Of Warcraft, American Politics, and General Perception of Gaming

[Timbuk2]

World of Warcraft hobby sparks US political row



The gaming hobby of a political candidate has become an issue in a state senate race in New England, US.

Maine Republicans have created a webpage revealing that Democrat candidate Colleen Lachowicz plays an orc rogue in World of Warcraft (WoW).

Ms Lachowicz's liking for back-stabbing and poison in WoW raise questions about her "fitness for office", they claim.

Ms Lachowicz has hit back saying the attack showed the Republicans were "out of touch".

The state senate seat known as District 25 in Maine, is currently being contested by Ms Lachowicz and incumbent Republican Tom Martin. Voting takes place on 6 November.

As part of its campaign efforts, the Republican party in the state created "Colleen's World" - a website that compiles information about Ms Lachowicz's orc rogue Santiaga. An orc is a mythical human-like creature, generally described as fierce and combative.

In a statement that accompanies the webpage, Maine Republicans said playing the game led Ms Lachowicz to live a "bizarre double life" that raised questions about her ability to represent the state.

The page also detailed some of the comments Ms Lachowicz has made while talking about her orc rogue, in particular it highlights her affection for Santiaga's ability to stab things and kill people without suffering a jail sentence.

"These are some very bizarre and offensive comments," said Maine Republican Party spokesman David Sorensen in a statement. "They certainly raise questions about Lachowicz's maturity and her ability to make serious decisions for the people of Senate District 25."

The site also lists many of the 400 comments she has posted to left wing political news and discussion site Daily Kos. Maine Republicans have also posted leaflets that reproduce the information on the website.

"I think it's weird that I'm being targeted for playing online games," said Ms Lachowicz in a statement. "Apparently I'm in good company since there are 183 million other Americans who also enjoy online games.

"Instead of talking about what they're doing for Maine people, they're making fun of me for playing video games," said Ms Lachowicz.

It is not clear what effect the Republican tactic will have on the state senate race in Maine. However, many messages of support have been left on Ms Lachowicz's own webpage with some pledging cash to her campaign.

Gaming researcher Ladan Cockshut said the row revealed how gaming can be seen as a bad thing to do.

In my work, I've spoken with many people who in their regular lives have roles of significant responsibility (as doctors, managers, or educators) but who choose carefully with whom they disclose their gaming activity," she told the BBC. "And disclosing their gaming activity is often accompanied by a degree of apology or embarrassment."

But, she added, having a gamer run for office was a "heartening" development.

"This would seem to run contrary to the other stereotypes that we love to assign to gamers: that they are lazy, antisocial people who don't have a 'real life'," she said. "Maybe this will trigger some dialogue about our perceptions of gamers and the role that games can and should play in modern society."

Firstly

Secondly, creating a website to attack her playing a game? The headline from the top of the Colleen's World website reads as follows:
Colleen Lachowicz is a Democrat candidate for Maine State Senate. In Colleen’s online fantasy world, she gets away with crude, vicious and violent comments like the ones below. Maine needs a State Senator that lives in the real world, not in Colleen’s fantasy world.

Thirdly

Fourthly, I suppose there is a fair swathe of people in the US who have no inkling whatsoever of what video games in general or MMOs in particular are about, will read about this Democrat and think she must be weird, perhaps violent?

Fifthly, back to the good old argument of can people separate fantasy from reality. Can people lump video games along with films and books and accept them for what they are?

Sixthly, do you think this may backlash against the 'Pubs in Maine, with much of America gaming these days, and highlighting the fact that Colleen Lachowicz plays regularly will paint them as behind the times and out of touch, as stated by Colleen herself in retaliation ... ?

~

EDIT: mods, move to Serious forum if you think it's warranted

[Ominous Gamer]

Bringing the game into the mix was a bad call. Her incumbent even came out against that. They would have been better to just run with the quotes they were using to highlight her poor work ethic, but those are from a gaming forum and likely extremely out of context. Even if the postings show the true Colleen, the message the GOP was intending is going to get buried under the much louder GOP hates video games message.

[RandBlade]

It is absurdly stupid and should backfire.

The idiocy is not just that it makes the GOP look small minded and stupid, but they're insulting millions of VOTERS too.

The GOP seems to have a reputation for hating lots of groups: gays, immigrants, now gamers. Many can and should support the GOPs economic ideas which are difficult enough to sell as it is. But there's no point writing off a large chunk of the 53% by constantly insulting them.

[Loki]

Rand, what percentage of hard-core gamers do you think actually vote (especially considering the fact that they make up perhaps 1-2% of the population to start with)? I doubt it has any effect than making some people look like idiots.

[RandBlade]

Rand, what percentage of hard-core gamers do you think actually vote (especially considering the fact that they make up perhaps 1-2% of the population to start with)? I doubt it has any effect than making some people look like idiots.

Does it matter? We've seen in the past how close elections can get where even just a few hundred votes I. The right place can swing an election. Pissing off a percentage of the electorate is stupid, very stupid. Alone it's not likely to be critical but the sad thing is its not alone. There's a nasty streak through many in the GOP against others but those others can and do vote. To win you need to get every vote you can, not write off huge chunks of the electorate who could be your natural voters.

What makes you think this'll only affect hardcore gamers? What's to stop a 'soccer mom' reading this and thinking about how she plays FarmVille? Almost everyone I know now below the age of about 50 (and many above) plays at least some sort of game at times.

[Steely Glint]

Why do you think this would only backfire amongst "hardcore" gamers?

[Aimless]

http://www.colleensworld.com/sums-up...agger-mindset/

http://www.colleensworld.com/i-think...as-teabaggers/

Disgusting

[Dreadnaught]

This is silly. They should focus on her comments on left-wing sites like Daily Kos, where she probably said something stupid. But unless she is a video game addict or something, who cares that she plays a game in her off time?

Note: Probably no one on this forum will ever be able to run for elected office.

[Nessus]

Note: Probably no one on this forum will ever be able to run for elected office.

We don't know the real names of that many people. Of course Wraithy (and the rest of you mods I guess) could make a buck selling dirt to media.

[wiggin]

Note: Probably no one on this forum will ever be able to run for elected office.

Oh noes, there goes my career path.

[Nessus]

Oh noes, there goes my career path.

I thought that was your brother

[Dreadnaught]

It would be an interesting scenario if we found out that CitizenKane was actually Paul Ryan, wouldn't it? Nonetheless, we aren't really able to know much more than people's IP address.

And privacy on those kinds of things is something we all take seriously, EG what I ended up doing at Atard when the right-wing fundamentalists took it over.

[ar81]

It would be an interesting scenario if we found out that CitizenKane was actually Paul Ryan, wouldn't it? Nonetheless, we aren't really able to know much more than people's IP address.

And privacy on those kinds of things is something we all take seriously, EG what I ended up doing at Atard when the right-wing fundamentalists took it over.

Did I miss something? What happened with right-wing fundamentalists?

[Flixy]

I already have plenty of other reasons why I can't do that

[Catgrrl]

Unfortunately, you have dip-shits that still believe D&D is satanism, so there will be a few old luddites out there that would eat this stuff up. The rest of the normal people probably will just laugh at the desperation.

[Lewkowski]

Unfortunately, you have dip-shits that still believe D&D is satanism, so there will be a few old luddites out there that would eat this stuff up. The rest of the normal people probably will just laugh at the desperation.

Not a whole lot out there. We still have people who don't believe in the lunar landing so... yeah every single thought/idea is still being supported by someone, somewhere.

[Dreadnaught]

They killed the CC.