As I said in previous posts, this GDC was my first besides AGDC. It was really an amazing event, I learned a lot and met some awesome people. San Francisco is a cool city, but it isn’t my cup of tea. It seems fun to visit but I don’t think I’d ever want to actually live there, I like the south east way too much. I’m not trying to say it is a bad place, but I just feel like I belong on this side of the country. (Although I do absolutely love Austin, Texas)
By far, my favorite session during the entire conference was Lawrence Walter’s lecture on Censorship of Game Content – A Report from the Trenches. It was extremely informative. My favorite thing about it was confirming the fact that I really was just about up to date with all the efforts politicians were attempting to bring about and also I learned some more about the past efforts. It is a very important issue to me not only on a level on as a aspiring game designer but also as a gamer.
“Censorship reflects society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.” – Justice Potter Stewart
Mr. Walters presented this quote and it put a smile on my face. Lawrence then went into giving details on the strict scrutiny test, the miller test, sin taxes, why the supreme court is a concern, Children Protection from Video Game Violence and Sexual Content Act, Truth in Video Games Rating Act, Video Game Decency Act of 2007, and how Judge Whyte’s court ruling may be reversed before 2009.
It is was a lot to wrap your brain around but it was enjoyable. I do notice that I found it difficult to discuss this with people afterwards, which was a little bit upsetting, but then I made my way over to the ECA booth in the expo at North Hall and that all changed. I had the pleasure to meet Hal, Heather and Seth over at the ECA booth as well as many other new and founding members. All of which were very well informed and I absolutely had a blast discussing politics.
I am a big gamer. I started making games because I enjoyed playing them. Not only did I discover that I enjoy playing them but I also enjoy making them. So really I’m a gamer first and game designer second. It is just how it works out. Its so surprising to me that the majority of the people I talked to at GDC didn’t know what the ECA was. It is extremely important for everyone to do some research into the ECA. I’m sure, no matter how much experience you have as a game developer, you are still a gamer on some level. I know that game developers have the IGDA, but gamers need someone too and the ECA is the perfect platform.
The IGDA Annual Meeting was probably my 2nd favorite session. It was hidden, didn’t appear on the publicly displayed list and was held during lunch so not as many people showed up. However, the presentation was awesome and it was cool to hear how healthy the IGDA is. In 1999 there were only 429 and now there are over 16000 members. After Jason Della Rocca went over the numbers and up-to-date information about this year’s plans for the IGDA they had an awesome QA session in which some really good ideas were presented. It seemed as if I was the only newb in the audience so I stayed silent and listened.
Now is the time to get involved. The general public has this terribly misinformed view of gamers, game developers and the game industry all together. It is really important to reverse this trend and inject a little bit of truth into the public. I know the mainstream media is generally geared against the industry and so are the politicians we’ve elected to office. But it is absolutely important to get active on some level. I personally would like to get involved with both, but as I said before I’m a gamer first and I ultimately think that gamers need to have a much larger voice than they currently do. That isn’t to say I don’t want to get involved in the local Savannah IGDA chapter, because I do. However, the ECA is still in its starting phase and its one of those organizations that are really important and could play to reverse this negative trend.
Games = art. Support artists and gamers alike. Keep the government from regulating our favorite form of art and entertainment. Prevent the media from abusing the game industry and educate the general public about video games. It is the only way things will ever begin to improve.
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