With it being talked about in the commons it is of course to be expected that video games and the massive corrupting influence they supposedly have on us all would start to be talked about more over the next few weeks and months, unfortunately it is a Liberal Democrat that appears to be the first to miss the point. It's not that I necessarily disagree with Andy's main sentiments that completely putting video games under the purview of the BBFC is necessarily a step in the wrong direction, but I can't actually see any evidence that it is a step in any direction at all.

At present only games showing sex or "gross" violence to humans or animals require age limits. That leaves up to 90% of games on the market , many of which portray weapons, martial arts and extreme combat, free from statutory labelling. (from The Guardian)

An extract from a very poor article on the Guardian, one that perhaps doesn't realise that there are swathes of films in the world that depict soft violence, weapons and martial arts with U certifications. Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles played into the "cool" factor of martial arts without ever worrying even the most obsessively hand-wringing mother. Computer games, it seems, are a totally different beast when it comes to how this is depicted, no doubt due in no small part to the "interactivity" argument used. This is all despite there being no conclusive evidence one way or the other about how much video games influence our personalities

The report itself is flawed on a few more levels, let me just point out...

Policing such regimes is difficult as it is possible to buy games over the net and simply tick the box stating the purchaser is over 18.

This being a "problem" in general with the net, something I would hope isn't widely seen as a problem given that the act of purchasing over the net requires the interaction of a parent with a credit/debit card to complete the purchase. I thought the Guardian was generally above scare-mongering, but unfortunately real reporting skill is absent in this piece. Back to Andy, however, and his view of what has been reported.

The problem comes in the shops selling the games and the people buying them. Whilst most shops, certainly chains, had some kind of policy not to sell games to people under these [PEGI/ESRB rated] ages, on the whole it wasn't exactly ruthlessly applied.

I would love to see some kind of figures on this. With most truly violent games being required to have a BBFC rating of at least 12+ I wonder how many games are truly being sold directly to children under the suggested age rating. Given that something like 8% of children are able to be served in licensed premises with alcohol there is a huge argument here about just how "rigid" any system is when it comes to stopping a child being able to get hold of these things that are supposedly bad for them. But this also generally ignores the point of parents buying games for their kids, just as they would have to over the net.

So to be honest, despite it probably being in some sense illiberal, I am all for this. For one thing, if we can't trust parents to exercise their own control over children in the field of video sales (which are all covered by the BBFC), then why should we for video games.

I wasn't aware that the certification schemes were in place to ever stop children from watching certain content, they were there to try and stop children from watching content their parents should be the ones doing the controlling. What is not being discussed here is just how many parents really care what their kids are playing, how many of them would therefore just buy games for their kids if the law became tougher, and why it is that those worried about the effects of games on society have any right to try and suggest that anyone except that parent should have the choice about what they let their kid do in the comfort of their own home.

A study in America showed that something like 42% of parents didn't ever engage with their kids and the games that they played, they just didn't care what they were playing while knowing that they were being entertained by the medium. While I don't mind certification being there to ensure cheeky little sods don't circumvent their parents control, I can't help but feel that the impetus of such change is to stop the kids playing the games at all, not to give parents that control back...control that evidence would suggest they really are pretty split down the middle on worrying too much about.

Another reason I would be wholeheartedly in favour of this is that it just might drag the games industry into a more mature place.

This statement could only be made by someone that has no clue about the games industry, what it has been through, and what the vast majority of games are. Andy cites Nintendo as being mature yet also perhaps uncool because parents see it as being such, for example. The trouble is he seems to ignore that the industry as a whole has hailed Nintendo for the wii, doctors have endorsed it as a more positive way of entertaining yourself for your personal well being, and even the most sceptical of hardcore gamers have abandoned their ridiculing of the company to think about the possibilities and intelligence of what the latest consoles offer.

This kind of misplacement of the true atmosphere around video games perfectly frames where he and, I feel, most people getting their knickers in a twist about game content are going wrong. The games industry only started picking up pace around 1982 and for years involved games technically incapable of displaying extreme content. With the industry revolving around childish games and highly stylised content for much of the next decade it wasn't until the Playstation that the issue of questionable content even came about, largely also because of advances in graphics technology.

But we are now in a time when the console the Xbox360 takes the market for the "adolescent" crowd with the "short attention span". In reality the vast majority of games being published for this console are absolutely no different from games like super probotector on the SNES in the early 90's, but graphically are so much more realistic it is obvious why people are on heightened alert.

What is clear is that if you look at the games on this console over the last few years it is nigh on impossible to find a game that both has significant violence as part of its content and isn't certificated by the BBFC. That is if those games are even in the majority, with racing games, sports games and licensed titles making up most releases in the last year. Yet because one game gets released that goes a bit too far, Manhunt 2, suddenly ALL video games are a problem. This is tantamount to us getting worried about the entirety of the film industry because once every few years a film like the exorcist is released.

But by making itself one of the major avenues for boys (and, to a much lesser extent, girls)

Studies in the US suggest that a significant proportion of girls play "adult" games and that the percentage of girls doing so is on the rise, so not exactly to a much lesser extent.

From the outside, it is seen as churning out games full of rather adolescent crap for the sake of it

Unfortunately, as the post by Andy shows, the outside clearly doesn't have a clue about what the industry is really churning out, relying only on piss poor articles on the Guardian and on more knee jerk media avenues to work out what games are released. It is also strange to see this kind of statement when so many "violent" games produced (and requiring BBFC approval) are getting critical acclaim (Bioshock, Halo 3, etc). Yet again the idea is seeping through from the article I'm referencing here that the argument is being made not on the facts but but on the image perpetuated through the popular press.

A large section of the audience for the kind of adolescent drivel which is released is probably underage. If they cannot buy it (and of course, this will not be absolutely the case, parents will still buy things they shouldn't, just as irresponsible parents will buy their children DVDs they shouldn't have), this market will be significantly diminished, rewarding those games companies which have staked their business model on expanding the idea of who their typical customer is (like Nintendo), and punish those who have relentlessly pursued a pretty cynical agenda of pandering (like Sony and EA).

Quite aside from what quantifies as "adolescent drivel" I once again return to the point that it is not down to external bodies to try and bully the industry out of providing what people want to play. It is purely the parents that should have the choice over whether their kid plays an 18 rated game or not, and not MPs or blowhards in the media. Businesses that are making risky choices such as Nintendo are being rewarded with huge leaps in market share, critical acclaim and more than anything else record profit margins...whatever is most popular gets rewarded, and right now that is most definitely "social" gaming. Would this not suggest that the games industry is maturing without governments around the world forcing it's hand?

But overarching all of this is the fact that what Andy is saying is good ignores the fact that games are art, just like film. Just because YOU think that a game is "adolescent drivel" doesn't mean others do. You have no right to try and force a particular genre out of the market through legislation because if offends you personally than pro-lifers have a right to force women to keep children they don't want because of religious belief. This is perhaps why I find it so amazing that a Lib Dem can honestly write on their blog in such a manner, not only wishing for yet more nanny-statism, not only trying to erode peoples liberties, but also trying to set a state mandate on what is tasteful or not.

Let's leave this with some much needed facts on the matter, given that most of the claims by Andy for the desperate need for regulation on this matter are based on the spread of tasteless games. Firstly, the top 10 best selling games of 2007...

1. Fifa 2008 - Sports game
2. Brain training - Learning game
3. Call of Duty 4 - BBFC rated 12+ FPS game
4. PES 2008 - Sports game
5. More brain training - Learning game
6. Halo 3 - BBFC rated 15+ FPS game
7. Simpsons - Licensed game
8. Wii Play - Party game
9. Assassin's Creed - BBFC rated 15+ 3rd person game
10. WWE Smackdown vs Raw - Sports game

So for a start half of those games at least were available on the Nintendo utilising their technology, hardly the sign of a ridiculed system, and also the only games on that list suggested to contain content unsuitable for teens are all BBFC rated already. But how about the games released in 2007, how many of them are "adolescent drivel"?

Now I of course don't know what Andy classifies as such, so I'm just going to include every game that has a 15+ rating even though it will include critically acclaimed games such as Bioshock, Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3. About 119 games were released, of which 37 were sport or driving games (31%), 33 fall under categories of family, party, puzzle or licensed from film games (28%). The remaining games can be split down to 22 of them being rated for those aged 12 or below (45% of the potential drivel), and of those that remain as being rated 15+, 14 (51%) are already BBFC rated. This leaves 13 games (11% of all games released) that are unrated by the BBFC and potentially only being suitable for older teens or adults yet technically legal to buy by anyone.

So, let's ask again...what exactly is the problem we're fighting?