Money-spending showdown

At this moment, a photo is circulating on the internet in the United States.

The current First Lady of the United States is on a plane, concentrating on something.

Anyone familiar with video games can immediately recognize what it is - it's a GB handheld game console sold by Gamestar Entertainment.

This handheld console has been around for over two years now, and thanks to its excellent game quality, durability, and impressive battery life, it has achieved remarkable sales of twenty million units.

Among them, Tetris is the most popular game, and this game is bundled with the console. If strictly counted by sales, Tetris alone has reached twenty million units, possibly only rivaled by Super Mario Bros. 1 bundled with the FC.

Even the First Lady cannot resist the charm of the GB game console, which is the strongest advertisement for the game manufacturer, and you don't even have to pay any advertising fees.

And below the photo, there is often a sentence, a semi-joking remark from the First Lady: "I feel like I need to go to the hospital to treat my GameBoy addiction, this thing is really fascinating."

In the governor's office of a certain state in the United States, Governor Corby is pondering how to deal with a company from Japan.

Because this company is seriously threatening the lives of many Americans, which is not a good sign.

But Gamestar Entertainment is also a major taxpayer in the United States, and its subsidiary headquarters in California serves as a protective umbrella for Gamestar Entertainment.

Half a month ago, Corby held a hearing on Gamestar Entertainment, hoping to curb its development through his influence.

And this is not only because of the negative impact Gamestar Entertainment itself has on the American people, but the most important reason is interests.

Everything stems from interests. There happens to be an electronic game console company rising in his state, taking advantage of Gamestar Entertainment not yet releasing their own 3D graphics game console, this company has also occupied a certain market for 3D games, making quite a bit of money.

And the taxes they pay naturally go into Corby's credit.

It was at the suggestion of the CEO of this company that he finally decided to sanction this Japanese company.

As long as Gamestar Entertainment is curbed, the company in his state will rise, capturing more market share.

But the actual effect was not satisfactory.

California has protected Gamestar Entertainment well, ensuring that it will not encounter any accidents anytime, anywhere.

In the end, he could only rely on his influence to reluctantly impose certain restrictions on Doom, the game that currently has the greatest impact on the American people.

Restricting the sale of Doom, the reason being it's too violent and will affect children's healthy growth. Because Gamestar Entertainment advocating age restrictions alone has no effect, children can still easily buy such games without much hindrance.

Such violent and bloody games should be subject to certain controls.

Then Corby suggested that the United States immediately establish a review committee for electronic games, specifically responsible for rating the age range of games, and then exert policy pressure on major retailers.

And until the review committee is established, Doom will only be sold in a few areas.

This is the greatest effort Corby can make.

He also understood the protection of Gamestar Entertainment by the Governor of California. If such a major taxpayer came to his state, he would also protect it to death.

But at this moment, it seems that he has found a new attack point.

That is the photo circulating on the internet of the First Lady playing the game console.

The photo itself is not significant; the main thing is the accompanying text.

Even the First Lady is jokingly admitting she's somewhat addicted and should consider going to the hospital for treatment of addiction.

And just now, scholars from a certain university in the United States also released a paper detailing some characteristics of video game addiction.

Of course, this scholar was more about riding the wave of popularity. Many of the theories in his paper were unfounded, belonging to a completely immature conclusion, and he hadn't even conducted experiments a few times.

But this has become Corby's trump card.

Finally finding a place to attack Gamestar Entertainment!

Corby was excited.

And he immediately arranged for personnel to prepare materials to attack Gamestar Entertainment. Next, he would fight another big battle.

When the time came to the second half of 1997, another round of new hearings began.

This time initiated by Corby and two other allied states, with many scholars as scientific advisers, and many people who claimed to be affected by video game addiction.

This hearing seemed a bit daunting from the beginning, even though California itself wanted to protect Gamestar Entertainment, it still seemed a bit isolated.

But Gamestar Entertainment is not easy to mess with.

In such a hearing, whoever speaks most convincingly will be recognized.

And Gamestar has never been stingy with money in this regard.

They directly spent a lot of money, once again deploying their team of lawyers, and even bringing in several top lawyers from Europe for support.

Their expenses were naturally not low, but they were worth it.

The hearing lasted for a whole week, with both sides arguing back and forth, from the harmfulness of electronic games at the beginning, to the negative effects of electronic games on people. Gamestar Entertainment slowly transitioned from being passive.

With dozens of top commercial lawyers, coupled with many temporary scientific teams hired from different fields, even though Corby had a lot of seemingly 'convincing evidence,' Gamestar Entertainment was not at all disadvantaged.

The hearing lasted for several days, and both sides remained deadlocked.

Sometimes money really can do anything.

Gamestar spent over ten million dollars on this team of lawyers, but Gamestar didn't care about these expenses at all.

Until half a month passed, Corby was already feeling somewhat powerless, while Gamestar Entertainment seemed to be a bit more relaxed.

They even added two or three top lawyers and scientists every other day, which seemed to have become a competition of financial strength.

Of course, besides the competition of financial strength, there was also California backing them up behind the scenes, helping to withstand the pressure from the government, otherwise it would not be possible.

The final result ended hastily with Gamestar Entertainment being banned from selling in some states.

This was hard for Corby to accept, but he had no choice.