First Ed Vaizey speaks up for the UK games industry at the London Games Conference, now Labour MP Tom Watson has sprung to the defence of Modern Warfare 2 from another anti-videogame tirade from Keith Vaz.
But is the call unjust, or has the game made a serious error with the inclusion of a level which allows you to take part in a terrorist attack on an airport?
In a Daily Mail article (whose parent company funded short-lived gaming channel xleague.tv), Vaz was quoted: “I am absolutely shocked by the level of violence in this game and am particularly concerned about how realistic the game itself looks.”
Within hours Watson addressed the balance with the creation of Gamer’s Voice: a facebook group dedicated to publically supporting videogames and defending unfair attacks against them.
“Everything that comes out of Parliament in relation to video games is relentlessly negative.
“There are thousands of people employed in this industry, there are 26 million people playing games. We should have a much more balanced view of the industry, indeed we should be supporting them through difficult times.”
What do you reckon? Is this more needless criticism about computer games? Or is developer Infinity Ward’s controversial ‘terrorist airport attack’ scene completely unnecessary?
It certainly had us shocked after picking up Modern Warfare 2 at Monday’s midnight opening.
Have your say in the comments box below.
3 comments ↓
The violence didn’t trouble me. The ludicrous plot however caused me to boil and devour my own pancreas in outrage. I’m no special agent, but if three terrorists are shooting up and airport in front of you I would say you had pretty much caught them red handed. Standing by and watching them in case I blew my cover probably wouldn’t be my first course of action. Then again, you might want to stay dark in case they did something really, really bad later. Perhaps they might scowl at a puppy. Or steal a toddlers lollipop. Boy, then you’d really have them where you want them.
I thought the exact same thing (not the puppy or toddlers bit though haha).
Why be undercover with an evil leader when you could just use the opportunity to shoot him in the back of the head?
My issue is if you don’t have to watch it then it’s not really essential to the story, no matter how hackneyed you think it is. It just looks like they knew it would court controversy, but added the warning as a cop out
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