With little provocation and despite the fact no one asked, former US Vice President and 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden essentially called video game publishers arrogant little creeps. The United States 2020 Democratic primary race is heating up as candidates are digging deeper for policy critiques and capitalizing on every faux pas, so it's anyone's guess why Biden would stir the pot with the gaming industry, of all targets, right now.
With the all-important Iowa and New Hampshire caucuses right around the corner, Democrat presidential hopefuls are starting to go for the jugular in order to set themselves apart while stymieing competition. The current frontrunners (Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren) have entered perhaps the most critical time of the entire race, a point at which everything they say and do, or are even accused of having said or done, is scrutinized under an electron microscope by pundits, voters, and the Republican party alike. Knowing this, it's truly a wonder how frequently punctuated by regrettable soundbites and cringe-inducing moments Biden's campaign has been thus far, and this latest gaffe signals his opponents won't have to worry about running out of fresh ammunition anytime soon.
In an interview with the New York Times, the former Vice President was asked if he had any regrets about the rapid and more or less legally unchecked expansion of Silicon Valley tech giants during his tenure under Barack Obama. While delivering a tangential answer that meandered from his disagreements with Obama to Facebook's role in Donald Trump's election, Biden leveled some particularly biting remarks at the tech industry:
And at one point, one of the little creeps sitting around that table, who was a multi- — close to a billionaire — who told me he was an artist because he was able to come up with games to teach you how to kill people... And then one of these righteous people said to me that, you know, “We are the economic engine of America. We are the ones...” The point is, there’s an arrogance about it, an overwhelming arrogance that we are, we are the ones. We can do what we want to do. I disagree.
It's not clear to which of those "little creeps" Biden was first referring, but it's clear that they represent a large entity either within or adjacent to the gaming industry. In an era when the Trump administration and even gaming icon Ninja have drawn massive internet flak for blaming real-world violence on video games (or, in Ninja's case, not fully dismissing the notion), Biden's insinuation that gaming "teaches you to kill people" is far from a good look.
As can be expected, Biden's latest misstep regarding everyone's favorite couch-bound past-time has not been lost on the internet. Laughable though satirical presidential candidate Ace Watkins's above Tweet may be, it's a believable reflection of how easy Biden makes it for his opponents when he repeatedly demonstrates his habit of painting a big, red target on his back. With briefly high tensions between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren cooling, the senators are once again publicly enjoying love from the likes of Danny DeVito and SNL and commendations for their best-laid plans, respectively. Biden, meanwhile, continually invites ever-widening popular disdain, and the gaming industry and its customers are only the most recent on the list of offended demographics.
That said, it doesn't have to be this way. If Joe Biden and his campaign to work to mitigate further slips like this one, his leading position in several national polls clearly point to his ability to go head-to-head with Donald Trump in the 2020 general election. That's an ever-growing "if," though, and it can be hoped Joe Biden might reconsider his positions on interactive media if he wants to increase his chances.
Source: New York Times, Twitter
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