Chief executive of Electronic Arts John Riccitiello has told some of the most powerful luminaries in television that games are no more violent a media than TV programmes.

Speaking in a presentation to the Royal Television Society's Cambridge Convention, Riccitiello said video games were ‘unfairly demonised’ in the press for their violent content.

According to Broadcast magazine, he showed violent clips from TV programmes such as 24 and CSI and films including Kill Bill and 300, before comparing them with segments from such as Grand Theft Auto.

He protested that the games industry has acted responsibly to protect children from seeing adult material – citing measures such as parental blocking mechanisms on consoles.

Riccitiello said TV and games appealed to similar demographics, but that the two experiences were markedly different.

"With video games, I can be on the edge of my seat immersed in them, but TV is storytelling - I'm lying back and it comes to me," he said.