Dangerous Fighting: Enough Already Edition

Watching Clinton and Obama, I see the country embroiled in a classic market share battle, with the people losing in the end.  Clinton has been using the press to try to make Obama look bad.  To the extent it works, it hurts Obama and weakens the party. To the extent it doesn't work, it weakens Clinton, and hurts the party.  Considering they are both saying basically the same thing, it is no surprise they split the votes almost equally. Rather than working together to ensure their shared party wins the White House, they continue to engage in petty attacks, politics and Clinton's refusal to concede. They are fighting over the market share within the party, rather than the common goal, to enhance likelihood of success. McCain gets it. Once he saw Clinton was not the nominee, he gave a speech identifying her as a friend and a role model for his children. He wants her voters. Market growth. 

Joystiq posted a story about the fighting going on between The ESA and The ECA. The whole concept makes me kind of sick. Not really throw up a little bit in the back of my throat sick, more of a headache and fatigue with the process. Both organizations are working toward the same goal and serving a distinct constituency.   Nothing about the organizations makes them mutually exclusive.  While it is tremendously entertaining for those of us already sitting in the darkened, musty shelter of our mothers' basement like shelter of the incestuous game community, it is not very appealing to outsiders, and could keep us from moving out for a few more years. Especially when they start sniping at each other in the press.

"Your event hosts biggots."
"Your blog is not a real news source."
"Your Mom's so fat she has her own zip code."
"Your Mom's so old her social security number is 1."
"Yeah, well your stupid."
"You suck."

I'm paraphrasing, but it's not a lot different from what really happened. Gamepolitics.com, a site owned by ECA, wrote a story the ESA did not like. The ESA accused the site of bias based on ECA's ownership of the site. While I suppose the real story would be the existence of an unbiased site in the game press, it is kind of odd to accuse Gamepolitics of ECA favored bias, since the site never hid ECA's ownership from anyone. In fact, ECA ads dominate the site. There is no good reason for ECA to target ESA. It's not like its a CMP/Interactive Academy thing or something.

The ECA was formed to represent consumers and according to its site, focuses its advocacy efforts on consumer rights, anti-games legislation and a host of other public policy concerns. The ESA, on the other hand, represents the industry and focuses its advocacy efforts on gamers' rights, anti- games legislation and a host of other . . . that's right, they are representing complimentary groups, working toward the same goals. Sure the ESA wants to stop the ECA constituency from piracy, but ECA should be working against piracy as well. Here we have two groups, a distinct constituency, fighting for the same thing in an industry sadly lacking in the lobbying area.

There are a lot of good battles to have for both sides. This isn't one of them and the further it goes, the more it demeans both of you. Do you want people to look at our industry like the Democratic party or something?