If, as Wal-mart officials maintain, Jack Thompson's Florida lawsuit wasn't what motivated the retail giant to block Bully pre-orders from its website last week, what is?

One answer may lie in June 14th's contentious House subcommittee hearing during which chair Cliff Stearns (R-FL) grilled several video game industry executives including Wal-mart's Gary Severson. Here's what Rep. Stearns had to say to Wal-mart during that hearing:

"I'll start with the questioning. I went, Mr. Severson, I went to the Wal-mart website, where you sell Grand Theft Auto and it's rated "M" there on the the website... (the website said) by ordering this item you are certifying that you are 17 years of age. If you agree to the above terms click 'I agree.' If you click, 'I agree,' you can get this pretty easily."

Stearns next launches into a somewhat confused explanation of last year's Hot Coffee scandal:
( Read more... )

Last week, GP was first with the news that Congressman Cliff Stearns (R-FL) had proposed HR 5912, the so-called "Truth in Video Game Rating Act."

Gamasutra and other sites are now reporting that ESA boss Doug Lowenstein has responded by way of an official statement.

"We share Chairman Stearns' commitment to the continued effectiveness and accuracy of the ESRB's ratings system," Lowenstein said. "However, as introduced, we do not believe his legislation will serve consumers and parents."
( Read more... )

Readers of GamePolitics will not soon forget the contentious June 14th video game hearing of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection. The ESRB and its president, Patricia Vance, came under heavy fire during the proceedings. Ultimately, several members of Congress would be lampooned by Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, for clueless comments made during the videotaped session.

Now, Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL, seen at left) has formalized his issues with the ESRB by introducing HR 5912, the so-called "Truth in Video Game Rating Act."
( Read more... )

Yet another candidate for political office has jumped on the video game violence issue.

Phil Kellam, a Democrat running for Congress in Virgina, is currently airing a television ad which discusses the candidate's promise to stop the sale of violent video games to children.

Although GP has not yet seen the ad, its script is available on Kellam's campaign website, and reads, in part:

"A father of two, Phil Kellam knows that in today's world raising and protecting our children is more difficult than ever. That's why in Congress, Phil Kellam will stand with parents; to stop the sale of violent video games to children, and block children's access to websites with violent or sexual content."

A GP shout-out to forum user Skraith for the heads-up on this one...

Want to talk about it? You can discuss this story via the "comments" feature (click below), or in the new GamePolitics Forums...

A Pennsylvania congressman who said that Grand Theft Auto was more likely to be a bad influence on ghetto children than their suburban counterparts feels he has been mistreated by Jon Stewart and The Daily Show.

As reported by GamePolitics, Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) was roasted by Stewart on the June 22nd episode of The Daily Show.

An article in today's Chester Daily Local reports that Pitts contends his remarks at the June 14th hearing of the House Subcomittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection were mis-portrayed by Stewart.
( Read more... )

For today's editorial roundup we find Brian Slupski (left) of the Northwest Herald (Illinois) wondering why video games have become a cultural whipping boy.

Slupski writes:

"It has become fairly routine in this country to decry the state of this nation's youth... I thought about this again in the wake of recent congressional hearings... on video-game violence."

"In case you missed it, video games have surpassed rap music as the leading bogeyman out to suck the innocence out of America's youth. The theory goes that kids will play violent video games and become violent..."

"Surely, if violent video games are a dangerous influence... there should be some indications of that. Juvenile violent crimes, particularly homicide, should be getting worse..."

"From 1994 to 2003, violent crimes by juveniles dropped 32 percent... Murder committed by juveniles declined by 68 percent... the number of juvenile arrests in 2003 was the lowest since 1987. Even more good news, the number of juveniles murdered in 2003 was at its lowest since 1984. Hmm."
( Read more... )

Congress just can't seem to tear itself away from video games these days. Even during a meeting ostensibly held to question movie ratings, the political talk turned back to games.

As reported by newsletter The Hill, a meeting earlier this week to discuss film ratings brought together many of the same members of Congress who flayed the video game industry - and especially the ESRB - a few weeks back.

According to The Hill, House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) led a group of colleagues in criticism of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and its film-rating system at a meeting with MPAA officials in Blunt's Capitol Hill office.

The Congressional attention was sparked by the PG ("Parental Guidance - some material may not be suitable for children") rating assigned to the Christian-themed film Facing the Giants, which some religious conservative critics say received a PG instead of a G ("General Audiences - all ages admitted") because it "proselytizes Christianity." The elected officials expressed concern that the MPAA's rating standards are out of touch with the public view.

"It comes from where you set your worldview. Hollywood has one; Nashville, Tennessee has another one" said Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).
( Read more... )

This morning, certain members of Congress are probably hoping their constituents don't watch The Daily Show.

Host Jon Stewart laid comic waste to a June 14th Congressional video game hearing in a lengthy segment titled "Player Haters" on last night's show. You can view the program here.

Some Stewart highlights:

"Violent video games were the latest target of Washington's election year ire. Hearings were held to... what, exactly?"

"Who wants to be the first person to sound like an out of touch jackass? Oh, you! Congressman Upton..." (Rep. Fred Upton R-MI)

Mimicking Nebraska Rep. Lee Terry's halting declaration that he was concerned about the game play of his three young sons, Stewart said:

"...and as I... stand there... watching them play these violent games... helpless to do anything about it... I can't help but wonder... where the system has failed..."

Stewart also mocked Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) who, in a bizarre opening statement at the hearing, opined that well-to-do suburban kids "can play Grand Theft Auto or similar games without turning to a life of crime but a poor kid who lives in a neighborhood where people really do steal cars or deal drugs... might not be so fortunate."

"Wealthy suburban kids don't do those things," Stewart said, "Like my good friends those Columbine boys... Seriously, the House of Representatives is filled with insane jackasses."

Stewart then cut to a silly stand-up with Daily Show regular Samantha Bee, billed as the programs's "Senior PlayStationologist," reporting from San Andreas. Action from the GTA game was projected behind Samantha as she spoke, saying in part, "Nobody believes there is really a connection (between game violence and real violence). This issue has been resolved in studies. Politicians are just beating a dead hooker here."
( Read more... )

Capitol Hill is very much interested in video games these days.

Wednesday's hearing before the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection was both lengthy and contentious. Subcommittee Chair Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) and colleagues were not kind to game industry witnesses, especially ESRB President Patricia Vance.

GP does not quarrel with the ability of Congress to hold hearings on the video game issue.

We just think they grilled the wrong people.

With 99% of political attention in relation to video games directed at the Grand Theft Auto series in general and the Hot Coffee scandal in particular, Congress should have skipped intermediaries like Doug Lowenstein and Patricia Vance and posed their questions directly to the people who run Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games.
( Read more... )

Need more on yesterday's contentious video game hearing before the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection?

GamePolitics has more!

If you enjoy a pointed cross-examination, check out this GP-created MP3 of ESRB boss Patricia Vance's testimony, Harvard researcher Kim Thompson's testimony, and Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Cliff Stearns' questioning of Vance (22 megs, 24 minutes).

ESRB president Patricia Vance's written testimony is available here.

FTC Commissioner Lydia Parnes' written testimony is here.

A NIMF press release on Dr. David Walsh's testimony is available here.

Want to talk about it? You can discuss this story via the "comments" feature (click below), or in the new GamePolitics Forums...

Gamer political activism turns up in the most amazing places these days - like the United States Congress, where elected officials and their staffs have been checking out Halo 2 video blog site This Spartan Life.

Like many others, TSL is concerned that some elected officials in Congress are working with the wealthy telecommunications industry to introduce new laws which threaten so-called "net neutrality."
( Read more... )

Several GP readers from Down Under wrote in to let us know that an Australian news magazine show called MediaWatch recently covered the controversy over the so-called Battlefield 2 Jihad Video. GamePolitics played a major part in busting that story wide open a couple of weeks back thanks primarily to correspondent Colin McInnes' revealing interview with the creator of the video, a Dutch gamer by the name of Samir.

In their investigative report, MediaWatch quoted liberally from our Samir interview and even flashed some GP screen shots. The show also provided a link to the full GP article. Although MediaWatch unfortunately referred to us as the "LiveJournal website" and not GamePolitics, we're still happy to see our coverage getting picked up by T.V. news.

By the way, Reuters, which started the controversy with its initial flawed coverage of the House Select Intelligence Committee hearing, has finally gotten around to its own interview with Samir. The Reuters reporter, who apparently plied Samir with lunch at Burger King, didn't get nearly as much information as Colin.

Want to talk about it? You can discuss this story via the "comments" feature (click below), or in the new GamePolitics Forums...

Was an elite congressional intelligence committee shown video footage from an off-the-shelf retail game and told by the Pentagon and a highly-paid defense contractor that it was a jihadist creation designed to recruit and indoctrinate terrorists?

It's looking more and more like that is the case.

The bizarre story began to unfold last week when Reuters reported that the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence was shown video footage of combat action which was represented as a user-modified version (or "mod") of Electronic Art's best-selling Battlefield 2, a modern-day military simulation which features combat between U.S. forces and those of the fictitious Middle East Coalition (MEC) as well as the People's Republic of China.

Reuters quoted a Pentagon official, Dan Devlin, as saying, "What we have seen is that any video game that comes out... (al Qaeda will) modify it and change the game for their needs."

The influential committee, chaired by Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), watched footage of animated combat in which characters depicted as Islamic insurgents killed U.S. troops in battle. The video began with the voice of a male narrator saying, "I was just a boy when the infidels came to my village in Blackhawk helicopters..."

Several GP readers immediately noticed that the voice-over was actually lifted from Team America: World Police, an outrageous 2004 satirical film produced by the creators of the popular South Park comedy series. At about the same time, gamers involved in the online Battlefield 2 community were pointing out the video footage shown to Congress was not a mod of BF2 at all, but standard game footage from EA's Special Forces BF2 add-on module, a retail product widely available in the United States and elsewhere.

GamePolitics has been seeking comment on the video from the Pentagon and Science Applications International Corp (SAIC), a defense contractor based in San Diego. Committee chair Hoekstra's office referred GP back to the committee for comment. A call there had not been returned by press time.

According to Reuters, the U.S. government is paying SAIC $7 million to monitor Islamist web sites, which is where they apparently discovered a copy of the footage. However, the video can also readily be accessed via links found in the user forums of the popular Planet Battlefield site, operated by IGN Entertainment of Brisbane, California.

It is unclear whether SAIC vetted the origin of the video before showing it to key members of Congress and representing it as a terrorist recruiting tool.

But GP correspondent Colin McInnes has investigated the origin of the video. On behalf of GamePolitics, Colin tracked down "Sonic Jihad," the creator of the video for this revealing interview, conducted via e-mail. The video creator's screen name is apparently a tribute to an album called Sonic Jihad, by an American rapper who performs under the name Paris.

CM: Can you tell us a little about yourself?

SJ: I am Samir. I was born and raised in Holland. But my parents are from Moroccan origin. I'm 25 years old. I have a master degree in management, economics and law. I work for a hospital as a quality manager implementing the ISO quality certificate. My hobbies are Battlefield 2, movies and Thai-Boxing.
( Read more... )

Are first-person shooters teaching kids to kill?

Islamist kids, that is...

Reuters reports that modified video games have become part of a "global propaganda campaign" in which jihadists encourage Muslim youth to make war against the United States.

As this week's controversial re-rerating of Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion has reminded us, video games - especially PC games - are relatively easy to modify, or "mod." That fact has not escaped notice of al Qaeda and other militant Islamist organizations, which have modded games like EA's popular modern combat game, Battlefield 2.

An official from the U.S. Deparment of Defense told Congress that the mods can be downloaded from jihadist websites.

"What we have seen is that any video game that comes out... they'll modify it and change the game for their needs," said Dan Devlin, a public diplomacy specialist with the DoD, who testified before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Also testifying were consultants from Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), a Defense contractor based in San Diego which is under contract to monitor militant websites for the U.S. government.

In the BF2 mod, the game's original video trailer has been altered to show a jihadist carrying an automatic weapon into battle with U.S. forces.

"I was just a boy when the infidels came to my village in Blackhawk helicopters," the narrator says. Onscreen images in the trailer show video of firefights, helicopter assaults and President Bush calling the war on terrorism a "crusade" in a speech given shortly after September 11th.

EA spokesman Jeff Brown acknowledged that mods are increasingly common, with little game-makers can do about the issue.

"Millions of people create mods on games around the world," Brown said. "We have absolutely no control over them. It's like drawing a mustache on a picture."

GP: A shout-out to numerous GP readers who forwarded this story!

Want to talk about it? You can discuss this story via the "comments" feature (click below), or in the new GamePolitics Forums...

Baca's back.

Congressman Joe Baca (D-CA), long-time critic of the video game industry, has been relatively quiet over the past year while political players like Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), California Assembly Speaker pro Tem Leland Yee (D) and Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D) plowed ahead with high-profile video game legislation.

But don't think Baca has given up on the video game issue.

An article in today's Press Enterprise details a Capitol Hill press conference held by Baca on Wednesday. There, Baca called for the game industry to improve the ESRB rating system.

"Parents are misled by the video-game ratings," he told reporters.

The veteran congressman believes game ratings, especially for "T" and "M"-rated games, aren't clear enough and don't provide all of the information parents need to make purchasing decisions.

Over the years, Baca has introduced a number of video game-oriented bills in the House, but none have gained any traction. His latest effort, HB1145, which would require the Federal Trade Commission to study the ESRB system for unfair or deceptive practices, has been stuck in committee for more than a year.

ESRB president Patricia Vance, reacting to Baca's comments, said, ""M-rated titles include content that parents may find inappropriate for younger players. We continue to encourage parents to regularly check the ratings to help them make educated purchase decisions, and to monitor the games that their children play."

What's this? Video games shown on Capitol Hill and it wasn't a congressional game-bash?

It's true... Our friend Ben Sawyer at Games For Health clued GamePolitics into his organization's event last week in Washington, D.C..

More than 350 congressional staffers and other guests feasted on the likes of Nintendo's Brain Age, Sony's Eye Toy Play, Konami's DDR Mario Mix and several less commercial titles (full list after the jump). Games for Health project team members also held more than a dozen briefings with the staffs of congressional committees or individual members of Congress, including leaders of both the majority and minority side of the house Medical Technology Caucas, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Jim Ramstad (R-MN). Also publicly supporting the event were Senators Michael Enzi (R-WY) and Tom Harkin (D-IA)

In categorizing the congressional response, Sawyer said, "In general we found staff very receptive to our work although many hadn't played many games and so when we'd show screenshots to things one of the first impacts was that things looked so interesting and advanced. Some had heard about DDR. We had to keep reminding ourselves not to use acronyms like that! ...but certainly... games were still something foreign. Despite all that we got some great questions. It's amazing how fast some staff get up to speed as you start talking with them. One staffer was immediately drawn to the idea of how games could help redefine interfaces to health IT systems - that's pretty advanced thinking."

Obesity and disease management were major concerns for congressional attendees, Sawyer told GP. Staffers were intrigued by the idea of creating systems that help or teach people to avoid or manage chronic conditions and injuries.

"This of course," Sawyer said, "is tied directly to lowering costs and adding personal responsibility to some extent and given the political spectrum on the Hill it seems like a consensus point to explore. Use games to educate cheaply, reach populations that are hard to reach, induce more personal responsibility, focus on management of health issues that tax the personnel and resources of the healthcare system."

More photos from the event can be seen here. A trailer video is available on YouTube.
( Read more... )

Buh-bye, Alaska.

The 49th state suffered a nuke strike in a recent Pentagon computer simulation in which members of the press role-played the president, secretary of defense and various key military officials. The exercise is reported in chilling detail by reporter Sam Bishop of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

Of course, you can't buy this strategic war game in any store. The simulation is clearly being used by the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency to build support - and funding - for its program. Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO) is a key backer of the agency and its simulation, which uses video-game technology to promote the missile defense system.

Retired Admiral David Frost, now a consultant, told Bishop, "Our objective here is simply to increase the understanding of how the system operates... we're on the verge of making some degree of operational readiness of new capabilities, really powerful new capabilities, and that's why we're doing this now."

The war game presentation centered on the additional strategic options presented by a missile defense program.

"Congress spent a lot of money on missile defense so far, and part of its value, maybe even the largest part of its value, is its deterrence value," Frost said. "We hope to make it clear to other countries that it's sort of pointless to attack us."

Not everyone is convinced.

"Any president that relied on this missile defense system for national security decisions is relying on a chimera, on a mirage," John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World told Bishop. "Any simulation like this is based on fantasy as opposed to reality... The exercise is a phony exercise, no better than a computer game."

GP: Whaaaa? We like computer games...
( Read more... )

Last week GamePolitics reported on Utah Rep. Jim Matheson, a Democrat who plans to propose federal video game legislation in Congress this year.

Matheson revealed further information about his upcoming bill during a Thursday radio interview with host Doug Wright KSL-1160 (Salt Lake City). The congressman told Wright that he initially became aware of video game content issues while watching an unspecified documentary on the Grand Theft Auto series.

"It's very disturbing to me," he said.

Speaking about his upcoming legislative proposal, Matheson told Wright, "I'm looking for something. This isn't the total answer, but something to help bridge the tide, if you will, or at least create another hurdle in terms of younger children being exposed to this material without their parental knowledge."

Although his bill is based on the ESRB system, Matheson expressed concern about the ratings.

"There is an open issue here about whether (the game industry's) ratings are appropriate. This is sort of the fox in the henhouse. The industry gets to set the ratings for their own material."
( Read more... )