Pokemon Video Game Championship Series

A couple of weeks ago I got up early to drive down to the Pokemon Video Game Northeastern Championship Series in King of Prussia (outside Philadelphia) with my daughter. Nintendo runs these competitions around the U.S. and Japan, culminating in a World Championship event being held this year in San Diego on August 14.

Nintendo splits the competition into two age groups - a Juniors Category for players born on or after January 1, 1997 and a Seniors Category for players born on December 31, 1996 or earlier. I've always found the age grouping odd - you often have 12 year old kids competing against much older adults which, to me as a parent, is a little bit creepy.

The competitor selection process is also setup in an odd way. There are only 128 competition slots in each age group with players randomly selected. We arrived around 7:00 and waited for registration to open - by the time registration ended there we're close to 500 people signed up for the 128 place older age group lottery. Names were randomly pulled and 128 people were selected to compete. Yes, there were 40-plus year old adults competing with 12 year old kids. There were also a lot of discouraged kids (and parents) who traveled some long distances only to not have their name pulled.

I ended up sitting for a while with a guy in his late thirties who had competed in the first round of the seniors category and lost. He told me he had not spent much time preparing for the competition and was really only there to throw his name into the lottery for a chance at the give-aways only the people that compete get. He was extremely proud of the DS (game) sticker he had "won" telling me "Only the people that compete get these special stickers".

I asked him if it bothered him that he had taken a competition slot from a 12 year old who had likely spent a lot more time preparing than he did - he told me "No, not at all".

My Flickr picture set for the event is linked here http://www.flickr.com/photos/gordonfsnyder/sets/72157620201140204/

Banning Video Games in Boston?

There's been a lot of controversial discussion here in Massachusetts - Boston Mayor Menino wants to ban retailers from selling violent video games to people under the age of 18. In an article today describing Menino's proposal, the Boston Herald published a list of some of the most violent games along with brief descriptions:

NARC - Player takes the role of a narcotics agent attempting to take a dangerous drug off the streets and shut down the KRAK cartel while being subject to temptations, including drugs and money. To enhance abilities, players can take drugs, including pot, Quaaludes, ecstasy, LSD and “Liquid Soul” which provides the ability to kick enemies’ heads off.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - Player is a young man working with gangs to gain respect. His mission includes murder, theft, and destruction on every imaginable level. Player recovers his health by visiting prostitutes, then recovers funds by beating the prostitutes to death and taking their money. Player can wreak as much havoc as he likes without progressing through the game’s storyline.

Condemned - A creepy first-person shooter where gamers are on the trail of a serial killer. It features ferocious hand-to-hand combat scenes where gamers use an array of blunt objects such as metal pipes, nail-covered 2-by-4s, fire axes, sledgehammers and signposts to elimate a host of deranged enemies.

Resident Evil 4 - The gamer is a special forces agent sent to recover the president’s kidnapped daughter. During the first minutes of play, it’s possible to find the corpse of a woman pinned to a wall by a pitchfork through her face.

50 Cent: Bulletproof - The game is loosely based on the gangster lifestyle of rapper Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson. Player engages in gangster shootouts and loots the bodies of victims to buy new 50 Cent recordings and music videos.

A second Boston Herald article describes how gamers are claiming Menino’s proposal is unconstitutional, citing nine federal court decisions that have rejected similar bids in recent years. Editor of GamePolitics.com and blogger for the Entertainment Consumers’ Association Dennis McCauley, is also quoted in the second Herald article:

We don’t believe that a 10-year-old should be playing Grand Theft Auto, but it really is the parent’s responsibility to decide what the child should and shouldn’t play.

These are certainly games any parent would not want their young children playing.