Brook

My opinion... I'm not going to vote against somebody just because their anti-game. However, it will set off a lot of flags. If somebody is involved in anti-game legislation, it means that they're might be:
1) Working on faulty or flawed information. Whether this is deliberate on their part or not is almost inconsequential. Do you prefer your politicians corrupt or incompetent.
2) Willing to focus on little things at the expense of more important issues.
3) Grandstanding just to get elected.
The word "might" is important here (although one could argue just about every politician is guilty of all 3 to some extent). It's a warning flag. You see it, and you investigate further to see if, aside from his stance on gaming, does he represent your interests better than his opposition.

Jack, you're really losing it, aren't you? I just read the Bully preview (not review, there's a difference) that IGN put up yesterday. The ONLY mention of violence in the entire thing is that you'll need to increase your fighting skills (via gym class) in order to beat some bosses. Other than that, the review talks, at some length, about the various non-violent activities you can perform (such as playing catch, bringing flowers to girls, and the big Halloween prank-fest).
I'm used to you only reading the parts of a story that say what you want them to, but you're completely making stuff up here! Name one sentence in that preview that proves the game is HALF as violent as you say it is.
While you're at it, wanna provide a link to that Kim testimony? Considering your last display, she could endorse the ESRB completely and you'd still say she claimed it was a sham.

@ chaoticmagus
All right, thinking about it, the ESRB might not be able to find out all that quickly. However, if a company is deliberately hiding content to get a lower rating, the ESRB is probably going to find out sooner or later. Like I said, they can fine the company involved. As for the ESRB refusing to rate a game... let me explain it like this. A company makes a game with M-level content, but when they present it to the ESRB, they only show T-level content. The ESRB gives the game a T rating and the company starts making another game. The ESRB finds out about this, through various possible means. Assuming this is not the company's first infraction, the ESRB may decide that they will not give the second game a rating. As a result, the game will not be sold by EB, GameStop, Best Buy, WalMart, or any other store that's part of the ESA. The company will lose boatloads of money on what could have been a profitable game, because they lied to the ESRB.

@ Probot
Actually, with the Wii's Connect24, I think that would be easy. With Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2, there's already something in place that let's you upload your custom-made levels to a server, I think.

@ 32 Footsteps
The ESRB couldn't just hire college students. First of all, they'd have to pay them minimum wage, or the goverment WOULD have a reason to interfere. Secondly, the ESRB tries to have non-gamers do the ratings.

@ Todd
Which games, in your opinion, should be rated M, but are recieving a T rating or less?

@ chaoticmagus
Yes, I will trust the developers and publishers to show the ESRB the most sordid parts of the game. Because if they don't, the ESRB will find out pretty quickly. The ESRB has the ability to give fines. And if that's not a good enough deterrent, they can refuse to rate a game, which means most retail stores won't carry it.

@ 32 Footsteps
I disagree. Yeah, some games only take 8-10 hours, although for someone with no gaming experience, it would probably take a while longer. Most games are more in the range of 16-20, though, with a few more hours if you go for 100% completion (which often unlocks content, so the reviewers would have to do it). How about RPG's? 60+ hours, not including side-quests. And I know people who have played over 800 hours in World of Warcraft and still haven't seen everything.
More importantly, this would increase the cost to get a game rated, which would be bad news for small or independent game studios that want to try to get their games into retail store.
However, on the most important aspect of this, we're in complete agreement. The government has no right to dictate how the ESRB handles itself.

And that's not even getting into the fact that the ESRB tries to hire non-gamers in order to keep the ratings relatively non-biased. Can you imagine how long it would take a non-gamer to get through some games today? Not to mention the fact that unless they're given some sort of list, they're likely to miss out on lots of hidden content. And, of course, the ESRB would need to constantly get new raters as the old raters, after judging a few games, wouldn't really qualify as non-gamers anymore.

the truth seems "boring" when you're liars, because the truth is such an inconvenience.
That explains so much of what you say.

Four experts who have testified before Congress have told the Alabama court that if he had not played the game, he would not have killed,
Who are these experts? What information are they basing this decision on? I'd like to see their exact wording, because you have a tendency to exagerate and ommit parts until things say what you want them to (the APA report, for instance).

developed his counter-intuitive, unnatural, one-shot-per-target technique from playing and training on violent (mature-rated) video games.
Several tings to say here. First of all, what exactly was so counter-intuitive or unnatural about his killing technique? Most of the kids you claim got their skills from video games were already trained in how to fire guns (the Columbine boys went hunting, Posey's own father had bragged about Posey's aim). How is it that you feel playing a game offers better training than real life gun practice? You also have yet to mention how using auto-aim and pressing square somehow translates into real-life ability. Even using the sniper rifle (the only weapon in GTA fired from your own perspective) the character is capable of holding the rifle completely stationary, even while firing.

I'd love to see you answer any of these questions Jack, although you'll probably just skip over them. Just in case you need a reminder, here are the questions:
1) Who are the experts and what did they base their statements on? Actual transcripts of the statements would be appreciated.
2) What was counter-intuitive or unnatural about the one boy's technique?
3) Why do you feel video games are solely responsible for these people's accuracy, when most, if not all, of them had prior training using real guns?
4) How does game assisted shooting, that's only marginally realistic at best, often completely ignoring things like loading the gun, unsteady hands, the safety, etc. translate into real world skills?
5) (This one wasn't mentioned before, but it's probably the most important one here) Do you honestly believe that video games were more responsible for Cody killing his family than the abuse he suffered at their hands? Are you at all worried that this case attempts to excuse the deplorable actions of Paul Posey?