It's New. It's a League. It's for Gamers. It's the League for Gamers! (Video)

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Intrepid correspondent Timothy Lord writes, "I talked at SXSW with Kari Hale of League For Gamers, an organization started just a few months ago by Red 5 Studios founder CEO Mark Kern. (Kern was also team lead for World of Warcraft.) League for Gamers shares some of the goals of groups like the EFF and EPIC, but — as you might guess from the name — is tightly focused on the world of gaming. The group owes its existence to SOPA; the money used to start it up had initially been budgeted for Red 5 Studios' appearance at the most recent E3, but E3 sponsor's Entertainment Software Association's support for SOPA led Kern to withdraw from the show. Kari gave a quick rundown of the origins of the League, what it hopes to accomplish, and what sorts of efforts it's so far undertaken."

Transcript - but go on, watch the video!

[QuasiSteve]

Title: Introducing the League for Gamers
Description: A voice for gamers and game developers

[00:00] <TITLE>
The Slashdot logo with "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." scrolls across the bottom of the view from left to right.
The view is of interviewee Kari Hale in a hallway, standing near exit doors - as good as location as any.

[00:00] Kari>
The League for Gamers is a non-profit organization that was started by our CEO at Red Five Studios, Mark Kern and it brings gamers and game developers together to give us a united voice and to support gaming rights.

[00:13] Timothy>
How long has the League been around?

[00:15] Kari>
It's been around for a couple of months now.
We were prompted to start the organization when all the SOPA things were going down.
We actually shut down our FireFall and Red Five Studios website and we decided we wanted to make this a longer term thing to pursue.

[00:29] Timothy>
What is some examples of what League for Gamers does?

[00:33] Kari>
What we do is we try to be politically active.
I can give two examples of what we've done in the past:

[00:38] Kari>
With SOPA for example I just mentioned we took our websites down, we started a petition where we got thousands of signatures from gamers and game developers to protest SOPA and PIPA.

[00:50] Kari>
Another one that we just successfully completed was for the Oklahoma Gaming Tax.
What Oklahoma tried to do was put a 1% tax on all games that were rated Teen and above.
What we did is we sent a petition out to our members and we protested it and the bill has since been dropped.

[01:08] Timothy>
How (? stateful)

[01:09] Kari>
A very interesting story, actually, Red Five Studios CEO Mark Kern, we had invested about $15,000 to attend E3.
When we found out that the ESA who puts on E3 supports SOPA, we withdrew the money, we canceled our booth at E3, and we took that money and we started League for Gamers.
In the future we'll probably be having memberships - within the next month or so - all the people that sign up now won't have to pay dues, but they're more than welcome to donate to the cause.

[01:39] Timothy>
Who should be part of League for Gamers?
Is it mostly for people in the industry?
Is it meant for ordinary people?
Who should really be concerned about this?

[1:47] Kari>
I think League for Gamers actually casts a pretty wide net.
You have the gamer who doesn't want their rights taken away, they want to be able to express themselves freely online.
You have the indie game developer that's not properly being represented by organizations like the ESA, that tend to represent the bigger companies.
But also, we really do try to work for First Amendment rights, and that's something that applies to anybody who uses the internet and supports free speech.

[02:13] Timothy>
One more thing, a question I didn't have until just now, but it's from a game company [...]

[02:19] Kari>
Yes.

[02:19.5] Timothy>
[...] basically, the background, [...]

[02:20] Kari>
Yes.

[02:20.5] Timothy>
[...] and, does it benefit everybody in the industry?
Is it tied to [?] companies?
Talk about how political or apolitical the industry tied it is.

[2:33.5] Kari>
The League for Gamers?
Well, I can say right now, we're not tied to any ... we're not politically affiliated in any way.
We're just a group of people that want our voices to be heard.
We're not lobbying, we don't have people in Washington that are lobbying for us right now.
It's really an organic organization that really does support the smaller gamer that right now - his voice is being lost

[02:54] <TITLE>
The Slashdot logo with "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." scrolls across the bottom of the view from left to right.