ESA gives gamers voice

New Web site helps consumers respond to pending legislation

By Paul Sweeting -- Video Business, 3/14/2006

MARCH 14 | WASHINGTON—With pressure from lawmakers mounting on the videogame industry, the Entertainment Software Assn. is organizing gamers to push back.

On Monday, the trade group launched the Video Game Voters Network to give gamers concerned about possible government regulation a platform to make their concerns known.

The new group’s Web site, www.videogamevoters.org, features a “legislative watch” list of game-related bills currently pending at the state and federal levels and provides an automated process for consumers to contact their elected representatives.

ESA plans to promote the network through game-oriented Web sites, targeted mailings and other outreach efforts.

“We’ve watched over the last couple of years as the industry has become a target of political opportunity,” ESA president Doug Lowenstein said. “We’ve heard anecdotally from thousands of gamers who would like their voices to be heard on these issues, so we decided to give them an outlet.”

The group’s Web site currently highlights the federal Family Entertainment Protection Act (FEPA), as well as state laws pending in Michigan, California and Illinois.

The proposed federal law, introduced earlier this year by Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), would make it illegal to sell or rent M-rated games to minors, would authorize a government-funded independent analysis of the videogame ratings system and allow consumers to file complaints against the ratings system with the Federal Trade Commission.

“For a lot of Democrats, I think they’ve concluded that attacking videogames is a politically easy way to identify with parents who are concerned about raising their kids in a healthy and safe environment,” Lowenstein said. “I think those are fair things to be concerned about, but it becomes less intellectually honest when you do that and ignore everything else in the culture that’s tinged with violence.”

Although Congress has yet to act on FEPA, Clinton and Lieberman, along with Sens. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) earlier this month persuaded the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to push through a measure authorizing the Centers For Disease Control & Prevention to conduct a detailed study of the “impact of electronic media use” on children.

Although the bill does not single out games, its backers have all been prominent critics of the game industry.

More than two dozen states currently have game-related bills pending, according to Lowenstein, most involving variations on restricting sales to minors.

“I think there’s a lot of elected officials out there who think that all gamers are 14-year-old kids,” Lowenstein said. “But a lot of the people who play games are voters; they’re constituents. And their representatives should hear from them on issues that concern them.”