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MMO industry heavyweights outed on political affiliations
The Gamepolitics site is a never-ending font of fascinating information. A recent post on donations from games industry notables touches heavily on the MMO industry, with several big names popping off the list. Both sides of the political fence are represented, according to the publicly available records searchable on the Newsmeat.com website. Here are some of the MMO industry's political backers: John Smedley, President of SOE: $2300 to the Obama campaign. Richard Garriott, NCsoft: Thousands to the Clinton campaign, more to Democratic senators and the party itself. Curt Schilling, President of 38 Studios: $2300 to the McCain campaign. John Riccitiello, President of EA: Thousands to the Obama campaign. Michael Morhaime, President of Blizzard Entertainment: Contributions to both Democrats and Republicans. The conclusion the site draws is that, generally speaking, games makers tend to support democratic candiates. Read the full post at Gamepolitics for more from the games industry as a whole.
Republican National Convention features LED video wall, HDTVs by LG
One of the biggest issues of the 2008 Presidential campaign will certainly be how much high definition does your candidate have? Next week in Minnesota the Republican National Convention will feature HDTVs from LG throughout the Xcel Energy Center, but the highlight will certainly be the 51- x 30-foot Hibino Chroma LED video wall behind the podium area. Stacked against an array of Panasonic projectors and plasmas from the DNC's show in Denver, we expect single issue (resolution, compression, plasma vs. LCD) voters will have a lot of thinking to do over the next few months.Read - A First Look at the 2008 Republican National Convention PodiumRead - 2008 Republican National Convention Names LG Electronics Official HDTV Provider
70 Orc Hunter running for Connecticut legislature
More politicians are coming out of the WoW closet. Jeanne Stevens is a WoW player -- with a 70 Orc Hunter, a 58 Troll Shaman, and a 53 Blood Elf Rogue -- and a Republican running for the Connecticut state legislature. And she freely admits it in a new interview with Wandering Goblin, as covered by our sister site, Massively. Her hunter is balanced between marksman and survival, her shaman specs elemental (close to my heart!), and her rogue climbs the assassination talent tree. Will she be able to master the beasts in her political race? (Okay, you go ahead and insert your own shaman or rogue wordplay here.) Maybe she'll hold some in-game speeches or rallies. She could hold forth on top of Orgrimmar's bank, or maybe lead a raid to Stormwind as a metaphor.Is it surprising that a Republican chooses Horde? I think you could make a case for either faction going with either political party. Personally, I love to see that she's middle-aged and a woman, which defies Blizzard's assumptions about the majority of WoW gamers. She also chooses pirates over ninjas. I'm not sure there's a political comment there, but I'm sure someone will show me the light.[Thanks to Wandering Goblin via Massively.]
Ron Paul supporters plan rally in Azeroth
Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's internet regiment has come to World of Warcraft-- a group of his supporters are planning to form a guild on Whisperwind and do a march from IF to Stormwind (which means they'll probably be Gnomes or Dwarves, which is too bad, because I liked the idea of "Trolls for Ron Paul") on New Year's Day at 8:30pm EST.Now, we here at WoW Insider are politically neutral when it comes to Warcraft, so we won't advocate joining these guys (and we also won't advocate forming a "Horde for Hillary" guild to oppose them). But we are 100% in support of bringing widescale opinion expression of any kind into the game itself, so this should definitely be a fun event.As always, if you go, take pictures and send them to us. And if you hear about any other political rallies in World of Warcraft this coming election year, let us know about those, too-- we'd love it if a presidential candidate (any of them) somehow got some extra buzz just because he (or she) was able to get out "the Orgrimmar vote."Thanks, Paul!
Survey: political preferences affect game preferences
Liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat -- whatever our political differences, as gamers we can all agree on what makes a good game, right? Not so fast. A new survey suggests that different political groups tend to have different tastes in games. The survey, conducted by Zogby International for USC Annenberg's Norman Lear Center, looked at the general media preferences of nearly 4,000 American adults of all political stripes. According to a press release (PDF), the survey found that liberals, in general tend to "play video games a lot more than other people" while conservatives "don't play a lot of video games." For the conservatives that do play, Madden was the No. 1 game while The Sims ranked highest for liberals. As for moderates. their top games included Donkey Kong, thus showing their preference for the less politically divisive era of the early '80s. Despite the differences, there is at least one game series that everyone can agree on. According to the Lear Center summary, "Mario was the most popular game across the political spectrum." As Mario himself might say, "Thanks-a so much for reconciling politically over my game." Read - Summary of results PDF - Press release
Why you should submit videos for the YouTube Republican debate
The Entertainment Consumers Association's (ECA) is encouraging people to add videos with a contest to get you, dear reader, to submit video questions "pertaining to game consumer rights" for the upcoming CNN / YouTube Republican debate set to air on September 17. . We think it's a great idea.But don't do it for the free t-shirt from the ECA; we want our readers to think about this and be intelligent in the questions.Formulate your thoughts. Read up on the issues, check out recent legislation and the Video Game Voters Network. (While you're at it, definitely sift through the GamePolitics archives.) See how other entertainment industries are regulated (e.g. the MPAA) and how you feel that compares to ours. Do you feel Manhunt 2's ban was just? How do feel about current candidates, such as Mitt Romney, who are already laying out their stances on video games in commercials? If you don't like it, challenge him, but be smart in your retort.Perhaps most importantly, remember your audience: a group of politicians with likely very little knowledge or first-hand experience with video games. Educate them with your question. Maybe even think about asking them generic questions such as how much they have played video games or if they feel the format is ever capable of being art? But if you do, be sure to talk about why it's important they answer what appears on the surface a fairly menial question.
