Game Industry Reps. Meet w/ VP Biden Today On Violence In Games

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/11/joe-biden-video-games_n_2454915.html?ref=topbar

Edit: I guess I figured that there are so many stories on this right now on various gaming sites, that it'd be overkill for me to launch into an opinion piece on it. I'm more interested in others' thoughts on this.

Anyway, yeah, I think my biggest concern is in trusting the AAA industry people to have the courage to stand up to the anti-game propaganda. So far, I haven't seen a list of who exactly is meeting with VP Biden - it would be nice to know that there are some independent studios represented, or, at a minimum, some people from creative departments and not just business-side execs. and attorneys.

I'm old enough to remember the PMRC fight, and I wonder if there will be any Frank Zappa sorts of folks to push back against the scapegoating this time out. We already have the useless, unenforceable rating system. I shudder to think what new scheme that a bunch of legal-minded non-gamers will come up with, given that censorship is usually the first resort.

The Entertainment Consumer Association wrote an open letter to VP Biden http://www.gamepolitics.com/2013/01/10/eca-sends-letter-vp-joe-biden-defending-video-games#.UPA6JG9EFBO that I think is excellent, but it also seems like the Joe Lieberman, anti-game mindset is the one that predominates in D.C. Also, the NRA has exponentially more influence than the ECA or gamers and the NRA is front-and-center in blaming video games.

You might want to elaborate on this more so it isn't considered spam.

(Yeah you should write some more about it so that it's not spam)

I wonder who they meant by video game industry representatives? The ESA?

This should to go well. They'll get to see what policy the administration is going to push regardless of what is said in the meeting(if the NRA meetig is any indication) and they will be asked to sign on to publicly to attach legitimacy to their over reach. What a waste of time. The air fare would be better spent on legal retainers and preparing the legal barricades. Prepare yourselves, videogame industry. The beast cometh, as it's decided you've had too much liberty.

An interesting article in The Atlantic from Ian Bogost about this very issue:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/01/how-the-video-game-industry-already-lost-out-in-the-gun-control-debate/267052/

"The truth is, the games industry lost as soon as a meeting was conceived about stopping gun violence with games as a participating voice. It was a trap, and the only possible response to it is to expose it as such. Unfortunately, the result is already done: Once more, public opinion has been infected with the idea that video games have some predominant and necessary relationship to gun violence, rather than being a diverse and robust mass medium that is used for many different purposes, from leisure to exercise to business to education."

He does make some interesting points, but I don't know that I agree with the fact that by engaging in this conversation the industry admits culpability.

Truthfully, the industry should be looking internally at how some of its biggest games represent violence (and gender, and race, and sex, and...). Does it make a difference if that conversation occurs internally?

Has anybody viewed the "open letter" battle between Gamasutra and IGN's editors?

Gamasutra's Kris Graft opposing Game Developers attending the meeting

IGN's Casey Lynch rebuffing Graft on his position

I have to agree with Lynch on this one. Nothing good will come out of game industry reps ignoring this national debate. Public opinion is one of the strongest forces in the American political system and right now things are not looking for the game industry. They need to be a part of this to educate and give a voice to the industry. Having loons like Alex Jones and NRA constantly point the finger at gaming culture may seem funny to us, but its about the time the industry defend itself