Update: The ESA says it has still not been invited to any meeting with Trump. “The ESA and our member companies have not received an invitation to meet with President Trump,” the organization told GamesBeat on Thursday evening US time. Original story follows.
President Trump will meet with “members of the video game industry” to discuss what can be done about video games in the wake of the Parkland, Florida shooting in February. After the shooting, Trump hosted a meeting at the White House to discuss school safety, and among the subjects that came up were the level of violence in video games and movies.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump will be “meeting with members of the video game industry to see what they can do on that front as well.”
In his White House meeting in February, Trump said he has heard from “more and more people” that “the level of violence in video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts.”
That wasn’t the first time he’s pointed a finger at violent video games. Following the shooting at Sandy Hook in 2012, he tweeted, “Video game violence and glorification must be stopped–it is creating monsters!” Matt Bevin, the Republican governor of Kentucky, also pointed to video games in the wake of Parkland just recently.
Going back to the recent White House briefing, Sanders said, “This is going to be an ongoing process and something that we don’t expect to happen overnight, but something that we expect to continue be engaged in and continue to look for the best ways possible to make sure we’re doing everything we can to schools across the country.” You can see the video game-related segment in the briefing starting at around 6:30 in the video above.
There is no word yet about who Trump will meet with. Kotaku’s Jason Schreier said on Twitter that the ESA and its members have not been invited to a meeting with Trump at this time. The ESA is the organization that puts on E3 every year and lobbies on behalf of the video game industry in Washington D.C. Some of its members include huge, powerful companies such as Activision, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Electronic Arts, among many others.
In 2013, then-vice president Joe Biden met with members of the video game industry executives such as then-EA CEO John Riccitiello to discuss the link between violent video games and gun violence as part of a wider task force into gun control measures. ESA president Michael Gallagher was also at this meeting.
There have been calls from legislators over the years to impose various restrictions on, among things, the sale of violent video games to minors. In a landmark 2011 case, the Supreme Court sided with the gaming industry in the case of Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, striking down a bill that would have fined retailers for each violent game sold to minors.
We will report back with more details from Trump’s video game meeting in the days ahead.
