According to the Cumberland Times, a Frostburg State University students was arrested after comments he made on Xbox Live.

The 19-year old reportedly mentioned to fellow Call of Duty 4 players a threat of shooting up the school. Apparently the student went into much detail about how he would even do it.

Police followed up with the reports by working with Microsoft and Xbox Live to track down the suspect through his internet address.

Following his arrest, he reportedly told investigators he was joking and had no intention of following through with the threat. He could face up to a year in jail and/or a $5,000 fine.

It's approaching almost a month since the Writers Guild of America, for television, film and radio, has gone on strike. While writers are waiting for demands, some are turning their attention towards a new option: video games.

Variety magazine recently talked to one such writer, who commented that "It has been an interesting shift. The literary agents are now saying, 'Why don't we get our clients over there during the strike?' even though in the past they thought the money wasn't good enough or the work is too demanding."

Video game writers as a whole make far less than their screenwriter counterparts. This is due in large part to the fact that game writers are not in unions.

This new interest in games for writers is making the WGA consider adding them to the union. So much so, in fact, that they even plan to feature an award at the Writers Guild Awards this spring.

"By recognizing the skill and craft of video game writing, the Writers Guilds intend to raise the profile of these writers so that they can get WGA contracts and benefits for this work," WGA West president Patric Verrone said.

We at GameBump have a policy about not mentioning the name of a certain troll/bully lawyer unless we absolutely have to. This not yet being one of those instances, I'd just like to say that -- whoever he is -- he faces trial today against the Florida Bar who seeks to disbar him for his legal antics as of the last few years.

His attempts to delay the trial this weekend failed, and as much as he decries the discrimination against him for his "Christian activism," because Christians are the most repressed minority in America, the trial will go on as schedule. The court has apparently even cleared out its whole schedule this week just for this.

Will MFA be disbarred? Without any legal leg to stand on, will he still try to poach grieving families and convince them to blame video games? Will he still be invited to appear on Fox News every time someone under the age of 25 commits any act of violence? Who knows. I can't see him going gently into that good night just because of a massive embarrassment like this.

Check out GamePolitics for full coverage.

• Bill Clinton perjures himself in grand jury testimony
• Oklahoma judge Don Thompson loses his job after being caught using a penis pump under his robes while court was in session
• House Speaker Tom Delay retires from the House in the midst of grand jury probes into the legality his various political activities
• Representative William Jefferson is videotaped accepting tens of thousands of dollars in bribe money; the cash is later recovered from his freezer

• President Bush launches a war on Saddam Hussein's Iraq based on faulty and/or contrived intelligence
• Vice President Dick Cheney shoots his hunting partner in the face
• Representative Cynthia McKinney assaults a capitol police officer
• Representative Patrick Kennedy wrecks his car at 2am in Washington D.C. while under the influence (of something); escapes a sobriety examination by claiming he was "on his way to a vote"The entirety of Congress allows comprehensive illegal immigration legislation to die
• And now, word that both Dennis Hastert and John Murtha could be in ethical trouble for extremely shady earmarks

On Wednesday, June 14, 2006, the Committee on Energy and Commerce, a subcommittee of the US House or Representatives, held a hearing titled (why do these things need titles?), "Violent and Explicit Video Games: Informing Parents and Protecting Children."

As you may have heard, the outcome of this event was not entirely in the best interest of gaming as a whole. The gist of their conclusion, after questioning the head of the ESA, the President of the ESRB, the Director of the FTC's Consumer Protection bureau, Wal-Mart's VP of merchandising, and three game/health experts, was that violent videogames are akin to pornography in their harm for children and that the ESRB is at fault for letting something like Hot Coffee (which was a terribly isolated incident that would be nearly impossible to reproduce) defile our children.

I watched most of the hearing live, before the video feed suddenly cut out once things started getting good, and throughout the whole hour and a half of viewing I was consistently flabbergasted by the ignorance and misinformation that the Senators conducting the hearing were dealing with.

It is extremely apparent that these people, the ones wielding the power of the entire Legislative branch of our government, have little to no experience in the actual "world" of game playing. Every bit of evidence or material they used in their favor was misrepresentative, illogical, or flat-out wrong.
Congressman Stearns

Take, for example, the video clips that the Senators showed after each of the attending introduced themselves. Congressman Cliff Stearns (R. Florida) prefaced the video with something to the tune of, "this should give you an example of the type of material found videogames today." A series of clips then played, mostly from various Grand Theft Auto games, one from San Andreas where the player flew a plane into a building, another from the same game where the player stood on a street corner and shot civilians from a distance with a sniper rifle (even, gasp, police officers), and then a cutscene from Vice City where the main characters complete a drug transaction in a comically farcical way.

What they failed to mention was that all the footage of "acts of violence" they showed were all completely player-choice. The game does not require or even reward you for crashing planes into buildings or sniping police officers; it means that whoever recorded that clip decided on his own volition to see how violent he could be. A player could go through any Grant Theft Auto game and never harm any person who did not attack him first; any violent acts taken out upon strangers or non-combatants is entirely the player's choice.

And the clip of the drug deal, come on... you can watch real drug deals on The Discovery Channel, and there is fictional drug trading in many movies and television shows.

Much more misinformation was bartered in regard to the "Hot Coffee" element of GTA: San Andreas that most people don't even understand.

What People Believe About "Hot Coffee"

In the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, you can enter in a secret code (most people believe that code to be "hot coffee") and you enter a secret level where you engage in scenes of sex and rape. Any person can buy a copy of San Andreas and enter this code to unlock the illicit material. Because this fully explicit material exists in a game rated M (Mature; 17+), the ESRB made a grave mistake by not discovering this material and giving the game an AO rating.

What REALLY Happened With "Hot Coffee"

When Rockstar was creating San Andreas, they planned to include in the actual course of the game this scene where CJ (the player's character) and a woman engage in consensual sexual intercourse at the woman's request, even. Rockstar (wisely) decided late into the development cycle that this material would be offensive and cause too much trouble. This scene’s programming was already integrated into the game's architecture and would therefore be very time-costly to actually remove, so they unlinked all triggers in the game that would cue the scene. In the game as it shipped, there was absolutely no way that this scene could ever be triggered. You could play the game ten thousand times and the sex scene would never show.

Later, some software crackers discovered this content in the PC version of San Andreas and created a software patch that would hack the game files and make it so this scene could be viewed in-game.

To unlock this scene, a player would have to go onto the Internet and find this very complicated unlock patch and apply it himself. This is the only way the "hot coffee" scene could ever be viewed in the game.

While the player was online looking for this patch he could also have downloaded all the illegal child pornography he wanted, but this is not what concerns these Senators. They are concerned for our children's safety because someone could buy a $50 piece of software, play it for at least six hours to get to the part of the game where the sexual content takes place, and manually install an (illegal, according to the DMCA) patch to play a humorous sex minigame.

Nevertheless, almost immediately after "hot coffee" was discovered, the ESRB changed the game's rating to AO (Adults Only) and every single copy of the game on store shelves was recalled and sent back to the manufacturer until a version could be authored where it would be completely impossible to unlock the scene. That part, nobody seems to know about.

Senator Stearns, addressing the representative from Wal-Mart, said, "All a child would have to do to buy this game on your website would be to click this, 'I agree that I am over 18' button and he could buy the game and then enter the 'hot coffee' code to view sexual materials." One of Stearns' assistants leaned in and whispered something in his ear then, most likely something to the tune of, "they fixed the game so you can't view that scene anymore," but Stearns continued, "Ok.. but a child could have just clicked that button to get the game!"

Right, and he'd also need a credit card. Not to mention, even the most law-abiding and child-protecting pornography websites on the Internet can only verify that a customer is over 18 by requiring a credit card and asking that he click a button to confirm that he's over 18. If it's good enough for porno, it should be good enough to make sure nobody buys a videogame who isn't supposed to be.

And if children are using their parents’ credit cards to make online purchases at Wal-Mart willy-nilly, should we blame Wal-Mart or maybe the parents not paying attention? Obviously the Senators want to protect the parents from having to become responsible for their own children.

The real loser in this subcommittee hearing was the ESRB. Patricia Vance, the President of the ESRB, was there for questioning but was obviously unprepared for this last-minute hearing and was too-easily flustered by the Senator's too-easy questions.

The ESRB, for the uninitiated, is an independent foundation started by the ESA that assigns age ratings to every videogame sold at any retail store. They do so by asking game developers to provide a thorough list of all mechanics of the gameplay and any material (in context) that would be offensive, and to include gameplay videos of certain scenes. It's in the publishers' best interest that they be honest, as the rating of their game defines what stores will sell it and how many parents will allow their children to play it.

Senator Stearns got hung up on the notion that it's called the Entertainment Software Rating Board and it's not an actual Board of people who sit around a conference table and discuss all 1,100 games that are released each year. The games themselves are reviewed by volunteers who have no ties to any game publisher, developer, or company.
Dr. Kim Thompson; kook.

Dr. Kimberly Thompson, a shrill-voiced professor of "Risk Analysis and Decision Science" at Harvard's School of Public Health, has a definite grudge against the ESRB. She and her researchers do their own ratings of certain games and chides the ESRB for how "inaccurate they are." For an example of how this woman's mind works, she has stated before that the gameplay of Pac-Man is "64% violent" and at this very hearing tried to denounce the ESRB's ratings by saying that "60% of games rated E (age six and up) by the ESRB reward players for 'injuring other characters." Yes, this includes Mario, for he jumps on turtles which apparently incites youngsters into fits of carnal rage.

The conclusion of the whole hearing, which was decided before it started, was that the ESRB is doing a poor job and should change the way it reviews games – including a serious suggestion that they play every game they review, instead of relying on publisher-provided details.

The fact that anybody could say this with a straight face demonstrates how little these people even consider gaming. One senator who agreed with this idea stated earlier that he liked to play Civilization IV and after many hours still hadn't mastered it. By a generous estimate, it would take over 100 hours to see everything the game Civilization has to offer. A game that you can beat in under five hours is considered to be "too short" by us reviewers, and even a game that you could beat in five hours would take another five hours just to see every corner of the game; and consider then that some games unlock new content only after you've beaten the game a certain number of times. Consider also a game like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas where the gameplay is, aside from the scripted missions, entirely open ended – so it would take an infinite amount of time to see "everything" in the game because what happens is up to you. Consider still that as the ESRB would be reviewing the games for content and not speeding through like the average player, the ESRB reviewers would be forced to play very slowly and deliberately and to take notes for each event.

If the ESRB spent a generous 10 hours on each of the 1,100 games that release in a year, it would take over a year to review a year's worth of games. Also, the ESRB would have to receive completed copies of the games in order to review them, so if they received a too-high score they would have to spend months and months just removing one scene/weapon/character and bug-testing for any errors that removal might have caused. In short, forcing the ESRB to play every game through to completion, if not entirely impossible, would cripple the game development process and would (like the government loves to do) stifle creativity.

The ESA's Doug Lowenstein said two very powerful things that were completely ignored. "Defining this industry based on its most controversial titles would be like defining the film industry based on Kill Bill, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Natural Born Killers," and "Our research shows that the average gamer now is 33 years old. These are not kids."

That doesn’t matter when Congress is on a vendetta and will allow no facts, logic, or sense of decency to stop them from protecting these imaginary children who will go completely bonkers if they see a woman's breast.

The ESRB is not the culprit here. Wal-Mart, or any retailer, is not the culprit here. The developers making violent or sexual content aren't the culprit here. The culprits are these old cronies who refuse to understand the basic principles of the matter. Trying to condemn videogames based on a few acts of player-motivated violence is akin to condemning books based on the fact that if you rearrange letters and words, you get satanic rituals and descriptions of rape. Chiding a store for allowing a child to circumvent their safety policies is akin to blaming Borders if a child buys a mystery novel that includes scenes of murder or sex. Blaming the gaming industry for Hot Coffee is akin to blaming a book publisher if someone draws a penis on a page from a book with a magic marker.

I'm using books for that metaphor because books are something people understand. You can learn to make bombs from books, you can read about how to burn down a house for the insurance money, you can learn what was going through Charles Manson's head in the 1960s, and you can read the hate-filled words of zealots, dictators, racists, bigots, murders, rapists, and extremists, but nobody cares because they're books. We hope that parents would keep children from reading harmful books, but we don't chide everybody but the parents if they don’t.

Late last month, Texas politician and gubernatorial candidate Star Locke proposed a $10,000 per-abortion tax on medical clinics and a 50 percent tax on soda that "contains added glucose, fructose, and sucrose." Likewise, Locke suggested a 50 percent "grease tax" on "all food prepared by deep-frying or cooking in any form of oil or grease for human consumption." Locke justified his radical tariffs, stating to the Amarillo Globe: "I take the position that the founding fathers took: that the power to tax is the power to destroy."

One can only imagine the ensuing riots at speculation of a $9 quarter-pounder, but though Locke's levies are illogical (if not unconstitutional), one final suggestion topped the cake: to pass a 100 percent sales tax on violent videogames into law.

While gamers shouldn't fret about paying $100 for the next Halo or Grand Theft Auto update, they should worry that Locke's "solution" is indicative of a growing trend in American politics - more than ever, legislators are pushing for laws that illegalize the sale of violent and mature videogames to minors.

Pro-regulation figureheads like Jack Thompson would have us believe that games are mental intoxications – that each time I pop Killzone or Resident Evil into my console, I’m subjecting myself to content that will ultimately brainwash me into a volatile, aggressive sociopath. In a January 8 article published this year on The News Tribune, Thompson claims: "Teens […] have a neurobiological developmental deficit that can, in the worst case, turn them into "Manchurian Candidate" killing machines."

Thompson’s pseudo-scientific indictment of the gaming industry is remindful of the language used in prescription medication ads: "…side effects of playing Counter-Strike may include nausea, dizziness, or assaulting your friends and family against your will." …Perhaps we should consult the Surgeon General as well.

Are there games that are inappropriate for minors? Absolutely. Does it mean that every 17-year-old should be prohibited from buying games because they haven’t sufficiently “matured” enough to handle certain content? Is a generalized, age-based ban an appropriate and effective way to protect our children from violent games?

Unfortunately, one reason these questions remain is the fact that our legislators are largely ignorant of video games as a medium, and are instead informed by a few highly-specified and over-dramatized examples. Titles like Manhunt and Mortal Kombat, while clearly members of the "mature" category, have redeeming artistic qualities, but are construed as typifying an industry-wide epidemic.

Of course, it hasn't helped that the gaming industry has grown so quickly. Not 20 years ago, having consoles and personal computers in the household was a radically new idea; in 2004, the gaming industry posted revenues of $10 billion – more than Hollywood. Culturally and otherwise, gaming's footprint hasn't quite been measured by society, and it’s part of the reason we’re seeing unrealistic regulations.

But if we reflect, the recipe seems familiar: new technologies, new forms of expression, and new ways of perceiving reality have a predictable way of muddling anyone we elect into office. Film, television, and radio represent some of our most highly-regulated businesses; and politicians would rather attack industries that subjectively “pollute” our minds than the ones that pollute the very air we breathe.

If the term "scapegoat" seems too harsh, examine an excerpt from the Baxter Bulletin, an Arkansas newspaper. In an article about Jacob Robida, the recently-accused offender in an attack at a gay bar in Massachusetts that killed a police officer, the paper published this quote from Massachusetts Prosecuting Attorney Paul Walsh: "My look at the search warrant (for Robida's home) was that the investigators turned up no video games. […] From the information we have here, there is no proof video games were involved."

Thank goodness that Robida’s PlayStation or Xbox weren’t accomplices to his hateful act. But who suggested a game-crime connection to police? None other than Jack Thompson, the Miami attorney that seems to involve himself in national investigations when it suits his interests.

Inexplicably, videogames have become society’s insanity plea for murder, violence, and other crimes. Will increased game-regulation really attenuate these problems? Likely not, but it begs a more important question - how do we strike a balance between allowing freedom of expression and understanding a medium for what it is, but also aiding parents in choosing what their child should or shouldn’t be exposed to?

Ultimately, parents’ and law-makers’ understanding of video games has to mature. Politicians seem under the impression that each time Joe twelve-year-old blows away some poor virtual soul in Halo, they’re going to take it into the streets. But the way people interact and are affected by video games isn’t that simple.

Individuals that commit crimes "inspired" by video games have more deeply rooted problems - an inability to distinguish reality from fantasy. While games with violent content could serve as an impetus for troubled youths, they ignore the "bigger picture;" the fact that ultimately, people are responsible for their own actions.

More generally, society needs to take the initiative to hold a view that recognizes videogames as a legitimate form of communication and entertainment, not a system designed to drill teenagers on the intricacies of executing a drive-by shooting. People seem unwilling to accept the idea that society's ills are rooted in more significant problems than computer-rendered characters engaging in a virtual firefight.