.
People were playing every waking hour they had. It earned the nickname evercrack for a reason.
You can argue that the
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Bloodrayne had the same effect on me.
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How many plan to do all three at the same time in the next election?
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Clue: Slashdot doesn't represent even a visible fraction of gamers.
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20 years from now, we'll start to see games in retirement homes playing Doom 3 for nostalgia sake in their retirement homes.
The anti-game lobby will lose by attrition (their members will die off).
I'm against a pro-gaming lobby because I'm worried about what they'll mutate to in 20-30 years.
Top 10 Gamer Facts (Score:5, Informative)
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Job Title? (Score:4, Funny)
The time is ripe. (Score:3, Informative)
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Please correct me if I'm wrong. I definitely wouldn't support anyone who would propose banning games like GTA, but I have absolutely no problem with age restriction enforcement. If you want your kid to play G
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I'm not seeing how this is a free speech issue. No one is preventing adults from purchasing any kind of game protected under the first amendment.
Re:The time is ripe. (Score:5, Interesting)
The game ratings set by the ESRB are voluntary. Just like the movie ratings by the MPAA are voluntary. No game "HAS" to be rated. In fact several games (and movies) are released as "NR" (not rated). Hillary of course feels that government should ENFORCE ratings systems.
Oh and as for the "age restriction" - yes, there is a HUGE difference between a 17 year old playing a violent video game and an 18 year old playing the same violent video game... All this politics came out because of the "hot coffee" mod for GTA... a game released with a 17+ rating. Now at 17 you are old enough to enlist and go kill Iraqis oh sorry "insurgents", but apparently heaven forbid you witness some bad attempt at video porn (no actual oral-gential contact is visible). Big fucking deal.
Enough of the "nanny state" philosophy. It's up to parents, not the government, to regulate what their children can and can't play. And guess what - violent crime and rape statistics are at an all time low since the mid/late 90's and the popularity of home computers/internet/gaming systems.
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'Voluntary' in the sense that the government threatened to impose restrictions if the game industry didn't censor itself; they've just proven why self-censorship is always a bad idea, because game censorship laws would have been thrown out by now, whereas the ESRB is so entrenched it's almost impossible to get rid of.
Either way, without threats from the government the ESRB ratings would not exist. That's hardly 'voluntary' by any standard I'm aware of.
Good enough for government work (Score:2)
The distinction isn't between who gets to play the game but who gets to buy the game - anyone who has ever been maneuvered into buying a keg for his kid brother knows that much.
But, just for laughs, let's pretend that you have something serious to say here.
As a practical matter, you have to draw the line somewhere.
The alternative is "anything goes" or intense and intru
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There aren't any such laws.
There aren't any such laws for movies, either.
How about a Gamer's Bill Of Rights? (Score:5, Insightful)
Article 2: There shall be *copious* save points in RPGs always close to the player. Note: 45 minutes away across the Chasm Of Despair and on the other side of Mount Doom is not "close". Failure to do so earns the developers a punch in the balls, and another one 30 minutes later.
Article 3: Games should not be subject to bad voice acting. There's thousands of decent local and community actors across the land who'd probably love the experience of doing some voice work. Failure to do so earns the developers a punch in the balls. Developers who claim it was "intentionally bad" get second, harder punch.
Article 4: The industry is too advanced to still inflict bad camera angles on gamers. Developers who release a game with bad cameras face multiple ball punches from bad angles when they least expect it.
Article 5: Any game developers who think it's wonderfully dramatic to strip my FPS character of all his or her carefully rationed weapons and ammo in the middle of the game will face summary execution.
Article 6: If the player fails to get past a tricky part in 25 tries, give him the change a fucking variable somewhere, would you? Is it THAT hard to adapt things to a player's skill? Make his bullets a little stronger for a while or something. Sheesh. Oh yeah, ball punches.
And so on.
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Re:How about a Gamer's Bill Of Rights? (Score:5, Funny)
Make sure the ball-punching is long and unskippable.
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*golf clap*
Re:How about a Gamer's Bill Of Rights? (Score:4, Funny)
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hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
The real problem (Score:2, Insightful)
it can't rely on 13-year-old pimple-faced kids to promote its agenda.
The real problem is that 90% of people out there think that's who gamers are. Video games aren't just for kids. Most of the people I know who game are 18-30. I'm just about to turn 28 and I can't see myself stopping any time soon. People see a game with violence or nudity in it and think it should be banned because kids "might" play it. That shouldn't be the case.
If you look at movies, just because kids watch movies doesn't mean -only- kids watch movies. Some movies are made for adults.
The same goes fo
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I've been saying this for years.
Games aren't just for kids.
It's a billion dollar industry. Move over hollywood!
Finally, maybe we'll see some real progress . . . (Score:2)
Agenda? (Score:2)
spokesman (Score:2, Funny)
Depressing, isn't it (Score:2)
SimCity 5 WILL BE MANDATORY!!! (Score:2)
Oh, you folks thought that a political action committee's purpose was to help citizens?????
What? (Score:2)
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Or maybe I have been duped by another mymycity troll...
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Especially since I, for one, had seen no mmc links for several days now.
But I guess they started again. And adopted the words of some Slashdotter who started the screwmmc page.
Ah, well.
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The idea that generational die-off will lead to more "freedom" is questionable. Every generation brings with it replacement "rabbit people" who want to restrict all sorts of things that frighten them.