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ESA Pushing for Gamers to Vote
Grooves writes "The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has announced the first voter registration drive aimed at gamers, called 'Play for Real: Gamer Voter Drive'. The drive is being managed by the ESA's Video Game Voters Network, an attempt at growing a grassroots community around the issue of games legislation. From the article, 'Lowenstein would like to boost these figures by convincing younger voters that their voice will have an influence over issues they care about, particularly efforts to create new laws restricting video games.'"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If voting worked, it would be illegal.
I bet ya this will fail miserably just like the Vote or Die campaign aimed at youngsters. The vast majority of this age group just don't care enough to vote.
Yeah, and the cheat code for the voting booth is
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, VOTE
That way the machine will access it's hidden firmware and convert ALL the votes to the person of your choice..
= Grow a brain...
The drive is being managed by the ESA's Video Game Voters Network, an attempt at growing a grassroots community around the issue of games legislation.
There is already a "grassroots community", but I'm thinking it's not the kind of grass you're referring to... if you know what I mean.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I imagine they are going to shy away from copyright (and even patent) issues. This is the number one problem with respect to laws. Restriction rules pale in comparison.
The problem I see with this is that the only reason there is any movement for pushing gamers to vote is so the industry doesn't lose out with money. No one involved in this cares about the issue as much as it's threat to their pocketbook.
I am a member of the IGDA, a developer, and I don't want to see free speech be limited any more than the next person. But when the IGDA directors started spamming my inbox last year trying to rally folks to fight against legislation for limiting game sales to minors, it didn't matter if games actually were harmful to the psychology of adolescents, it was just a perceived threat of lower sales that drove them to action.
I can agree with saving our civil rights and our artform, but I can't agree with blindly following these decisions and encouraging others to fight for it solely based on profit.
Vote? Based on games? Why? The right would ban GTA because it's violent, the left because it's racist.
Besides, I've allready joined the "Re-elect Nobody" campaign.
Jon O'Neill, from Rainham in Essex, first appeared on Countdown on 1st April 2005 (no jokes, please) when he was just fifteen years old. His first opponent was one-time winner Steve Smith, who he beat quite convincingly (87-67) before going on to register a further seven wins and five centuries (including a score of 114) and thus become the third octochamp of what was to prove to be Richard Whiteley's last series of Countdown. He returned in the summer as number three seed, knocking out Judith Young in the quarter-finals, before finally coming unstuck against the eventual series winner John Mayhew on a crucial conundrum (which neither player got). Jon then returned for the twelfth Championship of Champions, where he was knocked out in the preliminary stages by Series 52 semi-finalist (and number two seed) Jack Welsby. This is Jon's very amusing account of events, written in his own inimitable style...
If I had known when posting my application form that involving myself in Countdown would change so much of my life, I'm not sure I would have had the bottle to do it. As it happened, the catalyst was a special episode broadcast between two 'starlets' - Austin Shin and Beth Sutton - around that time. I realised that I could beat my peers (albeit from the comfort of bed, with a lax dictionary), and that was a good enough indicator that I should act upon what I had said to my granddad a few months before: "I might apply to go on this in a little while". So I did post the application form, and the next Saturday I had notification of my audition.
That was the week when I finished noting down scores in my little A6 notebook. The early games in it are pretty ridiculous. I started taking notes during Series 52, and I managed to beat most of the contestants (exceptions being along of the lines of John Hunt, John Gray, Steven Moir, Mark Tournoff) with the help of a fair deal of cheating. I was only cheating myself, obviously, when I allowed words like 'aryens' (bastardization of Aryans???), 'reloans' (twice in one game!), 'unplaster' and 'palsey', but I'm sure it felt good at the time.
The audition came around quickly: late summer in a small hotel suite with no windows (the sort of place I feel like I might die in one day) along with six other nerds and a Countdown researcher - Marie Wale I think. It was a fun day, going up to King's Cross and back - missing double History to pursue my dream of national stardom. The audition was up-and-down. I started with a six that I can't remember, missing 'emphatic' for eight. Only one person in the room got it, and it was Jane Hoskyn, who would go on to post the highest losing score of the series against Chris Hunt. Life went on, and a few rounds later me and a few others were declaring 'policeman' for nine. The form continued: I beat the room with 'unroped', and nailed the three numbers games at the end.
I really had no idea how I did. I was confident that I had beaten everyone else in the room but had been reassured that this didn't mean anything, as is logical. I got a bit of an adrenaline rush from this, so when I got home I had a shower and went into school to catch the second half of double History. No idea why I did that.
Anyway, on that journey home I decided I would search the Internet for Countdown. The Hammersmith and City Line leg of the journey was a happy one. I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it before - merging my two favourite things: the Internet and Countdown. The search proved fruitful, and I ended up a member of the now extinct Yahoo! Group, 'gevincountdown'.
Eventually I made my way over to c4countdown, and immersed myself in past and future Countdown legends like Kirk Bevins and Conor Travers. It turns out that Conor auditioned on the same day as me, in the same place! He would later go on to achieve notability of some form, despite being hideously ugly.
I loved the community's atmosphere, got everyone's MSN address and never looked back. The part played by the c4countdown community was paramount. On a simple level, we
Port Halo to the Diebold voting machines.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Uh oh Washington... when the geeks get out and start voting, you had better watch out.
Er, so who are you guys going to vote for?
Justin - Don't be afraid of my blog, it won't bite.
Both major parties are anti-video gamer. The Democrats are actually even worse here on "morality" than the Republicans, but the bottom line is that neither party is a good vote on this issue.
If you want them to make a difference, have them en masse vote Libertarian at the local level. That's where most of the "decency" legislation is really passed and enforced.
Voting doesn't work anyway. The Illuminati makes all the decisions about who's in charge. And if they votes are different than what they want, they create "voting errors".
Freedom is a state of mind. A mind is a state of being. Stay the fuck out of my mind and my being. - Corporate Avenger
What would be a great addition to this would be to publish a list of politicians (senators, house members, district members, judges, goveners, etc...) that are on one side or the other of this debate.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
votekick bush
if that fails, we might be forced to:
votemap canada
Now if you could vote from your game!!! now that would work!
Quest Giver...
!
Vote
Election magistrate wants you to collect information on 6 candidates and return them to him!
Candidate Information 0/6
Rewards:
Voter registration Card
I tried playing that game a couple of time before. I keep dying a few levels in.
There are two unlocked characters to play from the start, but they're virtually identical. There are other characters, but I've yet to be able to unlock any of them. And there is no way to switch characters between levels, which would've been nice.
The controls are sluggish; it seems to take forever to get anything done in the game. There appears to be a controller glitch because the characters often do not go in the direction you are pressing. The Jump and Fire buttons work sporadically, and sometimes switch for some reason. It seems the only thing you're really meant to do is turn the game on; the controls are that bad.
The graphics are really flashy, but the story-line is pretty shallow and cliched. It's not much fun at all.
My rating: 2/10
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Tell me you don't work for Diebold? :-)
Vote or Die
God spoke to me.
Unfortunately for folks in middle the money seems to lie on the far left and right ends of the spectrum and money gets votes. The middle where I truly believe most people's beliefs lie are largely ignored. I still vote, mostly libertarian but usuall just the person I feel is best for the job but even I know that im basically pissing away my ballot.
What we really need is a "grassroots" party without the crazy people.
Thats the problem with getting people to vote, first they need some education on who/what to vote for.
And with the republican/democrate duocracy, you always vote for someone evil. Both want to ban your rights, but for different reasons. Its a shame, we need more independants and other parties to start winning...
And top it off, all the bi-partisan politics, no progress ever gets made.
Tis a sad state of affairs.
Here's to the effort put into getting this age group to vote. It's been tried numerous times though. Rock the vote was the most recent. Voter turnouts continue to plummet and obviously something is not being done to change this.
Getting gamers to put their voice in their vote isn't guaranteed to work. There is a disconnect between youth and voting and the underlying issues aren't being addressed.
So now they are using video games to ge through to non-voters? Whats next? Oh I know, they will move on to music and movies. So in between tracks 6 & 7 and 11 & 12 will have subliminal messages about political candidates. Before election *I love games* After election *Screw games*
12 year olds can't vote in the US.
Play for Real? It's unfortunate that their slogan is so brutally honest (more so than they know). I think the biggest problem here is that everyone already knows it's a game. It's just not very compelling to 'play' it.
Isn't most of the "anti-gaming legislation" being passed in regards to keeping "violent" games out of the hands of the precious children? People who can't already be bothered to vote aren't likely to start doing so in the interests of others, and quite frankly I don't think most 18-29 yr. olds give a shit as nobody is passing laws saying they can't buy games. I vote, and I understand that being quiet can end up getting me burned in the long run, but not everyone sees it that way. This move just seems like a bad carrot on a stick in front a well-fed horse that sees no reason to act.
I have been involved in grass-roots efforts for many years. I can tell you it is hard to get real change through voting. Doesn't seem to matter if the Republicans are in control or if the Democrats are in control, the country still moves in the same direction (same direction...just at different speeds depending on which one has control at the time). A thrid party in control might actually get something good done, but the chances of that are about none.
A better method would be to form a lobby group and buy off a few key politicians. If just a tiny fraction of the over 1 billion dollars made from PC game sales alone went to buy off, errr lobby, the politicians, it would be an enormous amount of money (and that is just the money from PC games, not console sales and/or console games see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game).
Transporter_ii
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
It doesn't matter...politicians like to grab ahold of your passion (Golfing, Gaming, Autos, Soccer Mom, Mortgage Mom, religion, environment) and pull your strings to get your vote in their direction. When they get in, they go back to their own agendas...or until the lobbyists pay them to have a different agenda.
Just read your candidates records (they are all public) don't listen to their opponents,and make the educated guess and vote for the candidate you feel represents your views.
Your feelings shouldn't play in the voting process, your character does. Don't let these moron politicians play your drums.
between working two jobs, spending time with friends, watching television, playing video games, etc, modern youth can't be bothered to pay attention to what's going on.
beyond that, families don't talk anymore, parents don't engage their children in what's going on... if the parents even know what's going on; from this point we can see that it should be self-evident why generation x, y and (now/soon) z kids don't vote: they don't care, are (as a whole) not very responsible, and have little understanding about how the political system works.
YOU VOTE FOR REAL.
From the makers of 'Stay Alive' comes 'Stay Political'
"To work for libertarianism -- to oppose the growth of government and aid the liberation of the individual -- used to be
The Democrats, who want to place restrictions on games for various "social issues" reasons, or the Republicans, who want to place restrictions on games for religious reasons? I guess you go with the Democrats, because you can at least reason with them...?
MORTAR COMBAT!
Personally, I am in the dissillusioned category like most people today. I vote, but am not sure that it means anything. From what I have read and researched, the software needs to be open-source. Or better yet, go back to paper ballots.
Granted to many voting is a useless act. They use the excuse why bother nothing will change. This is exactly what those that are in power count on to hold power. The fewer people that vote insure that these corrupt bastards stay in power. The solution you ask??? Simple, run for office yourself on any level and get all of your unregistered friends to register and vote for you. This will encourage others to do the same thing, this is the first step to true reform. It will not happen over night, nothing really does, but if we keep at it things will slowly change. The second solution is to become Gates rich and just buy the corrupt bastards then tell them which laws you want passed or not.
IF you can't be famous be infamous. But for GODS sake be something
Approval voting is much easier to count and harder to "game" than instant-runoff.
The city had an election of whether or not the city/county should remain dry (no alcohol sold outside of private clubs) or become wet (beer, liquor, stores, restaurants, etc.)
Almost all of the SFA students registered and voted. Nacogdoches became and has remained wet ever since.
This promotion could work if it's done properly and gamers/geeks see there could be some benefit if they took action. I haven't voted since 1988, but if I thought it'd make a difference, I would.
I wish they'd get online voting secure and unhackable.
"Less" or "lesser" is used when only two options exist. I prefer to say "vote for the least evil," which leaves it open to third parties such as Libertarian Party.
Don't blame me, I voted for dod_colmar.
#include <signature.h>
I don't get it. Does the European Space Agency allow gamers to drive its huge Ariane rockets with joypads?
Nuffsaid
________
Don't know about his cat, but Schroedinger is definitely dead.
While I think the gaming/geek crowd could be a vocal threat to dumb legislation (just look at the response any time DRM, RIAA, etc. stuff is posted here), but I just don't trust voting and think maybe there's a much simpler solution.
If there are concerns about sex, violence, or language in games being sold, maybe publishers could release a santized version to stores that could be unlocked (with some kind of low-hassle age verification, like a $1 credit card charge) online later. I know, it wouldn't work well for consoles that aren't as network friendly as PCs and probably for other reasons I'm missing... but it's a thought.
Well that's the singularity. No questions asked.
I just tried to register in Colorado (I haven't registered yet and live in Colorado, so this makes sense) but came across a slight problem or two:
a) last four of SSN is selected as the prefered option but the colorado form indicates that you must use drivers license if you have one
b) you can not use drivers license because the form won't accept a license of the proper length
c) there is no contact informatino for the maintainers of the site (not easily accessable at least) to inform them of such issues.
What's worse? Registering by web in colorado doesn't use SSL. Last time I tried, downloading the paper form wasn't possible (bad link).
I want to register, really, I do.
-Tim Louden
The pinnacle of the Vote or Die compaign.
If we start buying CDs then the terrorists have already won.
The reason more people vote for american idol then local government is because on american idol at least some of the candidates are worth voting for!
If you want more people to vote, they need to focus on getting quality candidates instead of all the crooks!
Whenever you have either a constituency who is too small to make an impact or who has a coherency that is too low to break the threshold of relevancy over more significant issues in a campaign (e.g. - A standard Republican whom the slashherd hates can't do enough to support video games/related issues to get a slashherd to vote for him because many more issues over-ride that so easily. Iraq, abortion, whatever.) Knowing this, the politicos will not pay issue any attention any more than a little lip service.
A smarter route would be to create a 527 or a PAC that raises money from people who work in the industry or those gamer types who care enough to donate. Then use that money to affect public perception on candidates and then you will have an impact.