State Governments & Video Games: Love the Economic Impact, Hate the Sex & Gore

The Christian Science Monitor ran a piece yesterday outlining the dilemma which many state legislatures find themselves in with regard to video games: Do they hate them for the violence and mature content contained in some titles? Or do they love games for the revenue they generate and the jobs they create?

Probably a little of both. From the CSM:

For some politicians, video games have been a wonderful target. More than a few lawmakers have burnished their family-values credential by speaking out against the medium as a peddler of smut and gore...

 

Yet some signs indicate that the relationship between politicians and the industry is getting a bit cozier. About a dozen states are now wooing video-game companies to their cities. Enchanted by gamemakers’ big budgets, high-skilled jobs, and purported resistance to recessions, state lawmakers are backing legislation that aims to attract a bigger slice of the $22 billion industry.

Indeed, some states which, in years gone by, passed or considering passing video game content legislation are now wooing the game biz with tax breaks and other incentives. Examples of such flip-flopping include Louisiana, Michigan and Massachusetts.

Morgan Webb of G4's X-Play program and yours truly are quoted in the CSM article. Here's my take:

Mr. McCauley of GamePolitics attributes the uneven distribution of restrictions [between the movie and game industries] to unfamiliarity with video games and fear that older voters will flip out if tax dollars funded the next offensive title. “Games are relatively new compared to cinema,” he says. “For some politicians, games are new and youth-culture oriented. The bottom line is, they don’t get [games]. They’re more familiar with the movie industry and more inclined to look favorably on it as a result...”

 

“States are really hurting right now,” he says. “They’re looking for new sources of revenue. I think we’re only going to see more of [government financial incentives for game developers] in the future.”