A number of readers have expressed difficulty with trying to listen to the audio of Wednesday's video game hearing before the Utah legislature.

If you are still having issues, GP has thoughtfully placed it on the web for download in MP3 format. Click here.

It's a 56mb file, so be patient.

And if you're playing catch-up, click the link for all GP coverage of Utah's game legislation efforts.

You want the inside scoop on yesterday's video game law hearing in Utah? We've got it covered like a blanket here at GamePolitics, including the impressions of a local game developer who attended the hearing.

Although he indicated last week that he would be there, anti-game activist Jack Thompson didn't make it due to what he described to GP as a "pressing litigation matter" in Florida.

Lame duck bill sponsor David Hogue (R) and Rep. Scott Wyatt, apparently the bill's new sponsor, offered an amendment to have HB257 mirror the language of Thompson's ill-fated Louisiana video game law.

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, according to an industry source, did a thorough job of explaining the bill's constitutional problems to the committee. As GamePolitics has previously noted, Shurtleff has a friendly relationship with the ESRB, and has engaged in a Utah-based campaign to educate parents about video game ratings.

GP has learned that some legislators apparently left the hearing, causing the committee to lose its quorum just after lunchtime. That development led to an adjournment with no action taken on the bill. Discussions are likely to resume next month.

As mentioned, a video game developer attended the hearing. We provide his report, preserving his request not to publish his name. The content, which arrived in e-mail, has been edited slightly for readability (not that it wasn't well-written, but the author didn't plan on it going straight into a GP article. Material in parentheses was inserted by GP. We greatly appreciate this on-the-spot info):

"Well, Jack Thompson wasn't there today, so I'm disappointed... What did happen is that the sponsor, Rep. Hogue, came up and talked about his bill. He brought up Columbine, and all sorts of school shootings. He described how violent 'videos' were, and how they should be regulated."

"He brought up the American Psychological Association (APA); how violence in video games made kids violent; and how kids between 14-18 are in a critical development stage. And of course, he brought up those favorite whipping boys, 'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' and - as Hogue calls it - 'The Bully'."

"Then they brought up an amendment to the bill, and basically changed the bill so that instead of defining certain types of violence, they just use the same three prong test as with pornography. Some committee members brought up the idea of porn equalling violence in video games, asking 'if we can regulate porn, why can't we regulate violence the same way?' At least one committee member did bring up the first amendment, and it was discussed briefly."

"The Attorney General (Shurtleff) came up and discussed the bill and its likelihood of passing court scrutiny. He mentioned that every district court has ruled against every violent video game law made so far, and that the odds of this bill surviving court scrutiny was 'very slim'. Rep. Hogue tried to defend the bill, saying that this bill does something different from other bills, and that it doesn't try to take games off of shelves. Other committee members brought up concerns about supporting a bill that would be 'tied up in the courts' and 'waste of money defending it'.

"Then an old lady came up and complained how society was becoming more violent, and that something needs to be done. She said that this bill needed to be passed, and it didn't matter if we wasted money defending it. It's for the children, etc."

"The ESA guy (apparently a lobbyist - the industry routinely offers testimony at these hearings) came up and talked about how in eight court cases so far, we've won eight of them. He mentioned the ESRB, and how he was working with the Attorney General in promoting the ESRB to Utah parents. Then, during question time, well, some of the committee members were rough on him. One of them nearly accused him of making violent games for kids. Of course, the ESA guy wasn't a game developer, but an attorney, so he really couldn't comment on that. Other committee members appeared to honestly not know what the ESRB was, and has questions about it."

"After the ESA guy, time ran out and several members of the committee had to leave. They tried to deny a motion to adjourn, but they left anyway. They decided that this issue was of too great importance to leave unresolved, so they shelved it until October. I'm rather disappointed that I didn't get to speak, but at least I get a chance to refine my testimony for next time."

Despite the fact that he will be leaving public office in 90 days, Rep. David Hogue (left) isn't giving up on video game legislation.

As reported by the Deseret News, the lame-duck Republican is seeking to revive failed video game legislation in the Utah House. His bill, HB257 S01, is of the "games as porn" variety. It will be given a hearing before the legislature's Judiciary Interim Committee today.

The Hogue bill passed the House overwhelmingly early this year, but died in the Senate. It would need to be re-introduced in the next legislative session, and will require a sponsor, since Hogue will no longer be a House member. Today's hearing is an apparent effort to develop support for the bill in 2007.
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In the wake of a contentious relationship with officials assigned to defend his Louisiana game law, anti-game violence attorney Jack Thompson says his next stop will be in Salt Lake City. Thompson plans to testify on video game violence before the Utah House next week.

Although he has not responded to GP's e-mail request to elaborate, it seems likely that Thompson will appear before the Judiciary Interim Committee which meets on September 20th. Lame duck Rep. David Hogue (R) is on the agenda to discuss "material harmful to minors."

GP readers may recall Hogue's failed attempt to pass "games as porn" legislation earlier this year. Indeed, some of Hogue's remarks bore an uncanny resemblance to Thompson's rhetoric. Hogue said at the time, for example, that Red Lake Minnesota school shooter Jeffrey Weise "literally trained himself on Grand Theft Auto."
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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."
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While some in Congress seem to favor using the ESRB as a punching bag, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has officially stepped into the ring on the side of the video game industry ratings board.

Yesterday Shurtleff and ESRB President Patricia Vance launched a series of public service announcements (PSA's) which will air on Utah television stations in coming weeks. During the press conference, Vance spoke about the need to raise parental awareness of the industry's rating system.

"Just like movies and TV shows, video games are created for a diverse audience of all ages," she said. "That is why it is so important that parents remember to check the rating when purchasing games for their children. We are very proud to have the support of Attorney General Shurtleff in reaching out to Utah's parents and educating them about the ratings."
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This just in to GamePolitics from ESA boss Doug Lowenstein:

"We are pleased that the Utah bill was not enacted at this time. We continue to believe that bills such as this one are both unconstitutional and unnecessary. We welcome the opportunity to work with any and all of those who care about these important issues to find legal and effective ways to ensure that parents have the tools to make informed decisions about the games they buy.

If Rep. David Hogue (R) has his way - and so far he's on a roll - it will soon be a felony to provide a violent video game to a minor in the state of Utah.

As reported by the Salt Lake Tribune, Hogue's bill, HB257, passed the state House of Representatives by a 56-8 vote yesterday. The measure equates violent games with pornography, and would add such games to a Utah statute normally used only to prosecute those who provide smut to kids.

Hogue linked violent games to school shootings, including Columbine.

"Would these same kids have done this anyway without watching violent videos? Maybe not."

Hogue also mentioned Resident Evil 4, the Grand Theft Auto series and Rockstar's upcoming Bully to the Tribune.

"You can get even with bullies. You take a baseball bat and beat up their heads," he said. "It is going to show kids how to respond in school. Is this what we want our kids doing?"

Games which violate the proposed law would need to be "patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community" and lack any serious "literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors."

Republican Rep. Scott Wyatt opined that only the "most depraved" video games would fall under this bill. However, Republican Rep. Margaret Dayton and Democratic Rep. Ross Romero had concerns over the bill's constitutionality.

For his part, Hogue expressed confidence the measure would survive First Amendment challenges. "It will set an example that Utah is a family state," he said.
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"...the right issue and the wrong solution."

That's the conclusion of noted constitutional law experts Clay Calvert (left) and Robert D. Richards in a review of Utah Rep. David Hogue's notorious "games as porn" bill, now before the state legislature.

Writing in an op-ed for today's Salt Lake City Tribune, credit Hogue for being concerned about youth violence, but take issue with his proposed solution.

The pair, who happen to be co-directors of Penn State's Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment, see clear First Amendment problems for Hogue's bill. Reminding readers of the sorry history of such legislation, they write, "The weight of judicial precedent.. is overwhelmingly against Hogue's bill, which would be caught up in an expensive taxpayer-funded legal battle to defend it in court were it to become law."

Calvert and Richards also question Hogue's focus on video games.

"Even setting aside the trampling upon parental rights and the fatal First Amendment flaws in Hogue's measure, any such law would be entirely ineffective in accomplishing its purpose. Minors are bombarded with violent images from myriad sources, including movies, music, books and even continuous coverage of war-related devastation and terrorist torture tactics on television news."

Their conclusion? Leave decisions about what children play to their parents.

"The lesson for the Legislature, then, is that some issues are better dealt with in the home rather than the House."

Do violent games equate with pornography?

They will if Utah Rep. David Hogue (R) has his way. Yesterday, according to a story in the Provo Daily Herald, a Utah House committee passed Hogue's bill, HB 0257 by a 7-2 vote. As reported previously on GamePolitics, the bill initially failed a January 28th vote.

The proposed legislation would make it a felony to knowingly exhibit or sell violent video games to minors,

"It's more than a message bill," Hogue told the newspaper. "This is a bill that identifies the effects that different media has on our children."

While the bill would apply to retailers, it could also affect "perpetrators trying to influence a minor."

The bill defines "inappropriate violence" as games with carnage that offends prevailing community standards and lacks "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value for minors."

The ESA and ACLU were quick to react.

"This bill is not needed. More importantly, the bill will be challenged as unconstitutional," said the ESA's Scott Sabey. "To plug violence into an obscenity statute won't work."

Eagle Forum Director Gayle Ruzicka spoke out in favor of the bill, saying, "If we have to go all the way to the Supreme Court, then let's take it to the Supreme Court."

For more background, see GP coverage of Hogue's bill from January 25th and January 28th.

GP: We thought this bill was dead and buried, but Hogue apparently made enough changes to satifsy Utah conservatives. With the "games as porn" rhetoric getting actual legislative consideration, Utah's HB 257 immediately becomes the leading political threat to the video game industry so far this year.

Here's a story to warm the heart of every gamer who's ever been frustrated by the uninformed ramblings of a politician.

You may recall that nutty Utah State Rep. David Hogue recently proposed legislation that lumped violent games with pornography. Fortunately, common sense prevailed and the measure died committee - but not before a grandstanding Utah politician tried to make a gamer look bad - and failed miserably.

As reported by the Salt Lake City Weekly, Robert Saunders and Charles Fizer are a pair of local guys who opened the Black Box Internet Cafe and Gaming Center in SLC.

Saunders agreed to testify before the Utah House committee considering Pogue's bill and mentioned that he'd seen fathers and sons bonding during rounds of Call of Duty 2 in his Internet cafe. Hogue's bill potentially could have slapped COD2 with a porn label. That's when blowhard Rep. Eric Hutchings, a Republican, jumped all over Saunders. As SLC Weekly tells the tale:

"Rep. Eric Hutchings, (at left) voted against the bill, but only after giving Saunders a stern lecture. 'You talk about bonding time,' Hutchings began with a dramatic pause. 'I have a good friend who's not in gangs anymore, but he used to love to bond with his kid - by getting his head shaved... even went down and got pictures at Wal-Mart, him and his son together flashing their gang signs. If you're out in our community teaching kids to be violent, and do lewd activities, and inappropriate criminal activities... maybe we ought to shut you down.'"

Saunders pwned Hutchings, however, when he replied that he refused to carry games that glorified gang violence, adding that Halo was the most violent entertainment available at his cafe.
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From the Salt Lake City Tribune comes word that a bill designed to treat violent games as pornography has failed to clear committee in the Utah House of Representatives.

The measure proposed by Republican Rep. David Hogue failed on a 6-6 vote, with one member absent.

Prior to the vote, Hogue read off a list of games he believed would violate the proposed law. GTA San Andreas was on the list, of course, but so was Resident Evil 4.

"It trivializes the serious nature of realistic violence," Hogue said. "It makes it fun to kill people and pull their heads off." An obviously disappointed Hogue said later that he was not giving up his proposal, but did not elaborate. "I think this is reasonable regulation. We need to begin somewhere, or it just continues on."

As reported in the Provo Daily Herald, Republican Rep. Lorie Fowlke said, "I believe we're going to have constitutional problems if we don't narrow this."

"As much as all of us would like to protect our young people from these violent depictions, can Utah pass legislation to address our concerns and solve our problems?" asked Jim Olsen, of the Utah Retail Merchants Association. "I would say no."

GP: A triumph for reason and logic in Utah, although it's scary that the vote was so close at 6-6.

Perhaps not surprisingly, one of the leading battleground states in the 25 to Life controversy is considering its own video game legislation.

As reported in today's Salt Lake City Tribune, State Rep. David Hogue (R-Riverton) is taking up the battle against video game violence.

Hogue's bill, HB 0257 is quite a bit different from most laws crafted to prevent kids from purchasing violent video games. Perhaps in response to the increasingly-heard "violent games as porn" drumbeat, Hogue's measure is designed to amend an existing Utah statute which makes distributing pornography and explicit nudity to minors a felony. Hogue's proposal adds "inappropriate violence" to the porn law.

"We are seeing an increase in mental health problems with juvenile offenders," Hogue told the Tribune... "I feel real strong that violence should be in [the pornography statute]. We need to give parents a tool to protect their children... It's sending out the message that there is more than pornography that is threatening to juveniles."

Hogue's unique approach to the violence issue adds to Utah's existing pornography law such elements as the violence that holds the plot together; violence that trivializes the serious nature of realistic violence; violence that endorses or glorifies torture or "excessive weaponry;" violence that does not demonstrate the consequences or effects of realistic violence; and violence that depicts lead characters who resort to violence freely.
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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."
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Did you think a day might go by without news of another piece of video game legislation?

Not a chance.

The Deseret Morning News (Utah) reports that Representative Jim Matheson, a Democrat, plans to propose legislation in Congress which would make the sale of an M-rated or AO-rated to minors a federal offense. Matheson's bill, drafted but not yet submitted, is based on ESRB content ratings.

"The industry already has its own rating system. I'm just going to say you have to ID (the buyer) for any 'mature' or 'adult only' rated games."

The proposed legislation will also require that video games have the current rating prominently displayed on the box. (GP: isn't that the case already?)

In discussing the bill with the Morning News, Matheson expressed little confidence in the current retail system.

"You know darn well the 13-year-old is not being carded when he buys 'Grand Theft Auto 2.' You get points (in that game) for having sex with a prostitute; you get points for killing the prostitute." (GP: We're pretty sure he doesn't mean "GTA 2.")

How does Matheson plan to dodge the First Amendment bullet that has already doomed so many pieces of video game legislation?

"I stay away from that unconstitutional aspect." The Congressman told the paper that he believes basing the law on ESRB ratings avoids any government restriction of free speech.