The Corn Beltway Boys

War in Iraq? Don’t care. Abortion? Old news. Taxes? Screw ‘em. Global Warming? Phhhht.

The thing that is going to decide my vote begins in 22 days! April 29th, 2009. That is the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, and with that, all the potential controversy that follows.

If I want to jack a car and run over some cops, I can do it. If I want to beat a hooker with a golf club, I can do that too!

Of course I would never do those things in real life… It’s just a game silly. However, politians sometimes see video games as a tempting targert. Take Hillary from 2005.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has attacked violent video games as “a silent epidemic” among children, said she wants a federal investigation into one of the most popular, “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.”

The crap that they churn out of Hollywood can be just as bad as the most violent video game.. Sometimes worse. (And don’t get me wrong.. I love some of that “crap” Hollywood kicks out!!) I doubt you will ever see a canidate, especially a Democrat, call for an investigation into Hollywood.

Also, I am not sure the video game industry is something you can push around anymore. It is a massive industry.

“Although we’ve been confident for many months now that the industry was poised to realize its best year ever in terms of revenue, the results in recent months makes me even more bullish,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier. “I believe the U.S. video games industry will realize somewhere in the range of $17 billion to $18 billion for the year.”

SEVENTEEN TO $18 BILLION!! Compare that to the Hollywood box office, which had a record year in 2007 of only $9.53 billion. Throw in the massive DVD market and I think it retakes video games, but still, I think the video game industry could throw it’s weight around if it had too.

-Chris Neuendorf