Ambushed by Donahue
White kept harping on the fact that GTA3 was the top-selling game in the country, as if it were representative of the industry as a whole. If we went only a few more notches down the charts, we would have found games like Harry Potter, Star Wars, The Sims, Civilization 3, Spiderman, and Rollercoaster Tycoon. M-rated games make only about 9 percent of the gross revenue from the American games industry. The game industry is more diverse than it was a decade ago, the technology and storytelling more sophisticated, the market more far-reaching, but the reformers keep beating the same dead horses. White and her allies describe games as commodities no more valuable and every bit as dangerous as cigarettes. I call games an art, and challenge game designers to live up to their responsibilities as artists and storytellers.
I hope all CNN/MSNBC/HeadlineNews viewers would read this article and understand how set-up and fake those ‘crossfire-style’ shows are. News today is entertainment, not news. I feel really bad for this guy not only because he’s got good intentions and is going about them in a civilized way, but also because his points never even had a chance of getting themselves made, and that’s why he was invited on the show.