LogFAQs > #922291189

Schreier: Have you been in conversations with the ESA, the video games lobbyist group, or any other video game companies about how this might impact them?

Hawley: Yes, yes we have.

Schreier: Can you describe the nature of those conversations?

Senior policy advisor Jacob Reses: This is Jacob here. I think its fair to say the industry has concerns about this... Weve been trying to be very transparent with them, but there may be some difference of opinion.

Hawley: Jacobs being very diplomatic.

Schreier: Yes, any elaboration you can make here? I ask because I pay a lot of attention to these financial calls that these companies have, and EA for example is very reliant on the loot box income that comes in from FIFA games. A lot of these companies are very reliant on this stuff.

Hawley: And FIFA would indeed be covered by this legislation, to be clear. Theyve certainly expressed their, shall we say, concern over this legislation. But I think thats probably a good indication that were getting somewhere.

Schreier: Do you think youre getting somewhere? Ive seen cynicism from financial analysts, from people in the games sphere, skepticism that this will actually pass. Certainly some concerns that this might just be a publicity stunt.

Hawley: I think if they thought it were a publicity stunt they wouldnt be so concerned. I think the reaction of the corporate lobbyists sort of strongly suggests that theyre very worried about this. I think it probably also suggests that they know this practice is not going to stand up to public scrutiny. Once parents really understand whats going on here, and once the general public understands how these games are being manipulated, how their integrity is being compromised, how basically these companies have found a way to make whole gobs of money without really being upfront about it, and of course the addictive nature of it, I think theyre pretty worried that its going to result in public backlash, and it should.

Schreier: Public backlash is one thing, but I cant imagine that many of your colleagues in Congress know enough or care about video games. Can this really get traction among those folks?

Hawley: I think everybody though cares about the health and safety of kids. And they also should care about this broader problem of what Ive started calling the addiction economy, which this is a great example. We see this in other spheres by the waywe see it in social media, were seeing it here in the gaming industry, where youve got these corporations finding new ways to try to hook folks, extract personal information from them, in the case of social media. Extract money of them in the case of games. Without regard to what that does to either in the case of gaming the game itself, and then to peoples general health and wellbeing. So I think theres a lot of concern about that and we hope to drive a conversation in this space.