Being someone who knew very little about the proposed SOPA/PIPA legislation, I did not know how it could affect the culture of America, and the world as a whole. Visitors of our site should have a fair understanding of these two bills by now, and if you don’t head over here and educate yourself before you continue to read this article.
As you see, we’re fully participating in the SOPA blackout and are taking a stand with whatever little power we may have behind us and we ask you to join us, and other independent communities like The Bitbag, SFX-360, ThisisXbox, Albatross Revue, among others to do the same.
We at the Game Fanatics are doing it, and I think anyone independent videogame community/site like ours that is not participating will be doing themselves a huge disservice and is either ignorant or scared. Bottomline.
If either of the bills were to pass, we would effectively cease to exist, all the work we’ve put into our sites will be for naught.
By not supporting SOPA, we’re not saying that piracy should be made legal, we’re saying that as Americans, we have the fundamental right to choose. And even if you’re not running a site based in America, you will still be affected the legislation just as bad as we are.
If you’re scared of losing viewers or numbers, then you my friend are in the wrong industry and should grow a pair.
-Charles Adiukwu, President and Founder
I think we did it the right way though; if you want our content, you need to pass through the blackout. I still think reddit did it best! “We’re gone for the day. Peace”
-Jake Valentine, Executive Editor
Piracy? What do the developers think?
Piracy can’t be good for our industry, right? But the reason we are opposing these bills is NOT because we are in support of piracy, in fact, Trine developers, Frozenbyte summed up our sentiments pretty well in their own video against SOPA:
[stream provider=youtube flv=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DQApvhFCwTz8%26feature%3Dplayer_embedded%23%21 img=x:/img.youtube.com/vi/QApvhFCwTz8/0.jpg embed=false share=false width=640 height=360 dock=true controlbar=over bandwidth=high autostart=false /]
“I don’t think [piracy] is something at the forefront for us. First and foremost, we want to make sure we’re making a game people would want to pirate. Let’s make a game that’s worth stealing, and then we’ll worry about making sure they don’t.”
-Eric Barker, Volition studio manager
So no E3 this year, eh?
[stream provider=youtube flv=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DBp8S8eJkMW8 img=x:/img.youtube.com/vi/Bp8S8eJkMW8/0.jpg embed=false share=false width=640 height=360 dock=true controlbar=over bandwidth=high autostart=false /]
That’s right, unless the ESA publicly withdraws their opposition of SOPA, we will not be attending, covering, or promoting the Entertainment and Electronics Expo this year. If the ESA feel that they represent the gaming industry, they need to grow the balls to realize and acknowledge the fact that a majority of the gaming industry is not in support of SOPA/PIPA.
What can you do?
Stand up! Call your elected officials! Support organizations like @theECA who are not only gamers, but political activists looking out for us, and make your voices heard to the ESA, as they are NOT looking out for our best interest in this situation.
