One of Net's most respected tech news blogs rises to the defense of Harvard researcher Kim Thompson (left). Good Morning Silicon Valley examined game critic Aaron Stanton's recent attack on Thompson's work and found it wanting.

"...there's some legitimate research being done on the potential effects of violent video games on young minds. But it's not surprising when isolated nuggets are seized upon and thrown into the grinder of the debate. Thus we see the work of Dr. Kimberly Thompson of the Harvard School of Public Health used as a punching bag one day and turned into a bit of snark about "ultra-violent Pac-Man" the next. But to its credit, Joystiq followed up with the good doctor, giving her space to explain some of the nuances of her work. And Thompson makes it clear that thinking seriously about this stuff is not child's play..."

The Herald-Review of Decatur, Illinois takes Gov. Rod Blagojevich to task for the half-million bucks in legal fees which the state must reimburse to the video game industry in the wake of its video game law being ruled unconstitutional:

"Remember the big media splash Gov. Rod Blagojevich made when he announced legislation that would ban the sale of violent and sexually oriented video games to young people? Well, the bill on that little media spotlight is beginning to come due.
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It's the most vilified game that no one has ever seen.

We're talking about Bully, of course, Rockstar's controversial title scheduled for October 17th release. As we edge closer to the game's launch, Rockstar is beginning to pull the curtain back a bit.

A new Bully trailer showed up on YouTube yesterday and logged over 300,000 viewings.

The brand-new edition of Game Informer has a cover story on Bully, with some revealing insights. For example, Rockstar producer Devin Winterbottom tells GI, "It's not Grand Theft Auto in a school, which is really the most baseline thing people think about it."
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Not to sound like a parent here, but, "Wake up! Get out of bed. I'm not telling you again. If you don't get up now, you'll have to make your own breakfast... even worse, you'll miss the GamePolitics Sunday Editorial Roundup..."

We'll start on GP's home turf this morning, where Philadelphia Daily News columnist Jenice Armstrong writes that Rockstar's upcoming Bully is a bad idea. As Armstrong correctly points out, there has been an epidemic of gun violence in the City of Brotherly Love recently:

"We're nearing the end of a bloody summer... Come fall, once school is back in session, the last thing this country will need is yet another violence-promoting video game aimed at young men. I'm referring to 'Bully.'"

"I haven't seen it yet. The new game has been shrouded in secrecy... Although I'd prefer to learn more about the game before knocking it, I understand (Miami School Board) and other critics' negative reactions...
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According to Reuters, Rockstar will announce today that its controversial title Bully will launch in October.

Although the Reuters story does not specify a date, it is reporting that the game's main character will be a 15-year-old boy named Jimmy Hopkins. Weapons in the game will include baseball bats, stink bombs and bags of marbles.

Bully will feature animated violence, but no blood or deaths, and has not yet been rated by the ESRB.
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Gun control. Video game legislation.

They're both hotly debated. And while GP tries to not let his own political opinions show (much), one thing that's clear is that nobody ever shot anyone with a copy of Halo or GTA San Andreas.

Guns? Now they're another story. Nobody ever shot anyone without one of those.

And yet we continually hear about gamers "literally training to kill" and learning "cranial killing menus" from critics like Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and whatsizname down in Miami. Both have voiced the opinion that Paducah, Kentucky school shooter Michael Carneal taught himself marksmanship while playing DOOM.

And so it seems rather ironic that game publisher Crave is readying NRA Gun Club, a non-violent simulation that focuses on improving the player's shooting skills. Instead of aliens, World War II Nazi soldiers or zombies, the victims in Gun Club will include things like watermelons and paper targets.

More than 100 accurately-modeled guns are available in the game, including law enforcement and military weapons. A GameSpot preview calls NRA Gun Club "a first-person target shooting game with an interesting nonviolent, educational slant on guns... control seems to be limited to aiming, firing, zooming, and holding your breath while zooming to maintain a steady shot."

The NRA, of course, is a rather controversial organization itself, albeit a well-financed and highly politicized one.

So will a game designed to teach players how to shoot provoke the same kind of criticism spawned by titles in which shooting is largely abstracted?

NRA Gun Club is scheduled for October release on the PS2. It will carry an E-10 rating from the ESRB, with a content descriptor for "mild violence."

Thanks to GP reader Karsten Fouquaet for the heads-up on this one.

It was first published last summer, but a revealing piece by Game Revolution Editor Duke Ferris shows that youth violence is at historically low levels, even as politicians rush to enact laws targeting video game violence.

So why are we dredging this up now?

Duke's article, "The truth about violent youth and video games" turned up on Digg three days back, and has generated more than 1,500 votes, or "diggs," in that time. Numbers like those are a testament to how deeply this line of reasoning resonates with gamers.
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It's Sunday, and once again GP has scoured the far corners of the Internet to bring you editorial opinions on the politics of video games. Today's journey takes us - once again - to Louisiana, where the fate of the infamous Jack Thompson video game law now rests in the hands of a Federal District Court judge.

Dr. Jerald Block, an Oregon psychiatrist and expert on the impact of technology on people - as well as an occasional GP reader - pens an op-ed for the Shreveport Times in which he terms video game laws "sheer lunacy." More from Dr. Block:

"Here in Louisiana, a federal court is examining one such law that could penalize cashiers $2,000 and lock them up for a year in prison, doing hard labor..."

"These laws are nuts on so many levels. To start with, no one has any idea which games are off-limits... Applying a strict reading of Louisiana's law, you can earn jail time by selling "Pac Man" to a 17-year-old..."
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Just-released diaries and assorted papers of Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold contain a handful of video game references among the 946 pages made public today by the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office.

Of the planned massacre, Harris wrote, "It'll be like the LA riots, the Oklahoma bombing, WWII, Vietnam, Duke and Doom all mixed together. ... I want to leave a lasting impression on the world."

id Software's Doom series is well-known as a favorite of Harris and Klebold. The "Duke" reference refers to Duke Nukem 3D, a bawdy, 1996 first-person shooter from developer 3D Realms.

Note the hand-drawn Doom logo in Harris' diary at left. The complete diaries are available on the website of the Denver Post. A reference in Harris' diary written about a year before the Columbine shootings reads:

"...everyone should be put to a test. an Ultimate Doom test. see who (unreadable) an environment using only smarts and military skills... Put them in a Doom world, no authority, no refuge, no BS copout excuses. If you can't figure out the area of a triangle or what (unreadable) means, you die! If you can't take down a demon w/a chainsaw or a hell prince w/a shotgun, you die!"
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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."
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Suddenly, Louisiana has become a focal point in the political struggle over video games.

Late last week, of course, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco signed HB1381, the Jack Thompson-authored video game bill into law. Quicker than you can say "unconstitutional" the ESA and EMA filed a First Amendment challenge.

But, as previously reported on GamePolitics there is a second video game bill working its way through the legislative process in the Pelican State. SB340, sponsored by Sen. James David Cain (R, seen at left) enjoys the full support of the video game industry.

Why?

Like Maryland's HB707, SB340 bans minors from purchasing games with sexually explicit content. There is no mention of violent game content in the final version of the bill. The industry did not oppose the Maryland law as it essentially mirrors existing obscenity statutes. The same holds true for SB340. It is much the same as blocking a minor from buying a XXX-rated DVD.

As reported by the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Louisiana House passed SB340 95-0 late last week. The bill now goes to Gov. Blanco who is expected to sign it into law today as the current legislative session comes to a close.

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

An unprovoked shooting, a European nation rife with ethnic tensions, and an apparently racist and mentally unstable killer.

Under those conditions does it come as any surprise that investigators are considering whether the murderous rampage of 18-year-old Hans Van Themsche was inspired by a video game, Grand Theft Auto?

As reported in today's Seattle Times:

"When... Van Themsche was expelled from his boarding-school dormitory for smoking... it pushed him over some existential edge. He shaved his head, bought a Winchester hunting rifle, put on a black leather trench coat and wrote a note saying he was going to kill foreigners."

And kill foreigners he did, critically wounding a Turkish woman and killing a 24-year-old nanny from Mali and the white toddler in her care before a brave police officer shot and wounded Van Themshce, thus putting an end to his rampage.

While much of the backlash to the shooting spree has focused on Van Themsche's family ties to the separatist party Vlaams Belang ("Flemish Interest"), a party official sought to shift blame elsewhere.

"He apparently wanted to commit suicide," said Vlaams Belang spokesman Phillipe Van Der Sande. "He played a lot with violent computer games, and he went to a shop and bought a gun and started shooting around with it. Such a murder has no racist motives. He was probably mentally disturbed."
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This is one of those crazy "man bites dog" stories.

Except in this case the "man" is Dad and the "dog" is his son's gaming PC. The biting was done with a handgun.

Tampa's WTSP-10 is reporting that a Dunedin man, Joseph Langenderfer, (handsome devil seen at left) was upset that his 22-year-old son spent too much time playing computer games and wouldn't do the laundry.

So he blasted the computer monitor while his son Tim sat nearby. Langenderfer's current address is the Pinellas County lockup, where he awaits a court appearance on an attempted murder rap.

GP: No word on what the poor kid was playing, but it was probably one of those "victim simulators."

Also, a GP shout-out to reader Joe Bourrie for alerting us to this one...

How long will it be until the "influence of violent games" argument is finally put to rest? Years, according to experts at this week's Clash of Realities: Computerspiele und Soziale Wirklichkeit (Computer Games and Social Reality) conference in Cologne, Germany.

Tilo Hartmann, a researcher at the University of Southern California, criticized past studies that examined the possible link between playing violent games and real-world aggressive behavior for not going the distance. Currently, the longest study done in Germany lasted only one year. Hartmann maintains that a study producing the necessary results would have to last three to four years. He also believes that the psychological profile of the subjects must be factored into the research.

That's an important point. GamePolitics readers may recall, for example, that the so-called "GTA Killer" Devin Moore came from a broken home, had a drug-addicted, absentee mother and a severely abusive father. Yet critics claim that video games pushed him over the edge.

"It would be absolutely stupid to suppose that computer games alone cause outbreaks of aggression. One must always question what happens in the person's life and what other media they have access to. There are certain risk groups, for example children from broken homes, or players who are repeatedly confronted with violence. The behavior has a very complicated effect structure, and we are now only beginning to scratch the surface. We must find out even more and then start going into depth."

"Of course, there are many factors which work subliminal on the players and influence them unconsciously," adds Christoph Klimmt, a scientist at the Institute of Journalism and Communications Research at Hanover's College for Music and Theater. "But not everyone who plays a 'killer' game would be able to stand the stress of a real murder. Computer players have a distinctive reality management and know exactly what is reality and what is play."

Read the full article at DW-World.

-Reporting from San Diego, GP Correspondent Andrew Eisen

For every research study that says games cause increased aggression, there are thousands of gamers who protest, saying, "Gaming didn't make me more aggressive, I would have started World War III by now if it were true..." Of course these personal opinions can't refute a study by themselves, but the ubiquity of this response did get researchers thinking.

Cognitive Daily, a ScienceBlog, reports on a new study which tries to answer the question "What effect does personality have on aggressive influence?" The project examines why the blanket influence suggested by other studies doesn't affect everyone. What they found was that the personality factor of agreeableness might influence our reaction to aggression-related cues.
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If you're keeping score, add Hawaii to the list of states considering video game legislation.

Right now there are actually two bills working their way through the Hawaiian legislature. State senators are having a look at SB3204, while their counterparts in the house are reviewing HB2261.

Both versions are essentially the same bill, which would requires violent video games to be labeled and would prohibit their sale to minors. Violators are subject to fines of up to $1,000.

SB3204 was passed by the senate's Committee on Human Services on February 9th by a 4-0 vote. It's worth noting that the bill's sponsor, State Senator Suzanne Chun Oakland (left), chairs that committee. The measure has also been referred to the senate's Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee.

HB2261 passed the house Consumer Protection and Commerce Committee by a 7-0 vote late last month. It has also been sent to the Judiciary Committee. A variety of state representatives are co-sponsoring the house bill. Full text of SB3204 is here. HB2261 is here. The Hawaii bills have also been added to the Legislation Tracker map.

GP: I just want to say for the record to GP correspondents Jabrwock and Andrew Eisen that if anyone simply must sacrifice and go to Hawaii to cover this story first-hand, it will be me... Hey, GP is a team player.

GP tries to remain neutral in the political debate over video games. But we do insist that politicians who jump into the fray at least take the time to acquaint themselves with the subject of their legislative efforts.

So we were disturbed by comments attributed to Maryland Republican Delegate Wade Kach, author of legislation currently before the state assembly. Kach's bill, HB707 specifies that "obscene: (i.e. - sexually explicit) video games can't be sold or displayed to minors.

GP: We're not sure which "obscene video games" Kach has in mind. Under the bill's definition, even the Hot Coffee animations would not likely be covered. His comments, which appeared in a well-written piece in the Baltimore Jewish Times, betray a troubling lack of familiarity with the issues:

"Mr. Kach says he was spurred to offer his bill by a complaint from a constituent. 'They were especially concerned about [a video game called] 'Grant Theft Auto,' which apparently has a lot of [physical and sexual] violence,' said Mr. Kach, who has heard that the game has since been reissued in a toned-down version.

Grant Theft Auto? Perhaps the reporter got that part wrong. But "apparently" has a lot of [physical and sexual] violence?" Doesn't he know? Apparently not, since he merely "heard that the game has since been reissued..." Del. Kach, an hour from Washington, D.C. where Congress and the FTC are still digging into Hot Coffee, seems to have only hearsay information on the biggest video game news story of all time.
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Opposition to the Grand Theft Auto series makes strange bedfellows...

...like the Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP) and Dr. David Walsh of the National Institute on Media & Family (NIMF).

SWOP has a statement concerning GTA on its website, which reads, in part:

"...in the interest of furthering sex workers' human and civil rights to life and personal safety, we object to any media which represents sex workers as legitimate targets of violence, rape and murder. Censorship is a blight on the freedoms we hold dear but we wholeheartedly encourage citizens to vote with their dollars by refusing to purchase products which encourage the denigration and destruction of prostitutes. Since the video game Grand Theft Auto accrues points to players for the depiction of the rape and murder of prostitutes, SWOP-USA calls on all parents and all gamers to boycott Grand Theft Auto."

The SWOP statement cites a 2001 NIMF research report which, among other conclusions, says, "...(there is) a strong correlation between exposure to violent video games and various forms of antisocial behavior."

GP: If anyone has a right to be heard on this issue, it is the hookers themselves. Real-life prostitutes are often regarded as non-persons and have been frequently targeted by freaks and even serial killers.

Big thanks to GP reader Nature Leseul for alerting us to this story.

Video game ratings, video game violence, video game sex, Hot Coffee - their political and cultural impact are debated endlessly by politicians, gamers, parents, media pundits, activists and the video game industry itself. It's a battle that rages on but never seems to get anywhere, in large part due to the irreconcilable disconnect between those who "get" games and those who don't.

Thoughtful observers have long realized that, in the minds of many, games are inherently a form of child's play. It's not hard to understand why. When video games came along a quarter-century ago, even their creators saw them as children's entertainment. They were marketed to kids in retail toy stores - still are, in fact.

Such critics will always equate "games" with "toys" - and thus with children. And it's not just the nay-sayers. Too many parents either don't understand game content and ESRB ratings or simply can't say no to when their kids ask for age-inappropriate games. And, although the retailers, publishers and ESRB have made great strides, there will still be a certain amount of games sold or rented to kids who aren't old enough for its content. No system is perfect - not voluntary compliance systems like the one currently in place or legislated systems such as those currently under review by the federal judiciary in California and Michigan.

Things have changed, of course. Video game content now runs the gamut from kid-friendly titles like Curious George and LEGO Star Wars to adult-themed offerings such as GTA San Andreas and Black to the highly socialized online communities of World of Warcraft and Second Life or the largely adult-populated casual game scene of Pogo.

Over the years, gamers and game designers have recognized the artistic and expressive potential of video games, along with their power to enlighten and entertain players from four to ninety-four. But there are also millions who missed that particular cultural bus. Perhaps they had no gamer children. Or they weren't into technology. Or they simply just don't hold with video games. No one says - or should say - that video games are for everyone.

So there will always be people - adult people, voting people, influential people - who either don't understand or don't care to understand video games. Thus the video game industry finds itself in a Vietnam-style stalemate: an endless culture war it probably can't win, but can't lose, either - thanks to a series of successful First Amendment holding actions.

So it may be time to change the name of the game.
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Here's something you don't see every day - a video game developer slamming another organization's game for issues like excessive violence and criminal behavior.

The developer is Michael Russell, a QA manager for Ritual Entertainment (Sin, Counter-Strike Condition Zero). Check out his blog, Rom's Rants and see if you can figure out which game he is talking about.

(hint: you won't hear Jack Thompson complaining about this one.)

New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang has a message posted on his website in response to the deadly Jason Robida rampage that began last week in a gay bar in New Bedford and ended on Saturday with a police shootout in Arkansas that left a police officer, a West Virginia woman and Robida himself dead. The mayor's statement reads in part:

"This was a hate crime... the actions of a single deranged individual act as a wake up call to our community and once again the nation... This cycle of violence must stop. The guns have to come off the streets. The violent video games have to be taken out of our homes."

We can appreciate that Mayor Lang feels the need to make a response. However, we've yet to see any reports linking Robida to violent games, although there is ample evidence he was into racial hatred, neo-Nazism, and apparently hatred of gays as well. He was a disturbed kid who was no stranger to the local police.

There's also a bit of a disconnect between "a single deranged individual" and removing violent games from everyone's home. Unless we're misreading Lang's release, he is not blaming games for Robida's rampage. Rather he appears to be making some type of generalized statement regarding what he calls "this cycle of violence."

In any case, we're sure to hear more about Robida's motivations, since the mainstream media is all over this high-profile case. If there turns out to be evidence that this twisted, homicidal maniac was also into violent games, we'll report that. If he wasn't, we'll report that too.

In the meantime, we've seen Robida's MySpace web site. In fact, that's where the creepy picture of Robida that accompanies this article was found. While there are a lot of violent, racist and Nazi references on Robida's MySpace, not one word about games can be found.

UPDATE: Our old pal Jack Thompson posted a comment to this article pointing out that today's Boston Herald makes mention that Robida was a gamer. No mention of what he played, however. Nor does a passing mention of video games in Saturday's Boston Globe say what titles Robida may have favored. Nintendogs? GTA San Andreas? Madden? Hopefully, more facts will emerge. As always, check GamePolitics for the truth.