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EU says games good for kidsFebruary 12th, 2009 |
A report from the European parliament concluded yesterday that computer games are good for children and teach them essential life skills.
via Video games are good for children – EU report | Technology | The Guardian.
Saw it via a Tweet from Steven Johnson this morning. I asked him, “Do you think our books were read as part of the debate?” Or those of Jim Gee, Marc Prensky, etc… The article does say experts in games were brought in from numerous countries, so maybe.
There is discussion of the issue of stimulating violence, but the conclusion was that legislation was not warranted.
More interesting in terms of online, which is poorly regulated right now, was the notion of a mandatory way for users to report online games to PEGI:
The growing market for online games needed to be better controlled, the MEPs said, and online games should include a red button on the screen which children or parents could click to disable the game.
Manders said the button could also be linked to the administrators of the Pan-European Game Information age rating system, so that when a game player presses it, PEGI is informed and can investigate potentially disturbing games that are available through the internet.
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Hrmmm, somehow sitting on your behind playing games is good for you? What are those people thinking?! Nothing beats going outside and playing games… just like the good ol’ times.
I’m fine with things the way they are: no government mandate to cater to the demands of oversensitive parents.
…you lost me. Weren’t we talking about a government mandate catering to the demands of oversensitive parents? I thought you were frightened. You’re okay with this, now?
If you really want to change things, go door to door and talk the oversensitive parents through it.
I’m fine with things the way they are: no government mandate to cater to the demands of oversensitive parents. Talking to such people is the last thing I want to do.
Would you prefer to die of starvation or of thirst?
I’m not agreeing with the EU’s stance, but I am saying it’s far more reasonable than any stance thus far taken by governmental bodies. If you really want to change things, go door to door and talk the oversensitive parents through it.
“Though you have to admit it’s better than just tossing all mature games off the market without a second glance.”
Drinking piss is probably better than eating poo, but I wouldn’t want to do either.
I read about the Big Red Button on Game Politics, but it wasn’t clear from his post what exactly the Big Red Button was supposed to do. Apparently it’s a lot like the “flag blog” buttons that you see on Blogger, except that for some dumb reason it’s supposed to be colored red.
If someone wants to make a browser extension for this then go right ahead, but for the government to require this degree of catering to oversensitive parents is just plain frightening.
Though you have to admit it’s better than just tossing all mature games off the market without a second glance.
Hmm. the big red button idea worries me. It will inevitably lead to makers of more mature games toning them down to avoid investigation by the eurocrats. Then again if a parent or child presses it whilst they or their offspring are playing a game which is obviously for a more mature audience, and the packaging reflects this, one would hope that said eurocrats would have the sense to blame the parents rather than the developers and publishers of the game. Of course this would have to mean that they were willing to allow people some sort of personal responsibilty, which I haven’t seen much evidence of recently.