Boris Johnson forgets that games are evil
Goes from wanting to garrotte the Game Boy to welcoming the London Games Festival
Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but it seems some people - like Boris Johnson - are entitled to two... on the same subject. Or perhaps it's just that 'video games rot your brain' isn't really an acceptable stance for a London mayor to take on the subject of an industry that employs 64,000 people in his city just before London Games Week kicks off.
As dug up by CVG today, here's Boris Johnson's view of video games back in 2006, which he expressed in his column for The Telegraph.
"It is time someone had the guts to stand up, cross the room and just say no to Nintendo," Johnson wrote, quite passionately. "It is time to garrotte the Game Boy and paralyse the PlayStation, and it is about time, as a society, that we admitted the catastrophic effect these blasted gizmos are having on the literacy and the prospects of young males."
His rant continues: "These machines teach them nothing. They stimulate no ratiocination, discovery or feat of memory - though some of them may cunningly pretend to be educational.
"The more addictive these games are to the male mind, the more difficult it is to persuade boys to read books; and that is why it is no comfort that Britain has more computer games per household than any other EU country, and, even though they are wince-makingly expensive, an amazing 89 per cent of British households with children now boast a games console, with distribution right across the socio-economic groups."
Ouch.
The mayor also linked gaming to knife crime in another newspaper earlier this year.
But what did he have to say at the beginning of London Games Week in a press release this morning?
"I'm delighted that the London Games Festival is back in our city for its third year. It demonstrates the creativity and range of the gaming industry, which, as an important part of London's creative sector, makes a vital contribution to the economy as a whole."
That's some turnaround. Still, it's nice to hear that someone can apparently forget "the catastrophic effect these blasted gizmos are having on the literacy" so long as they're bringing in a bit of cash.
