Video Game Voters Network's Membership Swells to Half a Million

StewShearerOld

Geekdad News Writer
Jan 5, 2013
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Video Game Voters Network's Membership Swells to Half a Million



The political advocacy group for gamers has announced landmark growth three years after its creation.

The Video Game Voters Network was founded in 2010 with the goal of giving gamers a more unified voice on the political stage, something its creator, the Entertainment Software Association, was already doing for the game industry. Despite having similar interests however, the ESA has not always found itself on the same page as the gaming community the VGVN represents. When gamers and other free speech proponents rallied against SOPA in 2012, the ESA, long a proponent of combating piracy, backed the bill. If gamers held a grudge against the ESA however, it seems not to have extended to the VGVN. The group revealed today that its membership has grown to more than 500,000 people.

The growth of its sister organization is far from surprising to the ESA. "As the prevalence and influence of computer and video games in our society has grown, so too has the dedicated membership of VGVN," said Rich Taylor, the senior vice president of communications and industry affairs for the Entertainment Software Association. "These highly engaged members make their voices heard in government offices across the country, educating officials about video games' positive impacts and advocating for policy issues affecting game creators and consumers."

While it is just nice to have a unified voice like the Video Game Voters Network present to counter the world's Helen Lovejoys, there's little denying that videogames could be in worse straits were it not for such representatives. For instance, had the ESA, their stance on SOPA aside, not been present to testify before the Supreme Court on the behalf of videogames in 2011, there's no telling quite how the Brown vs. EMA ruling might have gone. Instead of celebrating an affirmation of videogames protection under the first amendment, we might have been mourning its demise.

At the end of the day it it's just better to have more political clout than less. Gaming is more mainstream than ever, but videogames are still an easy target for people and politicians to point to when something awful happens. Until the day comes that that stops, the growth of groups like the Video Game Voters Network is something that should be fostered and encouraged.


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weirdee

Swamp Weather Balloon Gas
Apr 11, 2011
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just barely enough though, don't wanna do anything crazy like let them be protagonists in games
 

Zen Toombs

New member
Nov 7, 2011
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That WOULD be crazy. We can't let them womenfolks have the same rights and privileges as the menfolks! There'd be anarchy in the stores!

Seriously though, I need to sign up with the VGVN. To google!


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RIP Vault 101

You will be missed.​
 

Baldr

The Noble
Jan 6, 2010
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It has no real power. There is no financial requirement to be a member, just signing up an email address at the website and it can not guarantee member will vote for their causes.
 

Johnson McGee

New member
Nov 16, 2009
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As much as I would love to see politicians stop picking on games, this still seems strange to me. It's an advocacy group for a hobby. It's not like we have anything like the 'National Tennis Players Association' or 'Committee for the Rights of T.V. Enthusiasts'.

Although maybe the CRTVE could campaign to bring down absurd cable prices.
 

New Frontiersman

New member
Feb 2, 2010
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Hm. Interesting. I had never heard of this before, I'll have to look into it some more. I do love getting involved in the political process for issues that are important to me so this could be an interesting opportunity for me.

It's cool to hear that gamers have at least one group in the political process to stand up for them though.
 

heroicbob

New member
Aug 25, 2010
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Johnson McGee said:
As much as I would love to see politicians stop picking on games, this still seems strange to me. It's an advocacy group for a hobby. It's not like we have anything like the 'National Tennis Players Association' or 'Committee for the Rights of T.V. Enthusiasts'.

Although maybe the CRTVE could campaign to bring down absurd cable prices.

well yeah if you put it that way it sounds stupid but tennis isnt being blamed for school shootings
 

Strazdas

Robots will replace your job
May 28, 2011
8,407
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Johnson McGee said:
As much as I would love to see politicians stop picking on games, this still seems strange to me. It's an advocacy group for a hobby. It's not like we have anything like the 'National Tennis Players Association' or 'Committee for the Rights of T.V. Enthusiasts'.

Although maybe the CRTVE could campaign to bring down absurd cable prices.
your having a bloody teaparty, NRA, and you call this ridiculous?
Gaming is what unites these people. if they have similar political viewpoints, they can join into this group and be more organized. being more organized is always a good thing.

and its going to take 20 years for a country that has parties of "polish election party" to even acknowledge that gamers above 18 exist. lfie is not fair.