As you may or may not know, the UK Goverment commissioned well-known - in the UK at least - psychologist Dr Tanya Byron (MSc, PsychD) to write a report on the effect violent video games have on children.
Well, the report was released a couple of weeks ago, which basically said everything that sensible people have said all along - that there's no problem if you actually pay attention to the ratings that the games have. She did point out that it would help if games used the same age rating symbols as movies did, which I agree with. They used to as well, I don't know why they stopped.
A few days ago, well-known - in the UK at least - daytime chat show host Anne Diamond made a public statement about how she was disgusted by the adult content in some games that she had seen. Something nobody has focused on so far is that she also openly admitted allowing her under-age children to play 15-rated game Halo 3. Seems a little bit hypocritical, no? I would've torn her a new ass for that blatant foot-in-mouth statement. But that's just me.
Today, Dr Byron has come out and said she found Diamond's article "unbelievable" and went on to say that it is just enforcing the shock, knee-jerk reactions of the Mothers Against Everything (if that's not a real focus group it should be).
Read the MCV interview here.
It's not very often that we gamers get someone standing up for us. I do my best, but it's not like my blog is going to make much of a difference to the world. Each time Byron makes a statement, she goes further up in my estimations. I was expecting the report to be all negative, but it's really not. And for that, I applaud her.
Dr Tanya Byron, the gaming world owes you a debt. Long may you continue to kick ass in the name of gamers everywhere!
We salute you!
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