I had a post in mind that I wanted to write tonight, but I’m changing it because I just found out that Ben Paddon is ending his GameJournos (AKA GJAIF, or “Game Journalists are Incompetent Fuckwits”) blog after two years, and that saddens me.

I don’t remember when I first heard about GameJournos but I know I’ve been following it loyally since I first discovered it. Despite my desires to enter the field, I’ve felt for a while that the majority of the game journalism universe is fundamentally broken (luckily I’ve made several friends and written for places that buck this trend!), and Ben Paddon has been there pointing out when game journalists screw up.

Whether it’s a writer making an error that a simple Google search would have prevented or Kotaku posting their seven millionth article that has nothing to do with games but is CONTROVERSIAL and will get them hits as people come to complain about it, Ben has been there to hit them with a rolled-up newspaper and say “NO! Bad journalist. Don’t do that anymore!”

As a writer, Ben is what I try to be and what real game journalists SHOULD aspire to be: an honest writer who writes about video games because he CARES.

While I’m sad to see GameJournos shut down, I’m glad that Ben is still staying active, especially since there’s going to be more PortsCenter episodes soon. Seriously, if you guys haven’t watched the pilot yet, do yourself a favor. I went out and bought the PS1 version of Doom because of that episode (long box version, too!) and I couldn’t be happier with the purchase.

See? Ben is providing USEFUL SERVICES to gamers. Someone give this man a medal.

I don’t really know how to end this other than to say thank you, Ben. It’s been a fun ride and we all appreciate your efforts. NOW MAKE MORE PORTSCENTER.

(Note: I originally published this article on Bits ‘n’ Bytes Gaming on February 17, 2011.)

Back in my hometown in California, I had a job at GameStop. It was one of the good ones, though, with a helpful staff, a fun manager, and good customers. My good friend Tim and I used to even hang out there when we weren’t working and just talk games. He even introduced a concept to me that I thought was awesome and worth sharing: The “Unicorn Game”.

The Unicorn Game isn’t a game with literal unicorns, mind you. What the Unicorn Game is, according to the wise master Tim, is a game that is so rare and sought after but rarely seen. You know, like a mythical creature.

I was introduced to this concept by Tim who was telling me about his Unicorn Game, Valkyrie Profile for the PlayStation. He had been looking for it for years, but everywhere he looked it was far too expensive and usually incomplete. eBay was even more ridiculous, with most auctions weighing in at over $100.

That’s the thing with Unicorn Games, though. You can always find them on eBay, but usually at inflated prices. To truly hunt your elusive Unicorn Game, you need to scour used game shops, garage sales and the homes of relatives.

One of the great things about working at the store that I did was that our manager was awesome and let us do a few things that she technically wasn’t supposed to. One of those things was when people would bring games in for systems that we no longer sold, we were allowed to buy them for ourselves with money out of our own pocket.

One Sunday Tim and I were working and a guy comes in with a shoebox of games to trade. The guy was obviously a “Madden gamer” and most of the trades that he had were just obsolete versions of various sports games. There were a few PlayStation and Nintendo 64 games mixed in as well.

As Tim processed his trade, I sifted through what we didn’t take to see if there was anything that struck my fancy. Underneath a copy of Madden 97 that wasn’t even in its original case, I found something very notable. I swear the “get item” noise from Zelda played out loud.

Valkyrie Profile. Complete.

It was time for me to be the gamer equivalent of a wingman.

I kicked Tim behind the counter to get his attention. “Hey man, I’ll give you $5 for this,” I said, testing to see if he even knew how much it was worth.

“Sure,” he said, not really paying attention.

We had him on the line. Time to reel it in.

“I’ll give you $10,” Tim piped in.

“Okay, he gets it,” he said, handing the game to Tim and happily pocketing his bounty.

After he left the store, I could swear that I almost saw tears form in the corner of Tim’s eyes. “I have it. I finally have it. For $10. I don’t have to look anymore.”

You see, searching for a Unicorn Game takes a certain mental toughness. You have to be willing to endure disappointments for years as your prey eludes you time and time again. When you get lucky, though, and that long search comes to an end, it makes it all worth it.

We’re all gamers, but some of us are collectors. We hang on to games that we probably won’t ever play again because they remind us of things in our past, or because we like to own all games made by a certain developer, or simply because we want to have a bigger collection than everyone else.

I’ve spent years looking at every hole-in-the-wall used game shop for my two Unicorn Games, Little Samson for the NES and Project Justice for the Sega Dreamcast. The funny thing is, I haven’t played either of them in so long I don’t even remember if they’re any good. That’s not what it’s about, though. I know I’ve been looking for them for a long time, and I won’t stop looking until I have them.

For those of you that are collectors, what’s your Unicorn Game? What is that one magnificent, elusive game that you yearn to own?

I posted this on Twitter earlier but I wanted to have it cataloged for all times. When our latest game rental arrived from GameFly today and I opened it up, I was greeted by this Geico ad. I have to say, it’s really cool to see such a big company go out of their way to focus their ads on the demographic they’re hitting.

A couple of weeks ago Destructoid posted a leaked survey that Disney had sent out to get input on Disney Epic Mickey 2. Those surveyed were asked to choose between several cover designs and game subtitles, but the most interesting part of the survey was the information that the game would not only be released for Wii, but for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as well.

I’m not a console fanboy (I have my preferences but I own and enjoy all three systems) but it was disappointing to see such an important Wii exclusive game have its sequel go multiplatform.

Of course it’s good that the game is being made available to a wider audience (not that I think there were many, if any people who wanted to play Disney Epic Mickey and didn’t have a Wii), but it’s a shame that Disney felt that the series couldn’t prosper as a Wii (or Wii U) exclusive.

A similar thing happened not long ago with the NBA Jam reboot (sidenote: I accidentally typed that as “NBA Ham” and considered leaving it because I thought it was hilarious) where it was revealed and hyped up as a Wii exclusive game, then at the last minute it was announced it would be bundled with 360 and PS3 versions of NBA Elite 11, then finally when that game was cancelled it was released as its own standalone title.

Disney Epic Mickey (and NBA Jam until it came out) were such important games for the Wii that it was just a shame to see that feather taken out of Nintendo’s cap. The common belief is that only Nintendo games sell on Nintendo consoles, but when nothing’s coming out that’s exclusive, what else do you expect to happen?

Although I stuck to my guns and bought NBA Jam for Wii (forsaking HD graphics, online play and Achievements to stay true to my morals!) I don’t know if I can do that for Disney Epic Mickey 2, which makes me part of the problem. I just started a playthrough of the first game yesterday (as I didn’t finish it before and it’s on my backlog list) and I love it; the atmosphere is perfect. It’s got that Disney “pull” that just totally ensnares me, but I’d love to see all these gorgeous environments in 1080p. Does that make me a hypocrite? Probably. The game would also benefit from dual analog control, because using the Wiimote d-pad to control the camera is an exercise in frustration.

At the end of the day, these games going multiplatform is great for everyone and really only hurts Nintendo. In an age where console exclusive games are an endangered species, however, it’s kind of a shame to see the really good ones lose that distinction.

So Activision is holding a Call of Duty convention this September, a festival to the cultural phenomenon that is Call of Duty. Call of Duty XP, as they’re calling it, is an opportunity for douchebags I MEAN CALL OF DUTY FANS to get together and… I dunno, talk about Call of Duty, I guess. They get to play Modern Warfare 3 early, and they’re building a life-size replica of one of the multiplayer maps, but whatever else they’re going to do is beyond me.

This got me thinking, though: how rad would it be if other companies jumped on the bandwagon and started holding their own conventions? These are just a few of my ideas on how they’d go down.

Capcon – Presented by Capcom

A celebration of all things Capcom! Come on down to immerse yourself in Capcom’s rich franchises like Resident Evil, Street Fighter, Devil May Cry, and Mega Man! Actually, no. Mega Man won’t be there. It’s all the fan’s fault, too. Did you buy your $250 tickets specifically for the Mega Man content? Sucks for you. You should have been more interested.

The whole thing will blow in Capcom’s face when two months after you buy tickets they announce ANOTHER convention to be held several months after, this time with even more guests and events than the first one. They could just have easily added them all to the first convention, but hey, it’s easier to just have another one. Already planned to go to the first one and don’t want to buy another ticket to the second? Have fun playing by yourself.

Street Fighter Expo

Street Fighter is one of Capcom’s staple franchises so of course it’d get a convention all to itself. You’d arrive ready to check out all kinds of great Street Fighter cosplay but everyone just shows up dressed as Ken.

Super Smash Bros. The Experience

No guests, no vendors, no panels, Final Destination.

Final Fantasycon

Of course Square-Enix has to get in on this action and you’d have a good time there until you realized the cute girl you’d been chatting up for fifteen minutes is actually a dude. You’d have the smug assholes who think they’re the first ones to make the joke “FINAL Fantasy? Then why are there fourteen of them DURR HURR” and of course no one running the event would actually say anything meaningful to you, it’d all be a bunch of pseudo-psychobabble and everything would be inferred by subtext alone.

The panels wouldn’t really be much fun either. Imagine having to sit through “Hero Talk: How Being a Hero Helps Me Be a Hero and How Doing Heroic Things Can Make You a Hero” hosted by Snow Villiers or “How to Cope With Loss” by Hope Estheim. There would be a whole lecture on knife safety by Aerith Gainsborough and Barrett Wallace would host a panel on racial sensitivity. You wouldn’t want to miss “How to Party With Three Chicks” by Bartz Klauser, though.

The whole thing would go south when Kefka poisons the convention center’s water supply.

EarthBound FanFest

Attendees would have the time of their lives but Nintendo wouldn’t make enough back on ticket sales to justify overspending on their marketing budget and they’d never mention it again.

(Note: I originally published this article on Bits ‘n’ Bytes Gaming on May 17, 2011.)

Are you geeky enough to put your nerd cred on the line?

Social media and an increasingly competitive gaming atmosphere have swirled together to make talking smack and one-upping your friends an effortless endeavor. Thanks to Xbox Software Development Engineer in Test Laura Massey, you now have a chance to prove who among your friends is the biggest nerd with Nerd Trivia, her new Twitter game.

Nerd Trivia is a game played entirely through social media outlet Twitter. The Nerd Trivia bot will tweet a question once an hour (between 10am and 10pm Pacific time) from a variety of geeky topics like video or board games or movies like Jurassic Park and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. If you know the answer, you send a direct message to the host and points are awarded. A leaderboard is updated (which you can access anytime by replying to the Nerd Trivia host with “Leaderboard”) so you can see how you stack up against the rest of the nerds trying to climb their way to the top. Of course, as Laura is from the Xbox team, you can earn achievements for answering certain amounts of questions correctly, earning you bonus points!

Laura was kind enough to take time out of her busy schedule to answer some questions about Nerd Trivia, how it works, and what we can look forward to as the game continues to grow and evolve.

***

BnB: Thanks so much again for taking the time to talk to me about the game. On a personal note, I love what you’ve done with Nerd Trivia… I’m checking Twitter on the hour for new questions, and friends I’ve told about it have really gotten into it too!

LM: I’m glad you’re enjoying it. I had a similar experience with my co-workers; I’m actually surprised how dedicated they are to answering the questions. I even convinced a few of them to sign up for Twitter just to play!

BnB: I was wondering what your inspiration was for Nerd Trivia. It’s been mentioned on the Major Nelson podcast that you like creating puzzles and games, so was this an extension of that? Was basing it on Twitter an attempt to make something that would eventually reach a very wide audience, or was it something that you created with just a small group of people that you knew personally in mind?

LM: My current passion is social gaming, and I’ve wanted to create an innovative social game for a while now. You’re right- I am a big fan of puzzles, games and trivia. I’m a regular at some trivia games in my area; one of my favorites has nerdy subjects like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. I used to Twitter some of the trivia questions I would hear and I would always get tons of immediate responses from my followers (I wouldn’t cheat on the game, I promise!). This gave me the initial idea for Nerd Trivia- a bot that would ask questions and keep score over Twitter that I knew at least my followers would enjoy. I was also inspired by @XboxSupport, which has a Guinness World Record for being the most responsive brand on Twitter. I noticed that people love their responsiveness, so I wanted my bot to similarly provide that nearly instant gratification of an “at” reply. This along with some nods to everyone’s favorite features of Xbox LIVE lead to the Nerd Trivia bot you see today!

BnB: Also, you’ll have to forgive me, for as much of a nerd as I am, I really have NO idea how something like this works… what exactly goes into creating a Twitter bot, and more specifically one that is designed to be a game?

LM: Twitter has a good set of APIs that any application or website like Tweetdeck or the iPhone Twitter app can use, for free, to perform Twitter actions like getting the timeline or updating the status of a user. When making a program to interact with Twitter, I had to understand these APIs and the rules Twitter has put in place to govern their use, which in some cases is quite limiting. Nerd Trivia Bot, which is a console application written in C#, uses these APIs to interact with Twitter through an open source library called Twitterizer. This program runs constantly on my laptop at home and updates @NerdTrivia’s status once an hour with a question and periodically polls Twitter for @NerdTrivia’s direct messages and mentions. The bot stores correct answers, scores and achievements in a SQL database, also running on my laptop. When a player gets the question right, my program picks out a “secondary” (@NerdTrivia1 – 5) Twitter account and updates the status to at-reply that player to reward him points. These secondary accounts are required for the game to stay within Twitter’s update requirements. To make the game fun, I worked to make sure my game mechanics played to Twitter’s strengths and were successful within Twitter’s limits.

BnB: Nerd Trivia is currently equipped with a pretty broad range of questions (I’m personally excited every time there’s a Jurassic Park question!). How do you go about deciding which questions are asked? Is there a possibility of opening the questions up to more aspects of “nerd-dom” like comic books or anime?

LM: Nerd Trivia currently runs in seasons of about 2-3 weeks; Season 4 is running from May 1st – 19th. It currently has 5 categories: Lord of the Rings, Serenity, Jurassic Park, Monty Python & the Holy Grail, Video and Board games. Most of my categories were picked because my friends and I love the movies and were willing to write trivia questions covering them. Some were suggested by participants of the closed beta. I also wanted to try out using Twitpic as a way to ask questions, which lead to the addition of the “Name the board game” questions using the box art of popular and nerdy board games. For future seasons, I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback for other categories to use and I hope to incorporate most of them at some point. Comic book superheroes is a high one on my list.

BnB: Nerd Trivia is currently described as in beta. Are there any improvements that you’re looking to make? Where do you see it going in the future? Do you have an “end goal” in mind with Nerd Trivia, or is it something that’s more of a personal project that has the added bonus of appealing to so many people?

LM: I never really had an end-goal for the project; I mostly wanted to see if I could make a fun game over Twitter while engaging and entertaining my fellow nerds. I’ve been surprised at the reception so far; it’s taken off a bit more than I’ve expected! For next season, I’m planning on smoothing and tweaking the gameplay mechanics a little bit, adding more categories of questions, and changing the operation time to be a little more friendly to European players. Also, www.thinkgeek.com has offered to sponsor a prize for next season, which is very exciting! Eventually I hope to get a website for the project where I can blog about my experiences developing the game, better show game statistics like players scores, achievements and leaderboards, and potentially allow question submissions from the community.

BnB: Laura, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me about Nerd Trivia!

LM: Thanks again!

***

Nerd Trivia can be played by following @NerdTrivia on Twitter, which also has a link to rules and commands. More people are playing every day… how do you stack up against the competition?

http://bnbgaming.com/2011/03/15/pax-east-2011-the-rundown/

Once I’m better I have some PK Bloggin’! exclusive posts I’ve been meaning to write. For now I need to fight off the PAX Pox.

I am going to try, most likely in vain, to use mere mortal words to describe Nintendo’s E3 press conference today.

Ahem.

It was freakin’ awesome.

It was nothing but absolute wonderful news from start to finish, the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles full to the rafters with amazing and exciting announcements. They made Microsoft look like a joke. Well, more than Microsoft did by themselves.

We saw the new Zelda for the Wii, Skyward Sword. Gorgeous, colorful worlds, blending the design of Twilight Princess with the cel-shaded color of Wind Waker. Mario Sports Mix, a compilation of volleyball, hockey, dodgeball and basketball all starring Nintendo’s plumber and his colorful cohorts. Wii Party, which is Mario Party minus Mario plus Miis. The return of Goldeneye. Disney’s Epic Mickey. The irresistibly charming Kirby’s Epic Yarn. Retro studios taking the reigns of Donkey Kong Country Returns.

All amazing games with literally something for everyone. This was before they even whipped out the big enchilada.

The Nintendo 3DS.

What’s it launching with?

A NEW KID ICARUS GAME. OH HELL YEAH.

The 3DS itself looks absolutely slick. The DS Lite and DSi are both great designs for a handheld, and the 3DS manages to look just as good. This time around we have an analog stick, which is a welcome addition. It even has a 3D camera on the outside, allowing you to take a picture of something and immediately view it in 3D on your screen.

Unfortunately, the 3D effect can’t be conveyed through video or pictures, but hands-on reports from the show all confirm that it works, and it works very very well. I can’t wait for the chance to see it hands-on. They didn’t announce a release date, but the document leaked a few months ago said holiday 2010. I doubt it’ll be that early, but I imagine it’s going to be sooner rather than later.

What games have been announced and shown for the 3DS? Metal Gear Solid. Resident Evil. Nintendogs + Cats. Animal Crossing. Mario Kart. PILOTWINGS. A remake of Star Fox 64. Professor Layton. Kingdom Hearts. Many others.

Including a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time!

I am DYING for a 3DS right now. They set out to make it a must-own device and they have succeeded in SPADES.

The entire show was just spectacular. There was nothing that didn’t leave me impressed. This wasn’t like last year where they wasted time having Cammie Dunaway show off James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club for the DS. Oh no. Nintendo was swinging for the fences on this one, and they knocked it out of the park.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword really doesn’t need me to explain much. It’s Zelda, we all know we’re going to love it. The graphics are amazing, though. The thing with Twilight Princess was that it was just too drab, all brown and yellow and gray. They’ve taken the older Link and put him in a colorful world more akin to the Zelda titles of old, and I think it works much better than their previous release. It requires the Wii Motion Plus, which they’re using in very cool ways. Enemies will block your attacks from certain angles and you’ll need to adjust your swings accordingly. Deku Babas will have mouths that open either horizontally or vertically, and you need to slice the direction of their open maw. It all looked well put together and I can’t wait to play it.

Kirby’s Epic Yarn was the surprise of the show for me and honestly it might have been the game that impressed me the most that wasn’t 3D. Kirby, as a yarn outline, jumping around a world made out of cloth and fabric that he can manipulate via zippers and buttons? He can change into things like a car, a UFO, and a giant robot? Yes please.

I was super stoked to see Donkey Kong Country Returns, and even more stoked to hear Retro Studios was behind it. They far exceeded everyone’s expectations with the Metroid Prime series and I expect they’ll do the same with Donkey Kong. The familiar music and sound effects went very well with the updated visuals, and I liked the new team-up moves that DK and Diddy were performing in the trailer.

Really, Nintendo absolutely won E3 this year. Who said they forgot about their core audience? In one E3, we have new Zelda, Donkey Kong, Kirby, Star Fox, and Kid Icarus games, plus a fantastic new piece of hardware. What more can you ask for?

I watched the live stream of Microsoft’s E3 press conference while I was at work today. I felt it was a productive use of my time. Here’s what I thought.

They opened up with a new Call of Duty game, Black Ops. This one is by Treyarch, who are the guys who DIDN’T make Modern Warfare. The first 10 minutes or so of Microsoft’s conference was one of the developers playing the game. He didn’t talk about it, he didn’t narrate, it wasn’t a cutscene… he just played. It was super boring. I was working on reports while that was going on, so all I got was the audio. It sounded just like the other ones.

Then Cliffy B and some other folks came out and gave a demo of Gears of War 3. Don’t ask me why, but the Gears series are really the only shooters that I enjoy. The demo looked pretty intense. There was a lot of color in this one! Instead of just old abandoned buildings, ruined cities and caves, the battle here took place on the outskirts of a jungle. I really dug it. I’m deliberately not paying much attention to Gears of War 3 coverage, because I want to go in to it without a whole lot of expectations, but it looked good.

Xbox spokesman Don Mattrick said that the three biggest properties in gaming were Halo, Gears of War and Call of Duty. I laughed.

They showed some stuff from Halo: Reach. It looked like Halo. That’s good for people who like Halo!

The rest of their conference was all about Kinect, the new name of Project Natal. They showed off how it can be used to manipulate menus, which was kinda neat I guess. It can recognize voice commands as well. Saying “Xbox! Music!” made it activate the last.fm feature of the Xbox 360.

For some reason Microsoft signed an agreement with ESPN to allow streaming sports to their console. You can use Kinect to, er, connect with other sports fans. The bottom of the screen says “Which team are you rooting for?” If I was watching the NBA Finals and I said “Xbox! Join Celtics!” it would take me to an area where I’d be watching the game with other sports fans.

It’s a neat idea, but I can’t see people choosing that over, y’know, just changing the channel on their TV when the game is on.

Then they showed off a lot of Kinect games. There was Kinectimals, which was like a virtual petting zoo. They had their Wii Sports clone, their Wii Fit clone, and a dancing game. Then they showed off a badass Star Wars game, where you played as a Jedi, deflecting blaster bolts back at Stormtroopers with your lightsaber.

They wrapped up the show by unveiling what’s basically the Xbox 360 slim. Smaller, sleeker, and quieter than the current 360, it’s got a glossy black finish and looks like a fancy PC case mod. It’s also Kinect ready (the Kinect only needs to be plugged into the system, on older models Kinect will need to be plugged into the wall as well). It has a 250 GB hard drive and has a built-in Wi-Fi adapter. They also announced it was shipping today and would be in stores by the end of the week.

As far as I’m concerned, Kinect is very impressive technology without much application. Microsoft’s mantra throughout the conference was “We want to make it simple,” but I can’t see navigating menus with my hands easier than just using a controller with a d-pad on it. The video chat was neat, but I can’t see anyone plunking down the cash just for that when they can just use a webcam on their PC.

The games… eh. The entire lineup just screamed “We wish we did the Wii first.” Everything they showed except for Kinectimals had a Wii equivalent, and you could make the assumption that even that’s just a hi-def Nintendogs.

I just don’t know who Microsoft is really targeting with Kinect. The obvious answer is people who like motion control, but honestly everyone who wants motion control already has a Wii. The 360’s core demographic isn’t going to be lining up for Kinectimals or Kinect Sports. People who start gaming on Wii might later move on to the Xbox 360, but if they do that, it’s because they’re looking for more mature games and a more traditional experience, not because they want what they already have but with better graphics.

And then the redesign comes into play. If you want to target new consumers, especially ones who don’t own a game console, you are not going to convince them to buy your console over the Wii when it looks like that. Sharp angles and a black finish make the machine look like a very formidable piece of technology, which is intimidating to people who aren’t already tech savvy. People know the Wii and they’re familiar with its image: clean, white, and friendly. The Xbox 360 is sharp, expensive looking, and will require the purchase of another accessory for motion controls.

I don’t think I’ll be picking up Kinect. I like my Xbox 360 as a compliment to my Wii: I can play motion games as well as hi-def traditional games. I can’t see putting the money into investing in a motion control scheme that doesn’t have Mario or Zelda attached to it.

It’s a shame that they based their whole conference on it, because if I was a 360 exclusive gamer, I’d feel pretty bummed out right about now.

Lately, the blog has been a lot of stupid bullshit about me driving listening to F-Zero music and playing Rescue Rangers on the NES. While I am a big proponent of stupid bullshit, I also have a serious side. It’s not big, but it’s there (that’s what she said). So today, I want to talk about the issue concerning the legality of selling violent games to kids that is on its way to the US Supreme Court.

What is currently happening is that the Supreme Court has decided to hear both sides of the case in regards to a proposed California law, written by State Senator Leland Yee and signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2005. The law was challenged by industry representatives, and deemed unconstitutional.

What this law seeks to do is make it a crime to sell “ultra-violent video games” to children. The entertainment software industry has a voluntary and self-moderated ratings system, the ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board) that has been in place since 1994.

So, what do I think of this bill? While I honestly believe that it has noble intentions (at least I’d like to think so), I find that it is a misguided attempt to wrest control over an industry that is often unfairly made the scapegoat once everyone starts finger-pointing after a child commits a violent act. I think that this bill becoming a law would have dangerous repercussions not only for the video game industry, but for entertainment as a whole.

“This is not about Leland Yee trying to destroy the industry,” Yee said in an interview with Kotaku. “This is not about Leland Yee trying to prevent any of you game [developers] from developing any more atrocious kinds of games. This is a free society. If you have the imagination to do something even more horrible with the technology, then god bless you. That’s part of our freedom of expression here in America, but you just have to figure out when it’s appropriate and when it’s not appropriate. For me, as a child psychologist you ought not be doing it for kids.”

Pick out the venom from that quote. “Atrocious kinds of games.” “Do something even more horrible with the technology.” Yee, who is proposing a law, which is supposed to be fair for everyone, has already made up his mind about the people who create these games. He sees them as little more than frat boys, high-fiving each other as they all seek to push the envelope a bit further than the ones before them. For me, as a human being first and a gamer second, Mr. Yee has thrown any credibility he had out the window with such petty remarks.

The thing that really seals the deal, though, is how he ended it: “You ought not be doing it for kids.”

As someone who has worked in the software retail industry in both California and Massachusetts, I can safely say that the industry is doing a fine job policing itself. While working at GameStop, we had specific instructions and training that required us to request identification from people who tried to purchase a game that had been rated M (for Mature, suitable for ages 17 and over). There were even secret shoppers who would test a store’s compliance with this guideline. If you were caught selling the game to a minor, you were terminated from the company.

Just two weeks ago, I was in Best Buy to purchase Mass Effect 2 for the Xbox 360, a Mature-rated game. I am 26 years old. I was with Christina, who is 24. We don’t get carded when we order a beer at a restaurant. The Best Buy cashier carded both of us before he would sell us the game.

Are there kids who occasionally slip through and purchase an M-rated game? It would be naïve to say no. However, every day there are also kids who get away with buying alcohol or cigarettes before they’re old enough as well. The sale of alcohol and tobacco IS regulated federally, and it has not eliminated children from acquiring them. It has made it harder, but not impossible. What proof is there that video games would be any different?

Lumping video games in with tobacco, alcohol and pornography is ignorant and prejudiced. Video games are not a form of entertainment solely for the enjoyment of children. Several studies have pegged the average gamer between the ages of 18 and either 39 or 49 depending on the study. They are the ones with disposable income, and as such there are games that cater to that demographic. Just because they are on a shelf does not mean that they are being promoted or sold to children.

When I worked at GameStop, nine times out of ten when I’d refuse to sell an M-rated game to a child, they’d leave the store and come back a few minutes later with an annoyed parent. I would explain the rating and the game’s content to the parent, and they’d buy it anyway.

This law will do nothing to stop children from getting their hands on these games. The solution isn’t to place federal restrictions on something that retailers are already doing voluntarily. The solution is education, putting the ESRB more out in the open as a way to educate parents about what games are and are not appropriate for children. Ultimately, it is the parent’s decision, not the government’s.

The problem is, most parents don’t care. They still see video games as a childish venture and they don’t want to be bothered with it. If God of War will make Billy shut up and stop bothering his sister, then God of War is what’s going home with them. It’s a video game, so it’s for kids, right?

This law will only reinforce that ancient assumption and doom the medium to always be considered below television, movies and books.

Another problem with the proposed legislation is the vague wording. “Ultra-violent” games. How do you define that? Here is the outline from the bill, taken from a Kotaku article:

(d) (1) “Violent video game” means a video game in which the range of options available to a player includes killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being, if those acts are depicted in the game in a manner that does either of the following:
(A) Comes within all of the following descriptions:
(i) A reasonable person, considering the game as a whole, would find appeals to a deviant or morbid interest of minors.
(ii) It is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the community as to what is suitable for minors.
(iii) It causes the game, as a whole, to lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.
(B) Enables the player to virtually inflict serious injury upon images of human beings or characters with substantially human characteristics in a manner which is especially heinous, cruel, or depraved in that it involves torture or serious physical abuse to the victim.
(2) For purposes of this subdivision, the following definitions apply:
(A) “Cruel” means that the player intends to virtually inflict a high degree of pain by torture or serious physical abuse of the victim in addition to killing the victim.
(B) “Depraved” means that the player relishes the virtual killing or shows indifference to the suffering of the victim, as evidenced by torture or serious physical abuse of the victim.
(C) “Heinous” means shockingly atrocious. For the killing depicted in a video game to be heinous, it must involve additional acts of torture or serious physical abuse of the victim as set apart from
other killings.
(D) “Serious physical abuse” means a significant or considerable amount of injury or damage to the victim’s body which involves a substantial risk of death, unconsciousness, extreme physical pain, substantial disfigurement, or substantial impairment of the function of a bodily member, organ, or mental faculty. Serious physical abuse, unlike torture, does not require that the victim be conscious of the
abuse at the time it is inflicted. However, the player must specifically intend the abuse apart from the killing.
(E) “Torture” includes mental as well as physical abuse of the victim. In either case, the virtual victim must be conscious of the abuse at the time it is inflicted; and the player must specifically intend to virtually inflict severe mental or physical pain or suffering upon the victim, apart from killing the victim.
(3) Pertinent factors in determining whether a killing depicted in a video game is especially heinous, cruel, or depraved include infliction of gratuitous violence upon the victim beyond that necessary to commit the killing, needless mutilation of the victim’s body, and helplessness of the victim.

Again, it’s too vague. A lot of the wording of this definition leaves it open for interpretation. Virtually any game with any level of violent conflict could become entangled in this catch-all web. What this means is that there will be a committee, appointed by the government and paid for with taxpayer dollars, to re-do everything the ESRB is currently doing.

There will be a government body deciding what is and is not appropriate for your children to play.

Please re-read that sentence a few times and let it sink in.

So where does it go from there? Now the government can decide what games can and can’t be sold to kids. So what’s stopping them from deciding what kind of games can’t be sold AT ALL? If a “game, as a whole… lack(s) serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” then why even bother putting it on shelves? Only psychopaths would play that game, right?

The fact of the matter is that video games are a protected form of free speech, as has been proven time and time again when a lawyer or lawmaker has tried to get their 15 minutes of fame by creating one of these laws. The music industry has stood by the video game industry during this entire issue. “Culture and art thrives on the preservation of the First Amendment. Any law or effort to weaken First Amendment protection of free expression whether in music, film or video games or other creative content is ultimately a harmful thing,” said Cara Duckworth of the Recording Industry Association of America in a Kotaku interview.

So once video games are regulated, what’s stopping them from regulating the sale of movies, books or music?

This bill is dangerous, misguided, misinformed, and unconstitutional, just as others have been deemed by the Supreme Court before. I hope that this bill will suffer the same fate.