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The Video Game Industry Goes Political
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."
They've decided to form an organization to pool resources and pay off politicians.
Make sure that the supply of invincibility stars and 1-up mushrooms doesn't fall into the wrong hands...
On the one hand, I hate the idea of PACs, on the other hand it's for an interest I support and is currently underrepresented. On the third hand it's not really that important compared to things like (ending) The Global War on Terror TM and the economy. I guess PACs are just part of the current system, standing on principle and thinking that money shouldn't have a say in political decisions is far too wishful even for me. Playing within the system might be the best way to get it changed at this point.
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.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
That's exactly what's wrong with the industry. Or rather, people's views of the "users" of the industry's output.
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.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
10: SIN 20: GOTO HELL
Is someone who is in this PAC known as a PAC-man?
Seems like a good idea to me.
Money is the root of all evil?
Notice Hillary Clinton's nomination in New Hampshire? She's been an anti-video-game crusader from day one. The timing of this move may not be coincidental.
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.
c++;
Article 1: The X-Axis and Y-Axis shall always be independently invertible. This inversion shall carry through into any minigames. Failure to do so earns the developers a punch in the balls.
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.
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.
From what I've seen there's a lot of push to have a legislated ratings system that's legally enforced (Hillary and Lieberman endorsed a measure to ban the selling of M rated games to minors). There have been a few single cases where people proposed complete bans of games. Chuck Schumer of NY, there have been a few other cases of trying to ban games that in any way glorify the killing of police officers, similar to the Body Count/Cop Killer case of the early 90s. These aren't going to succeed pretty clearly on the basis of the first amendment, as illustrated by the Body Count case -- in fact that never even reached the courts as it was voluntarily pulled from shelves by many retailers.
Anyway, I don't think the case for banning/editing/etc games is as strong as you say -- it's more that many parents and legislators are waking up to the fact that games aren't ms pac man and galaga anymore.
"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Eric Blair
Ever think there might be a causal relationship behind that complete lack of an attention span?
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?
I wonder how gamers think it will fare better than the MPAA and RIAA. This association will promote antipiracy laws, outlaw P2P and favor big editors. Mark my works.
Add games industry to the list of things that they've screwed up by mixing it with politics.
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 for games. Just because kids play games doesn't mean -only- kids play games. Some games are made for adults.
To the people with their panties in a bunch,
I'm not going to play the My Little Pony video game so you don't have to worry about your precious little snowflake playing a game with nudity or violence. If they do, it's your failing as a parent. The games industry makes games for me. They rate them "M" so you know they aren't kids games. Don't buy them for your 10 year old. Pay attention to what your kids are doing and try being a parent instead of expecting the government to do it for you.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
"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.
[Ego]out
I really hope either the spokesperson or chairman of the committee gets the title of PAC-man
"Teach a man to build a fire, and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life."
Are computer games that addictive? Or are some people just crap at parenting?
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 these people were 'weak willed or something' if you want, but they were almost universally good students, good parents, and socially well adjusted prior to EQ. I dont "blame" EQ, or think Sony should be held responsible... but that game triggered a level of obsession/addiction in a lot of otherwise perfectly well adjusted people.
Games like EQ aside, I think a lot of us can remember irresponsibly playing games like Civilization, Masters of Orion, and Starcraft into the wee hours of the morning... 6-10 hour marathons when we'd only really meant to play for 1 or 2.