Video game lobby CEO set to meet with Biden on gun violence

Entertainment Software Association CEO Mike Gallagher and other video game industry representatives will meet with Vice President Biden on Friday as President Obama’s gun violence task force prepares to release its policy recommendations next week. 

The Entertainment Software Association represents video game companies in Washington and counts Electronic Arts and Microsoft as members. The video game industry has been criticized for producing first-person shooter games, such as “Call of Duty” and “Medal of Honor Gunfighter,” and other violent content in the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., last month.

Lawmakers and the National Rifle Association have suggested that violent video games contribute to aggressive behavior in real life. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) introduced a bill last month that  would require the National Academy of Sciences to study the effects violent video games and video programming have on children.

{mosads}Obama senior campaign adviser David Axelrod criticized “shoot ’em up” video games in a tweet last month. “All for curbing weapons of war. But shouldn’t we also quit marketing murder as a game?” he tweeted after seeing an ad for a violent video game.

The vice president and other administration officials have met with a variety of industry groups and stakeholders this week to discuss clamping down on gun violence in the U.S.

Biden had until the end of the month to compile the task force’s list of policy recommendations on curbing gun violence, but he plans to send them to the president by Tuesday.

Biden said Thursday that the recommendations would “relate primarily to gun ownership, and the type of weapons we own,” adding that many groups he’s met with have said universal background checks on people who purchase guns are necessary.

So far, Biden has not said whether the task force’s recommendations would touch on violence in video games, movies and other entertainment content.

— Justin Sink and Mike Lillis contributed to this report. This story was updated at 6:50 p.m.