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ESA confirms Trump meeting to discuss video games and gun violence

ESA confirms Trump meeting to discuss video games and gun violence

American video games trade body the ESA has said that it will be meeting with President Donald Trump.

The organisation has said it will be headed to the White House to discuss the relationship between video games and gun violence in the US.

The meeting is set to take place on March 8th, but it's not yet clear which companies will be represented.

"Video games are enjoyed around the world and numerous authorities and reputable scientific studies have found no connection between games and real-life violence. Like all Americans, we are deeply concerned about the level of gun violence in the United States. Video games are plainly not the issue: entertainment is distributed and consumed globally, but the US has an exponentially higher level of gun violence than any other nation," the ESA said.

"The upcoming meeting at the White House, which ESA will attend, will provide the opportunity to have a fact-based conversation about video game ratings, our industry’s commitment to parents, and the tools we provide to make informed entertainment choices."

This follows Trump's press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying that the Trump administration had invited top video game publisher to the White House to discuss violence and video games. Except neither the ESA, nor top publishers, had received an invite. Oops.

Photo credit: Evan El-Amin / Shutterstock.com


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.