When Games and Politics Collide: Campaign Records Reveal Donations of Key Industry Figures
Of the 16 found so far, 9 have personally donated to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, while 3 favor Republican candidate John McCain. An Xbox Live poll previously found that Xbox Live users tended to support Obama.
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick and Spore creator Will Wright rank among McCain's more high-profile supporters. Meanwhile, Obama has been backed by ESRB president Patricia Vance, Star Wars creator George Lucas, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick and ESA general counsel Kenneth Doroshow, among others.
Still a work-in-progress, the current list can be found below:
- Republican Contributors
- Will Wright: (Spore, The Sims) $3,000 to McCain; previously donated $2,350 to Giuliani
- Bobby Kotick (Activision CEO) $2,300 to McCain; previously donated $2,100 to Romney
- Curt Schilling (38 Studios) $2,300 to McCain
- Strauss Zelnick (Chairman, Take-Two) $2,000 to Obama; had previously donated to $2,500 to Edwards, $1,000 each to Biden & Richardson
- Ben Feder (CEO, Take-Two) contributed $1,000 to Biden in 2007
- Sam Houser (Rockstar) $4,600 to Obama
- Patricia Vance (president, ESRB) $2,000 to Obama
- John Riccitiello (CEO, EA) $4,600 to Obama
- John Smedley (Sony Online Entertainment) $2,300 to Obama
- Richard Garriott aka "Lord British" (Ultima series, NC Soft) $2,300 to Hillary Clinton
- Alex Rigopulos (CEO, Harmonix) $32,900 to Obama
- Kathy Vrabeck (president, EA Casual) $2,300 to Obama
- George Lucas (LucasFilm) $33,100 to Obama
- Doug Lowenstein (former ESA head) $2,300 to Hillary Clinton
- Kenneth Doroshow (new ESA general counsel) $2,500 to Obama
- Gabe Newell (pres., Valve) $2,300 to Dodd
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replyTis a shame that Will Wright is McCain supporter. I expected better from him,
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Most Beck songs sound like the nonsensical ramblings of a street person.
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I can understand the Beck/Scientology thing, but not the Wright/McCain issue. There are many people that support McCain (around half) -- do you guys assume that they are all inbred fools from the Mid West? Or that nobody who is intelligent would ever vote/support anybody besides Obama? I'm not trying to be rude here -- I'm seriously trying to understand why your view of somebody is lessened because they support a different presidential nominee then you.
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Lessened is the completely wrong word, that's why you misunderstand. It's that you find you disagree with someone you admire. It happens all the time, and it doesn't mean I think less of them, but it certainly does affect me personally. Like, you just can't say "Oh he makes games or songs or movies I like, so he must be like me." It's convenient and bolsters your ideas because, generally, you do think you have a solid mental foundation. But then to see that people who think opposite you do as well... it's jarring. That's the word. Jarring.
What did you think? This would make me fucking stop playing Spore?
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As a conservative-leaning person, I know how you feel. Radiohead's one of my favorite bands, for example, and I just have to ignore their leftist ramblings - which thankfully they don't do much of at all.
You just have to learn to enjoy the creative potentials of a given media and ignore the creators ideology.
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I was crushed when I learned that Ben Stein is an anti-evolution, intelligent design believer.
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He's Wright Wing.
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This needs to be a t-shirt.
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It's a shame Newell is/was a Dodd supporter. I expected better from him.
Seriously, that's just a dumb thing to say on the internet - you're just asking for an overblown debate that goes nowhere.
"Aw, this intelligent person doesn't agree with my personal ideology, so he's obviously not as smart as I thought." Whatever. -
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^ Why I am not looking forward to seeing the shack anywhere near election week.
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errr replied to wrong post, that arrow should be pointing to the OP and not you mitt <:(
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Oh its a godsend and makes shack a lot more readable. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who love to put in off topic one liners and such that break through.
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If by "The Shack" you mean just about every discussion board on the internet, I agree.
It's a little silly the degree to which some of you pretend like the Shack is unique in the explosive political discussions commonly leaning to the left.-
Most discussion boards aren't worth visiting period because of the signal to noise ratio.
I think you may be putting words into my mouth by your mention of political discussions going to the left. I don't care if the OP switched and said "<DEVELOPER> supports <OBAMA>, I expect better," I'm sick of bad political posts regardless of affiliation.-
Overall though this year's election isn't a big deal to the games industry. 2004 mattered more with Lieberman running as VP as I imagine some previous elections if the Reps gave the nod to Robertson, Keyes, or any major "Christian Conservative." For game developers, this year is more about personal politics and not anything that'll cause significant change to our industry's landscape.
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C'mon. Spore is the most compelling argument for Intelligent Design yet devised. And it's already been distributed to millions of children, who are daily assimilating the lesson that evolution doesn't exist as a process independent of an intelligent agent picking and choosing what succeeds and what fails, what lives and what dies.
It's the most Republican, Fundamentalist Christian piece of software ever to gain widespread distribution. -
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Did anyone here ever think that Wright might support McCain for reasons other than religion or any other single reason? Politics is not just center around a single issue or two. I really bothers me how some people responded of Will Wright's preference? In all the usual self=righteous drivel that I hear about liberals talking about being "open minded" then bashing someone else for not coming to the same conclusions about life as they have. Don't get me wrong, there's ignorance and political bots on both sides, but spouting BS about being open minded only to slight someone for not having the same beliefs as you really shows how self righteously flawed we are as a race.
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