Welcome to the Tech Policy Podcast. I'm Evan Swartz-Trober. On today's show, video games and tech policy,

when most people think about the government and video games, the only policy that might come to mind is censorship.

You know, we've had these arguments in the past in our society about our video games,

influencing people and making them violent. And of course,

we hear about that in a Hollywood context, too, but it's a lot more complicated than that. And

whether you're a gamer or someone who's maybe the parent of a gamer, what the government does

does impact this $30 billion industry. And there's a lot of complexities going on with the policy

debates in Washington and how they affect the video game industry.

So joining me to discuss this is the perfect person for this topic.

Mike Gallagher, president and CEO of the Entertainment Software Association.

This is the Trade Association that represents U.S. computer and video game publishers.

Mike, thanks for joining the show.

Evan, thanks for having me and thanks to the folks at Tech Freedom. Really appreciate you coming by. So just in a broad sense, if the government's not

censoring violent video games, or it's not about, you know, selling them to children or like

all these issues that people might assume are the important things when it come to video game

policy, what is it? Is it

taxes? Is it trade? What's really fantastic is the opportunity to have the discussion goes so

far beyond censorship because the issue portfolio that we manage and lead is dozens of issues.

Anything having to do with technology, the internet, or streamed businesses around the world,

that's the video game business. We've matured now. It's a $100 billion worldwide industry,

$30 billion here in the U.S., 220,000 direct and indirect employees in all 50 states. Nearly 3,000

companies are all around the country. For those

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