government posts

At this year's QuakeCon, Big Download was able to sit in on a private screening of Frag, a serious documentary about the many struggles and setbacks dealt with by professional gamers such as Jonathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel. At the complete opposite end of the spectrum is LAN Party Massacre, a satirical film in development by Creatively Bankrupt Productions.

LAN Party Massacre follows the exploits of a group of pro gamers invited to a national LAN tournament. One of the attendees has spent a bit too much time playing video games and decides to hunt down fellow attendees.

The movie aims to parody both the "slasher" sub-genre of horror movies as well as gaming culture, with the antagonist, a man obsessed with violence due to excessive gaming, seemingly viewed as a representation of how the government and most non-gamers view our admittedly violent hobby.

LAN Party Massacre will be available in 2009. You can view or download a teaser trailer on the movie's official website.

GamePolitics has confirmed that New York Governor David Patterson has signed a video game bill passed by the Senate and Assembly into law. According to a press release received by GamePolitics, the bill, among others, is directly aimed at protecting children. Specifically, the video game bill "establishes an advisory council to conduct a study on the connection between interactive media and real-life violence in minors exposed to such media."

Additionally, the bill also mandates that all video games must feature parental lock-out features by 2010, as well as all retail outlets disclose video game ratings obtained from the industry's ratings system. This particular effort is most likely to cease perpetuation of retailers' reliance on parents to view a game's rating, which is always displayed on the title's packaging.

Obviously concerned with the government treading on their turf, the Entertainment Software Association has issued a response, using Senior VP of Communications Richard Taylor as a mouthpiece. Collectively, the ESA sees the bill as an intrusion that "has ignored legal precedent, common sense and the wishes of many New Yorkers." The ESA believes the bill will end up costing taxpayers even more money, and will "impose unconstitutional mandates for activities and technologies that are already voluntarily in place."

Furthermore, Taylor raises a good point by asserting that the bill unfairly singles out the video game industry out of other forms of entertainment. Too true: Target ceased sales of Rockstar's Manhunt 2 last fall due to gratuitous violence, yet continued selling the Saw movie trilogy.

Taylor closes the ESA's reply by postulating the future of entertainment censorship. Could the government next turn to movies and the oft-censored book? "One wonders where this overreach by government in New York will end," he writes.