Yesterday we told you about the mindbogglingly bad slideshow called Video Games and Children: Virtual Playground vs. Danger Zone created by the New York Department of Justice to “educate” non-gaming parents on the dangers of gaming.
Today GamePolitics follows up, and points out that the slideshow’s listing of a well-known hoax site has caused a bit of a stir among political types in Albany.
Because of this, now it looks like the state-produced video will recieve an edit to remove the hoax site, Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence, from its references listing. Check out an image from this hoax site above.
John M. Caher, a spokesman for DJCS (creator of the presentation), made a statement after news of the edit became public:
“We firmly stand by the core, overriding message of the presentation: Parents and guardians need to know the types of games that are available, and use their own good judgment to decide if something is right for their child,” Caher said.
“If there are other issues brought to our attention, and we can independently verify a purported error, we will certainly address it. But our message remains exactly the same: Consumers need to be aware of the content of video games and determine if a particular game is appropriate for a particular audience.”
What’s really neat here is that it looks like some GamePolitics readers managed to bring this to the attention of New York state bureaucrats by bringing it up in the reader comments section of another videogame violence article. Our hats off to all GamePolitics and all involved.
[Update: it appears that the video has been removed from the NY DoJ Web site]
Published: Dec 20, 2007 11:42 am