politics posts

Comedy Central's Indecision 2008 blog guest writer is also the Lead Writer of our sister site, WoW Insider. Mike Schramm has posted a tongue-in-cheek editorial suggesting methods guaranteed to encourage gamers to vote this November.

"Videogames are a big deal nowadays," wrote Mike Schramm, "and their formerly young players are quickly becoming captains of industry and progress. People who once played hours of Dr. Mario and Tetris are getting jobs as pharmacists and bricklayers. Gamers come from all walks of life, trailing their Fritos wrappers and Bawls energy drink bottles behind them, and any candidate who wants in the White House will have to do a little pandering to the Pac Man vote."

One suggestion: join in the console wars, but be sure not to upset one of the three delicate sides. Mike Schramm feels the best response is to don a grave expression and growl, "It's a shame the Dreamcast never got the chance it deserved."

Another sure-fire method of winning a gamer's vote is to make prolific use of scantily-clad women wielding big guns in all campaign materials. "It's a strange attraction that is almost certainly specific to the gamer population," wrote Mike Schramm. "Oh, and if you arm them with large futuristic weapons and/or have them hug or otherwise interact with more barely-dressed women, people seem to enjoy that, too."

For more insight into Mike Schramm's expert opinion, visit indecision2008.com to view the article in its entirety.

This upcoming presidential election is going to be a tightly fought one, and as the old saying goes, art imitates life. The Political Machine 2008 is a new Political Machine game being released by Stardock. Much like the original, you will try and guide a candidate to win the presidential election through guile and cunning, as well as heaps of money. MSNBC, however, has snagged an interview with Brad Wardell and some gameplay footage of the game in action. Brad even tells MSNBC which state he thinks will be the most fought over (hint: it's Colorado)

There's two ways to get your point across in any debate: present a rational argument in a gentle and understanding way, or shock the person you are debating with your poor taste so that they have to believe you. A new game in development by a college student seems much more like the latter than the former. An atheistic game, it is your goal to go back in time and kill the prophets of several religions. You read that right. Your goal is to eliminate religions before they start.

Speaking to a local news outlet, the University of Virgina student had this to say:

Atheists have never really had anything to speak for them like this. It's the general atheist premise that the world might be a better place without some of those religions... It's the idea of being able to go back in time and sort of nipping the problem in the bud.

This seems less like a political statement and more like an attempt to rile up the religious community to rail against atheists even more than they already do. Besides, everyone knows it's turtles all the way down!

Haven't we been through this already? Well, maybe not exactly this, but the videogame industry has gone through lots of trouble to avoid having laws drafted on the restriction of game content and sales. In this case, however, it's a little more thoughtful, but still worthless. As we briefly mentioned a little over an hour ago, a new federal bill just proposed would seek to restrict the sale of M-rated (yes, it uses the ESRB ratings system) to minors through means of ID checks.

It's great that the government is putting more trust into the ratings system, but the MPAA doesn't have to go through this with its ratings system. In fact, it is regularly said that the MPAA ratings are a voluntary system and do not have the force of law. So why do videogames have to?

I'd consider myself a fairly politically astute person, knowledgeable in the ways of how politics, business, and voters interact in their bizarre ways. It's an important thing to know in today's world, after all. This is why the sudden departures from the ESA by Activision and other companies absolutely floored me. I couldn't even put words to it! Thankfully, Keith Boesky managed to express exactly my feelings on the subject.

"The real story is pulling out of The ESA. The ESA is this industry's most important advocate. The organization's impact as a lobbyist in Congress is effective, but not really tangible, nor are the anti piracy efforts, which certainly saved the business a lot of money," Keith said on his game business blog yesterday, "We can however point directly to litigation efforts, which challenged, and beat, every legislative attempt to restrict or impair the sale of video games – 9 court rulings and an injunction against enforcement in the State of California. If not for The ESA, video games would likely not be considered an expression of free speech under the First Amendment to the Constitution."

Give the whole analysis a read. If you're a twitch gamer, it may be boring political stuff to you, but it's a good look at how it could hurt the industry as a whole. And that's a concern to everyone.