After my last piece maybe I should take a step back and actually thank the Government in their support for the videogames industry.My last piece here was looking at the Government as a whole when I should have been attacking Keith Vaz and the Daily Mail solely.  My justification was the slamming that Vaz has just got in Parliament after bringing up the amount of violence and that now famous scene during a Q + A with Sion Simon (culture, media and sport minister).

Keith Vaz spoke out about the violent videogame Modern Warfare 2 falling into the hands of innocent children since it contains such violence that even the publisher has had to put in game warnings in.

The response to our now best friend was “The clearest recommendation of the Byron Review is that content suitable for adults should be labelled as such and sold as such, that it should be an offence to sell such content to children,”

“That’s the case under current law, it will be the case with the law when it changes under the Digital Economy Bill. This game the honourable gentleman refers to is a certificate 18 game, it should not be sold to children and the government’s job is to make sure that adults, clearly labelled, can get what adults should be able to, and that children are not in danger of being subjected to adult content. ”

Tom Watson, who is labour even went on to say that he had seen the scene himself and felt that it was no worse than what has been seen on film or read in books before of a similar rating.  Mr Watson even went so far as to tell Vaz to stop collaberating with the Daily Mail to create a moral panic over the use of videogames and to instead support the gaming industry in what it is achieving.

The entire knock down is here in the full transcript:-

Keith Vaz, Labour, Leicester East (in response to an answer from Sion Simon on the Byron Review – “What steps have been taken to implement the review on Safer Children in a digital world?”)

“Is the Minister aware that at midnight tonight a new and violent videogame called Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is to be released. It contains such scenes of brutality that even the manufacturers have put in warnings within the game telling people how they can skip particular scenes.

“Given the recommendations of the Byron Review, specifically paragraphs 32 and 33, what steps is the government proposing to take in order to ensure these violent games do not fall into the hands of children and young people. It’s not about censorship, it’s about protecting our children.”

Sion Simon, Culture, Media and Sport Minister

The clearest recommendation of the Byron Review is that content suitable for adults should be labelled as such and sold as such, that it should be an offense to sell such content to children. That’s the case under current law, it will be the case with the law when it changes under the Digital Economy Bill. This game the hon. gentleman refers to is a certificate 18 game, it should not be sold to children and the government’s job is to make sure that adults, clearly labelled, can get what adults should be able to, and that children are not in danger of being subjected to adult content.

Tom Watson, Labour, West Bromwich East

“I’ve seen the content in this videogame, it is unpleasant, though no worse than in many films and books, it is an 18-plus game and carries the BBFC 18-plus rating as well.

“Does the Minister agree that it would be better for this House to support the many thousands of games designers and coders and the many millions of games users, rather than collaborating with the Daily Mail to create moral panic over the use of videogames?”

Sion Simon, Culture, Media and Sport Minister

“I was in Dundee last week visiting the videogames industry. I can certainly agree with him that videogames is an industry, a very large, very important industry in which we have a national competitive advantage in this country, which it’s important that all members of this House, and the government, continue to support.

So, a new found respect is coming to the Government from our side now.  Just a witch hunt against Keith Vaz and any tabloid trashy newspaper that  wants to keep reporting on such stupidity.  Gaming industry about 10 – Vaz and his purile minions 0.

When a game with content that may be a talking point for controversy appears you can guarantee two things will happen.  The Daily Mail will write about it in a negative way and Keith Vaz, MP for Leicester will get on his high horse and take it to parliament in a flash to try and regain a reputation that has diminished after proving himself wrong time and time again.

Today, we can safely write that these two facts appear to be the case yet again.  The game in question is, of course, Modern Warfare 2 and the scene is the now infamous airport scene where you play the game from the terrorists point of view and execute innocent men, women and children.  This scene has already blown up a storm in Australia as a protest lobby speaks out to get the game banned due to the scene being reminiscent of the Mumbai massacre.

I have played the game and the scene today and although can testify that it leaves you feeling a bit un-nerved I can also say that the scene fits well with the bleak storyline and that many worse things have appeared in film and also books.  Activision naturally responded and have also put into place a checkpoint system that twice asks players if they want to skip some scenes due to it being offensive.

These screens cannot be turned off and are asked for twice.  The game also comes with an 18 certificate due to its violent content so we have to ask ourselves why these people need to trouble themselves with a story that just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.  The media, sometimes can be its own worst enemy and a case in point would be an article I read in the Sun a couple of weeks back on the way up to a Codemasters preview.  The headline was that a teenager stabbed his grandmother to death in a violent streak that in the second paragraph read that he had been playing GTA IV!  Fair enough I thought but a videogame is not enough to warrant this kind of action on its own.  The last paragraph read that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia!!  You could imagine my disgust at such poor reporting where a videogame held a better headline of the reason for the violence rather than the real cause which was he was that he had mental health problems and this was only brought up at the end in one small sentence.

So with that article I and many others would doubt the credibility of any argument that a paper had to make.  The next was the comment from Keith Vaz himself, self proclaimed messiah to the nanny state type of Government that we all hate.  “I am absolutely shocked by the level of violence in this game and am particularly concerned about how realistic the game itself looks,” he said, vowing to raise his concerns in Parliament today.  Well that’s all well and good but as the game is rated 18 and rightly so, this means that Keith Vaz is now condemning the very rating system that is run and legislated by the Government.  If that is the case then it just goes to show how much Parliament and also Government get wrong in this country!

I would have thought that the Government have done a lot worse than put a scene into a game that has credence to it being there in the first place.  I would have also thought that Mr Vaz may want to take a step back from this sort of thing as he is part of the well oiled machine that has helped create worldwide attrocities in real life and not some piece of narrative from a videogame.  These guys do it for real and get away with it.  Perhaps the Daily Mail should write about that and a few more things of importance than to get stuck into a game that has tried to protect its customers in every way, shape and form.

I think we all agree that the gaming industry is quite young in terms of media convention but it cannot be forgotten and also needs to be understood a lot better.  Film has over 100 years to play to its audience and has firm form in place that guides a viewer.  It is embedded into us and the way we perceive things but that doesn’t stop film from being controversial too which never gets the publicity that games do now.  The scenes in Modern Warfare 2 can be harrowing but I felt worse and more perplexed with Black Hawk Down and the private bleeding out in front of his comrades. Is this written about? No! When will the general media wake up to the industry we have loved for more than 30 years now.

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