Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming: Right to Game: An interview with Hal Halpin

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Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming (Subscribe)

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Right to Game: An interview with Hal Halpin

Several of the 9:30 sessions for day #2 of the Triangle Game Conference got off to kind of an anemic start -- unfortunately, especially on the business and policy side.

I attended "Right to Game: An interview with Hal Halpin", a deeper dive into what the hell the ECA is doing for the game industry. Fortunately, the answer is "a hell of a lot".

Non-mic'ed, hard-to-hear session aside, the Entertainment Consumers Association has refocused to be advocates for consumer rights and educating, from DRM awareness to standardizing EULA. They're a good balance for retailer and industry advocacy groups.

Hal was very complimentary toward the ESRB, while echoing a concern I have about needing to better distinguish between Halo- and GTA-style M-rated games.

Hal also made the analogy too the AAA organization, and the same way that the ECA wants to do both advocacy and affinity benefits.

They're also hiring Jason Andersen (I think from ONE PR Studio) as a public-facing advocate.

Hal stifled himself a few times to not disclose upcoming announcements, and it sounds like they'll be meeting consumer demographic needs outside of gaming, per se.

I find it frustrating that games are saddled with restrictions more akin to toys, rather than the media they are.

Interesting side distinction was the fact that PC titles are much more of a "software-seat" style license, making resale a no-opp, but console titles are more of a traditional merchandise purchase, and can hence be resold.

Full disclosure - I'm an ECA member. And there are 50 chapters, so there's likely an opp to participate close to you.

The session was mediated by Themis Media Group co-founder and CFO Thomas S. Kurtz.

Here's the official digest:

Join us for a conversation between ECA President Hal Halpin and The Escapist's Russ Pitts over the future of games as a media and a business, the role of the Electronic Consumers Association and the many key issues facing consumers today, including DRM, Net Neutrality, the economy and the ESRB.

Speakers

* Hal Halpin
President, ECA

Hal Halpin is the president of the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA), the non-profit membership organization which represents gamers. Mr. Halpin, a pioneer in the interactive entertainment industry with more than 15 years of experience, has dedicated himself to creating organizations that help unite and advance the games business. In addition to the ECA, he also formed numerous influential publications, services and organizations. He is often called upon by members of the media and government officials to represent the interactive entertainment sector.

Panel Moderator
* Russ Pitts
Director of Video Content, The Escapist
* Thomas S. Kurtz
Chairman & CFO, Themis Media

Russ Pitts is the Director of Video Content for Themis Media, where he is Executive Producer for all of their web series, including Zero Punctuation. Russ has worked in the entertainment industry for 20 years, first as an independent video director and producer and later as a producer and writer for TechTV's groundbreaking series "The Screen Savers."

Labels: events, Triangle Game Conference, Triangle Game Conference 2009