Recently, GamePolitics reported that Xbox and Rock the Vote would be teaming up on voter registration at both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

Here's some brand-new video footage of Guitar Hero being played on a big screen at a Rock the Vote DNC booth. We presume the game is running on an Xbox 360.

A friend attended the Democratic National Convention in Denver this week. Among the many items he snagged was a pamphlet from the No Child Left Inside Coalition, a group which seeks to foster environmental awareness and activity among young people.

That's all quite commendable. Less praiseworthy, however, is the fact that the group's brochure (obtained by GP) takes a cheap shot at video games in its opening paragraph:

Young people across America are spending more and more time inside - hooked up to video games, computers, and television, instead of learning, playing and exploring outside. The results are profound: increases in childhood obesity, a lack of understanding of the environment and a disconnection from the natural world.

Why some kids don't go outside or don't get enough exercise or are overweight would seem to be very complex social issues involving a myriad of factors, including available recreational opportunities, socioeconomic status, neighborhood safety, parenting, nonstop marketing of high-calorie food and drinks, etc.

Thumbs-down to No Child Left Inside for pointing the finger at video games...

Okay, so we've got a soft spot for board games as well as the video variety.

Maybe you do, too. 

If so, jump over to Campaign.com. The self-described nonpartisan voter education site is giving away a Stratego: Democrats vs. Republicans game every day between now and the presidential election on November 4th.

A San Francisco-based game designer is among a subset of Hillary Clinton supporters who can't seem to get their minds around the notion that Barack Obama is the presidential choice of the Democratic Party.

As reported by Newsday, Toni Alves was among several hundred Hillary backers who marched through the streets of Denver on Monday shouting, "Honest Roll Call!" and "Yes We Can!"

Alves, whose design credits include Heroes of Might & Magic V , told Newsday that she has voted as a Democrat for 40 years and traveled to Denver on behalf of her local chapter of Party Unity My Ass (PUMA). She claims that she will vote for Republican John McCain should Obama secure the nomination.

Kotaku reports that Microsoft and the Xbox 360 are waving the video game flag at this week's Democratic National Convention.

Denver-based Kotaku EIC Brian Crecente popped over to the DNC and discovered that Microsoft lobbyists had set up a booth featuring 360s running MLB2K8 during Tuesday's events at Coors Field. Exec Fred Humphries told Crecente:

Where better to talk about families and games then in the living room. We're here to highlight the family settings for the Xbox 360 and talk about ratings. Education is so important when it comes to the Xbox. We are here to tell people about Play Smart, Play Safe... We fully support parents talking to kids.

MS will be making a similar appearance at the upcoming Republican National Convention. As GamePolitics reported last week, Microsoft is partnering with Rock the Vote to help drive voter registration through Xbox Live.

CNet's Declan McCullough reports that Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) has an anti-consumer track record when it comes to technology.

In the past the Democratic VP nominee-apparent has stood with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) on copyright issues.

From the Cnet report:

[Biden] has spent most of his Senate career allied with the FBI and copyright holders... ranks toward the bottom of CNET's Technology Voters' Guide, [his] anti-privacy legislation was actually responsible for the creation of PGP [encryption]...

 

Biden became a staunch ally of Hollywood and the recording industry in their efforts to expand copyright law. He sponsored a bill in 2002 that would have make it a federal felony to trick certain types of devices into playing unauthorized music or executing unapproved computer programs...

 

A few months later, Biden signed a letter that urged the Justice Department "to prosecute individuals who intentionally allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks." Critics of this approach said that the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, and not taxpayers, should pay for their own lawsuits...

 

All of which meant that nobody in Washington was surprised when Biden was one of only four U.S. senators invited to a champagne reception in celebration of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act hosted by the MPAA's Jack Valenti, the RIAA, and the Business Software Alliance. (Photos are here.)

McCullough reports that Biden has "steadfastly refused" to answer Cnet's questions on his tech voting record.

GP: It's ironic that Biden has chosen to portray himself as an intellectual property rights champion. He has twice been outed for plagiarizing.

If Barack Obama doesn't seem especially conversant with GTA IV, Madden or Fallout 3, there's a reason for that:

The last video game he played was... Pong.

The Democratic contender said as much in an Entertainment Weekly interview which probed his pop culture habits:

EW: What's the last videogame you played?

 

Obama: Pong. That gives you a sense of my age. I loved that game.

 

The Entertainment Software Association, which represents the interests of US game publishers, issued a press release today announcing that it had received a check for $282,794  from the state of California.

The money represents legal fees incurred by the video game industry while contesting California's 2005 video game law. The statute was declared unconstitutional by a U.S. District Court Judge in August, 2007.

Commenting on the payment, ESA CEO Michael Gallagher said:

California deserves more from its legislators than pursuing flawed legislation. State employees are facing pay cuts. California’s services are being scaled back. And, anxiety is rising in Sacramento to find funds. Rather than tackling real problems affecting Californians, they chose to waste time, money and state resources. It is shameful that legislators pursued personal agendas in spite of the facts.

 

Caregivers are not well-served by court battles and legal fees. Rather, they would have been far better off if state officials worked together with our industry to raise awareness about video game ratings and the parental controls available on all new game consoles—both of which help ensure that the games children play are parent-approved.

It is unfortunate that the state is stubbornly pursuing an appeal that is likely to lead to even more court-awarded fees.

The 2008 presidential campaign is getting ugly, what with a John McCain TV spot that paints Barack Obama as a celebrity lightweight in the grand tradition of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and the Obama campaign fighting back with sharp words about McCain.

Given the nasty political climate, Darren Gladstone of PC World (who clearly has too much time on his hands) decided to use Soul Calibur 4's custom character creator to let martial arts versions of the prez candidates go mano-a-mano:

Barack always struck me as a Jeet Kun Do master: nimble, deadly with his words--and with a pair of nunchucks. McCain? This guy's tough as nails. I don't know if I could've made it through half the stuff he did, so, of course, I have to equip him with the biggest mallet available.

 

Barack has youth on his side, so of course he's dancing rings around McCain... But stand still too long, and the cagey Vietnam vet is gonna deliver a haymaker: his mile-long service record.

Unless they've been playing too much real-life beer pong, GamePolitics readers will likely recall the recent flap over the Wii-ware title formerly known as Beer Pong.

Released this week with an E rating, the renamed Pong Toss from JV Games sparked earlier protests from educators as well as a call from Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D) for the ESRB to re-rate the game as Adults Only.

Time has now bellied up to the bar to offer own examination of the Beer Pong controversy and finds that it was predictable given concerns over binge drinking:

Perhaps, in retrospect, JV Games should have seen this coming. After all, drinking games and video games may be two of college-kids' favorite pasttimes, but they are also a source of constant complaints from their middle-aged parents...

 

The controversy isn't entirely surprising. The point of beer pong is to get your friends drunk... Last fall, Georgetown University banned beer-pong... The University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Tufts University have also banned drinking games.

 

The anti-pong activism strikes JV Games' [co-owner Jag] Jaegar as somewhat fruitless. As long as students "have access to alcohol, they will create drinking games out of any activity," he says. More to the point, if students have access to alcohol, they'll drink it — no games necessary.

As GamePolitics reported last month, Sen. Thomas Duane (D) was the lone member of the New York State Senate to vote against a video game bill that was eventually signed into law by Gov. David Paterson. The measure, sponsored by Sen. Andrew Lanza (R) was approved by a 61-1 margin in the New York Senate.

An enterprising GP reader who happens to be a New York resident (and who wishes to remain nameless) wrote to the State Senator regarding his stance on the legislation:

Dear Sen. Duane

 

...I would like to congratulate you on your lone opposition vote on the above referenced bill... As informed citizens are aware, this law addresses none of the issues associated with video games, redundantly mandates provisions that are already in place such as per product industry ratings and console parental controls, establishes yet another toothless advisory committee, and likely constitutes a violation of the First Amendment...

 

I welcome government efforts in the form of education for parents, but do not welcome intrusive government efforts to usurp parents' role as arbiter of their children's exposure to mass media.

Dear Mr. [GP reader]:

 

...Senator Duane shares many of your concerns about S.6401-A.  He recognizes that there is already an effective, voluntary [ESRB] rating system in place... and that parental controls are available on all current video game consoles.  Parents should determine which games their children have access to and the marketplace should decide which games sell and which do not.  

 

Like you, Senator Duane questions this bill's constitutionality and points to the fact that similar bills have been struck down in other jurisdictions.  He regrets that he was the lone voice in dissent on this matter.

GP: It's great to see gamers involving themselves in the political process and even better to see an elected official who writes back with something more than a form letter.

Last week GamePolitics broke the news that Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) had introduced video game legislation.

The bill, S.3315, enjoys the support of watchdog group the Parents Television Council. If made law, it would:

...prohibit the distribution or sale of video games that do not have age-based content rating labels [and]  prohibit the sale or rental of video games with adult content ratings to minors...

Did we mention that Wicker is running for re-election?

In any case, we now have the full text of S.3315. It is the Senate version of a measure currently before the House. HB 5990, the Video Games Rating Enforcement Act, is a bipartisan bill introduced by Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE) and Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT).

Did we mention that Terry and Matheson are also running for re-election?

Rather inexplicably, Variety has included California State Sen. Leland Yee in a list of "vidgame mavens."

Yee, of course, is the architect of his state's 2005 video game law which was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge last year. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has appealed the ruling, which is still under review by the U.S. Circuit Court.

While we imagine that Variety meant something along the lines of "influential people in regard to video games," and Yee certainly qualifies in that regard, here's what they wrote:

Impact '08
In Variety's first in-depth look at the vidgame mavens who drive this dynamic sector, we spotlight the talents and executives behind the year's most exciting success stories...

Included in the list are the likes of Reggie Fils-Aime of Nintendo, Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade, famed designer Will Wright, and a whole bunch other industry types. And Yee...

The notation next to Yee's name reads:

California State Sen. Yee has been gunning for games like "Manhunt 2" and "Grand Theft Auto IV" for years.
 

UPDATE: Variety's Ben Fritz writes that he heard from Jack Thompson, who was supposedly whining over not being included on the list...

As GamePolitics reported in May, the ESA's plan to win political influence through campaign donations got off to a slow start in 2008, spreading just $4,300 among three members of Congress.

But the software publishers' lobbying group dramatically increased its political donations in the second quarter of of the year.

Using publicly available records, GamePolitics has learned that the ESA wrote checks totaling $19,000 to 17 separate candidates for the U.S. House and Senate. Two U.S. Senators received $2,000 campaign donations, while the remaining 15 recipients each received $1,000.

All recipients are incumbents. Seven senatorial and ten congressional campaigns received donations. Nine recipients are Democrats and eight are Republicans.

Recipients of ESA Q2 donations include:

• Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) $2,000 - Majority Whip
• Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) $1,000 - a member of the Joint Committee on Taxation
• Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) $1,000 
• Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR) $1,000 - has supported the ESRB in the past
• Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) $2,000 
• Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) $1,000
• Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), $1,000
• Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), $1,000 - the Chief Deputy Minority Whip was reported to be on John McCain's list of VP candidates
• Rep. John Howard Coble (R-NC) $1,000 - the 77-year-old Coble is the longest-serving member of Congress from North Carolina
• Rep. Ed Towns (D-NY) $1,000 - a member of the Energy & Commerce Committee which has in the past considered video game legislation
• Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) $1,000 - chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties
• Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) $1,000 - from the Seattle area, where so many game companies are located
• Kendrick Meek (D-FL) $1,000 - voted in favor of Net Neutrality in the past
• Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) $1,000 - has expressed concern about games previously on the floor of Congress
• Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) $1,000
• Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) $1,000
• Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL), $1,000

GP: The notes which follow some of the names are just ballpark guesses as to why a particular recipient may have been of interest to the ESA politically.

As to where the money came from, EA CEO John Riccitiello and Sony CEO Jack Tretton each ponied up $5,000, as did the Microsoft Corporation Political Action Committee.

A few weeks back GamePolitics covered the so-called PlayStation War raging in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The issue revolves around Congo's supply of the mineral coltan, used in PlayStation 2's and many other consumer electronic devices.

In the latest development, a press release issued by the Panafrican Press Association charges that U.S. presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama just doesn't get it when it comes to the relationship between coltan and the ongoing conflict in Congo. Claiming that Obama has mistakenly portrayed the strife as ethnic, the PPA writes:

Statements... attributed to Obama, explains in part why there is such silence around the tragic situation in the Congo. The conflict is unfortunately and wrongly presented as ethnic bloodletting. The ethnic rationale... plays into long-held stereotypes that Africans are interminably trapped in "tribal bloodletting," hence, nothing can be done...

 

The central reason for the nearly six million dead in the Congo since 1996 is not "ethnic strife" but rather the scramble for Congo's enormous treasure trove of diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt, coltan, tin, timber and more...

 

Beneficiaries of Congo's resource war include foreign corporations and consumers... Coltan is a key mineral that drives the conflict in the Congo and is found in our cell phones, laptop computers, digital cameras, video game consoles and many other devices. Congo has anywhere from 64% - 80% of the world's reserve of coltan.
 

GP: We were surprised to learn that conservative Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) is taking an active interest in the Congo coltan situation. Indeed, however, Brownback and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced the Conflict Coltan and Casserite Act in the Senate on May 23rd. Of the legislative proposal, Brownback said:

We are witnessing a grave humanitarian crisis in Congo, and we must act now to put an end to the death and suffering. Everyday, Americans use products that have been manufactured using inhumanely mined minerals. The legislation introduced by Senator Durbin and I will bring accountability and transparency to the supply chain of minerals used in the manufacturing of many electronic devices.

Sen. Durbin added:

Without knowing it, tens of millions of people in the United States may be putting money in the pockets of some of the worst human rights violators in the world, simply by using a cell phone or laptop computer. We ought to do all we can to make sure that the products we use and the minerals we import, in no way support those who violate human rights abroad.

Recently, GamePolitics reported that the Massachusetts legislature was mulling the idea of tax incentives for the film and video game industries.

Game developers who were considering a move to Massachusetts based on that news may want to re-think their position, however.

The Boston Globe reports that, although the State House approved the tax breaks, the head of the State Senate, Sen. Therese Murray (D, at left), has nixed the idea:

Senate President Therese Murray said her chamber had no intention of taking it up before the end of the legislative session next week.

 

"I just don't think it's something that's affordable," Murray said yesterday in an interview. "It's not the top of our agenda."

 

She said lawmakers' time would be better spent on assessing a package controlling healthcare costs, approving bond bills, and reviewing the governor's budgetary vetoes.

Rochester, New York public radio station WXXI reports that a representative of the New York Civil Liberties Union has termed the state's video game bill a "flawed process."

Bob Perry of the NYCLU told WXXI:

This bill was adopted in the last minutes of the legislative session, without hearings, without meaningful debate, without an opportunity for members of the public or industry to address the constitutional issues and the media technology issues implicated by the bill.

NY Metro has additional comments from Perry:

The legislation proposes an ambitious state system regulating the way video games are sold in retail stores and viewed at home based on content that the First Amendment protects from regulation.

Meanwhile, the Empire State News reports that NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman (left) urged that the bill be vetoed:

New Yorkers do not need the state judging which video games are appropriate and which aren’t. Parents, not government committees, should be responsible for making those judgments. If the legislature wants to reduce youth violence, it should fund educational programs to teach students conflict resolution skills.

Bill sponsor Sen. Andrew Lanza (R) countered with:

This [law] does not prohibit the sale of video games based on ... content. This simply requires a labeling. And at the end of the day if a game is rated mature, or violent, this does not preclude or prohibit someone from selling it to a minor. I wish we could do that, but the First Amendment, I believe, protects against that.

Gov. David Paterson must decide by tomorrow whether to sign the bill into law. The measure, which would require that games be rated and console systems have parental controls built in, passed overwhelmingly in the state legislature.

It is unclear whether or not the video game industry will oppose the New York law if the Governor signs it.

The Boston Globe reports that the Massachusetts legislature is considering tax breaks for video game developers - but the proposal is far from a sure thing.

With more than a thousand people employed in the game biz, Massachusetts ranks fifth in the nation (behind California, Washington, Texas and New York). Turbine and Harmonix are among the state's best-known video game companies.

The Globe describes the proposal, which also includes incentives for filmmakers:

The bill would have allowed companies to claim a tax credit for up to 20 percent of the cost of building, converting, or equipping a facility related to "video gaming," as the company invests at least $500,000.

 

It is unclear, though... whether the video game industry incentives will remain part of it. The bill, sponsored by Representative Ronald Mariano, Democrat of Quincy, was approved by the Legislature's Joint Committee on Revenue last month on a 5-to-4 vote...

 

And even if the bill is approved, the video game provision could be missing from the final version.
 

Last week, GamePolitics was the first game-oriented site to report on a New Haven Advocate story detailing Connecticut State Senator Gayle Slossberg's controversial remarks about Grand Theft Auto IV.

The newspaper reported that Sen. Slossberg, a Democrat, was concerned about a possible rape scene in the game and was considering introducing game-oriented legislation in the upcoming session.

The following day, however, Slossberg issued a statement to the effect that her comments were "misrepresented" by the Advocate. 

Despite the Senator's protestations, the paper is standing by its story. Following an inquiry by GamePolitics, we received the Advocate's statement a short time ago:

The Advocate defends its reporting on this story. Sen. Slossberg was clearly speaking about stricter video game labeling in her capacity as a lawmaker, rather than as a mother or a private citizen. Also, our story said nothing about the senator wanting to restrict video game content, only video game labeling.

 

While we are sympathetic to the senator's concerns, there is no privacy protection for public speech. It is misguided to assume a conversation between an influential state senator and a reporter, or reporters, occurring in a public place, is off-the-record. The Advocate is happy to talk on background, if it's requested. In this case, it was not.

Connecticut State Senator Gayle Slossberg (D) is eager to do something about the rape scene in Grand Theft Auto IV, she told the New Haven Advocate.

But she faces a major hurdle: There is no rape scene in the controversial game.

From the newspaper story:

[Sen. Slossberg] wants confirmation of the rumored rape scene in Grand Theft Auto IV—but she can't reach that level of the game. The Milford state senator's never played GTA, but she fears it's corrupting the youth and thinks a law requiring better warning labels might be the fix. She told the Nose as much at a Capitol press conference last week...

 

Slossberg hints she'll... introduce legislation next session calling for clearer labeling of depraved video games like Grand Theft Auto...  Slossberg's a bit unsure of how the warning labels might read: "I mean what would it say? 'This game will make you a sociopath'?"