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Game biz guru Keith Boesky offers his thoughts on last week’s stunning news that Activision and Vivendi have pulled out of the ESA.

While the decision of Activision and several other publishers not to participate in this year’s E3 got much of the attention of the gaming press, Boesky sees the ESA defections as the real issue - and we agree:

The ESA is this industry’s most important advocate. The organization’s impact as a lobbyist in Congress is effective, but not really tangible… We can however point directly to litigation efforts, which… beat, every legislative attempt to restrict or impair the sale of video games… If not for The ESA, video games would likely not be considered an expression of free speech…

…many are speculating about disappointment over [ESA CEO] Mike Gallagher… We can expect a less confrontational organization than the old ESA and again, it is too early to know whether it is a good thing. I don’t think Mike’s presence… drove the decision…

Activision… simply did not want to pay the fee. ESA membership fees are based on revenue. The soon to be largest publisher in the world will be paying more than anyone else, and it did not sound like fun. As far as the impact on lobbying… Activision… can pay a portion of the money they would otherwise pay in membership fees and target their own issues…

Moreover, we have yet to see whether this action is truly a withdrawal, and not a negotiating posture to revise the fee structure has yet to be seen. If it is a withdrawal, it could signal the end of The ESA as we know it.

Meanwhile, The Escapist offers its take:

[Activision’s] walking away from a long-standing industry group like the ESA is not something done lightly… In light of the news that other industry majors are also dropping out of E3, it leaves the impression that the ESA is standing on some rather shaky ground…

An imploded ESA… leaves the industry without any form of organized political influence in Washington. With anti-videogame hysteria swirling around releases like Grand Theft Auto IV and Bully while the general public is subjected to a steady stream of misinformation… the lack of a unified voice speaking for the industry could be devastating.

Last week we were treated to Jack Thompson’s view of Grand Theft Auto IV on the Glenn Beck program.

This evening we’ll hear what should be quite a different perspective as Drs. Cheryl Olson and Lawrence Kutner, authors of Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games will appear on Beck’s show.

(CNN Headline News, 7PM & 9PM).

It is the nature of the U.S. video game market that parents make the final decision about what constitutes appropriate content for their child.

Not so in New Zealand, where the government’s chief censor has ruled that parents may not purchase Grand Theft Auto IV for their children.

As reported by the New Zealand Herald, Bill Hastings (left) of New Zealand’s Office of Film and Literature Classification issued an opinion that store clerks may not sell the game to parents who are buying it for their teen. Said Hastings:

If it’s perfectly obvious the parent is buying the game for the child, don’t sell it to the parent. If a game is R18 it’s R18 for a reason and it’s illegal to make it available to anyone under that age.

In New Zealand, adults buying the game for a minor - even for their own child - could be jailed for 90 days or made to pay a $10,000 fine. The Herald notes, however, that the law has never been enforced.

And while Hastings seems to take his censorship duties seriously, he had some quite reasonable comments about GTA IV’s more redeeming qualities:

With the games we ban you have to kill everyone you meet and you’re generally rewarded for making the killing more gruesome. In Grand Theft Auto, you don’t have to kill everybody you meet - you could drive around and just look at the architecture…

All games in the Grand Theft Auto series have a kind of black satire - an overstatement of machismo. It takes the piss out of Soprano-type things.

By the way, we’ve heard America’s self-appointed censor, Jack Thompson, claiming that the sex scenes were taken out of the Australia/New Zealand version of GTA IV. Not entirely so, according to the Herald:

In the version submitted for classification [in New Zealand], the sex scenes include going to a strip club and getting lap dances. There’s also another point where the player can have sex with a prostitute - but in the version sold here, there is no visual depiction, just audio.

Thompson is trying to claim that the game is pornography, making its sale to 17-year-olds (as permitted by its M rating) a crime. If so, it would likely be the world’s first-ever sans genitalia porn.

Grand Theft Auto IV developer Rockstar North may be one of the most successful high tech firms in Scotland, but company president Leslie Benzies laments a perceived lack of respect by government officials.

As reported by the Times:

Rockstar North is to video games what JK Rowling is to literature but few, particularly in government, are prepared to acknowledge this. It seems odd that politicians committed to “a smart, successful Scotland” haven’t come knocking at Benzies’s door.

Of the apparent official shunning, Benzies says:

We’d love to help if we have time. But there are a number of agencies which actively seem to cut us out. There is this weird thing where people think Scotland is so innovative, but if you do anything truly innovative, you get beaten down… This is our home. I love Scotland. I like the people…

We’ve had such a beating over the past three years - by the American government, the British government, the Daily Mail…

Via: CVG

Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal’s controversial video game exhibit, which culminates in the player attempting to shoot President Bush, has triggered a lawsuit against the city of Troy, New York, according to the Albany Times-Union.

As GamePolitics readers may recall, Bilal, a faculty member at the Art Institute of Chicago, was invited to present his Virtual Jihadi exhibit at Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute in March.

RPI’s Republican Club, however, objected to Virtual Jihadi, which Bilal said was designed to show how US policy in Iraq has encouraged terrorism. School officials subsequently ordered the exhibit off campus. A local venue, the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, then offered Bilal the opportunity to display his work.

On opening night local Republican leader Robert Mirch, who also happens to be Troy’s Public Works commissioner, led a protest outside the exhibit. The following day, Troy code enforcement officials (who work for Mirch) shut the Sanctuary down over building code violations involving its doors.

The Sanctuary, assisted by the New York Civil Liberties Union, has notified Troy that it will file a lawsuit against the city as well as Mirch. Said Melanie Trimble executive director of NYCLU’s Capital Region chapter:

City officials cannot selectively enforce building codes to shut down an art exhibition they find distasteful… City officials cannot chill free speech in this city by using their official powers.

Bob Mirch is the head of Public Works which oversees the code enforcement. Code enforcement came the next day and shut the building down even though they had approved the building’s opening the day before. It’s no coincidence.

Sanctuary co-founder Steve Pierce added:

There is a climate of fear in the city.

For his part, Mirch said:

This is nonsense. And a publicity stunt. At no time was the sanctuary closed. The two situations are not connected. Not connected.

Capital News 9 has a video report.

Actor Wil Wheaton, who rather bluntly dissed anti-game attorney Jack Thompson at PAX 2007, has weighed in on the GTA IV controversy via his blog:

The usual gang of idiots are up in arms about how this game will lead to the end of civilization as we know it… The hysteria surrounding the release of GTA IV has officially crossed into the realm of the absurd…

Can I just take a moment and point out how insane this is? This type of hysterical overreaction to a video game is completely out of proportion to any alleged harm it could inflict on anyone, but is accepted because it is done, as it always is, in the name of protecting The Children.

…which leads me to wonder where The Parents are, and if these people are so serious about making the world better for The Children, why they don’t invest the same amount of energy and resources into securing quality healthcare and world-class education for them as they spend wringing their hands over video games that aren’t even supposed to be played by The Children in the first place.

Wheaton, an ECA member, starred in the 1986 classic Stand By Me, played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: Next Generation and has numerous other acting credits. He has also done video game voice-over work, including on several GTA titles.

Full Disclosure Dept: The ECA is the parent company of GamePolitics…

The Raw Story has a lengthy expose on Tony Krvaric, head of San Diego’s GOP committee.

According to the report, the 37-year-old Krvaric, a naturalized US citizen who was born in Sweden, was the co-founder of Fairlight, a  warez group formed in 1987. From Raw Story:

Fairlight… evolved into an international video and software piracy group that law enforcement authorities say is among the world’s largest such crime rings.

After co-founding Fairlight in Sweden, Krvaric established U.S. operations for the organization, including an arm headquartered in Southern California—a major center for the computer and video game industry.

Krvaric, known in the cracking community as “Strider,” got his start pirating games for the Commodore 64, but apparently left Fairlight in 1992. In 2004, the ring was taken down following an international investigation which resulted in the arrest of 120 people. Krvaric was not among them, although another group member alleged that he remained involved.

Although Krvaric would not respond to The Raw Story’s request for comment, he discounted the allegations in an e-mail to fellow Repubicans:

Apparently there’s a hit piece floating around on me, “exposing” my wild high school, teenage years where I was in a computer club where we swapped Commodore 64 games (similar to how kids swap mp3 music files these days). This was in the 80’s, on a computer that’s long since defunct!

…I don’t know who is spreading this, but just wanted to let you know what’s going on out there. Likely it’s someone who wants us to take our eye off the ball in 2008, be it the democrats, labor or someone else. Either way, we’re not going to let them get away with it.

Via: Laws of Play

It’s difficult to imagine the sense of shock and loss experienced by the loved ones of a police officer killed in the line of duty.

So it’s not surprising to read in today’s New York Daily News that the mother of slain NYPD Officer Russel Timoshenko (left) doesn’t appreciate the cops-and-robbers animated violence in Grand Theft Auto IV. Tatyana Timoshenko told the Daily News:

For some people, it’s a game. But for me, it’s not funny. It was for real. It was my son. This game teaches children to kill, then they wonder where criminals come from.

Big Apple Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has criticized GTA in the past, added:

The kids are playing these violent games that don’t exactly teach the kind of things that you’d want to teach your kids.

Pat Lynch, president of the NYPD Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President, said:

Being involved in a shootout in a video game has no consequences and that is the wrong message to send to young people.

San Diego’s 10news has a video report on John Douglas, described as a 20-year video game industry veteran. Douglas likens Grand Theft Auto IV to porn:

If adults want to do it, that’s their choice. But that’s not where the problem is… Personally, I think it’s sick and twisted… They should be putting this stuff behind the counter so that the adults that want it can come in and ask for it, like they would an adult magazine…

According to 10news, Douglas left the game biz because he became “burned out” over the increasing level of violence in games. He believes that the video game industry markets adult games to children.

Douglas’s past involvement with the video game industry is unknown. He is currently president of Grand Design Productions. The company’s website describes it as in the business of creating ”faith-based, family-friendly entertainment with valuable spiritual and moral messages.”

A representative of Philadelphia’s Fraternal Order of Police has criticized Grand Theft Auto IV. 

Off. Eugene Blagmond spoke to local TV station NBC-10 about GTA IV’s in-game confrontations with virtual cops:

The glorification of killing of any police officer is just wrong. I mean, it desensitizes people to the real mayhem that’s going on out on the streets, and we already have a real problem with people not valuing human life.

People don’t seem to have a problem turning guns on cops, and this game — I know it’s just a game, but people sometimes have trouble separating reality from fantasy.

Not every police officer would seem to agree with Blagmond’s assessment, however. NBC-10’s Jamison Uhler reports that while his crew was filming at a local GameStop, four different Philadelphia police officers came in to purchase GTA IV in the space of an hour.

Police in San Diego arrested a 27-year-old man yesterday and charged him with robbing a GameStop location, pepper-spraying two employees there and stealing a launch day copy of Grand Theft Auto IV.

Richard Fiel (at left, in the back of a police car) found that it’s tougher to shake real cops than GTA IV’s animated ones and was busted after a short standoff.

In addition to GTA IV, Police found a copy of GTA III and a PlayStation 3 controller in his pickup truck. A San Diego PD spokesperson told the local NBC affiliate:

The call came out as a robbery of a commercial business… and the suspect was described, and the vehicle that he got into was described as a white Toyota pickup truck, lifted with the tailgate down, and our helicopter ABLE spotted the vehicle southbound. The officers followed it.

There was no word on how many police alert stars Fiel’s crime generated.

Despite claims by game violence critics and some law enforcement personnel, video games like Grand Theft Auto IV are not motivating youthful players to join gangs.

According to the Edmonton Metro, gang expert Michael Chettleburgh says the video game controversy is over-hyped:

If you actually go out and talk to young gang members about the top 10 reasons why they joined a gang, you will never hear them talk about the influences of hip hop, video games or media.

It’s just not a primary driver of why kids join gangs.

Chettleburgh is the author of Young Thugs: Inside the Dangerous World of Canadian Street Gangs.

Via: Next Generation

While the make-pretend crime in Grand Theft Auto IV is the subject of an enormous amount criticism from politicians, activists and media pundits, a police chief says it’s only a game.

Kansas TV station KSWO-7 includes an interview with Lawton P.D. Chief Ronnie Smith in its coverage of the hoopla surrounding the GTA IV launch. Chief Smith told reporter Elaina Rusk:

Most of the young people who play these games know they’re only games, they’re smart enough to know they’re only games. It’s that small percentage that don’t realize, or that start thinking the wrong way, and end up getting themselves in trouble by thinking, ‘you know, this is cool, I can do this in real life.’

This is all fun and games when you’re playing these games, but turn them off and forget about it, and know that that’s not real life. Because in real life you don’t get up and walk away… In real life it’s a totally different ball game.

Richard Bartle, a co-creator of the multi-user dungeon (MUD) game format, has a go at anti-game types in an energetic op-ed for yesterday’s Guardian. Bartle writes:

I’m talking to you, you self-righteous politicians and newspaper columnists, you relics who beat on computer games: you’ve already lost. Enjoy your carping while you can, because tomorrow you’re gone…

Half the UK population has grown up playing computer games. They aren’t addicted, they aren’t psychopathic killers, and they resent those boneheads – that’s you – who imply that they are…

Dwell on this, you smug, out-of-touch, proud-to-be-innumerate fossils: half the UK population thinks games are fun and cool, and you don’t… Scared yet? You should be: we have the numbers on our side. Do your worst – you can’t touch us. We’ve already won.

15 years from now, the prime minister of the day will have grown up playing computer games… Gamers vote. Gamers buy newspapers. They won’t vote for you, or buy your newspapers, if you trash their entertainment with your ignorant ravings. Call them social inadequates if you like, but when they have more friends in World of Warcraft than you have in your entire sad little booze-oriented culture of a real life, the most you’ll get from them is pity…

When not smiting game critics, Bartle is a teaching fellow at the University of Essex.

One of our favorite blogs is Overlawyered, where overzealous attorneys (including you-know-who) are skewered on a daily basis.

While giving a mention to GTA IV on Monday, Overlawyered’s Ted Frank dropped a nugget of information that caught our eye: He’s one of those who signed on to the GTA San Andreas Hot Coffee class action suit. Ted writes:

As someone who purchased Grand Theft Auto:San Andreas the first day it was out for the Xbox 360, I am a member of a plaintiff class in a class action settlement over the Hot Coffee mod…

In the settlement, I get, well, nothing, and the attorneys will ask for about a million dollars; worse, individual “representative” class members who suffered no injury will get $5000 that could have been used to buy more music rights for Grand Theft Auto IV… This settlement was sufficiently appalling that I actually retained an attorney…

Curious about Ted’s thoughts on the class action, we asked him to say a bit more: (more…)

Ben Fritz (left), who writes The Cut Scene blog for Variety, questions the journalistic ethics underlying exclusive game reviews.

At the center of Fritz’s concern is IGN’s recent perfect score for Grand Theft Auto IV. Fritz writes:

I’m not at all accusing IGN of being dishonest in this particular case… HOWEVER… what the hell is with the concept of an “exclusive review?” Is anyone else as troubled by this entire concept as I am?

…being the first outlet to review a highly anticipated new videogame is a big deal. It means a major boost in Web traffic or magazine sales. …But how can we trust a videogame review when the outlet running it has been given a major commercial favor — one that’s worth money — from the publisher of the game?

You never see a paper or TV station getting special access from a movie studio or TV network or book publisher to run an “exclusive review.” Imagine the L.A. Times or Roger Ebert touting their “exclusive review of ‘Iron Man.’” Absurd, right? So why do we tolerate it for a videogame?

Via: That Videogame Blog

UPDATE: IGN responds in an interview on Game Daily. Xbox Editor Hilary Goldstein said:

My problem with online journalism in general is that nobody does their due diligence. Nobody from Variety called us and said, “Hey, would you like to comment about this?” …A lot of people didn’t get the game early. So if Variety didn’t get the game early then you’re looking at somebody, I don’t know, who had a grudge on his shoulder because he didn’t even have the game yet and we’d already put out the review.

I just wish people would call. We had so many people writing comments about us and not a single person contacted us. Not Kotaku. Not Variety. Nobody called. They just all made assumptions. And of course we gave it a 10. But so did everyone else.

The Timothy Plan, a Maitland, Florida-based mutual fund group which offers a “biblical choice when it comes to investing,” has issued a press release slamming Take Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO), publisher of Grand Theft Auto IV.

From the release:

Take-Two Interactive… has done it again, releasing another video game that contains extreme sexual and violent content… Beyond the intense violence, blood and mayhem, during the game the character can have sex with prostitutes, visit adult clubs, request a private lap dance and drive drunk.

The Timothy Plan, a morally responsible family of mutual funds, refuses to invest in companies like Take-Two Interactive because of their involvement in the anti-family entertainment and pornography industry.

Timothy Plan president Arthur Ally (left) is quoted in the press release: 

This $30 billion a year [video game] business is exploiting sex and violence more than ever in their products. We hope more parents will not continue to fall into a category that four out of ten often do by relying simply on the ESRB rating and leave their children alone while they are playing video games.

While the ESRB system is a step in the right direction, the ratings are confusing and incomplete at best.

Ally also criticized another Rockstar game, Bully: Scholarship Education, because protagonist Jimmy Hopkins can kiss other boys in the game.

Take Two is among several dozen publicly-traded companies listed on the Timothy Plan’s Hall of Shame. Others include Starbucks, PlanetOut, Wal-Mart, Microsoft and would-be Take Two acquirer, Electronic Arts.

While it’s not clear exactly how these firms have transgressed in the Arthur Ally’s view, the Timothy Plan is anti-gay, pro-life and opposed to investing in companies which deal in alcohol, tobacco, gambling or pornography.

Today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer features a front page article on GTA IV which includes an interview with one of the authors of Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth about Violent Video Games.

Authors Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson are both members of the Harvard Medical School faculty and the recently-released book has been widely acclaimed by the video game community for its reasonable - and unqiue - perspective on video game violence.

Kutner told the P-I:

For most kids and most parents, the bottom-line results of our research can be summed up in a single word: Relax… We have a long history of panicking over the introduction of new media. We have no evidence this is different.

The real question is which kids if any are at significant risk, and can we use behavior involving violent video game play as markers as what kids [should watch].

If you’re looking for more of Kutner’s thoughts, the Toronto Star has an excerpt of Grand Theft Childhood in today’s edition.

The Post-Intelligencer story also features interviews with a concerned parent, as well as with What The Play editor John Davison and Hilarie Cash, author of the upcoming book Video Games & Your Kids: How Parents Stay in Control.

GP: Big thanks to GamePolitics reader Phantom for the tip!

Are critics of the Grand Theft Auto series the same breed of culture cops who were mortified by Elvis Presley’s hip shaking style of rock’n'roll in the 1950’s?

Leslie Benzies (left), president of Scotland’s Rockstar North, creator of GTA IV, says they are. Benzies told The Scotsman:

[GTA IV critics are] the same kind of people who complained about Elvis… There is a big fear factor here. It’s [like] the coming of the railways, it’s Elvis shaking his hips. It’s cars going over 25 miles per hour and making people explode.

We’ve had such a beating over the past three years, by the US government, the British government, the Daily Mail. ‘You kill prostitutes’ – that’s usually the objection. I ask if they’ve ever played the game. Invariably they haven’t.

Benzies also offered his thoughts on another controversial title, Manhunt 2. The game was banned in the UK until Rockstar won an appeal earlier thus year:

We wanted to make a horror game that would scare you in the same way a film would. If it’s a film or a book, you can do what you want. We seem to be in a different category. We’re very careful who we market the game to, and what is in the game.

Last week we gave a mention to Minusworld’s tongue-in-cheek GTA IV Activity Book for Kids.

This morning we note that Crackle.com has posted a pretty funny GTA IV parody video (left).

Minusworld takes another (not quite as clever) bite of the GTA IV apple with a satirical article explaining why Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is begging Rockstar to create Grand Theft Auto: Montreal as its next installment in the series

Finally, an artist by the name of Scave has apparently created a custom GTA IV munny (left) for Rockstar.

The munny features, of course, GTA IV protagonist Niko Bellic.