Parents Television Council Is Confused
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Posted on January 25th, 2008 by
From Dennis McCauley’s GamePolitics (which is owned by the ECA, a pro videogame lobby) writes: “Recent word that the Entertainment Software Association would begin making political contributions on behalf of the video game industry brought a sharp response from watchdog group the Parents Television Council. Within days of the ESA announcement, PTC president Tim Winter issued a statement essentially threatening that his organization would target any elected official who “cashed a check” from the ESA”
Meanwhile the American Beef Association weighed in on organic vegetables, the RIAA started complaining about movies, PeTA began attacking big tobacco, and the MPAA started lobbying against guns. Who knows what the NRA is doing at this point….
A gamer calling himself Recoton2007 has compiled a video of the top 10 attacks from the mainstream media regarding videogames in 2007 (taken from GameTrailers.com). It showcases why we do what we do and why it’s important. Go ahead and watch the video while I comment on them one by one. I can’t seem to embed this video, so please come back 
So the Sierra Club and others in New Mexico wants to push an initiative called “Leave No Child Inside”. That is fantastic! I love the idea of an initiative that will build a love of the outdoors and of an active lifestyle for an increasingly sedentary – and overweight – population. So where does the money come from? A 1% tax on video games, TV’s and associated hardware. Oh. In other words, we are going to incentivize young kids by taxing their parents. Huh?
CommonSense Media was the first website to come out and compete directly with GamerDad.com. Compete isn’t exactly the right word. Their board is a who’s who of child advocates and they seem well financed. Hey, they’re a charity. I’m a charity too, but that’s not my legal status… I just don’t make a whole lot of money. Since I’ve been working for them for over a year now, I won’t pick and link each review. Instead, there’s a catch-all link. 
When you play through over 200 games in a single year you are bound to see both peaks and valleys. I will talk plenty about the peaks in a separate article – and I had considered including these stinkers there, but they really deserve to be lambasted without messing up the beauty of the excellent games released this year. Note that this isn’t just about low score – though almost all of these scored badly. I also hate plenty of other games for other reasons … and features attached to certain games. And other stuff. But that is a different story … so on to the lousy games!
No, I haven’t grown to giant size. I’ve just been freelancing recently. Here’s just one of the outlets: WhatTheyPlay.com is a new website that pretty much mirrors GamerDad’s mission and much of our approach (imitation = sincerest form of flattery, etc) to a tee. The main differences are… they have money, and they clearly learned from our (and CommonSense Media’s) mistakes. But GamerDad.com has something WhatTheyPlay doesn’t. Me! Since we weren’t able to reach an agreement to hire me on their staff or for GamerDad to fold into their website (we’re staying independent folks!) they’ve hired me to do some work for them. An “Ask GamerDad” column is coming soon. But for now, here’s a big batch of pure uncut content reviews for your reading pleasure:
Hello,
If you’re looking for game reviews you want to move past this page and into GamerDad.com proper. But if you’re too busy to visit that site, and would like a handy weekly Round Up… well, have we got you covered!
