Game Politics

I was poking around my Xbox 360’s blog on 360voice.com and  I noticed they had a link to google twistedsymphony. I google my name (both TS and my real name) every so often just to see what pops up. Usually I get links to my various websites, articles I’ve written and a whole lot of new posts about my Saturn 2 360 controller adapter. I noticed that their search query added the term “xbox” to the search as well. I clicked it expecting to get the usual, but a few links down from the top I noticed that GamePolitics.com mentioned me.

GamePolitics is the foremost internet publication discussing political issues surrounding games.  In general they act as an unbiased source of news about new game related bills being past as well as prominent lawsuits. I don’t frequent the site but they pop up on the radar quite often when big things start happening.

This is why I was flattered to see that my analysis of the ICE Raids on Modchip shops last year: The Legality of Modding, garnered two whole dedicated articles on their site. The first article captured the overall theme of what I was going for and used it as the voice of the modders side of the story describing it as “the most lucid, detailed and passionate criticism we’ve seen”. The second article was dedicated to a small bit of irony I noted at the end of my rant pointing out that the “gallery” provided by ICE was comprised entirely of copyrighted images that they themselves were infringing. This time they referred to me as “embittered”, which is accurate but somewhat humorous considering how my analysis was described by them just days earlier.

This is mostly old news but for all the writing I do online it’s nice to see that other people read and appreciate it as well.

FWIW I haven’t done any modding for quites some time now. Right now it’s just not worth it, I haven’t put a soldering iron to a console since long before I wrote that ICE Raids rant, nor I  have I even used any homebrew software since then.  I still write my Representatives and Senators regularly about my opinions on these issues.

I’m not giving up by any stretch of the imagination, I just feel that my efforts would be best served towards some goals that don’t walk the blurry lines of legality according to the DMCA. “The Scene” is pretty boring overall right now anyway. You’ll see something analogous to my Saturn Adapter sometime this year. In the mean time my efforts are pointed almost entirely towards my latest pet project: CollectorsEdition.org, which is coming along quite nicely.