Just The Facts

With the recent announcement of advertising here on Gamers With Jobs, my strong bond with the common man senses that many of you are apprehensive about the change. Perhaps you think our editorial integrity has been compromised, that we will cater our content to advertisers or that we'll just plain sell out. Well the Gaming Report is here to put those fears to rest! Today we have some of the hard-hittingest most-importantiest issues out there affecting gaming. And we're going to bring them to you, advertisers be damned. Prepare for some of the Facts™.

EA Shares Information

Over at the high quality but inappropriately named Dubious Quality several interesting facts about EA's Privacy Policy have come to light. Thanks to the diligent efforts of Ars Technica the legalese has been detangled to leave us with this interesting paragraph.

If you sign up to play EA games through Microsoft's Xbox Live Service, Microsoft will provide your Xbox Live user account information to EA so that we can establish an EA Online account for you. You need an EA Online account to play EA's Xbox Live titles. By signing up to play EA's Xbox Live titles, you agree that Microsoft can transfer your user account information to EA.

Information collected will vary depending upon the activity and may include your name, e-mail address, phone number, mobile number, home address, birth date and credit card information. In addition, we may collect demographic information such as gender, zip code, information about your computer, hardware, software, platform, media, Internet IP address and connection, information about online activity such as feature usage, game play statistics and scores, user rankings and click paths and other data that you may provide in surveys or online profiles, for instance. We may combine demographic information with personal information.

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This telling paragraph is a sure indicator of things to come. EA has finally let the cat out of the bag, nowhere in that paragraph do they say they'll sell your credit card info to Nigerian scammers. Showing an amazing amount of restraint and civility towards it's customers, EA has decided not to make it company policy to sell your personal financial information to Nigerian scammers, online pharmacies or mail-order bride catalogs. While EA refused to comment, or even answer the phone, the implication is clear, your data is safe with EA. With EA, your safety is in the game.

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The ESA Comments on New Video Game Bill

This week the ESA president Doug Lowenstein commented on the "Truth in Video Game Rating Act" or H.R. 5912. This resolution, introduced by the honorable Chairman Cliff Stearns (R but he's still a nice guy too), proposes government oversight of the ESRB's video game rating process. Controversially, it also requires someone at the ESRB to rate the game by playing through the entire game instead of just watching a video that's "representative" of it's content. Doug's comments weren't favorable.

"For example, the proposal that every video game be played through in its entirety before a rating is issued means that the only people rating games will be professional gamers with the skills necessary to play through games that can take more than 100 hours and who are not likely to be representative of the mainstream American parent."

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It seems to this humble reporter that Mr. Lowenstein is missing the point. The Government only wants to help the ESRB by making it so that the accuracy of their ratings system is so implicitly flawless that it cannot be questioned. After all, it will be government approved at that point, so surely it must be perfect and truly what's best for America's children. And grownups too, for that matter.

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Gamestop Facing Egregious Lawsuit

Gamestop is currently being sued by several of it's store managers in Louisiana, otherwise known as the unjustified lawsuit state, where they claim Gamestop is in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

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This so called "act" states that all management positions are exempt from the overtime regulations of the state. It seems that they are managers. Okay, done, case closed.

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The managers claims that because they have no control over product placement, stock, price, employee behavior, salary, hiring decisions or have any discretion at all when it comes to any independent decision-making that they're not really managers. Well let me ask all you store managers out there something, what does it say on your name tag? I thought so, it says Manager. Case closed.

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As you can see, our in-your-face attitude has not diminished one bit because of the advertisements now included on the site. Our integrity is without question, mainly because I refuse to question it. That said, you can look for more Gaming Report coming right back at you next month to talk about EA-brand Madden 2008 and how wonderful it is. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go spend the $0.03 I just made with the advertisements in this article. Until next time, keep reading and keep searching for The Facts™.

Comments

Well, I'm glad to see that we haven't sold out .... yet.

Excellent! It's about time that GWJ started blasting us with some high-tensile inoculative doses of Truthiness! Tell it to us from your gut, Pyroman!

mail-order bridge catalogs

Bridge or bride? I didn't know you can mail order a bridge.

Surely this is the greatest piece of writing on GWJ ever.

Edwin wrote:
mail-order bridge catalogs

Bridge or bride? I didn't know you can mail order a bridge.

I don't know where you get your libelous lies but I bet you can't say that 3 times fast.

As long as all the ads are done as tastefully as this, I have no problem with it.

Desram wrote:

As long as all the ads are done as tastefully as this, I have no problem with it.

:)

What ads? I must have missed those.

Oh, I get it. Sarcasm! (Or is it "irony"? I always confuse those two).

I need more coffee.

Pyro, that was beautiful!

But where are the talking ads begging me to instal more smilies in my mail program? My mom refuses to read any emails I send her unless they have a new background and animated talking smilies in it!

The Gaming Report is my only source of information. I'm happy to see that nothing has changed.

Nicely done, Pyro.

It's great to see such a hard-hitting, cutting-edge, in-your-face, fish-in-urerthra journalistic article like this. I love that GWJ is not afraid to ask The Hard Questions™.

First Gaming Reports and loving it. Nice Job.

For a moment I wasn't sure if those were actual ads or part of the sarcasm.

As usual, Pyro, your unflinching willingness to tackle the truth brings a tear to my eye. This is one of my most favoritest Gaming Reports ever.

Edwin wrote:
mail-order bridge catalogs

Bridge or bride? I didn't know you can mail order a bridge.

Absolutely. It's just that the shipping will cost you . . . .

Pee-latinum!

LOL, can we get a drum roll please

duckideva wrote:

That's awesome!

The next step is clearly topic-sensitive advertising: someone posts a message on quality of life issues, and the sidebar changes automagically to an attorney's or a union's advertisement...

Nice touch Pyro, btw, that TQ artbook is actually pretty nice (no really I have it)

Satire is the mark of all great literature. Good jorb!

Ah, Pyro, I loves me some Facts™! I feel much better about things now that I understand how it's all going down.