Clinton ain't letting up...

[Zeus]

Now she wants to tax games like cigarettes

http://www.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_ ... id=6154476

[Lox]

I wonder if gaming companies have any kind of Political Action Committees or anything. We have one at UPS called UPSPAC and their job is to basically fight legislation that would hurt UPS and help legislation that would help UPS. I would hope gaming companies have the same thing.

[Flip]

Maybe we should start out own gaming lobbyist group, Lox, and ask gaming companies to pay us a bunch of money... we live close by DC.

[Lox]

From what I've heard from our Public Affairs group at UPS, they have trouble talking to the aides working for the senators and representatives about issues like trade and such because they're all straight out of college and have no experience. Those would be the perfect group of people to advise on gaming issues!

[kali o.]

Minor uninformed points:

1) I don't have a problem with selling AO/M games to minors being a federal crime. I *may* have a problem with the penalties/consequences...but I forget how that all panned out.

2) I don't have a problem with investigations into media addictions, particularily MMO's. It's a new age and if the people I've gamed with are any indication - videogames are probably a problem (of varying degrees) to a great many people.

3) Taxes on videogames to fund addiction support for minors...eh, a little premature no? Has the CDC (or better yet, any credible study/group) provided solid evidence outlining such a need? Don't get me wrong - I believe such a foundation will be provided, eventually, I'm just curious if the Senetor is just running with her preconcieved notions or actually has been reasonably informed. That said, I'm not sure taxes are the solution, especially for minors...charge back the pisspoor parents. On the other hand, addictions and anything mental health related is such a pain in the ass to recieve proper government/private funding for, that maybe taxes are the only way to go.

The gamer in me says "Booo!". The psychologist in me say "Yay!".

[Zeus]

Clinton is basically playing on the fears and ignorance (they kinda go hand in hand) of many middle-aged (and voting) Americans in order to garner favour for the upcoming election campaign IMO. There is no real link to games causing violence other than some kids who kill saying "I like video games". Of course, no one bothers to say "well, they represent what, 10 of 50 million gamers in this country; in the automotive industry, 10 cars out of 50 million cars that blow up and kill people wouldn't even demand a recall". But I degress, that's bringing logic into politics.

I've never had an issue with government having say/control in the gaming industry. What I despise is the when any form of entertainment is singled out as being "bad". You can see worse imagine on your news broadcast that in a movie or game....and those are real, not fictional. If they actually used facts and logic in their attacks on the entertainment industry, then you at least have a debate and perhaps even a foundation for an eventual solution (like educating the morons; but nooooooo, education costs real time and money, so it's never a solution) and maybe even some game addiction centres, which I think are necessary (I feel that addiction is 80% mental and I know people who waste their lives on games, not just MMORPGs). Having studied human cognition and social psychology during university (I only have a psych minor, but I took all the courses available in those fields), I laugh at a lot of these accusations and hope one day we can actually have a society that deals with problems correctly by going to the actual root of the problem (not sure what it is yet, but no one has bothered to find out, either).

[Eric]

Bill needs to fuck his wife more often.

[Zeus]

Sex, the solution to the world's problems :-)

[Eric]

Sex, the solution to the world's problems :-)

It's true damnit, if she was getting some she wouldn't be concerned about video games. ;p

[Julius Seeker]

Bill needs to fuck his wife more often.

This was what I was just about to say.

He also needs to remind her that she isn't a republican.

[Lox]

He also needs to remind her that she isn't a republican.

Video Games: The topic that Republicans and Democrats can hate together.

*sniff* Brings a tear to my eye!

[Zeus]

Bill needs to fuck his wife more often.

This was what I was just about to say.

He also needs to remind her that she isn't a republican.

Lieberman has been a Democrat forever......

[Nev]

I wonder if gaming companies have any kind of Political Action Committees or anything. We have one at UPS called UPSPAC and their job is to basically fight legislation that would hurt UPS and help legislation that would help UPS. I would hope gaming companies have the same thing.

That would be one of the things the Entertainment Software Association does, as far as I know.

They're very good at it. I don't think any anti-gaming laws have passed in a lasting way yet (the few that have were overturned on appeal, or are being appealed currently). The game industry generally doesn't hire any dummies, and that tends to extend to the ESA.

What worries me, though, is that the laws keep coming. Obviously, we're pissing people off, and we should find a way to stop that. The ESA is launching a PR campaign at present for the new rating system, though...be interesting to see how effective that is.

[Nev]

Bill needs to fuck his wife more often.

I temped at a small legal firm a few years ago, and one of the lawyers there was an up-and-coming lawyer in Arkansas around the time that Bill and Hillary were up-and-coming politicians. I believe she was involved in the same legal circles they were and met them a few times.

She said that she got the impression that it was a political marriage from the start. She also said that, even back then, Hillary was completely scheming and manipulative, and that Bill was pretty much like (in her words), "Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, wanna fuck?"

[Nev]

I've never had an issue with government having say/control in the gaming industry. What I despise is the when any form of entertainment is singled out as being "bad".

If you look, you'll find out that most of the anti-gaming bills have been overturned for precisely that reason - they've been discriminatory towards gaming in favor of more traditional media.

[Zeus]

I've never had an issue with government having say/control in the gaming industry. What I despise is the when any form of entertainment is singled out as being "bad".

If you look, you'll find out that most of the anti-gaming bills have been overturned for precisely that reason - they've been discriminatory towards gaming in favor of more traditional media.

But they keep coming and eventually, they'll figure out a way to get them. That's the problem.

[Nev]

I've never had an issue with government having say/control in the gaming industry. What I despise is the when any form of entertainment is singled out as being "bad".

If you look, you'll find out that most of the anti-gaming bills have been overturned for precisely that reason - they've been discriminatory towards gaming in favor of more traditional media.

But they keep coming and eventually, they'll figure out a way to get them. That's the problem.

Much as I hate to say things that might make me seem like I have hubris about the game industry...

One of the things I really love about it is that it is not an industry that is kind to the unintelligent, since making games is HARD, hard, hard. Even the QA testers in gaming, I find, tend to be intensely bright people (usually they are not that motivated, however, which tends to be why they do testing instead of other things...but I digress). My assessment is that the upper tiers of the gaming industry have some of the most brilliant people in the world right now - and some of the best problem solvers, as well, since a lot of game development is about that.

I'm not trying to rep my industry or anything. Honestly, it makes me feel more insecure than anything else, though I am committed to at least trying to become as good as anyone else I've met in it, which tends to be a good thing...

Getting back from the digression, I do not share these feelings about Congress, these days. It's certainly a possibility that some political team would actually figure out a way to get a bill passed, working with the system. However, I think that an equal possibility is that the game industry will keep on being able to shoot down these bills, since most of them just ride roughshod over the First Amendment and/or are unfairly discriminatory against gaming, and since the gaming industry is bright enough to have some extremely bright legal teams who are very accoplished at shooting things like that down. If that happens, the politicos may just get so (stupidly) pissed off about things that they basically just brute-force something by, in a way that actually damages a principle that IP law in the U.S. is based on. *That* would be really, really bad - much worse than getting a game law actually passed, at least of the type that have been going around.

The problem is that, while the game industry is very, very good at solving problems and finding ways to accomplish things working within systems (that being a huge part of playing games), it tends to be somewhat below the curve socially, in my experience, and like all industries, it will protect its own financial interests at all costs. So we have a situation, I think, where gaming has become very adept at preventing the adoption of laws that have already been proposed, it seems to either not notice or not care about how pissed off the politicos are (a mistake). The politicos thus get even more pissed off, and renew the assault.

The ESRB's new ratings system is good and is the kind of thing that's *actually* likely to solve the problem. I don't think they're advertising it heavily enough, though. If I were them, I'd be allocating a LOT of the PR budget towards getting ads on television about it, instead of just running ads in print magazines.

I'm not, however, so I expect the status quo will continue.

[Zeus]

The ESRB rating is at the root of a lot of this. The federal politicos want it much stricter and federally enforceable. Eventually, it'll get passed as they'll find a legal way to get it done (or make sure they appoint and get a judge sympathetic to the cause to rule on it then get the GOP bitches in the Supreme Court to uphold it). It'll happen, man, it's just a matter of when