Government Love and Hate for Video Games

hapwned writes "Jason Della Rocca, the executive director of the International Game Developers Association, unmasks the hypocrisy of governmental interaction with the video game industry. He expounds: 'Why is it that the cultural and artistic merit of the game medium is so hard to accept? Are games simply too complex for digital immigrants to grok? Why can't they see games for the powerful medium that they are? Is the word 'game' honestly so damaging as to demean the entire creative output of the industry, to reduce it to an empty pastime? Or, are the politicos enacting an entirely different drama where the industry is their hapless whipping boy and the sincerity of their intentions to "save the children" need to be questioned altogether?'"

Comments

It's All About the Votes

[TychoCelchuuu]

When it comes to trivial, useless things like video games (I love them, but they're just entertainment, harmless), the only thing that a politician cares about is votes. Except for a few crazy ones, senators couldn't care less what people play on their consoles or their PCs as long as it falls short of interactive child porn. The only reason Hillary Clinton or any of the others even pay attention to someone like Jack Thompson is because he is scaring parents, making them think video games will ruin their children's lives. Jack Thompson might be completely nuts, but he can tell people who to vote for and if they've listened to him thus far, there's a good chance they'd agree with him. Courting Jack Thompson, and to a greater degree playing off of the latest irrational fear that the public has been infected with for some reason or another, is just an easy way to get votes. It's the same reason Republicans bring up 9/11 when they want to get elected: to scare people into voting for them. It's why Democrats blame Katrina on global warming: to scare people into voting for them.

It's all about the votes. If people are afraid of video games, if they're mad at video games, then it's time to regulate video games. The content doesn't come into play for the people making the decisions.

Violence

[cs668]

The funny thing is violence in video games suits the government just fine when it is used as a recruiting tool for the military as "America's Army" the video game.

You can't sell a violent game, but the army can give it away for free.

Re:Violence

[alan_dershowitz]

The Army used to use a modified version of DOOM to help train troops. Look at it from the government's persepective. They are promoting games that facilitate socially-acceptable violent ends (working in the army, as a team toward a national goal.) This has two items to it that I can perceive. Firstly, try convincing the government that games don't facilitate violence when they are actively using it for that purpose; and secondly, if you actually play America's Army, it's not an anything-goes deathmatch like Unreal Tournament, you are punished for antisocial behavior, going off mission, intentional friendly fire, etc. Some of the things that are perceived as promoting school shootings and the like, does not exist in America's Army. The government never claimed to be against violence. They are (at least they say...) against games making little kids into antisocial killers.

You can't play both sides of the issue. Do games cause violence or not? If they don't, then the violence aspect of America's army should be no problem. Personally, I don't think there is a contradiction, since a) the government never claimed that they were against all violence and b) America's Army is rated T for TEEN, old enough for 90% of top rated slashdot posters to agree they can cope with violent content. Oh yeah, and the government didn't actually prevent any kid from playing any game as long as their parent bought it, which I still don't understand why anyone thinks this is a problem.