British tabloid News of the World reports that 64-year-old Crediton Mayor Frank Letch (left) will be motion-captured for an upcoming video game.

Letch, born with no arms, has reportedly developed a remarkable dexterity with his feet. He can drive a car, peel a potato and write, using just his feet.

From the NotW story:

[Letch] will be kitted out with special leggings fitted with electronic tags before being filmed carrying out various tasks with his feet.

 

The footage will then be mapped onto a computer and Frank...  will be transformed into a cartoon... He was approached by Fragment Media, based in Newcastle, after its director Simon McKeown spotted him at a disability exhibition.

The game project involving Letch is not specified.

The Tacoma News-Tribune reports that a former technical advisor on the original Metal Gear Solid has been charged by federal officials with attempting to ship sophisticated holographic night vision gunsights to Japan.

Capt. Tomoaki Iishiba left Japan in 1993 to join the U.S. Army. Iishiba served in Afghanistan and wrote A Japanese Lieutenant from the 82nd Airborne, a Japanese language book about his military experience.

More recently he has been stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington as an intelligence officer. From the report:

In a two-paragraph charging document filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, prosecutors wrote that Tomoaki Iishiba bought 60 of the EoTech 553... then mailed them to coconspirators in Japan without obtaining an export license. The company’s Web site lists the sights at $639 apiece...

 

He faces one count of conspiracy to smuggle goods from the United States and is scheduled to enter a guilty plea at the end of the month, Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Greenberg said...

Iishiba has also endorsed a line of knives.

According to a BBC report, 56-year-old John Darwin (left), on trial for faking his death in a canoeing accident, had an adulterous fling with a US woman he met in an unspecified online game.

Darwin's wife, Anne, revealed the MMO details yesterday while testifying for her own defense. The couple is charged with fraud in the case. From the BBC:

The court heard she eventually found out her husband was having an affair... Mrs Darwin said her husband turned secretive when he joined an internet role-playing game.

 

She said: "It was like a virtual world which was played over the internet. The people who played it became characters in this world and they had money to buy and sell things and they used to cast spells on each other. He became rather cagey when using the headphones and speaking into the computer if I came into the room. It was obvious he was in conversation."

 

Mr Darwin later flew out to Kansas in the US to meet a woman, who his wife believes he met while playing the game.

In a rare interview, Rockstar Games co-founder Sam Houser told MCVUK that unnamed political forces have tried to bring the Grand Theft Auto publisher down:

[My biggest challenge has been] surviving in an environment in which powerful people want to put you out of business for their own political or economic capital.

Houser addresses several more topics in the interview. It's definitely worth a read.

GP: We wish Houser would have named names. Jack Thompson, of course, has boasted many times that he is out to destroy Rockstar. But we're not sure we'd classify him as "powerful".

The list of elected officials who have criticized GTA is far too numerous to mention and contains some folks with some legitimate juice such as Hillary Clinton and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. But we can't recall any of them wanting to lay waste to Rockstar...

Scott Miller, head of 3D Realms, told Next Generation that he views the upcoming E3 Expo as "irrelevant".

3D Realms, of course, owns perhaps the most vapory vaporware game property of all time, Duke Nukem Forever. Of the long-awaited DNF, Miller commented:

Development is swimming along nicely. Seriously nicely.
 

But E3 show-goers won't be seeing Duke. Miller told Next Gen:

It's just that we view E3 as irrelevant nowadays.  In fact, I wasn't even aware it was coming up.

GP: It's a safe bet that Miller is not a favorite of the video game industry establishment these days. Readers may recall that in 2007 the 3D Realms boss got into a bit of a nasty exchange with ESRB president Patricia Vance.

The NLGD Festival of Games opened yesterday with a special Pong match between the game's creator, Ralph Baer, and the mayor of the Dutch city of Utrecht.

Vertical Wire reports that the "heated" match was played on authentic, 1960's-era equipment. After dispatching the mayor 2-nil, Baer gave the keynote address to open the conference, which was designed to promote the Netherlands as a European gaming hub.

Among those presenting at NLGD are serious games guru Ben Sawyer and Spore design team member Chaim Gingold.

UPDATE: A reader, Rob F, writes in to advise that we've got an error in this story regarding the origins of Pong:

[I] just wanted to point out that Ralph Baer did not create Pong, Nolan Bushnell/Al Alcorn did.  Also, Pong was released in the 70s, so I'm unsure what 60s era equipment they were playing on, maybe Baer's Brown Box?  Think was also from the 70s, maybe late 60s.  Bushnell viewed Baer's Table Tennis on the Odyssey (the first home console) and basically ripped Baer off.  I'm not a big fan of wikipedia, but from what I scanned they got it right.

 

Ralph wrote a book a couple years ago, it's really good.  You can view a sample here.

Okay, so it's not a video game story.

But we couldn't resist today's Philadelphia Inquirer piece on Erik Arneson (left), chief policy director for the Pennsylvania State Senate Republican Caucus. Arneson, it seems is not only a policy wonk, but a board game wonk, as well.

From the story:

By night, [Arneson] is an expert gamer for the online information source About.com... He spends evenings, weekends and even vacations playing games and writing reviews and articles for the Web site.

 

Not just any games, but the kind played on boards with dice...

 

Arneson reviews everything from Monopoly's latest offering to Elemento, a chemistry-theme card game, and the latest in the popular board-game series that started with Settlers of Catan, in which players compete to build roads and cities on an island.

Of his board game mania, Arneson said:

I'm completely comfortable with my geekiness. The bottom line is, it's fun... People spend so much time at work interacting with computers and machines that some quality, low-tech entertainment often hits the sweet spot when they get home.

Johann Pro, a spokeswoman for Democratic State Rep. Dwight Evans, couldn't resist a game-themed dig at Areneson, however:

On the professional side, he's obviously in the right position since we all know the Senate Republicans just like to play games.

The Chief Judge of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court is under scrutiny for maintaining a personal website with graphic sexual images while at the same time presiding over a closely-watched obscenity trial.

Judge Alex Kozinski, as GamePolitics has reported in the past, is a video game fan who has authored game reviews for the Wall Street Journal.

According to this morning's Los Angeles Times:

Kozinski acknowledged posting sexual content on his website. Among the images on the site were a photo of naked women on all fours painted to look like cows and a video of a half-dressed man cavorting with a sexually aroused farm animal. He defended some of the adult content as "funny" but conceded that other postings were inappropriate.
 

The obscenity trial over which Kozinski was presiding included charges related to images of bestiality. At the request of the prosecutor, Kozinski issued a 48-hour stay of the proceedings.

There's an additional video game connection, of sorts. California's appeal of a lower court ruling which found the state's 2005 video game law unconstitutional is currently before the 9th Circuit. There's no reason to expect that Judge Kozinski's problems would impact the Court's review of the video game law, however.

Author Salman Rushdie, who has been dodging a fatwa ever since outraging the Islamic community with his 1988 book The Satanic Verses, mentioned video games during a recent appearance on The Colbert Report.

RUSHDIE: ...I think the only good sign is that a lot of the younger generation in Muslim countries really wants that change. So maybe they will bring it.

 

COLBERT: What can we do to help? Can we send them video games?

 

RUSHDIE: I think video games, YouTube, you know, these are the things that will change the world. Because when people see what garbage everybody else is consuming, they want it too.

A bit of a backhanded compliment, no? But still...

Via: Kotaku

Sunday's Boston Globe offers a fascinating interview with Oregon psychiatrist - and GamePolitics reader - Dr. Jerald Block, who specializes in treating online game addiction.

Block believes that "Internet Addiction" should be recognized as an official diagnosis.

From the story:

[Block] believes that psychiatry needs to do a lot of catching up in order to understand why people get stuck in games like Warcraft. One problem: Most therapists have no idea what a "guild" is or what it means to hit Level 60. Because of this language barrier, many gamers wind up begging for help in online support groups rather than seeking out mental health professionals.

Interestingly, Block said that addicted gamers feel worse about their habit than those addicted to pornography:

BLOCK: ...the computer gamers tend to be harder to treat. People feel a lot of shame around computer games. Whereas, it's socially acceptable to have a porn problem.

IDEAS: You can't be serious. You mean your clients are more ashamed of ...

BLOCK: ...playing World of Warcraft than looking at porn. Yes.

IDEAS: Why?

BLOCK: As a society we understand that porn is something people do, and you can see a psychiatrist and get treated for it. But gaming is hard to describe to anyone else. So these people can't explain their situation to friends. In fact, it's hard to give you an example of what my clients talk about, because gaming is enormously complicated.

Block has also studied the relationship between violent games and school shootings, but believes the issue is complex and enmeshed in the shooters' "relationship" with their PCs:

With these shooters, their last act was to turn against their own computers. As a psychiatrist, I think that's relevant.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (left), recently retired from the U.S. Supreme Court, spoke at the Games for Change Conference in New York City yesterday.

As reported by Alison Stein Wellner of the Huffington Post, Justice O'Connor spoke of her involvement in the development of Our Courts, a game described on its website as "an interactive online civics curriculum that will be free to all users."

Among Justice O'Connor's remarks, as reported by Wellner:

If you had told me when I retired from the Supreme Court, just about two years ago, that I would today be speaking at a digital game conference, I would have been very skeptical. I'd maybe think you had had one drink too many.

Justice O'Connor's unlikely move into game development began over concerns about "vitriolic attacks" on judges by politicians and members of special interest groups. Wellner writes:

In response to this concern, O'Connor and Justice Stephen Breyer together convened [Fair and Independent Courts: A Conference on the State of the Judiciary] and from this an "overwhelming consensus emerged": public education was required, not only to preserve an independent judiciary, but to preserve "a robust constitutional democracy." Very small stakes, no big deal. From this, the decision was made to create an online interactive curriculum for use in the classroom, and a free online game that kids will want to play in their free time.

So, will we be soon be raiding with Justice O'Connor's WoW guild or trading lead with her in multiplayer matches GTA IV anytime soon? Don't count on it:

I don't play video games. Sorry.

Reuters has a bit more, including this comment from Justice O'Connor:

If we can capture just a little bit of [young people's] time to get them thinking about government and civic engagement rather than playing shoot-'em-up video games, that's a huge step in the right direction.

When last we heard from the Girl Scouts in relation to video game issues, they were standing behind California's Leland Yee following passage of the state's 2005 video game law.

But, as reported by the Woodbury Bulletin, a Minnesota Girl Scout has a much different view on video game regulation. Colleen Stone, who created a 10-minute video on game content issues, told the newspaper:

I guess it all started when Hillary Clinton started getting public about video games and video game violence. It was just a blatant disregard for first amendment rights…That was a slippery slope that would easily have transferred to books and movies and newspapers, and that really disturbed me.

In response, Colleen developed a seminar to educate parents on game content and ratings. She invited the manager of a local GameStop as well as a rep from the Minnesota-based National Institute on Media & Family. The seminar was filmed and makes up a good chunk of her video. 250 copies have been distributed to various organizations.

Colleen, who will attend Johns Hopkins University in the fall and is considering a career in video game design, added:

I was worried this was just a pet peeve of mine, but deep down, it’s a constitutional issue. Some games can be so beautiful — some of the games I put on, my mom will just stop and stare… That’s why I think I did this. Video games are not evil.

Fortune.com reports that Ryan Brant (left), who pleaded guilty to committing massive fraud during his tenure as CEO of Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive, has sold his newly-started game development company.

In late April Newsweek's N'Gai Croal broke the news that Brant was back in the gaming biz as part of GreenScreen Interactive, although not as a corporate officer. Brant is barred from holding office in a public company as part of his 2007 guilty plea on fraud charges.

Of the GreenScreen sale, Fortune reports:

Brant agreed to sell the videogame company he recently founded, GreenScreen Interactive Software, to a company called Mandalay Media, whose co-chairmen are Peter Guber - the Hollywood producer behind "Midnight Express" and "The Color Purple" - and CEO Bruce Stein, a former Mattel and Sony executive...

 

According to a regulatory filing, GreenScreen and Mandalay entered into merger talks after Mandalay pledged a $2 million bridge loan, collateralized by GreenScreen's corporate assets...

 

Not much is publicly known about GreenScreen - or Brant's role in the company... Nowhere does the company's Web site mention Brant... Brant may well have turned a corner in the way he does business, choosing a quiet life of video game development over fraud and self-dealing.

New York Post reporter Roddy Boyd, who has often written about Take-Two for the newspaper, penned the Fortune.com piece.

As GamePolitics readers know, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has been attempting to legislate violent video games in recent months, spearheading the introduction of a Jack Thompson-authored video game bill into the Massachusetts legislature.

A strong creative economy translates into a strong overall economy. These are innovators, the cutting edge.

Paul Grogan, president of the Boston Foundation, added:

[Creative businesses] are really fundamental to the economy, and their strength has to be husbanded, not taken for granted. We have to make sure what we already have here remains vital.

GP: Kudos to Gov. Patrick for backing Massachusetts' creative types. While Mayor Menino has paid lip service to supporting video game development in Boston, his actions, including the current video game legislation as well as forcing GTA ads from public transit in 2006, betray a different motivation. As to his video game bill? It's stuck in the legislature.

Every gamer's favorite academic, MIT Professor Henry Jenkins, will be among the presenters at the 5th Annual Games for Change Festival which takes place June 2-4 in New York.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor will deliver the festival's closing keynote. Other speakers include Ben Sawyer of the Serious Games Initiative, Dr. James Paul Gee of Arizona State University, Prof. Ian Bogost of Georgia Tech and Heather Chaplin, co-author of Smartbomb.

From the GFC press release:

The only festival... will explore real-world impact, the latest games and funding strategies... Expert practitioners -- academics, activists, non-profits, funders -- will be called in to examine the impact of current games, evaluations planned and the ongoing work to build the field.

 

You will have a chance to see a variety of new games in development first-hand, and at the Games Expo sponsored by Microsoft, festival-goers can play the latest state-of-the-art games.

Can the skills which enabled you to reach level 70 in World of Warcraft help make you an effective legislator?

We may find out, as the Connecticut Republican Party has nominated attorney - and WoW player - Jeanne Stevens (left) to challenge for a seat in the State House of Representatives. As reported by the Shore Line Times, the former Manhattan prosecutor enjoys playing WoW. Unfortunately, no info is provided on her in-game avatar.

Stevens, also a member of the Republican Town Committee in Madison, commented:

I'm a bit of a bulldog once you tell me I can't do something... I have nothing to lose.

 GP: We wonder whether it's harder to defeat a political boss or a raid boss?

With video games now a well-established component of youth culture, it's safe to say that many US troops serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world are gamers.

Here at GamePolitics we've often reported on the relationship between games and the military, a nexus that is sometimes controversial. But whatever one may think about the politics involved, we can all agree that we wish safe passage for our military personnel and honor those who have given their all.

We've made it a practice to report on fallen gamers when we've been able to learn about them from personal remembrances shared by friends and family members. We suspect that there are many more who we don't know about.

Today, Memorial Day in the US, we remember them for their service and their sacrifice.

PICTURED: Eric Hall, George Howell, Randy Pickering, Jon Hicks

A NASA researcher speaking at a University of Manitoba workshop discussed using video games as an educational tool and disputed supposed links between games and criminal behavior.

As reported by the Truro Daily News, NASA's Daniel Laughlin said:

Since 1993, violent crime in Canada and the U.S. has declined by 50 per cent and during that time the video gaming industry has exploded. If video games were really linked to crime, then we wouldn’t have seen that decline in violence.

Laughlin is the learning technologies project manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Baltimore. The space agency is working on an MMO to sharpen math and science skills among high school and college students:

I’d love to see a space-based game where the players are placed in real careers — astrophysicists, aerospace engineer. It would be a game where you need the expertise of real science to succeed... It’s got to be fun, first. Without the fun, no one will want to play it and it won’t be successful. But it has to use real science.

The ESA issued a press release today announcing that Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) will give the E3 keynote address.

We can't help but ask... why?

It's unheard of for a politician to give the opening remarks for the video game industry's big dance. Reading between the lines of the ESA press release, Perry's  qualifications seem to be that: a.) Texas is home to a lot of game developers and b.) in 2007 he signed into law a bill providing financial incentives to film and video game productions.

However, as GamePolitics reported when Perry signed the legislation, the video game incentive package is fraught with potential content restrictions. The Austin American-Statesman wrote at the time:

To appease some concerned legislators, the incentive program was structured to guard against paying companies that make violent games. The state will be allowed to pick and choose projects, eliminating those that have "inappropriate content" or are "obscene." Game companies are left wondering which projects could be deemed "inappropriate."

The Daily Texan noted:

The bill requires the office to consider "general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the citizens of Texas" when considering grant applications. The bill also requires submission of a final script to determine if changes occurred during production would conflict with these standards.

Moreover, in order to qualify for incentives, a project "cannot portray Texas or Texans in a negative fashion."

A number of states have enacted incentive packages in recent times, most recently Michigan and Georgia. GamePolitics is aware of no state other than Texas that makes funding in any way dependent upon content.

Beyond the content issues, it just seems, well, odd. For many years as ESA president Doug Lowenstein gave the E3 keynote. After all, E3 was the ESA's big show. Lowenstein's annual speech was something not to be missed, a kind of State of the Union address for the video game biz.

However, in 2007, his first year at the helm, freshman boss Michael Gallagher begged off, citing newness to the position. This announcement means that the E3 crowd, which has yet to hear from Gallagher, will have to wait another year to learn whether the man has a vision for the industry.

It may be worthwhile noting that Gallagher has deep Republican roots, as does Perry, the current Chairman of the Repulican Governors Association.  Perhaps the ESA (or Gallagher) views Perry as having loftier aspirations (say, the White House) when his second term expires in 2010.

UPDATE: The ESA has dropped GamePolitics a line to say that Gallagher will be giving some sort of state-of-the-industry speech at E3.

While Hillary Clinton can't be completely ruled out as the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee, the odds against her are long, indeed.

With that backdrop, the New York Times looks at a dozen prominent women, one of whom might become the first woman president some day. Of the twelve, four have some history with video games:

• Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D): Sebelius (left) backed an ill-fated proposal to legislate video games in 2006, then made the GamePolitics hypocrite list when she backed her son's creation of Don't Drop the Soap, a GTA-like board game which he sold by mail order from the Governor's official residence. You know, the one paid for by the taxpayers...
• Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D): Along with longtime video game critic Sen. Joe Lieberman, Klobuchar flanked Dr. David Walsh of the National Institute on Media and the Family last November as Walsh chastised the video game industry for what he termed an ominous backslide in NIMF's 2007 Annual Video Game Report Card.
• Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D): Madigan's office defended Illinois' 2005 video game law against the video game industry's constitutional challenge. She lost.
• Meg Whitman, former CEO of Ebay (R):  We have no idea what her views on video game issues are, but her former company, Ebay sure sold a lot of video game stuff during her watch. I mean, where else are you gonna get an Atari 2600?