In American politics, every four years there is a vote to see which politician will become the president; however, months before that there are debates and votes to see who will represent each political party. This year, former vice president Joe Biden is looking to become the representative of the Democratic Party. Despite having the credentials for the job, Biden’s personal opinion of the video game ecosystem has led him to make remarks and claims that show he might not understand the modern American landscape.
When Biden was vice president to Barack Obama, he proposed an additional tax on violent video games. While he has said that this tax would go to victims of weapon violence, this attack on a creative medium is not founded on any evidence. Other countries that have equal access to video games, such as Canada, Australia, and England, have not seen a similar rise in violence since the creation of video games. If video games were a direct link to real-world violence, these other countries would have a similar problem, but Canada has only reported seven school shootings since 1989; in November, America had 45 in 2019 alone.
Biden has also gone on record calling video game developers “little creeps.” His proposed tax addition can easily be interpreted as a personal attack. As of 2017, over 220,000 jobs made up the video industry in America, and that number has only continued to grow. This tax could simply be Biden’s attempt at sticking it to a $120-billion industry.
