December 6, 2006 -
There will be major news on Capitol Hill tomorrow as two long time critics of the video game industry partner with the ESRB for a public service announcement campaign designed to promote ratings awareness.In a press conference scheduled for 3:00 P.M., Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) will appear with ESA president Doug Lowenstein and ESRB president Patricia Vance to announce the launch of a nationwide television campaign to promote awareness of video game ratings.
The ads will feature Best Buy president Brian Dunn and GameStop president Steve Morgan. Both retailers will be present at the announcement.
GP: This is a major coup for the video game industry. Senators Clinton and Lieberman are co-sponsors of the Family Entertainment Protection Act, video game legislation currently before the Senate.
Sen. Lieberman applied the political pressure in the mid-90's that essentially led to the development of the industry's rating system. Sen. Clinton led the political charge against 2005's Hot Coffee scandal.
The question that remains unanswered is - what motivated these two watchdogs to partner with the video game industry on this initiative? Did the industry perhaps make concessions or give assurances?
Comments
/b
And now my usual JT hate. Wanna bet Jack Thompson quivering with rage right now?
On the other hand, endorsing the way of "keeping a system that works" doesn't sit as well with voters as "Let's pass pointless legislation on something we don't know anything about!"
Seriously, this seems more like a superficial move on the part of Liberman and Clinton than anything else. My prediction on how it will work out? The ESRB will do most of the work and those two politicos will try to take most of the credit.
I got it, so that instead of just sitting around awaiting the fate of their bills they can actually continue to address the problem instead of doing nothing. Whether this is for purely political reasons or if they are actually concerened about it remains to be seen.
Nice to see the two top critics of the industry working with it. But it was proably because they know they're law will be struck down in court.
And as for JT, I bet there's smoking coming out of his ears as he shouts "Damn You! You've gone over to those drugged-up Pixelantes!"
GP, does he STILL try and post here?
Now we know that as ignorant and determined as they are sometimes, HC and JL DO actully care about the children and don't think that gamers are baby eating freaks from the twisting nether.
That's a frightening picture of Hillary, though.
Though i was never too sure, when it came down to it, unlike many of the agenda-driven, career focused, selfish, bandwagon jumpering politicans, i kinda thought Clinton and Lieberman were being more honest in their endeveors. They don't seek to cencor games and media because they know it will earn them votes, they do it because the actually BELIEVE it will help protect the children. The main problem with both of them ofcourse is the fact that they are both out of touch with media, and thus, though their reasons are right, their actions and methods are completly wrong. They maybe misguided, out of touch, ignorant and so forth, but at least they're honest. So since they honestly want to protect the children, they will do ANYTHING in order to help, which includes working with the industry.
I mean, if they don't actually care about the children and and all their actions really are all just political career driven moves.... then they are atleast a HELL of a lot more convicning than most other politicans
wtf? Aren't these the same two who criticized the ESRB and declared it beyond repair and horribly broken?
I think this is the result of 2 things.
1. Sen Clinton and lieberman, faced with the unavoidable death of there videgame bills ,might be using this as a means to quietly dispose of that bill without appearing to suspicous.
2. The esrb is doing this to make sure that bill, and others like it, die. With Clinton and lieberman suddenly supporting a system that there bills claimed was "BROKEN", they hand the industry evidance that there bills are based on lies and fabrications.
So, either way, industry wins.
I hate to do it but it must be done.
Hey JT!
As the great DX once said.
"If your not down with that, I GOT TWO WORDS FOR YA"
"SUCK IT"
As critical as I've been, I'll at least give them credit for showing some farsightedness in knowing that when legislation fails, this sort of thing will be the next best option. They picked a good new bandwagon, and their presence might help said new bandwagon pick up some much needed support.
This is nothing less than an excuse to make everyone look like their being "pro-family"
If parents want to know about the rating system, they should be forced to look at the ratings themselves, be more proactive. I don't want parents to become lazy because there's tv ads. that's kinda counter-productive in my view.
the closest thing to being positive that this does, is destroy the entire "parental ignorance" since it's on the medium of their choice (next to movies)
As a random side note I have noticed how many people still speak of and to our one and only beloved JT. This site has lost some of its luster after he left. It was so entertaining to read what he had to say, and a special treat if he said something directly to you. I was so amused when he said something to the effect that I looked like a cadaver (I had a picture of Sephiroth as my avatar). Now people like Yuki make shout-outs to him but he is unable to respond. I miss him. Sorry for this being irrelevant but after so many people spoke of him in this thread I was lost in nostalgia.
promoting awareness is fine and dandy but trying to guilt parents into not buying games for their kid is a big problem. lets never forget that you can't load a copy of manhunt into a gun and fire it.peace.
As for Hillary in particular, I'm not at all surprised by her sudden willingness to cooperate now that she's formed an exploratory committee to run for the presidency in 2008. The sad part is, even though I can see her self-serving motivation in this action, I'll probably still vote for her if she wins the Democratic nomination since my mistrust for Republicans is so much greater. The lesser evil, and all that....
Welp, I can't say I blame them either. Now that two of the prime critics of games have sided with us in a way, it's only a matter of time before the "Games = Evil" bandwagon falls over from 4 flat tires and a rusted out chassis.
They say that this may cause the video game industry to make less of the M rated games and that's not good. These games are very fun and NOT dangerous. Why Doug Lowenstein is cooperating with the people, who want to hurt the video game industry is beyond my understanding.
Thanks, man, I needed that.
It's not a good idea to alienate our critics. The best solution is to work together with them.
It gives us more credibility. Espesially when our critics are some of the most powerful voices in the Senate
Also, I don't think they want to destroy the game industry. They just wanted votes. Now that it's pretty obvious that legislation will fail, they want to distance themselves from the exploding bandwagon.
I, for one, am happy about this.
Video Games and the ESA/ESRB have a lot of money to throw around....
Hillary Clinton could very well be running for president in a year....
Joe Lieberman i think is also due for re-election.....
that sounds like a good trade-off to me. the ESA/ESRB gives some donations to thier election committies, and they in turn get off thier high horse and try to compromise with them instead of eliminating them. the Best Buy and Gamestop naturally have things to gain from this because that means more business. if parents feel more safe about the games they buy for thier kids, their more likely to buy more games, which means more business and more money for devs and retailers alike
even if i'm wrong and these two are doing this out of the goodness of thier hearts (yah right) this is very good to see.
another case where one player had succesfully looted one of the best knives in the game (another mmo story) and lent it to his friend. that friend than sold that and kept the money for himself. the looter, enraged by this, gave his friend another knife, this one right into his heart.
one kid committed suicide because he said that he could no longer distinguish games from reality and that he wished to go beyond the realm of the living so that he can be with the game characters that he cherished so much in Heaven.....
on topic however: i feel that whats going on here is a good thing.
http://news.com.com/2009-12-6141617.html
So, yeah...I don't know what to say on that.
Sorry for pulling things completely off topic.
I have to know: what exactly were you congratulating?
Now, as to Hillary and Joe's motivation.... isn't it obvious? FREE PRESS. Duh. It's a cliche, but the most dangerous place in Washington IS between a politician and a camera/microphone. The ESRB offered them a chance to be in TV Ads appearing across the country.
Personally, I'd rather have bandwagoners than delusionals running the government. At least the bandwagoners are predictable. If Clinton/Lieberman/AnyoneElse actually thinks these laws are right, they're far more dangerous than some career-minded politician.
Also, is there any word on who's paying for these ads? It seems like a situation of the ESA/ESRB ponying up the cash, doing all the actual work, and Clinton and Lieberman taking the credit and free screen time to boot.
Well, that, and/or, when GTA4 comes out and doesn't get rated AO, they can always turn around and say the ESRB "turned its back on the children!" or some such. Which will of course will be more "reason" for government regulation/interference...
Or, Hillary might step away from the game banning game for a bit and let the other bandwagon jumpers do all the dirty work, so as not to scare off too many new voters who will come of age by '08.
In the past two elections, it's clear to me that the Democrats AND Republicans didn't do a good enough job at unifying around their best nominee. When McCain won the first Republican primary in 2000, Bush's people responded with an aggressive, derogatory phone campaign against him. When Dean started looking like the man to beat in the Democrats' 2004 primary, he became a frequent target of cheap shots from other candidates during debates. With as many resources as the Clintons have, do you really think they'll gracefully allow Obama, Biden or Feingold to take the nomination? I doubt it. And if it turns out to be a Clinton/Lieberman campaign, there's no way I'll be voting for them.
What do you mean? Obviously he is congratulating my comment because I am saying that it doesn't make much sense to me that Doug Lowenstein would cooperate with the people, who are close friends of Jack Thompson. Jack Thompson wants him fired and it didn't make much sense that he's working with the friends of Jack Thompson. Are you in favor of Jack Thompson or something?
I think my comment was good, man, and I hope you can get where I was coming from. However, I guess if it will get the government off the back of the video game industry, it's good. I just hope Doug Lowenstein doesn't begin to believe the arguments of anti-game fanatics.
actually i'm not sure about Joe but Hillery is not a friend of Jacks, and has infact been in his crosshairs before due to the fact that she accepted campaign contributions from the game industry, he in fact attacked her FEPA bill due to it's obvious unconstitutionality saying it was a faux bill designed only to garnish votes for her (which honestly isn't too off base)
*sighs* It was an open-ended question. I was genuinely interested to know what Grahmar was congratulating. For all we know, he could've been congratulating you on the fact that you didn't do this:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry, man, I didn't know. I thought you meant that my comment sucked. Sorry about the mix up.
Dood, we have a forum for a reason, already a thread in OT.