14 DAY TRIAL // The video game industry is a big part of the wider entertainment field at the moment and that means decisions taken on a political level can have a big effect on its future development and on the way gamers can enjoy its products.
During the State of the Union speech, United States President Barack Obama called for the country to implement higher cyber security standards in order to make sure that there is no way for terrorist groups or rogue states to access data that is private and to steal secrets.
Now the Entertainment Software Association, which represents the interests of the gaming industry, is offering a response which applauds the concerns that the POTUS has.
Michael D. Gallagher, the president and chief executive officer of the organization, states, “The U.S. video game industry employs more than 150,000 workers across the U.S. and engages billions of gamers around the globe. We stand ready and willing to work with the White House and congressional leaders to ensure that any legislation will address the harm caused by attacks.”
Recently, the ESA has worked to make sure that the First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the sale of video game content to the public with no restrictions.
But it seems that in the long term, security issues might pose an even bigger problem for video game-focused developers and publishers.
Attacks in 2015 have affected both the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4
2015 might be less than one month old, but since the start of the year, both the Xbox Live infrastructure and the PlayStation Network were targeted by hackers, who have brought down the services with no reason other than to cause harm to players.
In the past, the PSN was also targeted in more organized attacks, with a lot of accounts hacked and personal details stolen.
Both Sony and Microsoft are saying that the infrastructure associated with the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 is more secure than ever.
But as more money flows into gaming, more groups will be interested in finding ways to part gamers from their resources and that means cyber security, both at a company and at a national level, is becoming more important.