Reality Bytes in The Escapist Issue 215
This week in The Escapist, Issue 215, “Reality Bytes.” The focus of this week’s issue is on When video games and the real world collide and the off after affects that are interesting and oftetimes odd.
Robert Yang writes about the game-like OKCupid dating service in “Grinding the Dating Scene“; Robert Buerkle examines the truth and realism in MMO’s in his article The Truthiness of Simulation; Kate McKiernan looks at the importance of using games to exercise free speech and whether or not Virtual Jihadi crosses the line in “Cease Fire: A Look at Virtual Jihadi“; and Haasim Mahanaim talks about advances in CGI and what happens when technology finally crosses that barrier into the real in “Attack of the Uncanny Valley.”
This and much more can be found in Issue 215 of The Escapist.
ESA vs. the Chicago Transit Authority
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) has filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), challenging the CTA’s prohibition on certain computer and video game advertisements as a violation of the guarantees of free speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, alleges that the CTA is unfairly targeting the entertainment software industry by enacting an ordinance that selectively bans advertisements of computer and video games rated “Mature 17+” (M) or “Adults Only 18+” (AO).
In January of this year, the CTA enacted Ordinance 008-147, prohibiting any advertisement that “markets or identifies a video or computer game rated “Mature 17+” (M) or “Adults Only 18+” (AO).” The ESA’s suit contends that this new ordinance is unconstitutional and restricts speech in a public forum that is otherwise open to all speakers without a compelling interest for doing so. In addition, the complaint argues that the ordinance discriminates on the basis of viewpoint and ignores less restrictive means of achieving the supposed ends of the ordinance.
