Yesterday GamePolitics reported on the first part of a video game retail sting conducted by reporter Joce Sterman of Baltimore's ABC-2. Readers may recall that Best Buy registered a perfect score by turning down an underage secret shopper during all three attempts to purchase M-rated game. Target? Not so good...

In part 2, GameStop came up a winner, also registering a perfect score. That's not too surprising given that the Federal Trade Commission reported earlier this year that GameStop clerks successfully carded the government agency's secret shoppers 94% of the time.

Wal-Mart and Circuit City, however, did not fare as well. From the ABC-2 report:

[The secret shopper] was also carded at the Circuit City in Towson, but employees at two of their other stores in Catonsville and Rosedale didn't even ask...  The games he pocketed from those places were Prey and Vice City Stories from the notorious Grand Theft Auto series... 

 

Our mystery shopper got plenty of action on his trips to Wal-Mart.  One store in Pikesville turned him down, but two others in Towson and Port Covington were a success on the sale... This time he walked away with Timeshift and Halo 3. 

Both Circuit City and Wal-Mart issued statements apologizing for their employees. Circuit City said:

We will talk with management at the stores to determine exactly what happened.  When we do, we will take appropriate action... Circuit City does not carry video games and computer software which receive the "Adult Only" rating... Our store associates receive training regarding the sale of mature content when they first start to work at Circuit City and ongoing training on the subject...  Store associates are instructed that failure to enforce the policy could result in consequences up to and including termination of employment.

From Wal-Mart: 

Though we do not have the details of your report and it sounds like an isolated situation, we are working with management at these two stores who already are taking steps to ensure associates understand the importance of ID check and this policy.

Baltimore's ABC-2 conducted a ratings sting recently at local retail stores. In the first segment, the station said that Best Buy had a perfect record, turning away the station's 15-year-old secret shopper in all three of his attempts to purchase Devil May Cry 4, Bioshock and Call of Duty 4.

Target, however, did very poorly, not stopping the young man on any of his three tries at its stores. When informed of the chain's poor showing, Target rep Sonja Pothen told ABC-2:

While it's unfortunate to learn about the findings from this study, it sounds like we have an opportunity to encourage these stores to conduct training we've outlined regarding our video games sales policy.

ABC-2's results at GameStop and Wal-Mart are to be aired in a second segment.

Jack Thompson will be featured in an interview on the July 24th episode of the normally light-hearted Jace Hall show.

We don't think this one will be a walk in the park, however. The segment, according to Thompson, was filmed in a video game store in Salt Lake City. The likely-to-be-disbarred attorney was there recently to be honored by America's Freedom Festival. Why Thompson was feted remains a mystery, as officials of the festival have not responded to our requests for information.

As to Thompson's Jace Hall appearance, the show apparently provided two brief clips to Thompson, who forwarded them to GamePolitics (sorry, we have no clearance to make them generally available). Here's the dialogue:

(first clip)

Jace Hall: Having created mature-rated video games myself, and just listening to you, effectively I'm one of the damned, apparently.

Jack Thompson: Yes... permanently

(second clip)

Jace Hall: Now that you've had a chance to talk to me, do you think of me as some bad guy who's trying to hurt children?

Jack Thompson: No, I don't think of you, Jason, as a bad guy. I think of you as pure evil, and there's a special room in Hell for you...

GP: If you're not familiar with Jace Hall, he is co-founder of Monolith and a former VP at Warner Brothers. He has a long list of game projects to his credit. 

With his remaining time as a licensed attorney likely numbered in days rather than decades, you might think that anti-game campaigner Jack Thompson would be in something of a funk.

However, Thompson has e-mailed GamePolitics with a YouTube link to a new G4TV parody called Jack Thompson Was Right. His subject line? "Very Funny, Really"...

However, when we jumped over to YouTube the video was gone, and the following notice posted: "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by g4 Media Inc."

No worries. G4TV still has the video...

The Marblehead Blog reports on a German ad campaign which uses edgy, Grand Theft Auto-like themes to promote Burger King.

The campaign's "Veg City" theme is centered around the idea of fresh ingredients and giving customers choices in ordering from Burger King's menu.

From the article:

The first thing to remember is this would never work in America. While GTA: Vice City is still the best selling PS2 game of all time, it came with its share of backlash... However, the German culture is quite different than ours and one has to keep in mind the intended audience when evaluating a campaign...

 

The [Veg City] website opens with a Vegas city style sign and fades into a true GTA-style map. Like most interactive ad sites, there are downloads, games, and a backstory.  Each part of Veg City has it’s own unique twist on the freshness and choice themes...

 In the video, the player is portrayed as taking out an old (i.e., not fresh) onion...

As reported by vnunet, the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has declined to take action against a commercial for Rockstar's Bully: Scholarship Edition.

The ASA received 31 complaints about the ad:

The game's main character is seen in the ad destroying property, firing a catapult and shielding himself from a burning substance in a science classroom. Two other characters are shown lifting another student by his underpants...

 

Several viewers, some of whom had experienced bullying, described it as 'offensive and distasteful'.

 

Others said that it 'glorified, trivialised and encouraged bullying and violence', and that it was scheduled inappropriately because it could be seen by children.

Take Two argued that the ad was comedic in nature and that sensationalized media coverage of Bully: Scholarship Edition probably led to some of the complaints. 

The Entertainment Software Association took a victory lap this week, announcing the recovery of $65,000 in legal fees from Minnesota after the state abandoned further appeals of its failed 2006 video game law.

An editorial in yesterday's Duluth News-Tribune, however, dinged the ESA while acknowledging that Minnesota's fine-the-buyer legislation law was "flawed":

From the outset, the law skirted First Amendment rights and targeted the wrong people - minors... The logic was counter to that of more effective laws to protect minors, such as penalties to bars that allow underage drinking or fines to stores that sell cigarettes to kids.

 

...Though [Attorney General Lori] Swanson had indicated then she would continue to defend it, this week she cut her losses. Hence, the $65,000 of legal fees.

 

"Minnesota's citizens should be outraged at paying the bill for this flawed plan," Michael D. Gallagher, CEO of the video game trade association, said in a statement.

 

He's right, but what about his group's members who make and market games depicting sexual exploitation and violence as fun?

 

A little outrage is due there, too, for creating the problem in the first place.

Via: West Central Tribune (the Duluth News-Tribune link isn't working as I write this)

The current issue of Newsweek devotes five pages to a feature called "Anatomy of Violence."

Perhaps surprisingly, video games come in for only a scant mention near the bottom of the last page:

No discussion of violence in American culture is complete without mentioning blood-soaked videogames. Right after earning points for a graphic disemboweling, young players are more aggressive, but more in punch-little-sister mode than shooting up a mall. Still, there is evidence that violent games have a numbing effect. "When people stop feeling it's terrible that someone is getting hurt, that's dangerous," says [a researcher].

So, if not violent video games, what is causing violence in American society?

Scientists who study criminal violence... now believe that its roots are equally planted in the biology of an individual, the psychology that reflects the interaction of innate traits and experiences, and the larger culture. No single cause is sufficient, none is deterministic...

 

Louis Schlesinger, professor of forensic psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, mass killers tend to be aggrieved, hurt, clinically depressed, socially isolated and, above all, paranoid.

Definitely worth a read if you have an interest in the topic...

In his PressSpotting column which ran on GameSpot yesterday, scribe Kyle Orland looked back at last month's ugly dust-up between the ESA and GamePolitics.

Kyle writes, in part:

Claiming that GamePolitics has a history of "anti-ESA vitriol" just isn't supported by the facts. Yes, GamePolitics covered the ESA's recent troubles retaining members, but so have countless other sites that have nothing to do with the ECA. What's more, GamePolitics' coverage has been relatively moderate compared to the blistering portrayals of the organization in some corners of the gaming blogosphere.

While I appreciate the support, I'd be remiss if I did not point out that Kyle is off the mark when he refers to the ECA which owns GamePolitics as a "rival" of the ESA. They're completely different animals.

Hal Halpin created the ECA to represent video game consumers, while the ESA has been around since 1994, representing video game publishers. What this means is that any individual could become an ECA member, if they choose to. Only game publishers can join the ESA.

Perhaps an easier way to think of it is: ECA is game buyers; ESA is game sellers. While there is some common ground (e.g. - censorship), the interests of gamers and publishers often diverge widely.

Back to the point, there's really so much I could say here. For today  I'll simply point out that for the ESA to charge me with "anti-ESA vitriol" is ludicrous. Here's an organization that sat on its hands for years while Jack Thompson said the most vile things about its president, comparing him to Saddam Hussein and Joseph Goebbels.

That former ESA boss, by the way, was a guy I very much respected. Didn't always agree with, mind you, but respected. The organization has the same P.R. guy now as then, by the way, so what's different? Why am I suddenly the one with the "vitriol"?

Different management, for one thing, so maybe that's part of it. Beyond that, I've broken a few ESA stories this year, ones they probably didn't like (closure of the New York office, member company departures), but reporting the news is my job. It's a competitive business and in this arena, being first with a solid story is what it's all about.

I've also dinged them on a few issues (2007's mod chip raids, failing to speak up on the Mass Effect-Fox News debacle, signing Gov. Rick Perry to keynote E3) and, again, as a commentator, that's part of my job description.

That said, I'm certainly not against the ESA as an entity. The video game industry surely needs a voice in Washington and in state legislatures. It needs an organization to represent its interests. I may not always agree with what the ESA does, but that comes with the territory.

While I'm at it, let me describe the relationship between GamePolitics and the ECA: ECA owns GamePolitics. They pay me to edit the site, and I operate it just as I have since I founded GP in early 2005. Hal Halpin's office is in Connecticut. Mine is in Pennsylvania. I see Hal a couple of times a year at trade shows. The last time we were face-to-face was November, 2007 at VGXPO here in Philly. I'll see him at E3 later this month.

Hal and I trade a few IM's and e-mails on most days, have the very occasional phone call. But from Day One, Hal has insisted on maintaining GP's editorial freedom; I wouldn't have it any other way.

Obviously, Hal is running a business with the ECA and hopes to sign up as many members as he can. I wish him all the best with those efforts, but I don't get involved in that aspect. I mention this by way of demonstrating that while we get along quite well, the ECA does not dictate, approve or edit GP's content in any way. I was very pleased to see that Kyle Orland understands this:

There's a difference between being owned by a company and being a paid shill for that company. GamePolitics is clearly the former but not the latter.
 

UPDATE: GamePolitics stories tagged with "ESA" as far back as August, 2007 are listed here. If you want, you can decide for yourself on how fairly I've covered the ESA.

When violent video game controveries flare, it's often said that critics are unintentionally increasing traffic to the game in question.

Such appears to be the case with The Torture Game 2.

The amateur, online game has been attracting no small amout of attention lately, including a parental alert from watchdog group the Parents Television Council.

The free game is available at online gaming portals Newgrounds and Kongregate.

But a message posted by Newgrounds guru Tom Fulp documents that the controversy is actually bringing many new players to the game:

The latest controversy has been surrounding The Torture Game 2, a fun little ragdoll physics engine that lets you do all sorts of horrible things to a lifeless dummy. Sensible Erection put together a gallery of all the fancy artwork you can create with TG2... at which point Derek Yu made a post about it on TIGSource and a whole debate erupted.

 

MSNBC picked up on the TIGSource debate and posted their own article about the game, but the real fun came when FOX News weighed in with a Fair & Balanced video, expressing their disgust while showing real-time footage of the person being tortured. Hey! At least we slapped a MATURE rating on the game and made you click a link to view it... Fox just dumped it into every living room in America!

 

As a result of their efforts, many more people are now enjoying The Torture Game 2.

 The Fox News video mentioned by Fulp appears at left.

In the preceding GamePolitics article we covered University of Michigan Professor Brad Bushman's criticism of Grand Theft Childhood.

The book, written by Harvard researchers Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson, downplays the effects of video game violence on adolescent behavior.

We also contacted the authors for comment on Bushman's attack on Grand Theft Childhood. Dr. Cheryl Olson shared these thoughts (and provided several of the links):

I don’t mind other researchers criticizing my work as long as they don’t engage in personal attacks... Brad Bushman is absolutely entitled to air his views.

 

Unfortunately, Dr. Bushman has some of his facts mixed up. In the 2001 Surgeon General’s report on youth violence, exposure to TV violence was actually near the bottom of the list of influences on real-world violence – so low that it was relegated to an appendix!

 

He theorizes that teens are more likely to identify with video game characters than TV or movie characters. That’s plausible, but I could just as easily argue the opposite; boys told us repeatedly in focus groups that they enjoying taking the bad guy role in a video game specifically because they don’t want to behave that way in real life. Also, because video games require active control and participation, players are constantly reminded that the game is merely a game.

 

Dr. Bushman’s statement that video games directly reward violence is only partly accurate; anyone who actually plays video games knows that players are not always rewarded for acting violently, and in fact are often penalized immediately or later on (even in parts of Grand Theft Auto IV). The content and consequences in video games are extremely varied, which is one reason that studying their influence is so difficult.

 

Finally, regarding his experimental study of Dutch teenagers playing a game for 20 minutes in a lab: Those teens are fully aware that no researcher will allow them to act in a way that causes permanent physical harm to someone. Dr. Bushman may be a bit too credulous – a view that is supported by a quote from that Surgeon General’s report.

Co-author Dr. Lawrence Kutner added:

While Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson's recent book Grand Theft Childhood has given cheer to video gamers (and the video game industry), a longtime media violence researcher strongly disagrees with the authors' conclusion that violent games aren't all that bad for younger players.

In an op-ed for the Detroit Free Press, University of Michigan professor Brad Bushman writes:

Kutner and Olson’s advice to parents is particulary puzzling since their own data suggest that such games are linked to aggressive behavior... Although laboratory experiments can be used to establish cause-effect relationships, they quickly dismiss most lab studies as artificial and invalid.

 

I strongly disagree. Consider a laboratory experiment I recently conducted... Boys about 14 years old were randomly assigned to play a violent or nonviolent video game for 20 minutes... Next, they completed a noise blast task, with the winner blasting the loser with a noise...

 

The boys were told that inflicting higher noise levels could cause “permanent hearing damage” to their partners... These boys were even willing to give another boy noise levels loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage...

 

Violent video games are not the only risk factor for aggression, or even the most important factor, but they are definitely not a trivial factor...

Bushman was among the authors of the American Psychological Association's 2005 resolution which held that there is an increase in aggression following violent video game play. Bushman also participated in a 2007 study which found correlation between violent Biblical passages and aggression. He is also one of controversial Miami attorney Jack Thompson's expert witnesses in an Alabama lawsuit alleging that an 18-year-old's murder of two police officers and a dispatcher was motivated by playing Grand Theft Auto.

Last week, GamePolitics was the first game-oriented site to report on a New Haven Advocate story detailing Connecticut State Senator Gayle Slossberg's controversial remarks about Grand Theft Auto IV.

The newspaper reported that Sen. Slossberg, a Democrat, was concerned about a possible rape scene in the game and was considering introducing game-oriented legislation in the upcoming session.

The following day, however, Slossberg issued a statement to the effect that her comments were "misrepresented" by the Advocate. 

Despite the Senator's protestations, the paper is standing by its story. Following an inquiry by GamePolitics, we received the Advocate's statement a short time ago:

The Advocate defends its reporting on this story. Sen. Slossberg was clearly speaking about stricter video game labeling in her capacity as a lawmaker, rather than as a mother or a private citizen. Also, our story said nothing about the senator wanting to restrict video game content, only video game labeling.

 

While we are sympathetic to the senator's concerns, there is no privacy protection for public speech. It is misguided to assume a conversation between an influential state senator and a reporter, or reporters, occurring in a public place, is off-the-record. The Advocate is happy to talk on background, if it's requested. In this case, it was not.

On Wedneday GamePolitics reported on comments attributed to Connecticut State Senator Gayle Slossberg (D) regarding an alleged rape scene in Grand Theft Auto IV.

No such sequence exists, however.

PSXextreme now has Sen. Slossberg's response to the furor created by the earlier report, which appeared in the New Haven Advocate. Slossberg's statement reads:

The article in the New Haven Advocate misrepresented my off-the-record-comments during an informal conversation about parenting. I was in no way announcing a legislative proposal, announcing intent to introduce legislation or taking a public position on restricting the content of video games.

GP: It's unclear what Sen. Slossberg means when she says that the Advocate "misrepresented" her remarks. Her insistence that her comments were "off-the-record" would seem to indicate that she may have indeed made the remarks, but did not anticipate that they would be reported. We can't help but notice that the Senator has not issued a denial of what the Advocate reported.

GamePolitics has requested comment on the issue from the Advocate. We will report that when it is received.

Did you catch Tobacco Free Florida's terrific Halo-like video? GamePolitics covered it earlier this week.

Now, GameCouch has the 411 on how it all came together in an interview with adman Jason Piroth, who wrote the script:

It started with a discussion of what’s relevant to the 11-17 demographic today... Given the explosion in the gaming market that has accompanied the recent release of games like Halo III, Bioshock, etc...  using a format similar... seemed appropriate...

 

Making the “game” a familiar form of first-person shooter was absolutely intentional, but we were careful from the outset not to make it look too much like any one game in particular...

 

We’ve had inquiries as to where people can buy the game... and ample evidence of people truly embracing the spot’s message and declaring that they will think twice about smoking as a result...

Host Jon Stewart has some fun with Pork Invaders, the Facebook game app released by the McCain campaign last week.

Stewart's comments on the McCain game come at about 4:25 into the video segment.

This video is a product of Tobacco Free Florida...

Via: GamerTag Radio

While a small Oklahoma town reels from the senseless murder of two young girls, a columnist for the Wichita Falls Times Record News, has alluded to a video game connection.

While Deanna Watson never explicitly blames violent games, today's column is laden with suggestions that the killer or killers were gamers:

To some horrible creature... Taylor Paschal-Placker and Skyla Whitaker were nothing more than target practice. The two young girls... were gunned down as if they were images in a video game...

 

The gunman, or gunmen, never even needed to get out of the vehicle... They never even needed to come to a complete stop.

 

You get extra points for that, right?

 

...I wonder just how this despicable person -- or persons -- received such training. Could it have been with a video game controller? Granted, not every gamer who plays “Grand Theft Auto” goes on to commit murder...

 

Perfectly sane and humane individuals can entertain themselves with... games where one can take on the role of an antagonist and assassin, rise through the ranks through bank robberies and pimping. Voyaging through the criminal underworld could be quite fun to someone who would never, not in a million years, commit such a crime.

 

It’s a game.

 

Could driving up on Taylor and Skyla been the next level of an absurd game?

 

In less than 30 minutes — Game Over.

 

...What we can suspect, though, is the indifference it takes to end these girls’ lives. Indifference that could be the result of hitting the “Quit” button one too many times.

Meanwhile, CBS News reports that police are pursuing several lines of inquiry in the slaying:

Several motives have been explored, including a random thrill killing, attempted abduction, a case of mistaken identity and the possibility that the girls happened upon a crime in progress... it is suspected that a local person was involved because the killings occurred in such an isolated area.

 

CBS has also reported that police are seeking a man of roughly 35 years as a "person of interest" in the case.

Will Sunday's murderous rampage in Tokyo's famed Akihabara district trigger a wave of anti-video game sentiment in Japan?

TechRadar seems to think so. Citing a report that Japanese authorities are considering the use of software to monitor Internet postings, J Mark Lytle writes:

The self-confessed video game nut is currently being held up on television, in newspapers and in magazines as the perfect example of what goes wrong when feckless youth is allowed to indulge its passion for solitary pursuits in dark rooms.

 

...the impact of Kato’s rage-fuelled actions is already being felt by gamers in particular.

 

Among the tropes dragged out in the media are details such as the ‘facts’ that the knife he used is similar to one used in Dragon Quest, that he was heavily into hardcore games like Eternal Fighter and Chantelise and that he was a mobile addict who felt insecure without his phone.

 

Whatever transpires in Japan, one thing’s for sure – the nation’s obsession with cutesy videogames and oddball recluses will never be the same again.

Meanwhile, the Mainichi Daily News reports that Akihabara regulars are paying tribute to the victims of the killing spree in an Otaku fashion:

Regular visitors to Tokyo's Akihabara district are paying tribute to the victims of Sunday's fatal stabbing rampage with anime characters and images, and other products that have gained popularity in the electronics district...

 

"I'm going to remember them in an 'otaku' way," said a 42-year-old man from Chiba, who laid down an image from the popular anime "Mobile Suit Gundam" and observed a moment of silence....

This video uses the music from Bright Eyes' When The President Talks to God to parody anti-game activist Jack Thompson.

The new lyrics were penned by Super Columbine Massacre RPG creator Danny Ledonne and singer/guitarist Cory Antiel, who performs the song.