Mayors Take On Video Games
Mayors in the cities of Las Vegas, Nevada and Juarez, Mexico are talking tough against games that they believe infringe upon their cities' territory, be it legal or moral. While Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman has spoken up about violence depicted in his city by video games before (Rainbow Six Vegas got the sharp end of Goodman's tongue last year, when he wasn't busy drinking a highball between boobies), but this time his complaint is more semantic.
It seems that Midway Games is trying to trademark the phrase "Only in Vegas" for use in an undisclosed project, but the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has held the trademark for a similar phrase, "Only Vegas" since 2003, and Mr. Mayor is worried people will confuse the two. They're certainly similar, but will the public really confuse a game with a city? That's not the point, of course, according to LVCVA official Terry Jicinsky:
We are concerned about the similarity of the two marks, which we believe has the potential to confuse the consumer. The logo would imply that the game was developed or endorsed by the LVCVA. We have invested significant resources in developing the ‘Only Vegas’ brand and we don’t want any confusion or dilution of that brand.
Meanwhile, in Juarez, Mayor Hector Murguia Lardizabal asked the feds to stop children and teenagers from playing Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 because video games create violence and the game insults the people of Juarez:
Violent video games instill values which are upside down, and these actions are despicable because they attempt to divide the good will of the residents of American and Mexican cities.
Am I the only one to notice the irony, here? It seems the mayors of American and Mexican cities have plenty of common ground to bond over - their misplaced ire against video games.
As for upside-down values and the cause of violence, almost 400 women and girls have been murdered in Juarez since 1993 - the situation, while complex and horrific, is bad enough that Amnesty International devotes a special page of their Stop Violence Against Women website to the city. Taking on a fictional video game while the women and girls of your city are prey to a very real threat seems quite arguably "upside-down" itself.
Fray develops over phrase in video game [CasinoCityTimes]
[via GamePolitics]
Juarez Mayor Takes Shots at GRAW2 [GamePolitics]
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Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 12 March 2007
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: graw2, juarez, las vegas, mayor, midway
It would be "upside-down" if the mayor of Juarez had devoted more time to raging against videogames in the last 14 years than he has to curtailing violence, but I'm guessing that's . . . Visit the site to read more!
Yeah...Oscar Goodman (the mayor of Las Vegas) shouldn't really be coming out against video games. He's a pretty cool guy, but I think he's just trying to act moral. Because, you know, being a lawyer for the mob back in its hayday wasn't bad or anything... :P
I'm from Las Vegas btw. I know these things! XD