Bruce Everiss is a veteran games industry marketer and today he has blogged on a report that aims to protect children form violent video games. Mr Everiss joins Martin Stanford for a debate on this issue, tonight on Sky.com News from 7.30pm.

So, the long awaited report is out and it is stupid.

• Why commission the report at all when there is no known problem that needs addressing? This is just another waste of taxpayers money and an example of blame culture running amok. The nanny state out of control. There are far more pressing social issues that the government continually fails to address.
• The real problem is ignorant politicians and journalists like Hillary Clinton and Keith Vaz who don’t understand video games and who lash out in their ignorance. These self publicists do a lot more harm than good.
• Why choose a populist TV celebrity psychologist for this report? Why not Jade Goody? Seriously, this is a political matter of state control over children. There are many far better qualified people who could have written it.
• Why does the report not include books (which have no age rating), pop music, films, television, radio, videos etc? Different popular culture is treated differently in a wholly illogical manner. This ruins any vestige of credibility that the report may otherwise have had. Games have far milder content, in general, than the more established media.
• Using the BBFC film censorship to prejudge every game is just plain stupid, as I explained in this article. This is going to be a major, completely unnecessary, burden on the games industry.
• The report Grand Theft Childhood is about to be published which is based on vastly more research and which totally refutes the basis for the British government’s worries and therefore the Byron report. Every politician or journalist should read Grand Theft Childhood before commenting or voting on this subject.
• Why don’t we just stick with the PEGI system, like the rest of Europe? This would give us trade harmony and not put us at the trading disadvantage that the Byron report would bring if implemented.
• At the end of the day those kids who want to play Grand Theft Auto will. You cannot wrap children in cotton wool then lock them in a safe.

So there we have it. A sad day for politics and another sad day for the British gaming industry.

Comments

[Khalid 29 Mar 2008 14:09:44]

In that case [Can We Fix It-Bob The Builder]?

[Jane. Brighton 29 Mar 2008 12:29:05]

An excellent article as ever from Bruce. I am a regular reader of his site and he provides a lot of useful and interesting knowledge of video gaming.