With eight more days to go, Andrea Seabrook has managed to raise $36,669 of her $75,000 goal to help fund her innovative podcast, DecodeDC. Seabrook says that "Washington D.C. is broken." She should know - she spent many years as a national correspondent to Congress at National Public Radio. A few months ago she had had enough of lawmakers "lying to her face" and decided to leave NPR to do something different.

Take a look at your video game collection.  How many of those games are still unopened?  How about your Steam account?  Any purchased games you haven’t given a go yet?

Now look over to the right at this week’s poll.  Hey, what a coincidence!  It’s asking how many games you’ve purchased but haven’t yet played!

It’s almost like I planned this…

A "day late and 30 minutes short" would be the best way to describe Episode 23 of the Super Podcast Action Committee as host Andrew Eisen struggles with being sick and co-host E. Zachary Knight rails against the wickedness of the state of Oklahoma keeping his preferred candidate off the ballot. In between these trials and tribulations, Andrew and EZK talk about Kevin Butler being sued by Sony, Nintendo's non-gamer ad, the latest poll on GamePolitics, and troubles at the drive-in.

Let’s play a word association game.  I’m going to say a word, and you tell me what pops in your head.  Ready?  Okay, here we go…

“Appstore”

In Episode 22 hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight laugh at the ridiculousness of fan requests to give the ladies of Dead or Alive 5 bigger breasts, discuss region locking consoles, and talk about cable providers who are considering more game-related services. This episode will chafe you more than an iron thong on a female fighter who can't stand up straight because some Japanese guy gave her an unneeded mega boob job... Someone call a chiropractor!

Let’s say there’s a new console coming out that you’ve totally got your eye on.  It’s a groovy piece of kit, it’s reasonably priced and it’s got a bunch of games you want to play.  You’ve got your money saved up and you’re just ticking off the calendar days until its launch.

And then you find out it’s region locked.

In Episode 21 hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight ponder the excitement levels of the Wii U amongst early adopters, wonder why Walmart and Amazon are not stocking certain products like Kindle Fire and Wii U pre-orders, and look at twenty predictions on future consoles. It's fun for the whole family... Download it now: SuperPAC Episode 21 (1 hour, 13 minutes).

Because I’m a huge Nintendo dork with a one-track mind, I predictably posted a Wii U-themed poll this week.

Nintendo cut loose with gobs of Wii U info last Thursday including the console’s price and launch date.  If you missed it, the console launches in North America on Nov. 18th in two flavors: a Basic Set for $300 and a Deluxe Set for $350.

So, you getting one?

In Episode 20 hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight throw all conventional limitations on time out the window as they discuss the "Adults Only" ESRB game ratings category, political ads in games, and all the news about the Wii U. Download it here: SuperPAC Episode 20 (1 hour, 27 minutes).

I’m going to keep this brief because I have very strong opinions on this one and it’s difficult not to fill this post with arguments supporting my position on the subject.  (In fact, I just deleted three paragraphs worth.)

So, the Adults Only rating.  Do you think the ESRB should keep it?  Currently, it prevents games with explicit sexual content and extremely graphic violence from making it out onto the market.  Is that the way it should be?

Yesterday we highlighted a job listing on Valve's website that showed the popular game developer was looking to hire an Industrial Designer to work on "product design and manufacturing, ergonomics, usability, aesthetics, and surfacing."

Episode 18 of the Super Podcast Action Committee sees host Andrew Eisen team up with GP Managing Editor James Fudge, who sat in for E.

I’ve got a fun one for you this week, GPers!

“Are Video Games Art?”

Yes, it’s that oft-debated and extremely polarizing question that can make proponents on both sides of the issue soil their shorts in an enthusiastic tizzy.  Opinions are hot on this one.  Blogs have been written, names have been called, blood has been spilled.

Are there any themes or topics that should never be explored in a video game?

In Episode 16 of the Super Podcast Action Committee, Andrew Eisen and James Fudge (filling in for E. Zachary Knight, who had to take a well-deserved time-out to fawn over a new addition to his family this week) talk about Mugen Souls, Resident Evil 5, the chaos of OnLive, the irony of Ubisoft turning Uplay into a digital distribution platform, and the controversy over "girlfriends" and Borderlands 2. Download Episode 16 here: SuperPAC Episode 16 (1 Hour, 12 Minutes).

In the United States, there is no law forbidding retailers from selling an M rated game to someone under age 17 and thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. EMA, that’s not likely to ever change.

But is that the way it should be?

Across the pond in the UK, retailers are legally forbid from selling PEGI 12, 16, or 18 games to kids younger than the rating indicates.  Are the Europeans doing it right?

In episode 15 of the Super Podcast Action Committee, Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about Harry Potter games, OUYA's Kickstarter success and pre-order, a dehydrated teen, piracy, free-to-play spending, and Nintendo and Sony's trouble getting third-party developers to love their hand-helds. Download Episode 15 here: SuperPAC Episode 15 (1 Hour, 5 Minutes).

Oddly enough, “How much money have you spent on free-to-play games?” is not a stupid question.

As more and more games switch over to the “free-to-play” model, we find ourselves wondering how much gamers are spending on these “freemium” titles.  Luckily, we have our very own poll so those sleepless nights we've spent pondering this topic can kiss their butts goodbye!

In episode 14 of the Super Podcast Action Committee, Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about the UK researcher who thinks parents should be arrested for buying their children age inappropriate games, Ubisoft's rootkit controversy, the results from last week's poll at GamePolitics about Humble Bundles, EA's lawsuit against Zynga, the death of the Cybersecurity Act in the Senate, and a whole lot more.

For the past two years, Humble Bundle has been bundling up various independently developed bits of gaming goodness and for a limited time, allowing buyers to set their price and dictate how they want it divided up between the developers, different charities and Humble Bundle itself.  

We ignore the taboo of the number 13 to present you with Episode 13 of the Super Podcast Action Committee. We have no fear in us. This week Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about Gamers Against Bigotry, GameStop's plans for selling used digital games in Europe, the Humble Music Bundle, and Gamasutra's article about developers working in war-torn countries.

In this week’s episode of Super Podcast Action Committee, EZK and I discussed software patents and whether they’re beneficial to the games industry, detrimental or somewhere in between.

Now it’s your turn to chime in.

In Episode 12 of Super Podcast Action Committee, Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight discuss Fez developer Phil Fish's decision not to fix the patch for the game before re-releasing it to Xbox Live (because it costs too much money), Uniloc's patent infringement claims against Minecraft maker Mojang, last week's results from the GamePolitics poll, and the media trying to blame Batman comics, movies and games for the horrific Aurora, Colorado theater shooting.

Episode 11 of the Super Podcast Action Committee almost didn't happen this week. Oh, Andrew and Zachary sat down and talked for a full 60 minutes, but an upgrade to the recording software we use managed to throw a wrench in the works leaving us with only 32 minutes of questionable audio to work with.

Earlier this month, the European Court of Justice ruled that game publishers cannot stop European consumers from reselling their downloaded games.  Not only that, but a publisher may have to facilitate such a transaction by allowing the recipient of the sale to download their “used” copy from its website.

Oh yeah, they’re going to love that.

The Kickstarter for OUYA, the Android-based, indie developer-friendly home games console has been kicking ass and taking names since it launched a few days ago.

We hit a milestone this week - our 10th episode of the show (although we could argue that it is actually the 11th or 12 episode of the show if you count the lost episodes we determined to be not suitable for public consumption)! This week Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about patent wars, the European Court's ruling that digital games can be resold, Verizon's claim that net neutrality violates its first amendment rights, the controversy over Blizzard banning some Linux-using Diablo III players, and a whole lot of other interesting topics.

Episode 9 of the Super Podcast Action Committee is dedicated to Independence Day, the ECA's Declaration of Internet Freedom, and complaining about games. Andrew and James b*tch and moan about Battlefield 3, LEGO Batman 2, and some other topics that rub them the wrong way. This episode contains colorful language. Moms were dispatched with bars of soap to deal with these filthy mouths.

In Episode 8 of the Super Podcast Action Committee, Andrew and Zachary actually manage to stay close to the 60 minute mark this week! Santa is real! The topics for this week's show include the Tetris cloning case ruling, Australia's new R18+ rating category for games, various topics related to Microsoft, and much more. Download Episode 8 it here: SuperPAC Episode 8.

This week on the SUPER PAC, Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight talk about the Tropes vs. Women Kickstarter (and the controversial comments some on the Internet made about it), Humble Bundle V's amazing success, the Lara Croft-Tomb Raider E3 trailer "attempted rape" controversy, Warren Spector's  lament about the fetish of violence in games, and a whole lot more.