Playing The Mines of Moria expansion for The Lord of the Rings Online has prompted a thoughtful article comparing the fictional battle over Middle-Earth territory to modern-day events taking place in the Middle East.

Is Moria the Promised Land? at The Angry Bear begins by outlining the factions fighting over the right to claim residence in Moria; Dwarves, the original occupiers,  Goblins, which moved in following the Dwarves departure and The Morroval, half-women, half-bat creatures.

Author Allen Rausch notes:

… there doesn’t seem to be any common ground between the three factions that could broker any sort of structured solution. It’s an endless cycle of violence where killing begets killing that merely begets more killing.

Hmm, that does sound familiar. Which group would Rausch side with?

In such a case, my sympathies must ultimately lie with the Dwarves not because of what the Morroval or the goblins do to them, but because of what goblins and Morroval do to each other and the kind of culture they create for themselves.

An article on The Escapist traces the origins of the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) from an institution initially created in order to avoid government regulation to where it is today.

While noting that the ESRB has made huge advances in connecting with its primary clientele (parents) and has even won over The National Institute on Media and the Family (NIMF), the article begins to detail “unaddressed challenges” from today’s videogame market that “pose serious threats to the ESRB's newfound relevance.”

Among these challenges is the ESRB’s current disinclination to rate online interactions (i.e. Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB):

The organization is missing out on a great opportunity to provide parents and children with a resource that enables informed choices beyond the enforced restriction of filters, a noble cause given that children play more online games than any other format.

A shift from brick and mortar retail outlets to digital distribution also poses “an immediate threat to ESRB compliance rates” says the piece’s author, Sara Grimes, who worries that this means that “the ESRB must rely on console manufacturers and mobile service providers to act as the system's new wardens.”

In summation, Grimes writes that “it’s almost as if the Board is orchestrating its own obsolescence.” She continued:

It's abstaining from involvement in significant game trends, failing to provide guidance where it is arguably needed most and handing over key governance responsibilities to certain members of the game industry while leaving others to fend for themselves.

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.

At least partly in response to a story on game addiction that ran on GP last week, author Neils Clark has written a piece that looks at fluff addiction stories.

Using his blog to examine the original article GP covered, a Green Pixels story on game addiction by Nicole Tanner, Clark offers up a nifty Top 10 list of gaming addiction issues brought up in Green Pixels’ original article.

The first issue Clark’s article—Big Trouble in Little Articles: Ten Game Addiction Fallacies—takes on is “Games Aren’t Drugs. While noting that drug analogies are inappropriate for videogames, Clark states:

While behavioral triggers don’t magically transfigure a game into an ingested substance, not all cravings, or even addictions, rely on ingested substances. So while straight drug analogies commit a logical fallacy, so also do presumptions that since games aren’t drugs, they cannot be the basis of an addiction.

Clark is the co-author of the book Game Addiction: The Experience and the Effects.

We’ve heard video games blamed for a lot of crazy things over the years but the “death of our planet”? 

Well, that’s a new one.

Yoshiyuki Tomino (left), creator of the long-running Mobile Suit Gundam series, delivered the keynote at Japan’s CEDEC 2009 game developers’ conference and offered a rather strong negative opinion on the subject of video games and how they affect our lives.

I think that video games are evil.  [Gaming] is not a type of activity that provides any support to our daily lives, and all these consoles are just consuming electricity! Let's say we have about three billion people on this planet wasting their time, bringing no productivity at all. Add 10 billion more people, and what would happen to our planet? Video games are assisting the death of our planet!

Those are some pretty surprising comments coming from a man whose franchise has spawned more than 100 video games over the last couple decades. Tomino, who thinks nothing’s bested Tetris since it came out over 20 years ago, offered the attending developers advice on how to proceed from here on out.

You have to find the median -- that games are not evil, perhaps not necessarily good either, but something that can be considered a pastime…

 

This is what I want to tell you: I want you to create a game that does not negatively affect our daily lives and is something that is considered more productive.

AE:  I can’t help but imagine a slack-jawed look of disbelief from the game developers in attendance.

Via: Gamasutra

-Reporting from San Diego, GamePolitics Senior Correspondent Andrew Eisen…

Xbox 360 maker Microsoft is playing defense against a lawsuit filed in a Wisconsin court by a disgruntled gamer who claims that his console scratched game discs.

The Madison Record reports that plaintiff Jason Johnson's suit is proceeding after Madison County Circuit Judge Daniel Stack denied Microsoft's motion to dismiss the case. Although Judge Stack threw out two counts, he ruled that two others may proceed. Johnson is seeking $50,000 plus costs. From the newspaper:

Johnson is suing the company for alleged defects in its X-Box 360 video game console. Johnson alleges the company sold the product knowing it scratched video games and made them unplayable...

 

Johnson is seeking damages from the Washington-based company's alleged violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, negligence, breach of implied warranty and strict product liability.

According to the newspaper account, Microsoft's attorney argued that the suit should be dismissed because Johnson didn't personally buy his 360; the system was a gift from his wife. That's a pretty silly argument and Judge Stack apparently thought so too.

Take-Two Interactive announced yesterday that it has reached a $20 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit filed over the 2005 Hot Coffee scandal.

Although T2's press release is regrettably light on details, securities are mentioned, indicating that  this case is related to loss of equity value caused by Hot Coffee and its fallout.

Venture Beat has dug up a link to the complaint, Feninger vs. Take-Two. Kotaku offers an explanation of the details:

The nut of the allegations contained in the 34-page suit, is that Take-Two was spending more than it was bringing in and couldn't survive until the next Grand Theft Auto. So, the suit alleges, the company pushed Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas out the door knowing that there was pornographic material in the game because delays would have cost the company too much. If the material was known to be in the, the suit continues, major retailers wouldn't have sold it.

The outcome, according to the suit, was inflated stock prices based on bad or uninformed information from the company and a plunge in stock values when the truth came out.

The suit also alleges that Take-Two lied about the included sex scenes, nicknamed Hot Coffee, when they first came to light, with the company the scenes were "the work of a determined group of hackers who have gone to significant trouble to alter scenes.'"

GP: We should point out that, as the record shows, the notion that Take-Two lied about the origin of the Hot Coffee scenes is a fact, not merely an allegation. In one the sleaziest moves ever seen in the game biz, Take-Two tried to pin the rap for the hidden sex scenes on its biggest fans, the GTA mod community. To be fair, there was a different management team in place back then.

Outspoken God of War designer David Jaffe posted a video rant against used game sales on Saturday, but apparently removed it from YouTube the following day.

We caught up to Jaffe's video yesterday morning while scanning our daily RSS intake (left). By late afternoon when we checked back to gather some quotes for this article, it was gone. In its place was a YouTube message reading, "This video has been removed by the user."

A short time later, when we looked again, we couldn't even access his blog. A system message from Blogger read: "This blog is open to invited readers only."

It's unclear why Jaffe's video was taken offline or why he locked his blog. While Jaffe's video argument against used game sales was punctuated by occasional f-bombs, that's not unusual for his freewheeling commentaries. Prior to being locked, readers of Jaffe's blog were engaged in a lively response to his video, both pro and con.

The used game issue is a passionate one indeed, and Jaffe has addressed it previously on his blog. For his part, Jaffe takes the standard industry line that games are bad for developers and publishers. In the deleted video, he said (we're paraphrasing from memory here) that he didn't begrudge consumers the right to buy used games, but that game creators deserved a cut of used game sales. He said that some have defended used game sales by comparing buying a used game to buying a used car. However, Jaffe said that was a bad analogy because while playing a used game is the same experience as playing a new game, driving a used car is a different experience from driving a new one.

GP: Hmmm... We tried to reach Jaffe via Twitter to ask him about the missing video, but it appears that his Twitter account is no longer active. We hope that Jaffe has not decided to stop interacting with gamers. While we don't always agree with his rants, they are provocative and entertaining.

The debate over graphic Japanese sex games such as the disgusting and controversial RapeLay continues with word that the United Nations is stepping in.

At a meeting earlier this month, the U.N.'s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women called for a ban on explicit video games and anime. As reported by Anime News Network, the committee urged Japan to ban "the sale of video games or cartoons involving rape and sexual violence against women which normalize and promote sexual violence against women and girls."

The committee also expressed concern "at the normalization of sexual violence in the State party as reflected by the prevalence of pornographic video games and cartoons featuring rape, gang rape, stalking and the sexual molestation of woman and girls."

Via: Kotaku

Recently, GamePolitics reported on a million dollar Ebay listing for an Xbox 360 supposedly autographed by former Alasksa Governor Sarah Palin.

Canadian David Morrill told the Anchorage Daily News that he obtained the signature from Palin at a picnic event earlier in the summer. The auction was quickly removed by Ebay, however, with no explanation forthcoming.

Not long after, a second auction which advertised a "replica" of the original Palin 360 appeared. That listing, clearly a parody, also has been removed.

Now, David Sheets, who blogs about games for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has a theory as to why the original listing was taken down. Sheets believes that Palin's first name is misspelled:

Game Guy thinks he knows why the bid was yanked. If you look closely at the signature, former Gov. Palin’s first name appears to lack the final “h.” Last he heard, she spelled her first name “Sarah,” not “Sara.” Even Alaska’s official website spells it with an “h.”

And hey, you can’t ask for a cool $1.1 million for a signed Xbox if the signee can’t spell her name correctly.

GP: I'm no handwriting expert, but I'm not so sure that I buy into Sheets's theory. For one thing, the ex-Guv's purported autograph tails off after the "r" in "Sarah," as if she (or whoever wrote it) was signing hastily. So the missing "h" is not all that farfetched. Beyond that, the authenticity of high-priced autographs is always an issue, which may have prompted the Ebay removal.

Video game publisher SouthPeak Interactive announced late yesterday that former Take-Two CEO Paul Eibeler (left) is joining its board of directors.

Judging from the language of its press release, SouthPeak appears to regard the addition of Eibeler, named Worst CEO of 2005 by MarketWatch, as good news:

“As one of the most respected executives in the interactive games industry, we welcome Paul to the Board of Directors,” said Terry Phillips, Chairman of SouthPeak. “His depth of experience will certainly be an asset to SouthPeak growth as a major publisher.”

Paul Eibeler is best known for his leadership at Take-Two Interactive...

Eibeler is indeed best known for his days at Take-Two. It was under his watch that the Hot Coffee scandal rocked the video game industry, with the Grand Theft Auto publisher inexcusably blaming the now well-known sex scenes on the GTA mod community before ultimately 'fessing up that it was original content.

Eibeler's reign was also plagued by securities investigations which led to charges against several past employees (although not against Eibeler). The former CEO was ousted by a 2007 shareholder revolt led by current T2 chairman Strauss Zelnick. Eibeler exited with a $2.5 million golden parachute.

Entertainment Consumers Association president Hal Halpin debuts a new column for Industry Gamers with a look at negative stereotypes of gamers and how such prejudice can be addressed.

Halpin writes:

Combating the negative stereotypes the gaming industry and gamers themselves face is becoming a daunting task. We’ve allowed people to equate gaming with everything from laziness to isolationism and antisocial behavior, when so clearly it’s the opposite.

 

Because we’ve permitted everyone from anti-games advocates (disbarred attorneys included) to the President of the United States of America to perpetuate those fallacies and said and done nothing, we need to take ownership of at least part of that blame; until and unless we speak up and do something about it. It’s time.

FULL DISCLOSURE DEPT: The ECA is the parent company of GamePolitics.

Over at GameTopius, paralegal-in-training Nikhil Baliga (who also has degrees in Political Science and Psychology) serves up a look at First Amendment issues as they relate to games.

While Baliga does a nice job of tracing some of the major case law, the article's main points could be stated with more clarity. This paragraph, for example, seems to imply that video games are not necessarily constitutionally-protected speech (they are):

What well intentioned, but usually ill informed, video game advocates often assume is that video games are constitutionally protected free speech. While there can be no doubt that video games are speech, the Supreme Court has stated that not all speech is constitutionally protected.

Later, Baliga explains that this is a reference to video games which might be considered legally obscene under the so-called Miller Test. The fact is, however, that the likelihood of that happening in the U.S. market, given the ESRB rating system, console licensing requirements and screening by major retailers, is roughly nil.

While there could be a non-commercial game or import (say, RapeLay) that might - might - meet the Miller obscenity standard, implying that commercial video games are not protected speech is roughly akin to saying that Hollywood movies aren't necessarily protected speech because there are also kiddie porn films.

Still in all, worth a read.

GP: Readers should note that Baliga is not a lawyer and neither is GP. So, take both opinions with the appropriate grain of salt.

Yesterday, GamePolitics reported that two more former college quarterbacks have sued EA over the alleged inclusion of their likenesses in the best-selling NCAA Football series of games.

Ryan Hart of Rutgers and Troy Taylor of Cal filed their suit in New Jersey Superior Court. In May, former Nebraska QB Sam Keller lodged a similar complaint against EA.

While some observers have ridiculed the athletes' claims, columnist Jon Solomon of AL.com, a website incorporating several Alabama newspapers, believes the allegations have merit:

The NCAA insists that college athletes shouldn't be sales tools... What does that mean? Crossing that line has been awfully blurry, even before the video game lawsuits.

Why do you think fans buy No. 8 Alabama jerseys and No. 15 Florida jerseys? It's no coincidence the punter's jersey number doesn't hang in stores next to those of Julio Jones and Tim Tebow...

There is no question EA Sports identifies individual players. If this were an open-records request by a media outlet, universities would redact every video game player, citing personally identifiable information. Funny how that works, isn't it?

All it takes for a major NCAA mess is one sympathetic judge or jury to an athlete's claim of exploitation. Ironically, that forum could come from video games, which are wildly popular with the very college athletes whose identities are being used.

It appears that a much-anticipated Independence Day debate between Jack Thompson and gamer/lawyer Mark Methenitis is off. (GP: however, see updates below)

Back in April Mark Methenitis announced that he would debate Thompson on July 4th at the ScrewAttack Gaming Convention in Dallas. In fact, Methenitis posted a reminder about the debate just yesterday on his excellent Law of the Game blog.

But an angry e-mail received a short time ago from Thompson indicates that he will not appear. The disbarred attorney was apparently upset by an event organizer's request for a two-line bio as well as a parody video (screen shot at left) posted on the Screw Attack website by a user. Here's a just-received e-mail from Thompson to Methenitis:

Mark, the goofs at ScrewAttack have managed to sabotage my debate with you this Saturday... Don't blame me.  I wanted to do  the debate. I would have used the $2000 to help me in bringing down The Florida Bar...

Here's a second e-mail from Thompson to a number of individuals at ScrewAttack:

Yesterday, I get an email... that I either I submit a "1 or 2 sentence" introduction of myself, or I won't be introduced.  I have spoken and debated on more than 200 college campuses, and I have never been introduced with 1 or 2 sentences.  Nobody can be introduced in that fashion...
 
Finally, I went to your site this morning and I have viewed [a since removed] idiotic [video] clip...  It is a gross misrepresentation... you know full well that the reason I wanted to do this event... [is] to debate the issues of violence in video games... 
 
Finally, how many references to me as a "butt" did you think you had to put into your adolescent video?  You even take a swipe at Christians in the video...
 
All you have managed to do, as related above, is make the event an impossibility.  I expected the event to feature some hostiility [sic]. What I did not expect was that the people putting it on would ratchet it up and in doing so create a security problem...

GamePolitics has a request in to Screw Attack for more information and to see whether, from their perspective, the debate and a planned open forum with Thompson are salvageable. Methenitis is hoping that the event will go forward but referred us to Screw Attack for specifics.

GP: If the SGC 09 debate is canceled, it will not the first time that a proposed debate involving Thompson and the video game crowd has ended in bitterness. See our coverage of similar events proposed for PAX 07 and GDC 08. Thompson did, however, complete a debate with game designer Lorne Lanning at VGXPO 07 in Philadelphia.

That said, it's rather difficult to believe that the debate would be lost over the length of an introduction. As for the Screw Attack user-created video, let's just call it ill-advised and unfunny.

UPDATE: Thompson has confirmed to GamePolitics that he is under contract to appear. An e-mail from Thompson to Methenitis, cc'd to GP, indicates that the debate may yet be salvageable.

UPDATE 2: Thompson has forwarded a copy of a conciliatory e-mail from Screw Attack which describes the video in question as user-created content; it has apparently been removed. Thompson, however, continues to make demands of the event organizers:

This thing will start to get back on track if the person in charge... makes a very prominent and public statement at ScrewAttack.com and to the media (yes, that even includes GamePolitics, which is run as if it were Strauss Zelnick's house organ) [GP: LOL] stating that ScrewAttack disavows that video, that ScrewAttack KNOWS that the reason Jack Thompson is taking a day out of his life and away from his family is that he cares about the ISSUES in this debate, and that anybody, ANYBODY, who says or does anything out of line at this event will be escorted from the event immediately...

UPDATE 3: Stop the presses! The debate is not canceled, at least not yet. Thompson and the Screw Attack crew have scheduled a conference call for tomorrow to - hopefully - sort out their issues.

For nearly a year GamePolitics has been tracking ATCA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

As we have reported, ACTA deals in large part with copyright issues and is being negotiated in secret by the U.S., Japan, Canada, the EU and other nations. Details of ACTA are largely a mystery to consumers despite the fact that dozens of corporate lobbyists have been clued in to parts of the treaty, including Stevan Mitchell, VP of IP Policy for game publishers trade group the Entertainment Software Association.

Sadly, consumer interests suffered a major blow last week as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge dropped a federal lawsuit seeking to cast a little sunshine on the ACTA negotiations. The EFF explained that a recent decision by the Obama Administration to claim a national security exemption for the ACTA talks made the lawsuit unwinnable; federal judges have  little leeway to overrule such claims. The move by the Obama White House extends a similar policy put in place by the Bush Administration.

Public Knowledge Deputy Legal Director Sherwin Siy commented on the decision:

Even though we have reluctantly dropped this lawsuit, we will continue to press the U.S. Trade Representative and the Obama Administration on the ACTA issues. The issues are too far-reaching and too important to allow this important agreement to be negotiated behind closed doors.

The worry, of course, is that the United States will emerge from ACTA with a done deal that favors Big IP in the fashion of the consumer-unfriendly DMCA. Hal Halpin, president of the Entertainment Consumers Association, expressed concerns about ACTA earlier this year:

Because ECA supports the balance that must exist between the rights of copyright owners and the right of copyrighted material consumers, we do not think it wise to include any portions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) currently being discussed...    

We are concerned that any DMCA language in ACTA may cause enormous, unforeseen negative implications in US law...

GP: As GamePolitics mentioned above, video game publishers lobbying group the ESA is privy to at least a portion of the secret ACTA negotiations while its industry's customers - video game consumers - are barred from knowing anything at all.

That makes us wonder - will the Video Game Voters Network, which is owned and operated by the ESA, commence a letter-writing campaign on behalf of its gamer-members demanding that the White House pull the curtain back on ACTA?

Somehow we doubt it.

FULL DISCLOSURE DEPT: The Entertainment Consumers Association is the parent company of GamePolitics.

Portions Via: /.

Gov. Mark Sanford went missing recently, apparently of his own accord. And while his South Carolina political colleagues expressed concern over who was minding the state during Sanford's absence, God of War series designer David Jaffe weighed in with a brief criticism of the Guv's disappearing act on Twitter.

Jaffe, who lives in California, often seasons his tweets with profanity. He commented on Sanford's AWOL status yesterday afternoon:

If UR a governor and U just kind of take off for a few days and no one knows where then u prob. should not be the f***ing governor.

Twitter users can follow the outspoken GoW creator at @djaffe on Twitter. As for Sanford, news reports say that he will be back in the office today.

The embers of the RapeLay controversy were stirred a bit yesterday with a report that the game - and others of its ilk - had been banned in Japan. Not by the government, mind you, but by an industry standards organization.

As it turned out, the report was false, but it prompted a great deal of hand-wringing about Japanese censorship. And yet, RapeLay is already banned - in advance - in the United States by an industry standards organization: the ESRB. Again, it's not a government ban, but it is a de facto ban.

Think about it. Video game retailers won't carry unrated games, which would require RapeLay's publisher to submit the software to the ESRB for a rating. Given its digusting subject matter, RapeLay would certainly be tagged with the quickest AO (adults only) rating ever issued by the ESRB. If you think back to the 2007 Manhunt 2 situation, you'll recall that major retailers won't carry AO-rated games and console manufacturers won't license them. That last bit wouldn't be a problem for RapeLay, of course, since it's a PC game.

Yes, the game could still be sold online by independents. Even governments have a hard time stopping that. But the AO rating is retail death and everyone in the video game business understands that. No publisher would waste their time and money submitting a RapeLay to the ESRB, which is why I maintain that such games are banned in advance. I don't have a problem with any of this, by the way. It's how the system was designed to work. True, there are occasional calls for a marketable AO rating. But the ESRB would probably need to create an XXX rating to accomodate games like RapeLay if AO ever became acceptable to Wal-Mart and GameStop.

And while RapeLay's developers are within their rights to create a game based upon sexual violence and pedophilia, retailers are certainly within theirs not to carry the game. Women's groups are free to protest its messages. And the rest of us are free to be creeped out by RapeLay.

The Army's use of video games to promote recruitment has been a source of controversy in recent times. Most recently, GamePolitics reported on a large-scale protest march at the Army Experience Center, located at a Philadelphia mall.

Taking the opposing view ot that of the protesters, attorney Christine Flowers defends the AEC in a Memorial Day weekend column for the Philadelphia Daily News:

A few [military] vets have been on the front lines in targeting the Army Experience Center... AEC incorporates high-tech virtual experiences, more traditional media and one-on-one interaction to reach young men and women who might be considering a life in the service...

According to Maj. Larry Dillard, the center's program manager, the fundamental purpose is to give young people a more realistic and authentic idea of what it means to be a soldier in the 21st century. "The virtual experience allows for transparency, and is more effective in communicating our message than still photos or written materials."...

WHAT'S SO insidious?...

It is only because of [our military personnel's] sacrifices that the protesters have the right to raise their voices. It is only because of their willingness to believe in something greater than themselves, a collective sense of duty and obligation, that we have a country where dissent is privileged.

GamePolitics came in for a bit of journalistic criticism the other day from Destructoid.

In a critique on game blog content, editor Jim Sterling writes:

One of the main arguments here is that we bloggers serve only to perpetuate the "games cause violence" mentality already held by many anti-videogame lobbyists out there... sometimes blogs go out of their way to essentially do FOX News' job for it, making their own weak videogame connections so that the mainstream press doesn't have to.

 

GamePolitics is guilty of this on a number of occasions... One example is GP's "16-Year Old GTA IV Gamer Charged with Grisly S&M Murder of NYC Newsman" article. The story is that an emotionally disturbed individual responded to a dirty sex ad and killed a man. GP, however, does what a sensationalist news channel would do and focuses squarely on the unrelated and minor fact that he liked videogames. The original news post that he sources only briefly lists games among the killer's hobbies -- it does not blame games, nor have games been implicated in any way. GP made that implication, and helped perpetuate it, without any input from other media.

Jim is referring to this GP story from March 25th. George Weber, a radio reporter from New York, was allegedly murdering by John Katehis, a dysfunctional 16-year-old whom the 47-year-old Weber solicited via Craigslist for a sleazy drugs-and-rough-sex encounter that went badly awry.

I should point out that GamePolitics is far more involved with issues of video games and violence than most blogs because that supposed connection drives much of the political debate around games. That being the case, whenever there is a violent incident and games come in for a mention, we report it.

In the case at hand, GP didn't invent the fact that the accused is a 16-year-old fan of violent video games. That information was reported by the mainstream media. I did do some extra digging - which I see as my job as a journalist - and found additional details on Katehis, including a picture of him holding up his copy of GTA IV.

Nowhere in the story do I write that GTA or any other game motivated the brutal murder. Nor did I, as Sterling writes, "focus squarely on the unrelated and minor fact that [Katehis] liked video games." Is the video game angle front and center in the story? Of course. If Katehis was not a gamer there would be no reason to mention the story on GamePolitics. But we also cited Katehis's MySpace profile which seems to illustrate that he has other issues: 

I enjoy long conversations, drinking, bike riding, hanging out, roof hopping, hanging off trains, any type of Parkour exercise. Extreme violence (chaos, anarchy, etc.) Video Games, Violent Movies and listening to my ipod... I like to do crazy and wild things. I am like an adrenaline junkie. I'm a big risk taker and like to live life on the edge...

The story concludes with my comment: 

There are just so many dysfunctional pieces to this story, but video games will certainly be blamed in some quarters.

That line goes a long way to explaining this article and others like it. Whatever role you or I may think violent games played in the crime, there are others who will make such linkage. I prefer to get out in front and report the facts, not chase them later. And while the crime itself is lurid and sensational, GP's coverage was strictly factual.

Perhaps Sterling's criticism highlights an essential difference between GamePolitics and some other game news outlets. Here, my first commitment is to reporting the story, wherever it leads. I do not see my role as either promoting video games or shielding them from potentially bad news. That said, I enjoy Destructoid and have great respect for Jim Sterling. This response is not written in anger, but in the hope that it will spark debate on the topic.

Back atcha, Jim.

UPDATE: This must be "I love GamePolitics, but..." Day