 | Senate Game Hearing FilesMarch 30th, 2006 |
Worth reading over, if you enjoy your hobby: Senate Game Hearing Files.
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Fantastic reading and very enlightening all around. I thought Paul Smith’s argument was especially well put.
I did, however find the existence of Rev. Steve Stricland’s statements curious. Granted, I know very little about how these hearings work, and I understand his place as someone who has been on the receiving end of ‘video game violence’. However, it seems that from all accounts causality is still wanting, and therefore his message still premature. Basically, it seemed more sensationalistic than it was helpful to the discussion at large.
I love how there is only a single game industry representative. I feel for her because she doesn’t stand a chance at getting sympathy after listening to the guy recant how GTA killed his brother, a police officer no less. Talk about academics having an impact on video games. That hearing is full of academic types. Where’s the rep from Electronic Arts or SOE or Microsoft? Is it me or is the hearing stacked with what seems to be witnesses biased towards one side. Between a hearing like this and the Google search records subpena to prove COPA should pass into law, where does it end?
I also find it funny that the only statement that is not available on the web site is from the single game industry representative I mentioned. I’ll take my tin foil hat off now…
To bad the gaming industry doesn’t have Bob Denver, Dee Snider or Frank Zappa to defend them.
Freaking politicians, in the 80′s it was Tipper Gore with Rock music, now it’s Hillary Clinton with video games.
If Lawyers and politicians knew they could make a buck off of some very disturbed individuals in the 50′s, Elvis’s hips would have been illegal for public viewing and Little Richard would be still be in prison to this day.
I had a thought last night while thinking about this topic. In the late 90′s, the software industry as a whole didn’t pay much attention to politics. The leading software companies didn’t do much in the way of campaign contributions and rarely spoke out about issues that could have affected their business. They were too busy chasing double digit growth before the tech bust. During that time, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel and a host of other large IT companies were investigated on all sorts of charges. Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Intel… as a result starts sending politicians money and starts to play the lobbying game. Flash forward to today and the big tech companies operate with much less government investigation activity. Only Intel is being heavily investigated. Is this a coincidence? I don’t think so. Movies, music and art are not investigated with the public fervor that games are investigated with. Every other day, “GTA”, and now “25 to Life”, kills another innocent bystander. At least that’s what one would believe if you watch the news or read your local newspaper.
Movies, music and art have long since figured out that to keep the government off your back, you must donate heavily. The game industry needs to react and do the same; how or who gets that done, I have no idea. I would think that EA, Sony, Microsoft and the other big developers/publishers would pick up that torch and fight. If they are already doing this, their efforts are not showing up on the grand scale evidenced by the continuing assault on our industry. I can’t tell you the last time I read a story about how the latest movie that came out caused someone to go out and kill a cop. Those stories don’t happen. They don’t happen because those industries have figured out how to keep government at bay, political donations.
Actually Microsoft DID get the old politican Ream job for not making contributions in the 90′s. Remember when the Clinton administration was trying to break up Microsoft? The charges where that Microsoft was a “Monopoly” and should be broke up into smaller companies.
I’d agree that video games are ripe for a witch hunt. The game companies are not organised to defend themselves, many would say “sure, whatever, I just publish family-safe products, go ahead and do what you want to the GTA guys.” On the other hand, Video game companies have high profile and money. Yea, we should stop wondering if this is going to happen and start planing for how to handle it.
DrWiz, that was my point. They did get the Ream Job like you suggested but now that they have learned to donate, the pressure to break up Microsoft has all but disappeared. I don’t think the donations and the decline of investigative activity are merely coincidental; they’re likely more deeply related.
I have to defend myself regularly against attacks on video games, and in the most recent example it was from my Dad in a phone call tonight. My defenses have become quite good, and logically sound lately, but take some time to explain in response to the (generally put) “You aren’t going to make games that kill people like that one in Arkansas, are ya?”
However, as I went through my usual progression of defenses, I came up with a new one that stopped Dad in his tracks and made him reconsider his position (at least a little).
“I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.”
It didn’t end the debate, to be sure. However, the fun in exploring the dark side of our persona in popular media can be equated somewhat by that Cash line.
It doesn’t invalidate any position on keeping games out of inappropriate hands. I think that the industry must take as much responsibility as parents if we are to keep ourselves independent from regulation.
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