By John C Beyer Director of mediawatch-uk

Police officer escapes with his life after brutal gang attack!  The shocking CCTV footage of the officer surrounded by a mob and kicked while on the ground was featured in TV news bulletins and some commentators remarked that it looked as though it had been taken from a violent computer game! 

Media Impact?

Last year the Prime Minister expressed concern about pornography and violence in the media describing this as a "terrible issue" to be tackled.  He appointed Dr Tanya Byron to make recommendations on how children can be protected from such material on the internet and in computer games.  Dr Byron's report was published in March and the UK Council for Child Internet Safety launched last month. 

The impact and influence of the media has long been a worry for many parents and the widespread use by children of personal computers and laptops has heightened concern and given rise to demands for effective measures to protect children from inappropriate content. 

The argument over whether or not people are harmed or psychologically damaged has been raging for years as each new technological development arrives.  There are always those who are ready to defend their ground and computer gamers are no exception.  But as long ago as 1992 misgivings were being expressed about games in which players can ‘kill' at the touch of a button, doing it alone and in isolation. 

Gaming Fantasies

Writing in the Daily Telegraph in August 1992, Lawrence Garner noted that computer games "confer a satisfying power".  He suggested that computer game fantasies have become the reality for some people and concluded: "The amoral world of the computer game and violent film rots not only the brain but the conscience."  It is not surprising, therefore, that the American Military use violent computer games in training soldiers to kill. 

It is alarming that youngsters of five or six years of age are gaining access to and playing ‘18' rated games and that some retailers have little regard for the dual age classifications applied to them. 

In June 2008 Trading Standards officers in Wales found that 9 out of 10 vendors sold software to underage children.  A series of test purchases conducted in September 2007 by The One Show, BBC1 TV, also found that 9 out of 10 retailers sold 18 rated games to a 14-year-old girl. 

We also know of young people buying imported games that have only symbols of the American Entertainment Software Ratings Board.  We understand that there have been only 14 prosecutions of retailers for supplying games to people under the age stated on the packaging.  An Office of Communications' survey, published in May 2008, found that two thirds of 12 to 15-year-olds said violence in games affected their behaviour. 

The Government's consultation on Video Games Classification is timely because important regulatory issues must be resolved.  An appropriate solution to these challenges lies in the direction of a unified regulatory scheme backed up with an International Agreement that should rule out unacceptable content, such as, pornography and violence, likely to impair the mental or moral development of minors.

This article first appeared in The House Magazine, 27 October 2008

DCMS Video Games Consultation

mediawatch-uk submission Regulating Video Games

Submission to the Byron Review

Focusing on Byron

Games/Internet 2008

Training to Kill?