Biden to meet with game reps on gun violence

UPDATE: The Entertainment Software Association confirmed to Kotaku that its president and CEO Michael Gallagher will meet with Vice President Biden on Friday. The original story follows.

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden will meet with representatives from the video game industry to determine its potential role in preventing gun violence. Biden's task force was formed in response to a string of shootings in the U.S., most notably the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn.

Reuters reports Biden will also meet with representatives from the National Rifle Association--the very same gun lobbying group which decried games as a "corrupting shadow industry" in its first press conference after the Sandy Hook shooting.

The task force will prominently look into legislation banning assault weaponry, however it will also look at what role the entertainment industry and video games (White House representative Jay Carney specifically singled out games) had in the tragedies. We don't know who, specifically, will meet with Biden, and the Entertainment Software Association did not confirm or deny its attendance to Gamasutra.

The ideas and perspectives Biden's task force assembles will serve to inform President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, which is typically delivered in late January.

Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.