E3 Cancelled Indefinitely?

Linky.
It seems there hasn't been enough media exposure of late (which seems odd, as it has been it's highest ever seemingly since G4 has nothing better to do) to warrant the cost. Maybe if it wasn't a press only event (cough cough like TGS cough cough) things would be better.

Trade shows have been going down this way for awhile now...

Sucks.

Has this been confirmed by the company that does E3?

http://news.com.com/2100-1043_3-6100232.html

I think changes is the right term.

This could be a big problem for the United States though. For one, the economy in LA will suffer, for another, ESA makes a ton o' money on E3 and they use a lot of that money these days to pay for legal fees when fighting unconstitutional laws. Right now they're in court with 3 laws at the same time IIRC. They might not be able fight the next one or the one after that. If that happens then we'll have to depend on those hippies at the ACLU who we may not be able to count on in this instance since these bills are almost always drafted by insane liberal shitheads like Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman.

I don't see why Leiberman has done anything wrong. All he did was force the industry to make use of a ratings system, which was needed anyways. That being said, I have ignored Lieberman since Gore lost the election, so...

The key words are forced by government regulation.

That alone is cause for me to be pissed off.

The market will regulate itself, a rating system of contents would have been put in place without government mandates.

Edit: http://www.gamespot.com/news/6154935.html?part=rss&tag=gs_news&subj=6154935 E3 gone... confirmed.

But it is not a government enforced system (well, in most areas, anyways).

Maybe as a result we'll actually see some new games during the summer instread of everything coming out all at once for holiday release. I always thought it was stupid to put out a dozen great titles all at once when we could have 6 at christmas and spread the rest out a bit.

Yeah, but in the last couple of years, most games sucked.

There are a few that are good, but games are turning into the movie industry.

Joe backs the bill proposed by Hillary which would basically be a federal version of the "games as porn" bills that have been defeated in MN, OK, and are going to be defeated in CA, LA, etc. IIRC, it's called the "Family Protection Act" and like those others I mentioned seek to define violence as obscene speech and therefore unobtainable for minors. This would have a chilling effect on speech since Wal-mart and other chains would be less likely to carry M rated games (they already don't carry AO), and publishers would be less likely to publish titles that can't be carried at Wal-mart. Yes, GTA would be an exception of course.

This is basically all we talk about on Gamepolitics.com forums. Oh, and the MN bill was just killed by a judge who stated to the effect that it is not for the state to decide what speech is protected and what isn't protected by the first amendment, that all speech is protected by the first amendment. That same judge played a couple x-box games in his chambers to try and understand games.

I dunno, some peeps don't like Leiberman for his huge man-crush on GW but I say that's cool with me I just don't see what the attraction is.

Just to re-iterate, he's decided the ESRB isn't enough anymore so he wants it to be a crime to sell "Obscene" games to minors.

Yes, even though according to the Federal Trade Commission retailers are checking ID for M & AO titles 64% of the time while movie theatres check IDs for films 65% of the time, somehow the game thing is epidemic. Oh, and the last time the FTC checked DVD sales, clerks only asked for ID 20% of the time. So it's easier for a kid to buy a copy of "Saw" or "Not Another Snuff Film!" than it is to buy Halo 2, but Joe and Hillary feel they need government regulation to step in.

EDIT: Hillary Clinton, not Hillary Swank, btw.

BTW Tornado, where is the gov't enforcing game ratings? I'm sure you mean outside of the USA since so far all efforts for gov't enforcement have been defeated in court by the ESA. SO FAR, that is. What happens when they run out of dolla bills to pay the lawyers is anybody's guess.

I have read in the UK it is government mandated to rate and censor games. This is crap.

Worse yet is AUS, over there not only does the gov't do it but also they don't have an equivalent to the AO rating, so they can ban games fairly easily there. Mark Ecko's is a good example. Thank goodness for the First Amendment, even if our own elected officials don't understand what it means and continually attempt to erode our rights. The person in MN who drafted the recently killed bill is going to draft another one. ><

And it should be struck down again.

Really, why do they keep on trying to put these laws into effect when they are getting struck down?

It should be like baseball, three strikes...