Legal Niches

Blogger: Daily Mail Fails at Videogames

By pete_gallagher

Opening with the salvo 'It is well established that the Daily Mail does not understand videogames,' blogger and game marketer Bruce Everiss lays into the UK tabloid's constant attack on games.

The latest article to draw Everiss' ire was a piece written by Andrew Alexander on politicians Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. At the end of the story, Alexander takes a shot at Shadow Minister Ed Vaizey's plan to boost the UK games industry:

'Culture' also has a minister of its own operating under the grand panjandrum of the Secretary of State. The Shadow Minister, Ed Vaizey, provides a foretaste of nonsense to come with his declaration that the video games industry - there's culture for you - has been let down by the Government. It has not grown fast enough.

He proposes a Video Games Council.

Why there should be a government role in this field may well defeat you. It is at least as silly as the role of Hereditary Butler to the Crown etc and no doubt more expensive.

Everiss answers:

I have some news for Mr Alexander, by any and all definitions video games are culture. They entertain, have creativity, genre, subtlety, a history, engender emotion and have everything else that ballet or the opera have. Except that video games are massively more popular.

In fact Mr Alexander actually provides compelling evidence for the need for a Video Games Council, because if we had one we would not have to suffer so much ignorance from journalists (and politicians).

Everiss details other accounts of the Mail's anti-game stance and also laments the lack of tax incentives for game developers, which he blames partly for the UK's slip to a world rank of sixth place when it comes to producing videogames.

Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on January 06, 2010 (boomark / email).