The Seven Signs

Those that forget history are doomed to repeat it. Isn't that the saying? I was reading up on the video game crash of 1983-84 recently, and though I was already familiar with some of the details of that era - funny how kids retain certain information while forgetting others - I did stumble across some new angles that startled me. Why? Because there were some disturbing similarities between that period of video game history and today. While many blame the introduction of the personal computer for sending the video game market into a shakeout, there were other factors. First, there was a mad dash in a suddenly crowded console space with such items as the Magnavox Odyssey2, Mattel's Intellivision, the Fairchild Channel F System II, ColecoVision, and of course, Atari's 2600 and 5200 systems. This, of course, led to an intense price war and a flow of bad games like E.T. and Pac-Man for the Atari 2600.

It's difficult to determine what the root cause was for all of this, but personally I believe the trigger was that far too many people got into the business trying to capitalize on the video game boom and were more interested in making quick money than producing quality, innovative gaming experiences. When Quaker Oats gets into the games business with no prior experience (with its short-lived subsidiary US Games), then you know there's a serious problem.

Okay, so we don't have a price war going on today, and we have three primary console makers instead of nearly a dozen. And maybe we don't have Quaker Oats getting back into the games business today. But take a closer look and you'll see there are some similarities; suspect businesses are breaking into gaming for the first time, and the overall quality of games may indeed be waning. There are more obvious trends that indicate trouble for the games industry: the rising budgets of next-generation games, the flawed retail business model, increasing pressure from legislators and the lack of sufficient pay for game developers are just a few. While games sales haven't slumped as bad as some had predicted earlier this year - me included - there are still far too many hyped titles that fizzle and end up in the bargain bins.

There are also some singular events that have taken place recently, and they don't bode well for the future of gaming. Here are Seven Seals, er, I mean, seven signs that the apocalypse may be arriving for video games.

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#7: Sen. Sam Brownback's Game Ratings Bill

Much of the news about Sen. Sam Brownback's (R-KS) proposed legislation for video game ratings has been focused on the senator's plan to require the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) to play each game it reviews to completion, which sure would take a long time. Currently, the ESRB doesn't play ANY of the games it reviews and instead relies on the developers and publishers to submit video of the game play to the board (for more on this, check out the TwitchGuru Blog). But the real kicker here is Brownback's Truth in Video Game Rating Act will bring the video game industry under federal government regulation. First, the bill would give the U.S. Federal Trade Commission control over describing and defining video game content. The second and even more chilling proposal will give the Government Accountability Office (GOA) the authority to evaluate the ERSB ratings and, if the GOA disagrees with its findings, the potential to create an "independent" ratings board - and I write "independent" because it will have no financial interest or ties to the video game industry but will apparently be a government-controlled body.

This is troubling because video games are the latest boogeyman for Congress - as opposed to, I dunno, Osama Bin Laden - and video game legislation is gaining bi-partisan support from the likes of Sen. Hilary Clinton (D-NY). I'm astonished how quickly Republicans will turncoat from their anti-regulation free market platform when they find a divisive business issue they can portray as a social crisis. Similarly, I'm astonished that Democrats can't find something better to do than to demonize video games. While I think the ESRB's system for rating games is laughably bad, excessive government regulation and censorship isn't the answer for this or any other matter. But that sure looks like this is where we're headed. In any case, I think I see a white horse on the horizon and the rider is carrying a bow...not good...

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