Oh. My. Goodness. This letter to Sen. Hillary Clinton by “Everything Bad is Good for You” author Steven Johnson is simply amazing (thanks Kotaku). It basically says everything gamers have been claiming about video games in a very simple and eloquent way. I completely agree, and I think this is the exact argument we should be making as gamers against anti-game legislation.

The only problem I see is that the feeding frenzy on games has temporarily departed violence and now entered sex. Sex is bad. Sex is evil. We were iffy on the killing hookers and glorified gang violence. But sex in games? Ho-buddy. That leads to unwed pregnancy and social diseases!

Been meaning to post this for awhile (Mike's posts keep reminding me), but here's a comprehensive list of the things you can do in GTA (all of them) and Sims (all of them) that no lawyers, Senators, or parents took a legal stand against before Hot Coffee. Yes, there were a lot of complaints, and "investigations," but nothing was ever done about them. Put ones I've missed in the comments and I'll try and add them back to this list.

What's okay in GTA (the series) for seventeen year olds:

Assault with a deadly weapon.
Battery
Murder
Assassination
Vehicular homicide/manslaughter
Grand theft auto (duh)
Sex with prostitutes (tastefully hidden!)
Racketeering
Drug trafficking

What's not okay in GTA (the series) for seventeen year olds:

Consentual softcore sex between two adults, one of which is fully clothed.

I’m sure most of you are already aware of this story about Jack Thompson's next target(thanks Gamespot). To summarize, after helping to take down the filthy, filthy fully-clothed consensual urban-setting sex of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, gaming nemesis Thompson has turned his attention to another, even worse example of depravity: Sims 2. According to Thompson, the fact that EA blurs out the nude Sims in the game implies that there is something to hide. Even considering the fact that underneath the blur is a smooth blank, Thompson says, “The blur is an admission that even the 'Ken and Barbie' features should not be displayed. The blur can be disarmed. This is no different than what is in San Andreas, although worse."

He goes on to say that, with the proper mods, the blur on children can be removed, and “much to the delight, one can be sure, of pedophiles around the globe who can rehearse, in virtual reality, for their abuse.”

While all people have particular buttons to be pushed and peeves to jeer at, the wide range of gaming indignities I suffer and overcome become insufferable and unconquerable when such issues relate to the user interface. Yes, I am indeed martyring myself over menus. I realize there are far greater issues in the world to get worked up about, but since I'm a white male living fat and free off the backs of third-world economies--my every creature-comfort satisfied several times over--it's these little things that become big things and get my knickers in a twist.

This comes through my obsession with being Le Helicopteur Pilot Par Excellence in Battlefield 2. I generally avoid maps which have only transport choppers, favor ones with multiple helipad spawn points and stay away from those which have greater than 40 players--this last factor having nothing to do with my preferred vehicle and more to do with my machine dropping packets like its marking a trail through the Amazon and then crashing rather spectacularly. Thus, like many online gaming aficionados, I'm picky about my choice of server; a task which is exceedingly difficult in Battlefield 2's face-punchingly awful in-game server browser.

This feature on 1Up about sexual stereotypes in games is certainly better than the 'girls like bright colors and sugary sweetness' guide to getting girls to like games. Although it ain’t quite applying Judith Butler’s gender theory to the construction of women in video games, the article does make a few interesting points towards the end. Especially notable is Nadia Oxford’s allusion to gamer groups such as the Frag Dolls who are usually sold as hip, sexy women and gamers.

Oxford writes, “the women who usually appear on these networks to represent female gamers are unvaryingly clad in size 0 jeans and tight tube-tops. They spit like angry cats as they scream about their mad gaming skillz and call a challenge for male gamers to ‘get their ass kicked’ by a girl.”

So. Senator Hillary Clinton is preparing to discuss Rockstar over a cup of Hot Coffee.

Although by Internet terms this story is getting to be old news, it always stuns me how much the hatred of video games has drawn together disparate political elements. Games are such an easy target (what about the children?) that no one worries whether or not their views will step on the toes of political rivals. In the political game, everyone wins when video games are involved. It sometimes makes me wonder if politicians actually feel offended by games, or just see opportunity in a medium that allows them to create an as shocking situation as they might need for a campaign platform.

In a time when the war on terror does not seem to be working, the Supreme Court is shifting gears, and White House insiders are revealing CIA secrets to the press, I’m glad that every single politician now has plenty of time to concern themselves with the ol’ in-and-out, in-and-out in video games.

I’ve found the recent controversy over the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas sex mod / unlock extremely fascinating (thanks Gamespot). If you believe what the modder and critics are saying, Rockstar left the code for the sex mini-game in the final copies of San Andreas. For one reason or another, the theory goes, Rockstar blocked off the feature so it would be impossible to access. There were a few rumors that the code existed on the PS2 version, but it wasn’t until the PC version that someone actually unlocked it and made it available. Or modded it, depending on your viewpoint.

Now politicians and watch groups are up in arms. Folks who thought the cop killing and hooker stomping was bad are now going nuts over the prospect of young children pretending to have sex using an awkwardly timed minigame. Whether the code was modded or buried by self-censoring game makers, someone has added fuel to the fire and it won’t die down anytime soon.

I was talking with my friend OrangeDeca from the Laundry Sessions blog the other day about our careers.

"This'll be the third game I'll have designed for at EA," I said, "and I still have yet to do a direct sequel."

This is true. While all the games I have worked on have been parts of franchises, they've all been entirely new types of games for Electronic Arts. For example, my last shipped title was Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, and while it was the third Rings game published by EA, it was the first roleplaying game we've ever tried to develop internally. Now I'm working on The Godfather, which is the first living world game we've ever tried to make. It's even a new franchise for us.

"Trying to make a new type of game for the studio is really hard," I said, "Everything is touch and go; the engine and tools are being built in parallel with the gameplay; it's almost impossible to do any experimentation or prototyping." Then I said, "I kinda wish I could try doing a derrivative sequel, just so I could see what it's like. Is all the instability of working on a totally new thing really worth the higher cool-factor for doing something that hasn't been done before?"

If a tiny wormhole had opened up right in front of me, and the words carried through to my days as a graduate student, I would have flipped out. But I don't think that my curiosity for the development culture of the derrivative sequel is entirely born of laziness.

The first generation of any line of things, videogames, cars, or whatever is always the most problematic. The requirements that the thing work properly and do its intended job (in my case, "be fun") consume most of the time that would otherwise be spent exploring new variations, or taking things to the proverbial next level. Look at the evolution of my favorite EA series, SSX. The first game really is a racing game, but by SSX 3 the racing has taken a back seat to performing tricks, which is much more appealing to me personally from a gameplay perspective. Most people, I think, don't want to just make something that works, they want to make something that shines. But both tasks are so monumental, it's extremely difficult to do both at the same time. In a sequel, developers really get the chance to go deep into a concept and expose new strata of detail that can really take you to a new place.

Which is better: to start from nothing and make something, or to start from something and make something impressive? I suppose, working where I do, it may only be a matter of time until I get to try the latter. As a designer, I now find that I do not make this observation with trepidation, but anticipation.