Vaz Continues Anti-Game Rhetoric

January 7, 2010

Anti-game crusading MP Keith Vaz once again took to the House of Commons floor to harangue videogames.

NegativeGamer reports on the debate, which took place in the House yesterday as part of a discussion over the invalid 1984 Video Recordings Act. Vaz once again called for cigarette style health warnings to be affixed to the front of videogames, justifying the need for special warnings because the interactive nature of games sets them apart from movies:

A film with inappropriate content is not interactive. The point about video games, which is backed up by research from America, is that the player is part of the process. Players shoot and stab people in a videogame, and that is different. I accept that inappropriate content is wrong, wherever it is found, but videogames are different.

Vaz attempted to bolster his claims by mentioning the “No Russian” Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 level and the 2004 Manhunt murder case that dominated British tabloids in 2004.

Head over to NegativeGamer for more on Vaz’s remarks.

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Comments

Re: Vaz Continues Anti-Game Rhetoric

Guy's like vaz are the kind that go away when they realize nobody cares. Or loose their job. :P

Re: Vaz Continues Anti-Game Rhetoric

At least we know that pretty much every other member of parliament seems to pretty much ignore him, and he has a couple of vocal opponents in Parliament.

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I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.

-------------------------------------------------- I LIKE the fence. I get 2 groups to laugh at then.

Re: Vaz Continues Anti-Game Rhetoric

That would be the "Manhunt murder" where the victim had the game, right?

Re: Vaz Continues Anti-Game Rhetoric

This from a guy (Vaz) who holds a profession that promites lying and disinformation as the primary methodology of getting things done?

Yeah good luck with your crusade Vaz. I think you need a bigger soapbox. Can't you at least TRY to hide your bias?

Re: Vaz Continues Anti-Game Rhetoric

So is "research from America" the UK legislature debate equivalent of a "Canadian girlfriend?"
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I'm not under the affluence of incohol as some thinkle peep I am. I'm not half as thunk as you might drink. I fool so feelish I don't know who is me, and the drunker I stand here, the longer I get.


---
I'm not under the affluence of incohol as some thinkle peep I am. I'm not half as thunk as you might drink. I fool so feelish I don't know who is me, and the drunker I stand here, the longer I get.

Re: Vaz Continues Anti-Game Rhetoric

Vaz is a minority of pretty much one when it comes to computer games and their approach in the UK to be honest. Most people just consider this his 'bee in the bonnet', we still remember Mary Whitehouse and the old story of the censorships of Rock n Roll or Salsa dancing etc (And, let's face it, you don't get much more interactive in a social sense than dancing with someone - they used the same excuse to censor and control dancing as Vaz is trying to do for playing video games), so when someone, in the middle of two increasingly unpopular and dividing wars, when stories of IED's, Snipers and Suicide bombers are commonplace, starts off on 'blame it on the Videogames' rhetoric, you will notice a certain 'nod, smile' reaction from other politicians.

Re: Vaz Continues Anti-Game Rhetoric

Yeah, video games are making Americans violent

Re: Vaz Continues Anti-Game Rhetoric

He and Michael Atkinson are so stupid as politicians talking about Videogames, that people need to realize how wrong they are in order for them to lose their seats.

But with negative information from the Daily Mail and other newspapers from both England and Australia, well, it is just that more of the people who don't know what is going on will continue to vote for them while the rest of us who do know what is going on will remain in the minority.

But in the end, like with all great empires of their day, time will eventually catch up with them and they get so old that they can't continue politics anymore.

And THAT will be the day where we will finally be able to live without those people rediculing us all because of their ignorance.

 

TBoneTony

Re: Vaz Continues Anti-Game Rhetoric

I can accept that due to games' interactive nature they are different to films, and the potential to feel emotions from them is different from films.

The research onto the negative effects of gaming is a mixed bag, there is no conclusive link to anything one way or the other. Even if games were proven to be mentally damaging, the health warnings on cigarettes relate to how they are physically damaging not how they are mentally damaging (if they are at all anyway). Surely pornography as well as games should carry health warnings, but I don't see him calling for that.

Health warnings on products don't relate to mental health just physical health, so I don't support Vaz's proposal (even though science doesn't back up his conclusions anyway).

Re: Vaz Continues Anti-Game Rhetoric

Doesn't matter, 6 months and he loses his seat. =D


Re: Vaz Continues Anti-Game Rhetoric

Doesn't matter, 6 months and he loses his seat

No chance. He's got a massive majority, he's in a Labour safe seat. No matter how badly Labour do he's very likely to keep his seat.

Re: Vaz Continues Anti-Game Rhetoric

So Vaz can possibly keep his seat for the rest of his frickin life? Geez I thought the UK did away with monarchy.

Re: Vaz Continues Anti-Game Rhetoric

You do know that we still have a monarchy right?


Re: Vaz Continues Anti-Game Rhetoric

Somebody needs to put up a browser countdown, like they did for Jack Thompson's disbarrment.  (EZK, was that you?)

Re: Vaz Continues Anti-Game Rhetoric

Apparently, Vaz went on to continue the lie that Manhunt caused that teen murder.  How is he able to get away with maintaining a PROVEN lie?

Re: Vaz Continues Anti-Game Rhetoric

I remember one researcher here, who agreed that video games were different because of their interactive nature, but argued this made them LESS immersive than a movie.

The argument is pretty simple.  When watching a really good movie, you're not thinking about anything except the characters and plots on the screen.  If a movie really does its job, while your watching it, it's real to you, if only for a moment.

Video games, however, cannot achieve this.  No matter how compelling and interesting the events unfolding on the screen are, part of your brain will be thinking "Press A, duck behind the barrels.  Damn, out of sniper ammunition."  Even if you could get rid of the controller (a tactile reminder that nothing is real), the fact that its a game is everpresent, because you have to make decisions that don't correlate to real life.  Saving the game, restoring health, etc. is a complete divorce between the fantasy of the game, and the reality that you're playing a game.

Re: Vaz Continues Anti-Game Rhetoric

What about a "politics make people stupid" in every "vote for me" campaign ?

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