Senators Aren't Gamers

"Censors tend to be people who don't enjoy the art they try to censor."

There's already a Wii in the White House, but the day when Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) have an impromptu Halo tournament in their offices is still a ways off. Video games in Washington have had a checkered past, but games are making their way inside the Beltway, and that puts some insiders on edge.

True, in the 2008 election cycle, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) did release a video game on his Facebook page called Pork Invaders, a knockoff of the classic Space Invaders that involved shooting vetoes at descending pigs. The game failed to make any discernible impact on the minds of voters. This was primarily due to the fact that the game was—as far as I can tell—really bad. (I tried to play it recently and it seems that all vestiges of it have been erased from the Internet.) It was slow, poorly controlled, and looked like it was made by a high school kid's first computer science project. But you can't blame McCain for trying; it was the only official game of any campaign during the fall cycle.

It seems as if there's a bit of a waiting game being played in Washington with regards to video games, at least until the current legislators are replaced by game-literate ones. The politics of gaming was a hot issue at the recent Game Developers Conference in San Francisco—a kind of Space Camp for grown-ups, where even the nerdiest of the 18,000 nerds in attendance had a chance to be cool. The failures of the McCain game were analyzed in a panel called "Where were the Election Games?" But one of the most interesting discussions was the Anti-Censorship and Social Issues Committee discussion held by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), a talk moderated by Daniel Greenberg, a freelance game designer and consultant with a passion for protecting the rights of video game developers.

"Given that the average age of a Senator is over 60, it may be a long time before video games are not new and threatening to government," said Greenberg. "The majority of people with the inclination and power to censor games are not gamers. Censors tend to be people who don't enjoy the art they try to censor." Gamers also seem to be constantly at odds with the puritanical base of Capitol Hill. "Video games combine several factors that make them a target," Greenberg asserted. "They're new, they're a new form of technology, and they're fun. This makes video games a target for people with neophobia, technophobia, and a disdain for play."

I asked Greenberg how he felt the industry has done with self policing, and if this was enough to stave off potential legislation. The Entertainment Sofware Ratings Board (ESRB) is an independent organization formed in 1994 with the task of creating a ratings system for all widely published games. The system ranges from "E" for Everyone to "AO" for Adults Only, and mirrors the ratings system implemented by the Motion Picture Association of America uses to rate films. "My ideal rating system would be the one that has served us so well for many centuries in the book publishing world—none. But that ideal is simply not realistic given the political climate and given that fact it takes a lot of expertise to summarize and disclose to parents on the game packaging…I'd rather that game companies put [their] expertise into making games."

Greenberg seems to believe the best offense is a good defense, but Michael Gallagher, CEO of the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), a video game lobbying firm in Washington, DC, is waging an all out offensive on Capitol Hill. In an email interview, Gallagher pointed out that video game sales now top recorded music and movies in sales. "Like rock 'n' roll and comic books in the '50s and '60s, video games are now often the focus of criticism and targeted by elected officials. In response—and to help educate elected officials who may not be familiar with this new entertainment medium—the Video Game Voters Network has provided a platform where voting-aged gamers can contact their elected representatives to be heard and to defend video games."

Hoping that common sense overcomes fear, Gallagher noted that when "the upward track of U.S. computer and video game sales is compared to violent crime statistics to the Department of Justice, they are in complete opposite directions." Video game sales rise as the rate of violent crime falls. But Gallagher, too, is holding out for generational change. "Soon an increasing number of computer and video game enthusiasts, individuals who grew up with the medium and understand its power and expressive capabilities, will be making decisions in newsrooms, board rooms, and classrooms. I think it will be then that we will see a paradigm shift in how computer and video games are perceived, used, and enjoyed."

The numbers certainly back up Gallagher and Greenberg's claims. Last year, the video game industry brought in more than $22 billion in sales compared to the $9.6 billion in movie ticket sales. That's way too much money for legislators to ignore, not to mention the fact that more than 83,000 people are directly or indirectly employed by the gaming industry. A generational shift may still be a few years off, but for the lawmakers looking at clamping down on the games industry, that's still a massive voting block. Recently, Alabama Attorney General Troy King publicly backed the ESRB's rating system, appearing in a number of public service announcements for the group. In an accompanying press release King stated, "it's important that parents play an active role in choosing games for their children. ESRB ratings are an effective and informative resource that allows parents to decide if the video game their child wants is appropriate." It would seem that some politicians have already decided where they stand on game censorship, and it's with the gamer. Let's hope others follow their lead.

Allen Carrington Brooks is a freelance games writer living in Alexandria, VA.