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Category: Politics and Law

Oklahoma’s Congressmen Join Chorus Blaming Games For Mass Shootings

Represenatives Russell and Mullin Of OklahomaIt seems like it has been years since video games have been blamed for violence and tragedies. Since the 90s, video games had been under fire for causing youth violence. This swelling of outrage became a tumult after Columbine and continued to rise each time a major shooting involving a youth happened after that. Laws had been passed trying to ban the sale of violent games to minors in several states and each of those laws had been struck down by the courts, ending with the US Supreme Court ruling that video games are protected speech and can’t be regulated in such a manner.

There were plenty of good things to come from all this commotion though. The ESRB rating system was a direct result of this outrage and has been used effectively for years by console manufacturers to give parents control over what games their children can play. It resulted in video game retailers denying the sale of M rated games to minors nearly 90% of the time, even while movie theaters and movie retailers retained a terrible track record for R rated movies.

After the Supreme Court weighed in on the issue, it had seemed that things were pretty settled. Only the very fringes of policy wonks would blame games after a tragedy since then. That is until the Parkland, Florida shooting. It isn’t clear what made this particular tragedy different from those that came before it, but it sparked an outcry of blame against violent movies and games. Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin blames violence in movies and games for school shootings. Kentucky suffered its own school shooting in January. In Rhode Island, State Representative Nardolillo plans to introduce a bill to tax M rated games an additional 10% to fund mental health programs in schools. Even President Donald Trump called out violence in games and movies calling for a “rating system for that.”

Not to be left out of the headlines, even Oklahoma’s congressmen are weighing in and blaming games for this violence. NewsOK is reporting that Representatives Mullin and Russell have both put the blame on video games for the recent tragedies.

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Senator Coburn Targets Games Among Other Programs In His Wastebook 2013 Report

Oklahoma Senator Tom CoburnOriginally published on Game Politics.

Every year, Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma publishes a list of government programs which he feels wastes tax payer money and government resources called the Wastebook. While he tops the list of wasted tax payer money with a jab at Congress itself, it is when you get into the rest of the document that you find some rather interesting spending programs. In his opening statement to the report, Coburn writes:

Confronted with self-imposed budget cuts necessary to trim years of trillion dollar shortfalls, Washington protested that it could not live within its means. It attempted to take hostage the symbols of America to exact ransom from taxpayers. Public tours of the White House were canceled and Medicare payments for seniors’ health care were cut.

While the President and his cabinet issued dire warnings about the cataclysmic impacts of sequestration, taxpayers were not alerted to all the waste being spared from the budget axe.

Many of these are your typical government waste, such as bridges to nowhere, duplicated programs and agencies, or unused buildings which cost money to maintain. Yet, he highlights many other programs that many taxpayers may not be aware of even in a general sense. Some of these include funding for video games.

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Senator Coburn Responds To Our Letter

Oklahoma Senator Tom CoburnEarlier this year, Senator Coburn signed on as a cosponsor to legislation that would require the National Academy of Sciences to perform studies into the connection between violent games and violent actions. In response to this bill and our concerns over its implementation and potential ramifications on our industry, we sent a letter to Senator Coburn.

In that letter, we expressed concern over the bill’s primary sponsor Senator Rockefeller and over Senator Coburn’s involvement when he has clearly been against studies of similar nature in the past.

After nearly 3 months, we have finally received a response from Senator Coburn. (posted below) It certainly isn’t the response we may have wanted, but it isn’t an unexpected response. Few politicians will back out of their support for legislation once they become a full cosponsor of it.

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Casino RPG Trailer Blocked On YouTube Due To Vague ToS Violation

Casino RPG Trailer Removed Due To ToS ViolationGold Fire Studios recently learned that its latest gameplay trailer for Casino RPG has been hit with a terms of service violation and has been removed from their channel. This was the trailer produced for the recent public beta launch of the game.

In the email received by Goldfire CEO James Simpson, YouTube claims a generic “copyright violation.”

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OK AG Scott Pruitt Goes After Google For Illegal YouTube Videos

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has made an interesting request for Google and its service YouTube. Pruitt, concerned over the presence of illegal content in videos posted to YouTube, has requested that Google provide a number of videos the service removed over the last few years due to violations of YouTube’s terms of service as well as an accounting of how much money YouTube has made due to those videos.

In their letter, the attorneys general expressed particular concerns about Google’s practice of advertising with videos produced by “foreign pharmacies that promote the sale of prescription drugs such as OxyContin, Percocet and others without a prescription.”

Videos promoting the sale of counterfeit goods and those that provide step-by-step instructions for making fake ID cards and passports are also of concern to Pruitt and Bruning, according to the letter.

Additionally, Pruitt would like to see more work done to remove the monetization of such videos. However, even by Pruitt’s own admission, this would be difficult.

“We understand that YouTube is an open platform and that not all content can or should be policed,” Pruitt and Bruning wrote in the letter. “Nevertheless, the fact that Google actively seeks to profit from the posting of these types of videos on YouTube — a website known to be particularly popular among children and teens — is very troubling.”

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Oklahoma Game Developer’s Letter To Senator Coburn Sent

Oklahoma Senator Tom CoburnToday, Oklahoma game developers sent its letter to Senator Coburn regarding his co-sponsorship of S. 134 Violent Content Research Act of 2013. This bill if passed would require the National Academy of Sciences to perform studies into the connection between violent games and violent actions. The primary issue with this legislation is that the bill’s sponsor has shown a heavy bias against the games industry which leads us to believe that any studies resulting from this bill could be tainted by his bias.

Senator Coburn has many times come out against the funding for such studies and it is unclear why he would support a bill that could potentially waste tax payer money as well as dilute the valuable research that can be done outside the influence of bias.

The below letter was sent to Senator Coburn as well as members of the media based in Oklahoma and throughout the US.  

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Oklahoma Game Developers’ Letter To Senator Coburn

The following letter is the letter we will be sending to Senator Coburn regarding the recent proposal to study the effect of violent video games on children. If you would like to sign on to this letter, please prove me with your name and your business. Please email me at zachary (at) okgamedev (dot) com if you would like to sign on.

The text of the letter is below along with the names of those who have signed on. I will be making some final edits and sending it out around noon on Monday August 12, 2013. 

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Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn Co-Sponsored Violent Game Research

Oklahoma Senator Tom CoburnYesterday, we alerted everyone to the ECA’s effort to defeat a bill that would approve funding for research into the effect of violent games on those playing them. The ECA cited numerous studies already performed that debunk that theory and exposed a strong potential bias in the bill’s author Senator Rockefeller.

However, new information has popped up that adds a strong incentive for game developers in Oklahoma to fight this bill. It has come to our attention that Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn has signed on as a cosponsor of the bill, S. 134 Violent Content Research Act of 2013.

Why is this important? For one, Senator Coburn is one of Oklahoma’s two US senators. However, there is a more important point that many may have missed. Senator Coburn has for many years railed against wasteful government spending. Since 2010, Senator Coburn has released what he calls his annual “Wastebook” in which he highlights 100 specific areas of Federal Government Spending that could be cut and how much money could be saved. (see Wastebook 2010, Wastebook 2011, Wastebook 2012)

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