UK Gov’t Ad Campaign Attacks Gamers
A British ad campaign linking early deaths and young gamers has drawn heavy fire from game developers and gamers in the UK and beyond. The ad appeared on women’s lifestyle in the UK such as Star, Reveal, and Heat, which shows a boy holding a PlayStation controller looking bored, dead with out life. Above the picture captions: “Risk an early death, just do nothing.” The ad is part of Change4Life’s campaign by The British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research and Diabetes UK against lazy lifestyles and promote positive activities.
The campaign sparked outrage, the Market for Computer and Video Games UK (MCV UK) has already filed a formal complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority, saying the ad is “unfair and inaccurate.” They’re now calling on gamers and people in the industry to join their protest. Since the ad appears on women’s publications, it implies that parents shouldn’t get games for their kids. Fortunately, 74% of parents in the UK believe that gaming is educational.
The main argument of the MCV UK is that not only is the advertising campaign inaccurate, wrongfully demonstrating the effect of games on youth, it also implies that parents should not buy games for their children, potentially hurting the already-suffering UK games industry. Earlier in the week, a survey published by TIGA found that UK-based developers were already frustrated by what they saw as the government not doing enough to encourage and aid the growth of the industry compared to their counterparts in other countries.
Furthermore, as Tim Ingham, MCV’s Associate Editor argues, this generation of gaming is far more interactive and healthy than previous generations, resulting in a less sedentary and more interactive lifestyle than just, say, watching TV: “Not only have they got the UK’s idle, McDonald’s-munching youth actually keen to break a sweat – but, more importantly, they’ve helped them have a genuine giggle with their parents for the first time since
‘peek-a-boo!’ in the pushchair.”
As of yet, there has been no response from the UK government or any of the groups involved in the Change4Life campaign.
[Source]
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Anyone who thinks this is an attack on gamers is a fucking idiot. I mean an utter moron. This is an attack on the sedentary; those who sit on their fat asses all day doing nothing at all (by the way, I’m one of them). Gaming just happens to be one of those hobbies which far more kids are doing, and which involves little physical activity, so they made a photo out of it. The kid could equally have been watching a movie on the TV, but a kid sitting idly on a couch wouldn’t really make for a very striking image, would it?
Oh yeah, and good luck to them with their “complaint”. “THE KID HAS A CONTROLLER IN HIS HAND THIS IS UNFAIRLY REPRESENTING GAMERS”. Yeah, the kid’s also using a couch. Fuck, wait until Ikea see this – they’re gonna fire up a shitstorm of a legal case for misrepresentation of couch users.
Love,
a hardcore gamer and a 40lb overweight sedentary fatass.