Here are a few points that popped into my head upon listening to this weeks "The Hotspot" with State Senator Leland Yee as Gamespot's guest.

1) The government has been trying for years to get involved in regulating entertainment media without violating the first amendment. Video games are an easy way to get into the regulation (read: censorship) business. And there are many watchdog groups like the PTC (parentstv.org – also known as the TV Gestapo) screaming for the government to be more involved (I guess because sacrificing a few liberties is worth having everyone see the world the way they see it.) Why can't parents be allowed to parent; to figure out what kids should and shouldn't be playing for themselves? Because it's much easier to censor than to actually take the time to teach people (read: non-gamer parents) what these video...'things' are all about.

2) OK, I know kids have no legal say in their own lives until the age of 18, but why the hell are we treating all kids like morons? I was not a stupid kid growing up. I played video games, went to school, did my homework, didn't go out and kill anyone, and ended up graduating from college and working in the 'real' world. This is the norm, not the exception. And yet, the government wants to treat all kids like potential columbine-ers. What's the point of that? Why can't the politicians understand that kids don't just snap because of video games? Kids snap because of being called a **** at school, being beaten up by bigger kids, being told their worthless by fellow students, being ignored by their parents, being given an allowance rather than love. Those things make a kid snap. And while video games might make things worse for those emotionally strained kids, it is not, and cannot, be viewed as the only thing that causes violent behavior in kids.

3) While the government is making kids look like morons, they're making the parents look even dumber. Instead of trying to inform parents what these videogames are all about, they are just trying to pass laws to sweep the whole thing under the rug and place people who play games in a quasi-deviant category. The reason: because we have no video gamers in the white house. Sure, you have the random senator or legislator who plays Civilization IV, but how many pictures have you seen of a state senator or representative holding an xbox 360 controller and/or playing Halo? Riiiiight…didn't think so.

4) Lastly, I respect Senator Yee for coming on the show and talking about his point of view on this issue. But, really, legislators who don't play video games are the worst people to a) criticize them or b) propose legislation about them. My motivation for is simple: when legislators state that books, movies, and music don't illicit a response from people the way that video games do, I instantly assume that person must from Pluto. All media is produced to illicit some kind of response. To say that rap music, hip-hop, punk rock, metal, ska, death metal, grunge, etc. doesn't illicit and emotional and/or perceivable response is foolish. I just don't buy it. Congress is attacking video games because, unlike music or movies, its constituents don't play them or understand them. The video game industry, despite being a billion dollar industry, is still not an established media. And it won't be until we have gamers in the House or Senate; gamers who play Gears or Metal Gear or Resistance 2 instead of Minesweeper and Solitaire.

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I'll repost most blog posts from GameCrashers here. But I need a home base to blog from. A podcast or video cast may be in the works soon. Stay tuned and come check out my new blogging home.

...why Fox News should be ignored when it comes to how they report on video games and the industry.

Please watch this video first: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/163925.html

Problem #1: For every study that comes out proving that video games desensitize kids to violence, sex, and whatever other nonsense, there is another study that comes out not a day later that disproves the previous study. Studies only prove one thing...people are putting too much effort into relying on studies to prove their point rather than learn more about what they're talking about.

Problem #2: The opponents of the gaming industry don't play the games they rail against. No one in this panel, except Jeff, played the game. This is like "Make it up as you go along" journalism. How can anyone respect tactics like that?

Problem #3: The nice lady they brought on got it wrong. The average age of a gamer today is 33...not 16. Yes, parents are playing video games, because the kids of the Pong and Pac-man generation are having kids now. This will continue to increase. And this foolish argument that gaming is "kid" oriented will go away.

Problem #4: For some reason, when a M rated game is thrust into the media spot-light because of a 2 minute segment of bare ass being shown...the media get wide-spread amnesia and selectively 'forgets' that an M rated title is for ADULTS! Plus, these people also seem to constantly get amnesia about the existence of games that are rated E7, E10, and T.

Problem #5: Fox is dated reporting. They are the political dinosaur of the journalist/publicist world. They are so right of center that almost anything they say should be taken with such a small grain of salt that it is only slightly above the level of being ignored. When people report something from a place of total and complete ignorance...it's not reporting. It's called libel. It's also called slander.

If nothing else, it's just called "bad reporting".

(While this article is primarily a response to the video above, it's also about promoting decent journalism and not reporting things from a position of ignorance and fear. How can a network talk about the impact of a video game on people when no one has played it? It's because Fox isn't interested in what video games really are. They are making political statements, not reporting the news. Don't let Fox News manipulate the truth.)

I respect Gamespot...

I don't respect CNET for how they've handled this issue.

This is not how Gamespot works...and CNET should have known better.

Props to the Gamespot Crew for fighting through this annoying event.

When the ESA announced that E3 2007 would be a smaller, more intimate, and far less gaudy affair, people were more than skeptical. All over the net, journalists, bloggers, gamers, developers, and even yours truly, believed that this was the death of E3 as we knew it. Though not dead, E307 was a shadow of its former self spread out across most of Santa Monica and stuffed into a hanger that wasn't even a fourth of the size of the LA convention center. Attendance was just about 1/10th of the 60,000 in attendance last year. And, the greatest casualty of this E3 re-imagining: no more both babes. A moment of silence, please, for the booth babes.

It comes down to this: E3 2007 was a true-blue conference. Though in years past it has been a convention of Comic-Con proportions; a mass gathering of Gamestop managers-assistants and fan-boys with family members in the gaming industry, this year it was a no-nonsense, industry only event. That's where the good news ends. While the lines were shorter, the venues were smaller, and the setting was more intimate, it seemed like the consensus was clear at both Barker Hanger and around the event: Who the hell thought spreading out the event all over Santa Monica was a good idea?

Not to the people reporting the event. While publishers languished in their well-stocked suites, the press car-pooled from venue to venue constantly missing their appointments due to Santa Monica traffic. Barker Hanger, the hub for this E3, didn't receive the best response either: too small and horribly laid out, with barely enough stations to showcase their top-shelf titles. Luckily, the game lineup for the fall is incredibly strong and the developers did their best to take the attention off the convention itself and steer it towards the games we're all interested in learning a little more about.

The Good:
Rock Band versus Guitar Hero III: Both Neversoft and Harmonix came out swinging at this E3 with there respective series. While Harmonix originally laid down the foundation for this game genre, Neversoft refused to be outdone and really stepped up the 'gaming' aspect of the game with head-to-head mode and boss battles against famous band members like Slash. Harmonix, on the other hand, poured their blood, sweat, and tears into a rock-sim that just, flat out, kicks any other music game in the pants. Their peripherals looks awesome, and, just to rub it in, their guitars are fully compatible with Guitar Hero III.

PC gaming: Hellgate:London, Tabula Rasa, Gears of War, Bioshock, Crysis, World in Conflict, Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, etc. PC gaming may be the most expensive of the gaming hobbies, but you can't say, "It's dead." While this gamer is not thrilled with the XBL-ification of my versatile platform, I can't complain that much if it gives the PC a notable boost in press and great games. Anything that takes PC gaming out of the back shelf at the Best Buy is a good thing.

The Bad, A.k.a"Um...what?":

New PSP: When games are getting lousy review because of the shortcomings of a system, one would assume that a SCEA Rep (at this point I'll take a summer intern) would hear this and say, "Hey, maybe we should fix this." Clearly, that didn't happen. While the new PSP looks thinner and weighs less, it's still a broken design sans an extra analog stick. If Sony wanted to create a system that could emulate PS2 play on a portable system, they should have done that. Instead, they have a collection of games that are rendered unplayable, not because of the game itself, but because of the faults of the system.

WiiFIT: WiiFIT is not a dumb idea. It requires very little gaming skill and is perfect for the casual gaming market. It will sell like crazy, gobbled up by those "gamers" converted by the Gospel according to Shegiru Miyamoto. But let's not kid ourselves: it's a wireless scale packaged with WiiSports 2. It's exactly what one would expect from Nintendo at this point. But why let it totally overshadow games like Mario Galaxy (a big element of E306), Mario Kart Wii (announced for Q1 08 for some unknown reason), and Metroid Prime III?

The REALY bad, A.k.a "Oh no you di'unt":

Just kidding!!! - The PS3 price point that wasn't. In a climate that is saturated with "price-drop-itis", Sony had to do something to quite the masses. But, like a child caught on a lie, Sony postured and argued internally to make everyone think that what they were planning was "better" for the consumer: that an 80gb drive in virtually the same box (sans emotion engine) is reasonable at $599. What I don't understand is how they can downplay the fact that the new 80gb is not fully backwards compatible? That's a big detail that Sony PR has just glossed over throughout this issue. A 20gb increase will not sell a $600 dollar system and I don't think Sony is using its head on this on at all.

Missing in Action:

Some things that didn't make the show:

SquareEnix: No new video or gameplay of FFXIII, FFT Shishi Sensou, Dragon's Quest IX, or really any news at all. It seems clear that, after Square's 20th Anniversary Party in May, SqaureEnix didn't feel obligated to present any new information about any of the forthcoming FFXIII games at this E3. The fact that none of them have a solid Japan or US release date, aside from TBA2008, may be the other thing.

Correction: SquareEnix did show Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings at E3.

Fable 2: Peter Molyneux kept his ambitious moral-choice-opus under wraps this year. With so much hype around this game after, especially after the first attempt fell quite shore of expectations, one would think Molyneux would at least feed us a video. With such a shroud of secrecy over this game, it was (conveniently) omitted from Microsoft's press conference. Perhaps we shouldn't hold our breath on this one.

Spore: Will Wright's monolithic evolution simulation was no where to be found this E3, which was quite disappointing due, in no small part, to the amazing showing the game had at last years E3. There's no reason to believe that Dr. Wright won't be able to deliver the experience he wants with this game, but one has to ask, "just how long will it take?" With a game as grand in scale as spore, who knows?

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: This is just one that I would have enjoyed seeing. When E3 used to be about previewing games a year out (at least) this would have been previewed without a second thought. But at this downsized E3, Lucasarts didn't feel required to bring out its secret weapon. To me, this game has the potential to be the next Dark Forces caliber title. Even in rough form, a developer interview or a supervised demo would have been a joy.

That's a Wrap, Folks?

Have we just seen the end of E3 all together? Is this all that's left: a mismanaged, underwhelming, and under sponsored experiment? Personally, I don't think so. I think the gaming companies and the ESA are going to sit down and go, "well, that didn't work. Let's see if we can find a happy medium." There are already rumors that the next E3 could be at a Las Vegas hotel where everything would be in the same building (a big plus for journalists). Also, they need to give each developer a little more room to breath. Baker Hanger was no great shakes after giving up the LA convention center. It was too many kiosks slammed together with not enough information to separate them from one another. And while we don't need 750 square foot booths with a stage and a half-pipe, the games and the developers need to be shown some respect and given room to display their games: that's the whole point of E3. While not a total failure, E3 needs a good once or twice over before July 08. Here's one gamer hoping that, in the blockbuster release session to come, E3 will regain some of the glory it lost this time around.

1) The ESRB gave the game a proper rating. That being said, the only people who seem to realize that gamers have grown up are the gamers themselves. AO should not be a gaming taboo. AO should be used more by the ESRB to make it clearer to people that a game is for an adult audience.

2) AO is similar to NC-17 in that both ratings are the death-knell of any release. However, people don't seem to understand how similar these 'adult' ratings are to their 'mature/restricted' counterpart. According to the MPAA, an R rated film means that anyone under 17 has to be accompanied by an adult (the film also includes strong language, violence, nudity, drug abuse, other elements, or a combination of the above). An NC-17 film means no one under 17 can enter the theater (the film also includes excessive violence, sex, aberrational behavior, drug abuse or any other elements which, when present, most parents would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing by their children.) Now, the problem is, those two descriptions sound almost EXACTLY the same. There is no ADULT ONLY movie in reality because everything gets slammed into R (and NC-17 is considered a taboo). The gaming industry has the same problem. There is no ADULT ONLY rating. According to the ESRB, M refers to any game containing intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language. These games should not be played by anyone under 17 (although unenforceable outside of the game store). AO refers to any game containing prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity. These games should not be played by anyone 18 or younger. (Again, unenforceable outside of a game store). Confused yet? AO has a 1-year gamer age difference and, essentially, no criteria difference from M. The two, together, essentially cancel each other out, making the need for an AO rating useless (and why no one wants their game rated as such).

3) If AO was used as a real rating, rather than a skull and cross bones, I think people would get the picture that (silly rabbit) games are for adults (too, ya boneheads). In addition, that games made for adults are also marketed for adult gamers. Also, AO is a no nonsense rating. I think parents would be much less inclined to purchase an ADULT ONLY game for a minor than a MATURE game. The ESRB should get out there and try to make the point that AO is a rating in place to protect kids from games that are really only to be played by ADULTS (meaning 18+). Not having that rating in place, continues to reinforce the misconception that gaming is still "just for kids".

4)Lastly, Manhunt 2 is a game asking for controversy. Now I'm not saying games like these shouldn't be made...that people should sacrifice artistic expression due to a persons misconception of what is or is not a game. But I do believe that people who want gaming to go away will love the mess that this game has made...and the noise it's generated among angry parents/religious leaders/and Jack Thompson-ites who have been waiting with guns at the ready to flame the living hell out of this game. It's irrational to thing that Take-Two was going to get away this releasing this game and think that no one would stop and say "uh...you do know what you've made here, right?" It'd be similar to me going into times square and drawing a big swastika on the ground and then saying "um...what's the big deal?" Developers should know better.

I know the kind of person I am.  I've made due with the quirks that have sneaked their way into my ways of life.  I am a very, VERY, picky gamer.  I use the same technique with games that I use with the food that I eat, the places that I go to, the wine/beer/alcohol I drink.  I like "THE GOOD STUFF" - and for the most part I stay away from games that don't deliver on this prestigious level of quality.  But is this a worthwhile way to approach gaming?  Should a gamer stay away from games that don't recieve 9.0s all the time on principle alone?  Or is it ok to substitue a 4 course meal for a central park hot dog...or a simple slice of rays pizza -- to enjoy something that's far from perfect, but delivers on a core area of what we gamers feel is "great gaming"?  Let's postulate.  When spiderman 2 (the game) came out, it didn't review really well (Score: 7.2).  The gameplay was fun but repetative, the swining was fun but quickly tiresome, and the fighting system was pretty flat.  Hulk Ultimate Destruction would improve on most of the elements from this game (no contest).  After reading up on the game, I just figured "eh, not for me...I like the 'GOOD STUFF', and looked the other way.  Then I saw that my best friend from college (who is a nintendo fanboy and a GC owner) had the game.  Despite hating the little silver nintendocube...I figured "what the hell, it's here" and plunked myself down in front of my friends tv screen. 

It was dark outside by the time I turned the system off.  My eyes were a little worse for the ware.  Overall, I was truely surprised.  Here was a game that didn't review well...that was certainly flawed in some respects...and really didn't expand on anything we've seen in the gaming world.  And yet, I was having a blast as spiderman; swinging all over the city and beating up thugs.  It made me wonder: "should I stop being so critical and just look for games that will be fun...not just revolutionary??  Are the games advertised as being "unlike anything before it" really that amazing in the end?"  

I know what you're thinking: ''It's spiderman...that's why it was fun".  And that's not a bad point.  If this were a generic Action-Adventure game with a nameless cable swinging hero, this game might now impress nearly as much.  But it was fun...really fun.  And in the end, maybe fun is more important than super-particular tastes and an extreme taste for games that are new/different/unique and so on.  If games were all the same price...one price across the board...maybe this questions would be even less important.  But developers need to focus on the fun so that we can focus on the fun...not the review score.  Making a game fun CAN make it revolutionary and unique, since the number of bad games out there doubles daily.

In thinking about it...top shelf games will always catch the eye.  But I think we should give those middle of the road games some attention...because we may be suprised of the experience that they can deliver. 

There is only one thing that bothers me about all of this (the who racketeering nonsense aside).  Mr. Thompson continuously fails to realize that just because these games have content in them not appropriate for minors doesn't mean that they are being MARKETED to minors or ever intended to be SOLD to minors.  Take-Two is well aware of the ESRB regulations and they know their audience: Adults...former teen gamers now in their 20's, 30's, and 40's.  Jack Thompson is convinced that only 10-18 year olds play video games and that no rational adult would ever play a game that wasn't fluffy clouds and Buddy Christ all over the place.  Glib remarks aside, Mr. Thompson has no sense about the business and doesn't really care about it.  He has a vendetta against Take-Two and it's wasting taxpayer money and frustrating the hell out of the judicial system in Miami-Dade, which reprimanded Mr. Thompson last time he took Take-Two to task. 

Jack Thompson is the bad case of jock itch that will never, ever, EVER, go away.  Luckily...he will never succeed in taking down take-two...simply because he is grossly unaware of what he's talking about or the business he's dealing with.

*A Microsoft Rep throws his hands up in fear*

"OKAY OKAY...we knew they were broken...our bad!" yells the Microsoft Rep.

Now, this is a funny situation.  I use the word 'funny' because only a corporation like Microsoft would wait 10 months for enough people to complain before they realize "whoops, our bad!".  After they have all the money and all the reps bought summer homes in fiji...

"whoops, our bad".

When you've been staring down the ring of death for a couple of months already...

"whoops, our bad"

...is about as helpful as a shovel to the face...which also doesn't fix the 360 problem.

Here's another tip: expect the same thing when Sony ships their console.  I say that because the more complex the technology gets, the less time people actually put into it to make the technology WORK.  Get it out, fix it later.  If it doesn't work, we'll make something better that's full of bugs and force everyone to get a patch or some buffalo biscuit nonsense like that. 

Busy, busy, busy - just like Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle says: back-handed and sketchy things are always going on...

"whoops, our bad!"

Ok, all the heavy hitters, minus Nintendo, were on hand for this TGS.  People were buzzing about games I've never heard of, clamoring over the PS3 and the 360 (suprise suprise), and cameras were getting shut off left and right by zealot japanese security guards.  God bless freedom of the press!

But something seems, oh how to put it, strange about this 'tails-side-up' industry event.  E3 it's not...so what is it, exactly?  Then there's the fact that everything is unfolding in Japan...and I slow lose track of what I'm looking at.  I start hearing names of games that I've never heard of and can't translate fast enough (because my Japanese to English dictionary is the crappy pocket sized edition).  The video images are great, but I have no idea what's going on, and there are no translators anywhere - so no industry players to step up to the microphone and give us the heads up. 

By the end of the show, I feel like a lost child wandering through a see of noise and flashy colors that don't really mean anything to me - an anti-zen non-connectivity (if that translates correctly) that leaves me with my mouth hanging open - not because I'm shocked and amazed...but because I'm left with so many questions to ask I don't know where to start.

After E3 was over...I felt that I had a good grasp on what was coming, what to look forward to, and what made these games that were on the horizon "different" "above the curve" and "worth paying attention to".  TGS...flashy pictures with the 'Charlie Brown' "Wha-wha whaa-waa" voice playing over everything. 

Perhaps it's because this event is not set up for an american gamer like myself.  As an Otaku and an International Gamer who feels like he'd try an strange Japanese fusion game to see if the water temperature is to his liking (I do