A Humble Hope For Help

So... I generally avoid using the Blog(s) for things like this, but wide nets need to be wide.

I'm looking to get in touch with people in the book-publishing business, specifically video-gaming related stuff but really at this level any inroad would be a good inroad; but there's a pretty wide disconnect between the digital press world and the print world, so... don't really have any idea how to do that.

BUT I'm betting I've got at least a few friends/followers/fans/colleagues reading these things who might have some tidbit of advice/direction/access to offer; so if that describes you please feel free to pop said info into the comments here (or, if you prefer, a way in which I could contact you to get it.) Any little bit helps, honestly :)

Thanks you.

Enemy

hat-tip: Polygon

Below, video of U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee. Mr. Alexander's stated position therein: "I think video games is (sic) a bigger problem than guns, because video games affect people." Alexander is known as a "moderate" and "bipartisan" within the Republican Party - which frankly says more  about the Party (i.e. you can be this backward and still not be backward enough) than it does about him.

This would be the honorable Senator's website, while this would be the section for contacting his political operation. In case any fellow Americans would like to (respectfully and non-abusively) offer him their thoughts on the matter.

Oh, and Tennessee-based readers? He has to run for re-election next year. His recently-announced likely opponent is named Larry Crim, whose website can be found HERE. Just sayin'.

Your Daily Reminder That Ralph Nader Is a Terrible Human Being

BTW, have you watched our New Episode yet?

Anyway... Ralph Nader - the man who helped give you 8 years of the George W. Bush presidency - has declared "violent" video-game producers to be "Electronic child molesters."

Screw you very much, Ralph.

Wonderful 101

Well! "Wonderful 101" is undoubtedly the most "video-game-ish" looking video-game I've seen in quite sometime. I run hot or cold on strategy games, but I'm damn inclined to pick this up...

ALSO: Brand-new episode went up today, so go watch!



This was announced at today's "Nintendo Direct" briefing, which also included the unsurprising (but never the less welcome) news of a new 3D Mario, Mario Kart and Smash Bros. to be shown off at E3 in June. Also shown off: Another "Epic Yarn" installment, this time starring Yoshi, an HD remake of "Wind Waker" and "Mother 2" coming to the (Japanese) WiiU Virtual Console.

EPISODE 81: "Let This Be The End"

New episode, now available on Blip:

Our subject this week (inspired in part by Mr. Croshaw) is whether or not we really, really need yet another generation of new individual consoles...

No Fear

I'd like to spend all day engaging people about this, but the fact is I have a shit-ton of deadline-driven work to do that's only going to get done if I got media-dark for a few hours. So this will have to be all from me about the big Obama gun laws speech today.

I imagine the number-one thing anyone wants to hear from me is how I feel about the President calling for "more research into violent video-games" as part of his big set of plans/proposals. Honestly? I hated hearing it. It cuts me to the bone when otherwise intelligent, reasonable people I happen to support have to jump and join that particular political dance; especially when I strongly suspect that they're better than that. I would prefer that the President had said "some have called for more attention paid to a link between violent games or movies and gun deaths, but the fact is that research has already been done a hundred times over and the link quite simply does not exist and continuing to call for it distracts from the real issue; which is guns and the obscene power of the Gun Lobby."

I'd have liked to see that, and maybe someday I will, but it wasn't going to be today.



The fact is, enough of my fellow Americans are paranoid enough (either through their own deficiencies or because they lack the necessary clarity and intellectual confidence to not be swayed by the propaganda of the NRA and their ilk) to give real traction to the meme of Obama/democrats "coming to take all the guns!!!;" one that only gets stronger if said propagandists can claim that they and their issue is being "singled out." That they and their issue should be singled out is beside the point - "singling out" sounds bad.

Thus was Joe Biden obliged to invite representatives of the movie and game industry (Why not books? Oh, right - older/out-of-touch people aren't scared/confused by books) to his various summitts - even though he's smart enough to know that the "link" doesn't exist - in order to affect the image that guns and gun-rights weren't "alone" in being called to the principal's office. And thus is Obama obliged to namecheck some illusory need for violent games "research" even though he's also smart enough to know better and saavy enough to know that even if he did buy into (for example) the "desensitization" fallacy, actually making any moves that even smelled of censorship would lose he and his party their crucial support among GenX/Y voters.

But here's the rub: "Calling for more research," in Washington-speak, translates to "we pretty-much garauntee nothing will come of this." It is, quite simply, a smoke-screen - a way for the President and his allies to appear to take the "broader solution" nonsense seriously while they get about the real business of breaking the back of the Gun Lobby in order to make U.S. gun laws slightly more sane.

Would I prefer that this hadn't been part of the speech, even as I recognize it as little more than rhetorical sleight of hand? Of course I would. I also wish he didn't have slip into maudlin reassurances about "Our Creator" at the end, or that he didn't need to feign four years worth of "evolution" on his support for gay marriage. I welcome the day, soon to come, when we look back on today's notions of "violent" movies and games causing real violence with the same "this was actually a THING??" horror and sadness with which we react to Calvin Candie's phrenology speech in "Django Unchained."

But that's not realistically going to happen today, and progressives, young people and especially gamers among them need to recognize that before they think about dismissing and turning their backs on an administration that - where and when it actually counts - has been (and is likely to continue to be) largely on their side. The perfect mustn't be the enemy of the good.

Brownshirts in my backyard

The town of Melrose, Massachusetts has become the latest gang of idiots to start-up a "violent games buy-back" program... though, at least they aren't also burning them, so there's that.


Funny thing about these "buybacks..." they were both sponsored by local-business people, and instead of CASH (like the police give for guns in the actual gun-buyback programs these ones are partially intended to belittle) for turning in your property you already bought you get... gift-certificates for local business, which in turn funnel any extra money/time you spend while going to redeem said certificates BACK to the very people propping up the bans. Huh. Funny how that works out, eh?

Meanwhile, the State overall has decided to pull arcade games that use toy guns from state-operated rest stops, replacing them with more "passive" titles (because what public arcade areas need right now is to suck MORE, right?) after some suburban asshole saw one and decided a Sandy Hook relative (which he is not nor does he have any discernable connection to) could concievably walk by it and be disturbed. I especially like that they're making their kid appear in the accompanying photo with them, an action I'm sure will have absolutely no negative effect on his social life whatsoever...