Video Game Tax in New Mexico

New Mexico Proposes Video Game Tax to Punish Staying Indoors

But a coalition of groups, led by the Rio Grande chapter of the Sierra Club, is sold on the idea that outdoor education programs can inspire children in a way that video games and television cannot.

The coalition wants state lawmakers to create a No Child Left Inside Fund with a 1 percent tax on TVs, video games and video game equipment. The fund would help pay for outdoor education throughout the state.

Joseph Henchman says:

The fundamental purpose of taxes is to raise revenue necessary for programs, not micromanage people's decisions with subsidies and penalties. If a tax targeting video games is justified, it should be on the basis of actual negative externalities, not the whims of social engineers picking things they don't like at random.

For myself, I can say without ambiguity that I vastly prefer this type of policy to efforts to ban certain types of video game content. One advantage is that a direct tax creates a disincentive to hurt the industry.
More ambiguously though, I agree with the philosophy of government given by Mr. Henchman. While it's appealing to think that Parks'n Rec would be paid for by Gamestop, as a service, parks and rec should be paid for by people that use it, not by people that don't. People should want more outdoor activities, government should try to 'make them want' more outdoor activities.

Hat Tip to Joseph Henchman @ Tax Policy Blog

Robot vs Puppy

Head Tracking using the Wii-mote

It's important to note, that Johnny is not actually using the Wii to run this program. But I haven't seen anything to indicate that the capacity to run this type of operation isn't there.

The one thing holding Nintendo back from destroying the M$FT and Sony empires is the perpetual Wii shortage. The Wii has been completely sold out of stores ever since the system launched 14 months ago. The ticker symbol is NTDOY.


Another hat tip to my roommate, Ryan Lea. He's the guy on the left.

Masseffect Madness

Fox News did their best to ream Masseffect. EA, who bought Bioware after release of this game, sent Fox a livid letter saying they should clear up the many false claims they made in the piece. A partial list of the lies Fox let out about this game is below.

• The game includes 'full digital nudity'

Nothing in the game is anything that can't be seen regularly on prime-time broadcast TV.

• The player chooses what happens 'between the two people, you know what I mean.'

The 13 minutes of game play that is in the game is a cut scene that probably won't even happen for most players, due to the decisions you have to make to activate the cut scene.

• That 'Princess Enchanted Brides' is an actual game that exists.

Google searches only turned up comments on blogs and Digg about how nobody know what this game is. So far, there's no evidence that the game exists except for that panelist's comment.

• Adolescent males are mostly who play video games.

According to ESA, the average gamer age is 33.

• Adult Only is a viable rating for a game.

AO rated games DO NOT GET SOLD IN STORES. It's essentially an X rating that is only used to ban a game from the market. The M rating includes some sexual content and is similar to an R movie rating. Here's a link to Gamestop's ratings explanation.

The commenter on the left that flamed the game (without even playing it) has had her book on Amazon torn to shreds by the gaming community in response to her comments on the show. Her rating is down to 1 star.

Hat tip to my roommate Ryan.