FCC Considers Universal Media Rating System

Posted by Nelson Williams | September 8, 2009

You know, those little tags at the bottom of the game boxes you never look at because of the guns and boobs up at the top? Those are ESRB stickers, slapped on by the Entertainment Software Rating Board. They show the game has been rated in a voluntary process for guns and boobs, then assigned an appropriate label so kids know just how many guns and boobs they’re getting. It’s the industry regulating itself, and it works.

The FCC, who a while back totally freaked out over mixing sports and boobs during that Janet Jackson affair, is considering a single rating system for all forms of media. Games, movies, TV shows, anything the FCC can get its lustful tendrils into. This system, if it ever develops, may well be based around the one used by the ESRB and video games.

CNet has …

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FCC Commissioner Blames World of Warcraft and MMOs for College Dropouts

Posted by Nelson Williams | December 12, 2008

Okay, sure, we all know that one guy who spent so much time off in EverQuest or NetHack that he forgot to go to class, but is that sort of thing epidemic? Deborah Taylor Tate, FCC Commissioner, seems to think so. In a speech on telecom policy and regulation, she mentioned online gaming, and specifically World of Warcraft, as a major reason for college dropouts. She also used the term “gaming addiction,” which we know is just a buzzword. Actual study of troubled gamers shows little evidence of true addiction.

Being the cynical type, I have to wonder if the lady Commissioner’s comments represent the beginning of a campaign against online gaming. Perhaps the FCC has been watching the gaming scene and pondering how to get their regulatory claws on the millions of gamers — and billions of dollars — that make up modern video …

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FCC Transition Team co-chairs are also Warcraft players

Posted by Helvetica | November 19, 2008

President-Elect Barak Obama may have just hit pay dirt with the gaming generation, he’s appointing people who have actual MMO experience under their belts. Not only last week did we have our first YouTUBE Presidential address, but now we’re starting to see more people put into positions of authority who play the same games we do!

From the titular Gigaom article,
Werbach’s involvement in WoW is worth noting as it raises the possibility that in the coming months, he and Crawford will craft strategic policy positions relevant to online games and worlds, including broadband usage, content regulation, etc. Along with Ito and like-minded academics, Werbach sees both as important to the future of work and technology:

“What [Warcraft] does,” he continued in that post, “is provide an incentive for people to develop new software and ideas for collaborative production. Many of those ideas will translate to other group activities, …

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