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Games Industry Accused of 'Buying Political Clout'
A parent's group is lambasting the Electronic Software Association for announcing its intention to curry political favour in Washington DC. The games industry, for most of its life a much-maligned business sector, has just begun to work towards changing its image with US lawmakers. The Parents Television Council views this as attempting to 'buy influence in Congress', and views the ESA's plans harshly: "'The videogame industry continues to fight meaningful accountability for selling inappropriate material to children. The industry has been exposed repeatedly for its reprehensible behavior and now they are looking for ways to buy friends in the government,' said PTC President Tim Winter. 'Let me be clear of our intentions: Any public servant who cashes a check from the videogame industry will be exposed by the PTC as taking a stand against families, and his or her actions will be communicated to constituents in his or her congressional district.'" I wonder how they feel about lobbying by conservative 'pro-family' groups?
I wonder how they feel about lobbying by conservative 'pro-family' groups?
Or every other business sector that has felt the weight of legislative attention.
Play Command HQ online
What, so it's only a bad thing when the gaming industry does it, and not when every other lobby in the universe does it?
Screw it. They tried to do it the right way, using reason, and compromise, and common sense, and it didn't work. So now, screw it, they're going to play the game, and it turns out that gaming is a fricking huge industry, and they can blow a ton of money on legislation that is favorable to them.
So now all the "Think of the Children" politicos are going to have to decide whether they want to keep pretending that they actually care, or whether they want money. Pretty much a no brainer.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Everyone buys political clout, that's how the system works. Lobbying = legalized bribery. So I wonder, how much has the Parent's Television Council donated to various congresspeople?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The PTC has every right to be upset. An industry they're bullying has decided it's had enough and is fighting back. Once the gaming industry gets political PTC will have to find somebody else to pick on.
I have nothing compelling to say
'The videogame industry continues to fight meaningful accountability for selling inappropriate material to children.
Can people stop using the word conservative to describe these groups? One of the cornerstones of conservatism is the belief in personal responsibility, and that includes taking responsibility as a parent, not sitting back and blaming the entertainment industry like some junkie approportioning the blame for his actions onto society.
If you can't be bothered to make the effort to learn what your children are doing, and enforce whatever rules you consider appropriate for your house, then you have no business complaining. A console/TV/computer is not a surrogate parent, and the games industry is not to blame if you've given your children a TV and Xbox360 in their room to shut them up.
If you haven't made a developer cry, you've wasted a day.
I'd like to announce a new program to help screen inappropriate material from children. Tentatively titled the "Federal Universal Child Kinship Oversight and Family Force Act" or F.U.C.K.O.F.F. Act for short. This act empowers the states to appoint guardians over minors based on whatever criteria they find reasonable, though it is expected that minors will be assigned based on a matching of their genetic makeup to that of available guardians. These guardians will be allowed to control the media the minor is exposed to, including but not limited to internet, television, radio, video games, and print media. It is the hope of Congress that this formal delegation will clarify the role of the government in the care of minors.
Sincerely,
-Ron Paul
I wish I had the money to buy political clout.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Where is the public out cry against the RIAA?
The RIAA pulls people in to court instead of generating income. They attack our children and grandparents and threaten to take away our childrens college assistance. Yet the public dont care. Us slashdotters understand it, but the people that should care don't.
Im a gamer, not a grammer major. This post is full of spelling and grammer mistakes.
And why not? That clout is for sale!
May the Maths Be with you!
Because morons like the PTC are forcing them to. The tech industry as a whole was generally pretty happy to keep out of politics. However since it is being forced on them they are now going to play the game like everyone else.
The founder of this group, L. Brent Bozell III, also founded Media Research Center and the Conservative Communication Center. He's also been on the board of the American Conservative Union. He's also William F. Buckley's nephew.
These people have clout among "conservative" politicians and describe themselves as "conservative". Personal responsibility is one of those ideas that lip service is paid to as it suits the political agenda at hand, and ignored when it doesn't.
Patriot - A fan of expanding government power and spending while not wanting to pay higher taxes.
I notice how everyone is suddenly becoming defensive and apologetic. "Everyone else does it too" is not an excuse. You already know this -- it's almost cliche now -- and yet we still find people who will excuse the behavior of any corporation with "Meh. It's a corporation. That's what corporations do."
But that's not why I'm posting. Actually, I find a sense of gratification -- one could even call it glee -- that for once, I'm on the side of the corporations, who are lobbying for something I want, rather than being the "little guy" screaming at the top of his lungs, wishing desperately that he was relevant.
And that's not why I'm posting, either. I am posting because of this outright fallacy quoted in the summary:
Oh, I get it. You're with us, or you're with the terrorists.
Look, am I the only one who sees more possibilities here? If I was trying to get ahead politically, why wouldn't I cash a check from anyone? It's not as if the money itself is tainted. The MPAA could pay me all they want, and I would still legislate against them, not for them. They can threaten to pull funding -- fine, I'll use the last of their own money to buy some ads, exposing how they essentially tried to bribe/blackmail me into writing legislation for them. A message of "I'm doing the right thing, even if it costs me money" should serve to get me re-elected, right?
It would be much more relevant to ask what that check was for, and to actually look at what that particular public servant does. People who cash checks from the MPAA do tend to write stuff like the DMCA. Are people cashing checks from the videogame industry any more or less likely to write censorship legislation?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Oh, how I wish I had mod points.....
Is Pro family another word for 'don't do anything that would make baby jesus cry' or something?
Good grief. I have a family, I'm reasonably sure I'm pro it, and I like games as they are. If somethings too violent I just don't buy it, end of problem. Do I need someone esle to tell me? Nope, I have a brain.
Remember when Hollywood started to think that any decent film had to have sex scenes in it? I mean the eighties and early nineties. They weren't legislated into stopping it, although there were the same pressure groups doing the rounds. It was a bums on seats problem. People weren't interested, so they didn't pay for the film, so they dropped the sex thing. There's only been one scene with sex scenes in it that I've enjoyed in recent years, and that's 'Free Enterprise'. There wasn't exactly much in that either. Ok Clerks 2 as well, but that was a donkey....um, bad example...
If people don't buy enough of the violent games, they'll stop making them, its simple business economics. If they keep on buying them, there's obviously a market, and it will be supplied, no matter what die hard 'pro family' bods say.
Is there a real life Galt's Gultch out there? Is there some place where all the self reliant and independent people went? Where all the people who take responsibility for themselves went to live a better life? A place where someone suggesting the formation of a group called the Parents Television Council would be looked at like a mentally ill person?
Can I come? I gots mad tech skillz. Please? I'll work really hard. Anything to GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF THIS FUCKING CESSPOOL OF NITWITS THE REST OF THE WORLD HAS BECOME!
... isn't the Parents Television Council the same group that sends in the vast majority of "indecency" complaints to the FCC, far more than any other group combined?
The hypocrisy of them lambasting the gaming industry for playing political "dirty tricks" is truly disgusting, indeed.
The fact that PTC isn't actually what they say they are. They're not a "child friendly" group trying to work with the game industry to get concensus on gaming... they're an anti-video game lobby group who thinks that video games are evil and are out to destroy the industry. They remind me of religious pro-abstinance groups who masquerade as birth-control education.
I'm personally fairly opposed to video game violence, as I am with TV and cinema... I don't think it's healthy for our culture in general (regardless of age, actually). But I'm also in favor of consensus building, and different interests working together toward the common good. The PTC has shown that they are not trying to build a better game industry, they are trying to tear it apart completely.
Basically, this gesture says "We can lobby, but they can't, because they're inherently evil". At that point, no reasoning or compromise can be made, we're now in the realm of idiology and theology. Basically, PTC has just declared financial holy war on the game industry.
I consider myself a pacifist... but in this case, let the war begin.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Gaming experts gaming the system? They have way too much experience, they'll run circles around their competitors! At the very least lobbyists should have to get past some kind of jumping puzzle to reach the senate, only to be told their congressman is in another office.
I'd like to announce a new program to help screen inappropriate material from children. Tentatively titled the "Federal Universal Child Kinship Oversight and Family Force Act" or F.U.C.K.O.F.F. Act for short. Hahahah thats the funniest thing I've read in a while. I totally support this new act! The PTC is just made cause now the ESA is fighting back using the same methods as they do. said PTC President Tim Winter. 'Let me be clear of our intentions: Any public servant who cashes a check from the videogame industry will be exposed by the PTC as taking a stand against families, and his or her actions will be communicated to constituents in his or her congressional district. I sure would like to know all the donations the PTC gave money to last year!
Can anyone here explain how forcing parents to do more parenting is "anti-family"? I can't see it, myself.
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
"Family" is one of the codewords, yes. The flag that it raises for me, at least, is usually "conservative Christian," although I'll admit that's not always the case. My own anecdotal experience has been that every "family" bookstore, for instance, is basically using a politically friendly (i.e. secular) term for "Jesus." I make the mental substituation that in these contexts "family" is referring to the relationship between God and Jesus.
There are other codewords, too.
"Responsibility" usually means "blame-shifting."
"Value" anywhere near "consumer" usually means "screwing the customer."
"Morals" usually means "religious book learnings."
"Sportsman" usually means "gun enthusiast/nut."
I'm going to let you know how my "teen" RPG christmas went. Shadow Hearts 2 & 3, XenoSaga 1-3, Tales of the Abyss, and Disagea 1 & 2. So far I've made it mostly through Disagea 1, beat Tales of the Abyss, beat XenoSaga 1 and at the final dungeon of XenoSaga 2. I got feed up with XS2's annoyingly difficult enemies that I couldn't just level up and get past so I started Shadow Hearts 2 last night.
I have nearly the entire FF Series and it's rated Teen and I found really nothing in it to object to... I have two kids one 8 years old the other 10. Disagea was too boring for them to watch Daddy play it. Tales of the Abyss's main character jerk's favorite expression throughout the game was "What the hell?" Hell used in that manner in our household is considered cussing. Cussing isn't allowed for us or our kids. Other than Daddy reminding the kids every 5 minutes that's not language that we use in this house hold there wasn't really anything I found objectionable for the kids to watch. Well, o.k. Daddy cheering when Ion finally dies rather than being kidnapped for the nth time was "bad" thing that they didn't see, but other than that I couldn't find fault other other than minor language.
Now, we start XenoSaga we bribed the rates board to get a Teen rating. If you took all the cutscenes in this game and had the movie rates people view them, it would be an obvious R rated movie. This RPG should have been M for adult themed material and extreme blood and gore. It took a bit before my wife and I encountered why this game should have had an M rather than T rating. Alien's invade the main character's star ship and slaughter nearly every one that you had spent the last hour running around and meeting. We aren't just talking about lifeless bodies on the floor. We are talking about splattered bodies on the floors and walls with cutscenes of the random folks getting their head smashed in by aliens. The "adult themed content" wasn't sex. In that society, they are basically using slightly modified clones as slave labor and that's legal and o.k. They bring back the dead as cyborgs and the cyborgs are owned by who ever brings them back. It's a great RPG and I recommend playing it if you can rent it and spare oh 40-45 hours most of which are watching great cutscenes. Actually, I guess T could be o.k. if I've not been in the habit of letting my 8-10 year olds play nearly every T rated game that I have. If they were 13-15 I would have no problems with them viewing this content and asking questions about the society in question.
XS2 had excessive blood splash up/out of every organic enemy. Heck, I think that I saw it splash out of the robots as well. I was actually more annoyed by that rather than finding it something to object to. I just tuned it out. I wished that I could actually turn it off so the battles could end 2-3 seconds sooner. Load times for normal random encounter type battles sucked in that game.
Now I just started Shadow Hearts 2 last night. After the intro clip of a group of soldiers inside of a church all being owned in a very scary manner. It was deemed that kids shouldn't watch this one either. There are some very gay/queer shop keepers, the enemy priest looks/walks like it, and the big guy caring the lumber kinda looks like it as well. Other than that completely coming out of left field, so far it's not been too bad other than the cutscenes and the actual plot. So if you have gay/homosexual issues, Shadow Hearts may not be family viewing in your household. I could actually have put up with it, but why oh why did they have to zoom in on the guys shaking butt and place his dialog over it when you are first introduced to them? It's almost as bad as the zooming in on Jessica's boobs in DQ8.
As apposed to what they do...
Forget to tick that anonymous checkbox there, bigot?
Makes me proud to say that you were already on my foes list before you slipped up and let your hood show in public.
Is the PTC just another abomination of Tipper Gore's PMRC?
I'm getting real fucking tired of politicians, and others, hiding behind "the children".
Other than this text, there is no discernible information contained in this sig.
It must be naive of me to thing that the Parents TELEVISON Council would restrain itself to issues concerning TELEVISION and leave other media alone. I suppose its pointless to try to dissuade the PTC from pestering video game lobbies by patiently explaining to them that television has nothing to do with video games. Its entirely possible to play a video game on a device that's not capable of receiving a television feed and can't be used to play movies (i.e. my black-and-white Game Boy still works fine). Yes, some video game media can be viewed on television screens, but they're really targeting the wrong industry here. Maybe with greater education and advocacy, we can persuade these Luddites that their anger only stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue being discussed (the same could be said for stem cell research from human embryos).
A video game industry PAC is good for us now, and overdue for the industry. It means that they will have more clout in fighting censorship efforts. In the future it could be a different story.
After all, I remember rooting for the recording industry and their PACs back when Tipper Gore was leading the effort to censor music, but later those same organizations lobbied to get the DMCA passed.
Not everything that is good for the game industry is good for the gamer.
There's only one way to deal with nutjobs that are so far removed from reality...Respond with an equally removed from reality response. And how pray tell do we, the tech community, do such a thing? By using technology to our advantage. I'm sure someone else remembers Scott Pakin's famous complaint letter generator:
http://www.pakin.org/complaint
And a quick search over the PTC's site reveals the email for "Letters to the Editor":
editor@parentstv.org
Now go forth, my tech brethren, and fight crazy with crazy!
May I be cynical for a bit? I hope you don't mind, but with Parents Television Council's latest barrage of snippy politics, I can't resist the urge to make a few cynical comments. It is worth noting at the outset that contrary to my personal preferences, I'm thinking about what's best for all of us. My conclusion is that what's best for all of us is for me to look into the future and consider what will happen if we let Parents Television Council make today's oppressiveness look like grade-school work compared to what it has planned for the future. Even though Parents Television Council presents a public face that avoids overt nonrepresentationalism, it sees the world as somewhat anarchic, a game of catch-as-catch-can in which the sneakiest clodpolls nab the biggest prizes. Parents Television Council promises that if we give it and its bedfellows additional powers, it'll guard us from the most quixotic apostates I've ever seen. My question, however is, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? -- Who will guard the guards?
I would be grateful if Parents Television Council would take a little time from its rigorous schedule to do what needs to be done. Of course, pigs will grow wings and fly before that ever happens. Sometimes it seems dour underachievers are like a farmer who, in the spring, would work the ground, plant seeds, fertilize, and cultivate the ground for a period of time. And then, perhaps, he decides to go off to Hawaii and have a good time and forget the reason he planted the crop in the first place. Well, a farmer wouldn't do that. But Parents Television Council would lay all of society open to the predations of organized criminality if it got the chance. Parents Television Council's strictures owe much to the crusades of ethically bankrupt, mean-spirited delinquents. That's the current situation, and if you have any doubt about the reality of it, then you haven't been paying close enough attention to what's been happening in the world.
I find that I am embarrassed. Embarrassed that some people just don't realize that on the issue of resistentialism, Parents Television Council is wrong again. Sure, I consider it extremely insulting of it to encourage every sort of indiscipline and degeneracy in the name of freedom. But Parents Television Council approximates a picayunish gauleiter as far as practical action is concerned but differs in psychology, ideology and motivation. But the problems with Parents Television Council's writings don't end there. Parents Television Council must have some sort of problem with reading comprehension. That's the only explanation I can come up with as to why Parents Television Council accuses me of admitting that it does the things it does "for the children". What I actually said is that the result of Parents Television Council's proposals will not be an increase in achievement but rather a decrease in expectations. I know you're wondering why I just wrote that. I'll explain shortly, but first, I should state that Parents Television Council's cohorts remain largely silent when asked about the correlative connecting Parents Television Council to escapism. The rare times they do deign to comment they invariably skew the issue to prevent people from realizing that Parents Television Council commonly appoints ineffective people to important positions. It then ensures that these people stay in those positions because that makes it easy for Parents Television Council to challenge all I stand for. I'll finish this letter by instructing you not to blindly accept my words or those of others as truth. Investigate, discriminate, and question everything not proven. Only by doing so can you determine for yourself that our real enemy is the superstitious, antihumanist system that made Parents Television Council as malignant as it is.
You are a moron and I don't like you. The video game industry has every right to lobby just as any other group. Video games are no different than movies, television, or any other type of entertainment. Some games are meant for kids, some games are meant for adults. If you or the people you represent are incapable of parenting, please refrain from having children. I am sick and tired of people like you telling me that there is something wrong with my hobby. The real problem is you forcing your morales on other people. It isn't ok when religious extremists do it in the Middle East, it isn't ok when you do it in our country. This is a nation formed of many different races and religions. It is also formed of adults and children. Children, that I don't have, should not prevent me from enjoying a game intended for my age group. I'm only 30, but keep your kids off my lawn too.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
I think what must irritate them the most is that gaming industry has decided to fight them on their own turf. But at what point did supporting video games mean harming families? It's not as if the two are mutually exclusive. Pro-divorce, anti-family. Pro-kidnapping, anti-family. Pro-child abuse, anti-family. Those correlations make sense.
I'm a married man with a family and videogames. Call Social Services. I'm obviously going to have to choose one or the other and god knows, as a gamer, I'll never make the right decision.
These people won't be happy until they've legislated a national bedtime.
If we're going to call the scum infesting Congress (and other legislative bodies around the world) what they are, then "mostly lawyers" doesn't quite cover it. Let's use words like "racketeers", "gangsters", "criminals", "thugs", "extortionists", "looters", "thieves", "cowards", "robbers", and "assholes".
Mod me down for the following if you like: the only good politician is a dead politician.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Better get that hook out of your mouth; the wound might get infected.
If you look at ringbarer's posting history, you'll notice that he didn't forget to do anything.
Rob
I'm not sure which acronym I despise more: the PTC with their cries of "We must tell every parent and politician in America how to raise children or our children will surely grow up to be heathen criminals.", or the ESA with their cries of "We must ignore and/or sabotage any and all technology standards or our customers will surely rob us blind."
Just thought I'd pass along these links to more info about some of the pending video game legislation in Congress right now::
H.R.1531 - Video Game Decency Act of 2007 http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h1531/show
S.568 - Truth in Video Game Rating Act http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-s568/show
H.R.2958 Children Protection from Video Game Violence and Sexual Content Act http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h2958/show
And you grab an rss feed to monitor congressional activity related to video game legislation here::
http://www.opencongress.org/issue/show/5675_video_games
Maybe this was a joke, but with the idiocy legislation of the pro-family (no responsibility of the parents) groups I would like to sign on to this "bill". Where do I sign up!