U.K. game publishers' group ELSPA, the British equivalent of the ESA, has a new top dog.
Edge Online reports that longtime ELSPA exec Michael Rawlinson will succeed the departing Paul Jackson as director general.
ELSPA chairman Andy Payne commented on the move:
We greatly thank Paul for his dedication and commitment over the past two and a half years, establishing ELSPA as a key conduit between the video games industry and the UK Government.
Whilst we are losing Paul on an operational basis, we are fortunate that he will continue to support ELSPA in his new role. Michael has excelled under Paul's leadership and is now absolutely ready to take the role as director general and lead ELSPA into the future.
In recent times Rawlinson has been a very public supporter of the PEGI rating system whilst bashing the competing BBFC.
In October Rawlinson asserted that Labour MP Keith Vaz, a longtime critic of the video game industry, actually gave helpful publicity to the violent games he was criticizing in Parliament:
Keith Vaz has done more to sell Rockstar's games than Rockstar has. The original Manhunt was released, did diddly squat and fell right off the radar until the Stefan Pakeerah [murder] came and Vaz started shouting from the rooftops and then everyone went and bought the stuff...
Comments
Re: ELSPA: Meet The New Boss
For those in the UK, is ELSPA looked upon as cynically as the ESA is here in the States? Just wondering.
"There is no sin except stupidity." - Oscar Wilde
Re: ELSPA: Meet The New Boss
Not really, although ELSPA has lost some credibility with some of its comments that it's made in response to the PEGI vs BBFC debate.
But his comments regarding Manhunt are somewhat false, because Manhunt was moderately successful sales wise (received very positive ratings, and changed Rockstar from being seen as a GTA developer to a quality games maker).