Responding to a recent Bitmob piece which asked whether games can deliver a political message, a blogger has penned a resounding answer.

Yes, Video Games Are Political, written by Lee Bradley, begins by noting that independent games such as Cutthroat Capitalism, Kabul Kaboom! and Super Columbine Massacre RPG! all delivered hearty political statements, regardless of their reach or palatability.

Bradley then meanders through history, using Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Gordon Gekko in an attempt to illustrate that videogames of the 80’s reflected current politics, much as games today do.

Videogames, as cultural artifacts, are unescapably political. Even the most vacuous of games, despite their ostensible mindlessness, cannot fail to reflect the politics of the culture in which they were produced.

If the 80’s equaled “greed and me,” and resulted in a slew of games featuring lone heroes, then, Bradley argues, today’s political “notions of society and community are once again on the agenda” and are reflected in current titles like Left 4 Dead:

Even in games where the co-operative element of co-op is less pronounced, the ideology is the same; you are not on your own anymore, you are part of a team. What’s more that team is more than likely multi-cultural and/or multi-gender.

Using his Edge-Online blog, Alex Walker has penned an open letter to South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson about the lack of an R18+ rating classification in that country.

Walker notes that “the Classification Board has refused classification to twice as many games as the British Board of Film Classification has in the 23 years since it first rated a video game.” He calls out Atkinson on some of his recent statements and uses comments from David Cook, Director of the British Board of Film Classification to aid his case.

Walker finishes with a challenge:

I’m not sure how, given the weight of evidence, you can stand by the inconsistencies in the Australian approach to classifying film and video games. I call on you to stand aside, and allow for a debate on the classification system, a debate which you have so far stifled.

Walker adds that he did email a copy of the letter to Atkinson, but he does not expect a response.

Evony, LLC, an Australia-based game developer, perhaps best-known for its seemingly-ubiquitous online ads featuring scantily-clad women designed to tout its game Evony, has filed suit against a blogger for "multiple violations of international libel standards" and is seeking damages for “gross disregard for the truth.”

The blogger in question is Bruce Everiss, a former Imagine and Codemasters marketer. Everiss has taken Evony to task in multiple posts, including questioning (based upon reader and Evony player comments) whether the game might contain malware, pondering if the purchase of Evony cents is illegal in the USA and flat out telling his readers to not play Evony.

Benjamin Gifford, Vice Development Director for the Legal IP Strategic Division Evony, stated:

In the digital age in which we now live, online journalists and bloggers – and the traditional media outlets that may rely upon them as sources – must strive for a higher standard of integrity and accuracy. Mr. Everiss’ complete disregard for even the most basic tenets of journalistic responsibility have left our company no alternative but to take these legal actions.

Everiss, in a comment on his blog, replied to the lawsuit:

Why are Evony acting for a Chinese game against a UK blogger in an Australian court? To make it as difficult as possible for me to defend myself as possible. They are using money and power to censor the truth from the internet because it inconveniences them.
 

Well-known Second Life blogger Rik Panganiban has unabashedly come out for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

In a post titled Barack FTW 11/4! -- Why Gamers Should Back Obama, Panganiban writes:

I think it's high time that people get past this notion of gamers as passive couch potatoes divorced from the world around them. I've seen gamers raise thousands of dollars for worthwhile causes like Penny Arcade's "Child's Play" charity and games for US troops overseas. 

 

Gamers can be ardent defenders of Net Freedom or even protestors for Chinese nationalism.  Heck, they have their own blog devoted to politics.

Among Panganiban's reasons for backing the Obama ticket (these are his words):

• Obama Groks the Power of the Internet: ...No, [Obama] didn't invent the Blackberry, but he does understand that the Gamer Generation connects with each other in substantially different ways than generations before.
• Obama Defends Net Freedom: ...The ability of next-gen game developers to create online games depends on a vibrant and open internet environment, unfettered by artificially throttled and filtered access.
• Obama Knows We Need Broadband: ...you know how sucky it is to play Halo over a sketchy internet connection... 
• Obama Supports Stronger Math & Science in Schools: America lags way behind the rest of the industrialized world in math and science aptitude in its high schools...
• Obama Totally Pwns in Unreal Tournament:  He's the only player I know who can go head to head in a Scavenger against a Fury equipped with Berserk and come out ahead.  Talk about presidential.  (Ok, maybe I made that up. But I hear his Wii Bowling score is 278.)

Rik is having some fun with that last bit. Actually, as GamePolitics has reported, Obama remarked publicly that the last game he played was Pong.

GP: If an established game blog presents a case for the McCain ticket, we'll gladly publish that as well.