Oh for f**k's sake.
Sorry, I know it's not technically considered kosher to open a professional blog post with "oh for f**k's sake," but having just woken up to the news that Prime Minister Gordon Brown is going to stigmatize games even further with health warnings, I don't think there's a more appropriate turn of phrase.
With Tanya Byron's report released, Brown has seized the opportunity to slap cigarette-style warnings on games, stating that they can, and I'm not kidding, damage a child's belief and value systems and desensitize them to violence. Yeah ... you read that correctly.
Of course, it seems that movies are going to be just dandy without health warnings, even though they have the same kind of material.
Perhaps this is their way of protecting games from further scrutiny, I don't know, but the isolation of them as this vast social problem absolutely horrifies me. Videogames have not damaged the belief system of any child I know, including my family, my friends, and their families, and I refuse to believe that a videogame is as dangerous as a box of frigging cigarettes.
I'll be getting the full Byron report to look through as soon as I stop having flu.
[Update: The news source we used appears to be somewhat sensationalist, which is rather disappointing for The Times. As stated, we'll have a full look at the report, and government implications, later]
Contest:
4:09 AM on 03.27.2008
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![Games to get cigarette-style health warnings in the UK [Update] photo](http://www.destructoid.com/elephant/ul/77910-smoking.jpg)
And after the whole "THEY AREN'T GAMES LOL!!!!11!" comment...
Yar.
What a stupid waste of tax payers money.
Does this mean films get them too? Didn't think so. More double standards at play.
Why on earth not make the certificate label larger? Either way this is gonna be as effective as U.K ASBOs, a pointless non event.
You can get a podcast of the Today interview from the bbc website here http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/today
The prospect of retailers facing hefty fines and prison sentences for selling minors games is excellent, but as we all know the responsibility lies with retailers and parents. The warnings are the government simply offering an alternative to out and out bans.
We already have 'game contain...' labeling, but ultimately as the report has declared that digital media does in fact lead to a certain amount of desensitization I can't see how else it could be handled.
Sure, as we think at The Lolocaust, real life, the news etc... is equally as desensitizing, but children are so heavily protected from them by scare-mongered parents that the video game world represents one of the main windows for exposure to atrocity and violence. Albeit mostly fictional we are talking about kids.
I welcome the Byron reports findings, and genuinely feel that the government is reacting in an unusually calm way, considering it could be interpreted as 'VIDEO GAMES ARE EVIL!' instead it is simply making parents more aware of what the game can contain, and reflecting the findings of a through and detailed study. Not conjecture.
Fines are reasonable, but they should start to seek valid ID to counter this. What may eventually happen, is that retailers may draw up and make the customer, sign a disclaimer with every purchase saying someyhing like 'this is an adult game for adults, if it ends up in a minors hands after sale it is beyond our control and the buyers responsibiity) Unforunately, they've also missed the pre owned games loop out. Not that i care, i love ebay because of it.
Prison sentences is going too far, anyway, aren't U.K prisons already at breaking point holding proper everyday scum of the earth?
Using Pikachu can give you cancer and incestuous feeling and a desire to rape. Just say No.
I hope one of these morons ends up one the receiving end of a bunch of happy slappers one day. If they tried to solve the problem instead of pandering to public perception and political agenda this country wouldn't be going to hell in a handbasket.
From what I've gathered, games are supposed to get a movie-style rating, no symbols or anything but something more akin to those fancy (12) (15) and (18) stickers the BBFC uses.
Cigarette style warning labels would be something I'd expect for Germany or maybe Australia, where the moral panic is fanned even higher than in Britain.
I had a quick look at the times website and saw the extracts from the report and I don't think I saw anything suggesting these cigarette style warnings. Everything I read seemed like a good idea or at least a good point. Hopefully Skud is right and this is just a publicity stunt by The Times.
The unprofessional part is that you forgot the comma! "Oh, for fuck's sake."
Just trying ot help :)
Oh, and this is ri-goddamn-diculous...
It really makes me mad that people spend time on stupid shit like this. Obviously cancer is totally cured, and all economic problems are dealt with, obviously.
A small portion of the games i sell already have a BBFC rating on them, the rest have a PEGI rating which has symbols to show the games content and a "recommended" age rating, this system isnt is enforced as heavily as the BBFC by tradings and standards.
So if all the games have a proper rating system we as a retailer can enusre further we arn't selling games to minors and what this means for us in the UK is that everytime every headline grabbing mis infomrmed waste of reading space writer has a hissy fit about games ruining our childrens minds from all the violence we can say why are the partents buying their children these games?
Again if only parents payed a blind bit of notice and not have the idea in their head that the only two games that exist in this world are Wii tennis or grand theft auto then we wouldnt waste times with these reports and annoying MP's.
Check out http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91221-1310821,00.html
for the article and the one sided video report.
"We are looking at this system and how people understand it. It seems there is some confusion, particularly around PEGI ratings, in terms of is this content based or skill based, and children can very quickly convince their parents – 'Oh, I'm very good at this. I know it says 15 and I'm 10 but let me have it."
From which any moron would surmise the problem as being the utter ignorance of many parents. The PEGI rating is accompanied by a description of exactly what content they can expect in the game, but they are too stupid to look at the back of a box.
Changing the rating system to compulsory BBFC certificates will not suddenly stop thes idiots being idiots.
WE used the same article for our news post, seems a lot less 'sensational'.
Jim, surely with your reputation as a censorship hating Governent baiter, you should have done a little more checking before jumping to conclusions, something you have been highly critical of in the past?
... oh
...
wait, nevermind.
I guess we'll be seeing something like this shortly as well.
I'm not the one being sensationalist. The Times is usually pretty trustworthy, if THEY were being sensationalist, well that's a shame. I shan't be trusting them again. But we'll see. Like I said, I'll look at the report in full when I'm not busy recovering from flu.
And then bash people who do the same thing. This is just like his bashing of Brawl for being Pay to Play, when it's not at all.
He's a hypocrite. Plain and simple. He advocated honesty, but fails to be honest himself.
Ain't that right, Jimmy boy? :D
But if you feel you should have a go at me because I criticized you for jumping to conclusion based on a single source, which being paper press is never to be 100% trustworthy anyway.
Surely an edit to your main post is suitable, as you did when you lept on the Sonic Unleashed footage being 'fake'?
Either way, the fact remains that most of the Byron report is common sense, and you are happy for a inaccurate source be on the front page of what I like to believe is a fairly trustworthy site.
Who the fuck are you? If we wanted your opinion, we'd ask for it dipshit. Nice of you to post a comment COMPLETELY unrelated to the topic at hand. Really, I MUST THANK your parents for bringing you into the world, and THANK YOU for continuing to breathe and exist in the world, making it just that tiny more shittier.
I feel sorry for all you poor english buggers. It'll only be a mtter of time before we see the same sort of shit down here in Oz. Such a fucking joke.
Anyway, the review itself is remarkably sane and sensible.
While it seems fairly reasonable, i can only see the parental information being of any worth and even then, that will only work if its forced into parents hands. Simply providing it online will result in only a handful of parents actually reading through it.
IMO changing the rating system is irrelevant. The system we have now is clear enough and ultimately, if an adult is too retarded to realise that a game rated 18 is not suitable for their 12 year old son, there really is nothing the government can do.
It's no different than parents letting their children watching films that are a few age rating above what they should be watching.
Still, havn't come across a full list of what the report came up with but i will be getting hold of the report and giving it a perusal i reckon.
Also, is it wrong that i would do Dr Byron? She ain't bad for a psychologist helping out Twatface Brown.
A full discussion of the report will be up soon as I've just settled down to read it. Since I never believed Byron was at fault for anything the government might try to do, I'm still looking forward to a good report and never hinted otherwise.
how fucking retarded would that be? why cant they do what they did with san anfreas and just plonk a extra large 18 rating certificate on the box and then enforce the friggin law.
I so agree with jim on this one with the double standard for movies. Theres way more violence in a freddy movie than videogames.
Try living in Ireland! not only do we have a pointless censorship board with too much power (same as UK) but all they do is copy UK decisions with no justification. Only difference is they didn't unban manhunt, or anything else. Wanker colony.
If they do this to games then they need to start putting warning labels on water bottles. If I drink 3 gallons of water in a short period of time I will die. And also on salt containers. If I eat three containers of salt I will die.
Stupid motherfuckers.
'Resident Evil 4 includes a scene in which a woman in pinned to a wall with a pitchfork through her face'
...was what I said after reading the BBC's report on the matter.
This is going to be an interesting podcastle.
Seriously... is the UK just retarded, or are they just blissfully unaware of the world, and the way it actually operates.
In other news. Video games cause homosexuality, and heterosexuality, and sexual apathy.
Seems the parents hardly give a shit, judging by the video.
I somehow doubt that Gordon Brown would be asking Barry Norman to write him a report on film if that was the issue here. Yet more examples of how gamers are looked upon as a group.
What doesn't these days? Are we going to now put these labels on books, movies, and TV shows as well? Should everyone walk around with one of these labels, especially all the kids at school and the teachers? What about your priest, he could possibly corrupt a child and should also wear one of these labels (Note, I may grope and molest you, which is harmful to your beliefs, may lead to sexual repression or frustration, and could increase violent tendencies).
Clearly future generations are doomed.
In the paper itself there is a double page spread about it, one side continues with the same rhetoric as the article Jim linked to, the other one is by Nigel Kendall (i think) the Times game reviewer who provides a good argument for the benefits of video games...but nothing to promote the good points in the Byron Review.
The report itself is very good, while I have some issues with the proposed BBFC/PEGI dual-rating system (which I expand on in my blog.) for the most part it is a lot of common sense and should be welcomed.
Byron's first 8 bullet points are almost dead on right. But, this is pretty much a no-brainer to most gamers who keep up with the news in regards to video game violence. You could have gone to almost any major Gaming News site and gotten these points from a months worth of news articles. Her one fault is not herself recognizing that browsers, third-party applications, and both the XBox 360 and PS3 have tools available to them to limit the content that their children can access on them.
I have a problem with the 9th and 10th point, which is to improve on the system already in place to help restrict children's access to games which are not suitable for their age and a reformation of the classification system. The last time I checked, there were ratings on the boxes and parents could still decide what their children can and cannot do. Primarily because of the lack of parental involvement and care to learn about what their kids are doing, these methods go unnoticed by many. Not because they're not effective, but because they're ignored due to ignorance.
Her last point in the executive summary, though, surprisingly paints a perfect picture of parenting in this day and age. A public swimming pool, run by a third-party, safeguards the children and also typically teaches the children to swim and the safety regarding swimming. No parental involvement is required in this, but they have hired babysitters of one type or another to handle the raising of their children in this regard for them rather than taking the time themselves.
More focus in this day and age, honestly, needs to be placed on forcing parents to be actual parents rather than just people who work 8 or more hour days and go home to relax, using whatever is at their hands to free them of the annoyances of their children. We as a society are sending mixed signals, telling people to raise their children properly but then only providing them tools to shut their children up and third-parties to educate them on behalf of the parents so that they can go and earn money to therein be capable of stimulating an economy that puts most of its money in less than 1% of the population. How can you get parenting completely correct with a society like this?
I heard if you run backwards through any level of Super Mario Bros. 3 you can clearly see the words "Worship Satan" flash up while Princess Peach engages in some ungodly acts with Beelzebub himself in the background.