The Games Industry Has a New Self-Regulating Agency, Apparently

Way back in 1994, following the release of several gory video games on home consoles (Specifically Splatterhouse and Mortal Kombat), there arose talk of the government stepping in and providing a rating systems for games, to prevent children from getting their hands on games they shouldn’t be playing. The industry didn’t like that idea one bit, so they created their own self-regulation board, the ESRB, which would rate games from there on out and make it easy for parents to know what kind of content they can expect in their kid’s games.

And it worked! More or less. Until the explosion of digital games that didn’t need an ESRB rating to get shelf space on the online marketplace. So it’s faltered a little bit in recent years, but for triple-A developers and anyone who intends to release a console game, the ESRB is a necessary establishment in the industry.

And now, apparently, we’re getting another.

A self-proclaimed group of “industry leaders and experts” has come together and announced the formation of a new advocacy group called the National Committee for Games Policy, whose mission statement is to “give policy makers the information they need to make informed decisions.”

From a press release:

"Unlike the IGDA, we are not an association of game developers. We are a coalition of high level industry experts and influencers… We will work on the behalf of games industry professionals of all political leanings. In order to do this, the NCGP has appointed a steering committee with significant political experience on both ends of the spectrum. Where videogames, politics, and law intersect, you will be sure to find the NCGP."

There are two divisions in NCGP: the ITK, a “privately-funded think tank” that will use political connections to basically act as lobbyists for the games industry, and the SRO, which aims to be a consumer advocacy organization that hopes to investigate and, theoretically, punish game makers who overstep the bounds and “damaged the public consciousness in some way.”

This is all well and good, but there's a laundry list of things that are suspicious about this whole thing. Their tagline, “Gamers Under Fire”, seems needlessly combative considering it’s been years since we’ve been seriously threatened by any legislation that would have censored the medium. Plus, barely a day after they put out that press release, they’ve opened their membership restrictions so anyone can apply to join. Their list of public members includes two unpictured people, "kenny" and "jack", and their website is not only extremely unpolished, it's not an HTTPS site... which means it's not secure in the slightest.

Oh, and one of their latest tweets is literally just #Lootgate. Not the kind of tweeting I would expect from an official establishment.

I’m going to keep my eye on this one, ladies and gentlemen. I have a lot of questions, but based on everything I'm seeing, this is looking more like some kind of joke or con than an offical website, which is why I haven't linked you to it. I'll keep you posted.