Legal Niches

Tanks, But No Tanks: NJ Civic Leaders React to Game

By pete_gallagher

Municipal leaders in New Jersey are split in their reactions to an iPhone game which depicts tanks rolling through their suburban neighborhoods.

Cherry Hill resident  and Cloud Scissor Games Principal Ken Fodero is profiled on NJ.com in a story centered on his new iPhone/iPod Touch game entitled Tank Battles in Suburbia. The game features various New Jersey towns—including Glen Ridge, Edison, Nutley, Summit, Raritan and Bloomfield—as battlegrounds for tank battles. Neighboring houses and private property can be destroyed in the skirmishes, but that decision is ultimately up to the player.

Edison Mayor Antonia Ricigliano wasn't overly pleased with the game, saying:

Some of these video games are — my goodness — why are they so bent on destruction?

Jordan Glatt, Mayor of Summit, New Jersey, agreed with Ricigliano, stating, 'It doesn't sound like something that's really constructive to what we're trying to convey here.  We could be spending our efforts on a lot better things.'

Kathryn Weller-Demming, a Councilwoman-at-large for Montclair, took a more enlightened approach:

I don't think there's anything a fictional video game can take away from what's great about Montclair. Certainly no one should be encouraged to perpetuate violence, but video games don't raise people. Parents raise people.

Tank Battles in Suburbia is available in the iTunes Store for $1.99.

Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on January 27, 2010 (boomark / email).