During Tuesday's E3 state-of-the-industry speech ESA boss Mike Gallagher touched on a number of issues. In this post we'll take a look at his comments on politics and the video game industry:

On Barack Obama's Xbox Live campaign ads:

Then-presidential candidate Barack Obama purchased advertising space within video games during his presidential campaign... In doing so, Obama became the first presidential candidate to use video games to engage voters and court their support. Others will inevitably follow...

On state-funded financial incentives for video game developers:

You may recall that Texas Governor Rick Perry delivered our keynote address last year... A true advocate for the industry, he backed up his words over the past year. He proclaimed February 3 “Entertainment Software Day” in Texas. Then, in April, he supported [legislation] tripling the economic incentive programs in Texas for digital interactive media production...

 

A growing number of elected officials increasingly view incentives for video game companies as an essential component in any plan designed to revive a local economy... This year, 18 states have actively considered legislation to create or significantly expand existing incentive programs for digital interactive media development and production...

On restrictive video game content legislation:

Of course, there remain some in government who still seek to lay society’s ills at our doorstep. We are vigilant in defending the interests of the video game ecosystem...

 

We have seen demonstrable proof that [the Video Game Voters Network's] powerful activism can stop a bad legislative proposal from becoming an even worse law. In Utah, for example, gamers stepped up, encouraging Governor Jon Huntsman to reject a piece of flawed legislation. The governor heeded their call and, in March, vetoed the bill. This decision represented a great win for both gamers and the industry at large. For the first time, a governor vetoed legislation that would have profoundly affected video games, consumers and the industry...

GP: With all due respect to Gallagher, from here it seemed that the industry's substantial lobbying efforts in Utah had far more to do with Gov. Huntsman's veto than e-mails generated by the VGVN.

That said, Gallagher's speech was a notable improvement over the 2008 version for a couple of reasons. First, it was moved to the L.A. Convention Center's comfortable and cozy theater. Last year's speech was delivered in a cavernous - and mostly empty - meeting room. More importantly, after wrapping up this year's talk Gallagher provided a question-and-answer period, something he didn't offer his audience in 2008.

During the Q&A I took the opportunity to ask Gallagher about the U.S. Supreme Court's pending consideration of California's violent video game law. If the Court rejects California's bid, I asked, did the ESA boss think the other 49 states would take notice and stop attempting to legislate games?

No, [they] won't... 12 times we've been to federal court and had those statutes overturned, [but] they continue to do it... We'll face challenges in different states at different times. What I can you tell you is, our advocacy and the growth of our industry is beginning to turn that issue around. An example I would point to is the number of legislators who introduce these bills has stopped. They didn't do it this year. That happened in North Carolina, it happened in Massachusets, it happened in Michigan and other states. And in some of those cases, we've taken our harshest critics and turned them around to where they are sponsoring legislation to give our industry incentives to locate in their state. So I see opportunity for this industry to continue to make its case...

 

We are going to turn that issue. And we are having an impact today. But we continue to have to be very vigilant...