The DeanBeat: The powers that be show how Washington D.C. views the game business

GamesBeat 2013 gave us a good view of what the game industry looks like from some very different but important views. Mark DeLoura, the White House adviser on games, and Mike Gallagher, the game industry’s chief lobbyist in Washington, D.C. (and the head of the Entertainment Software Association), both appeared onstage with me at our event last week. After soaking in what they said for a week, I found it interesting to parse the differences between the White House and the lobbyist — where they stood together and where they stood apart on video games.

I was intrigued about the unspoken politics that governed what they could and couldn’t say. There was no way that both of them could agree on video game violence, given the beliefs of their bosses or constituents. Even after years of litigation that have cleared the game industry, people still tend to blame video games every time a mass shooting occurs. The politics around that are still delicate.