Games industry news, gossip, and more at Playthrough » Politics

Xbox Live players overwhelmingly support Obama

Playthrough — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:02:23 +0000

As part of it’s voter registration campaign along with Rock the Vote, Microsoft is allowing Xbox Live players to virtually vote for their presidential candidate of choice. With the Xbox’s overwhelmingly younger demo behind it, it’s no surprise we’re seeing Obama eeking out McCain 43% to 31% with a large group of undecided at 13% and “other” at 13%. Possibly telling however, is the amount of voter registration forms which have been downloaded via the service since the campaign began. At 55,000 that’s quite a nice number to see, considering how under-represented the youth-generation is around the country.

Source: Accountalutionary

Justice O’Connor announces upcoming edugaming project, Our Courts

Playthrough — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:38:03 +0000

The first female Supreme Court justice has revealed the plans for her upcoming education game project, Our Courts, meant to teach children how America’s courts operate and exactly how their future is determined by a hand-picked few.

Justice O’Connor (78) believes the only way to preserve an independent judiciary is through public education, which in the past has failed to properly educate citizens about the three branches of U.S. government (legislative, executive and judicial). She hopes that using new tools, such as Our Courts, to reach younger students will achieve this.

Justice O’Connor served as U.S. Supreme Court justice from 1981 until her retirement in 2006. (VIA Reuters)

Senator from Guam, lvl 70 Dwarf Priest

Playthrough — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 07:47:39 +0000

In an interview early last week, Senator Ray Tenorio, a republican representative on Guam’s 15-member unicameral legislature, revealed that he is an avid gamer, specifically online role-playing games, starting his gaming career with Diablo 2, later switching to World of Warcraft. Currently playing a level 70 Dwarf Priest named Paleray on the Silvehand server. He also pros in Herbalism and Alchemy, but, Guam? Also, I’d be anxious to learn of Mr. Tenorio’s stance on the current anti-gaming sentiment which is tearing through the United States political machine (of which Guam is ‘protected’ by).

Read more: Senator from Guam, lvl 70 priest

Crytek mulls move if Germany strengthens their anti-game laws

Playthrough — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 09:57:15 +0000

With all the hubub going around regarding Germany strengthening their already quite strict anti-violent video game laws, German developer Crytek has thrown their weight behind the issue by stating they would consider a move if such a law was put into place. With the recent teen rampages in Germany, politicians throughout the country are putting their support behind laws that would require jail time for those found guilty of creating and distributing games which depict realistic violence, a law which would basically destroy the already fragile German games development industry. With that, there are rumblings throughout the neighboring country of Austria that stricter measure must be put in place against violent video games. I’d put this forth to the Austrian government, before passing any Draconian laws, work together with your local games industry (or what’s left of it) while simultaneously approaching German developers who may be considering a move, offering them attractive packages for relocating to Vienna (the hub of Austria’s struggling games industry).