Kudos MCV for making such a complaint! I’m in total agreement that its impact could be negative towards our industries small businesses.

Unfortunately the damage may have already been done. (I guess I’ll only find out when my non gaming friends send me ‘I told you so email’s’ as I received last week about the so called Playsation rash!)

Don't know what sort of effect this will have, but it's certainly going to be interesting to watch.

The Games industry should remake the ad, using the image of a boy sat on the sofa reading Dostoevsky.

Is it me, or have the government essentially issued an ad linking a Sony product with premature death?
Isn't this sort of advertising nonsense harking back to the days when Doctors would advertise Camel cigarettes as being good for you?

To misquote Jeremy Clarkson, I think our Priminister really is a two eyed genius...

This is a chance for the industry to act collectively and defend ourselves from what is plainly unfair and ill-conceived blame for society's wider problems.
MCV encourages everyone who feels the same way as us to use the link to the ASA complaint form that is on Tim Ingham's story.
The more complaints the ASA gets, the more seriously this will be taken - and the sooner this anti-games campaign backed by the Government will be halted.

Stuart Dinsey
Publisher, MCV

Just to add,

One of the national bookmakers (cant remember if it was Ladbrookes or William Hill) had an entire tv / print ad campaign banned by the ASA on the back of 1 complaint (yes just 1),

"Change 4 Life" is an England only campaign and when you look at Scotland's equivalent campaign ( http://www.takelifeon.co.uk/" onclick="window.open ( this.href ); return false;" class="comment_url" >http://www.takelif...o.uk/ ) it has no mention of games and their supposed negative effect. It even contains the line when referring to the site: "who says sitting down in front of a computer can’t be good for you?"

Saying that these adds are in national print and as such could still affect business up here. This is the laziest attempt to discredit video games i have ever seen, but it doesn't mean it won't work.

Excellent point Jay. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Hopefully the powers that be at ELSPA will look into what caused this England-specific attack on the games industry.

As one publisher boss said to me yesterday "this actually just looks like the work of a lazy ad agency"

If that's the case then shame on everyone involved. MCV hopes that Nintendo, after all their tremendous work, are kicking off bigtime.

Biggest games product by revenue over the past 12 months?

Yep, it's something called Wii Fit.

No doubt the ad agency men and civil servants have been too busy drinking beer and smoking fags to notice this incredible home entertainment success...

@Mr Retail:

This is true- I manged to get a TV ad taken off the air after being the only person to complain.

Shock horror, This government looks to blame someone else for its own tragic failings. The industry needs to defend itself from this and should counter this with a healthy advert of a young athletic child playing on Wii fit. Next to this they could put a drunken obese kid running out of the local superstore with a bag full of cheap booze under his arm

This is not a government ad.
The campaign is a joint one by Diabetes UK, Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation.
The advertising agency is The Gate and the campaign will run will run for four weeks in women's titles including Heat, Closer, OK and Hello! as well as in TV listing titles such as What's on TV and TV Choice. The target audience is parents of children less than 11 years old.

It would be excellent if as many people as possible report this to the ASA. They take account of volume of complaints.

collective complaints FTW! :)

maybe I'm missing the blunt point, if such a thing exists. it's politics, which, in todays UK media frenzy will be forgotten tomorrow, like all the other ignored governmental advice about potentially damaging consumerism.

99% of the game-playing and game-buying population will carry-on as they were, as they aren't daft. They will do as they please, just as they have done since the rather more media valuable game-killing stories hit.

Do people stop buying fags because the packet tells them "it will kill you"? Do people stop drinking becasue the bottle says "drink responsibly"? Sure, a few might, but that's not because of some governmantalists advice or lazy ads, it's because they chose to.

now, can we carry on straightening ourselves out, please?

Either the people at ASA are so mind-numbingly thick that they still believe that the gamer stereotype holds true, or, as stated, the government is trying to blame others for it's own ineptitude. Either way, all this advert proves is that the people responsible for its creation don't have two brain cells to rub together between them collectively.

Stuart, you're absolutely right about this poor excuse for a health awareness advert!!

I've just submitted my complaint - AND EVERYONE ELSE IN THE GAMES INDUSTRY SHOULD DO IT TOO!!

Don't leave it until tomorrow, DO IT NOW !!

Just submitted an official complaint via the ASA website, also asked for a call to arms via Facebook this ad too.

Perhaps for added authenticity the child should be sitting surrounded by cheap supermarket pizzas, crisps, cola based drinks & choccie bars.

Then again it may upset the change 4 life sponsors a bit.

@ beemoh,

Can we ask what the advert was? Or if you would rather not say, can you say what the complaint was without naming the advertiser?

Dear oh dear. Where have all the good ideas gone?

Has anyone thought of the impact this ad will have on the kids buying the game. Society dissaproves thus they will want it more and more. The ad may affect the expensive £40 a go new releases which mummy and daddy need to buy for them but could actually fuel demand for cheap, couple of quid pre-owned stuff. However, will anyone actually be swung by this. I will though be registering a complaint too, as the ad should mention supemarket junk food, etc.

We have run into difficulty with a free advertising scheme with our local council, it is a little discount card given to about 5000 kids in my region and it comes with a booklet detailing all the places the kids can get discounts in if they show their card, the council don't want us to advertise in this though, because of this sort of image games seem to have, so I am currently complaining to them too (and trying to find out who else is in this book).

Martin

Kudos MCV, nice to see some of the press has the balls to stand up to them, instead of whining in forums!

You have my support!!!

Are joysticks more of a threat to children's health than knives?
How about focussing on where the REAL problems lie?
Oh sorry, that's two questions!

Video games seem to be such an easy target, it is wholly unfair to label the years of hard work put in by developers purely to entertain players as 'fatal'.
To be honest I'm tired of being told that fast food and television is bad for me. I already know this. I also know it's perfectly good for me in moderation, which they neglect to say. I was one of the fastest runners in England in the midst of heavy video game playing, it did me no harm.

WAYS TO COMPLAIN:

a) Online to the Advertising Standards Authority -
http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/complaints_form/" onclick="window.open ( this.href ); return false;" class="comment_url" >http://www.asa.org...form/

b) Phoning Change4life directly - 0300 123 4567

c) Department of Health - Email Chief Medical Officer: CMOweb@dh.gsi.gov.uk

d) Alan Johnson MP - Secretary of State for Health: johnsona@parliament.uk

e) Dawn Primarolo MP - who has spoken at length about the campaign: MSPHtemp@dh.gsi.gov.uk or dhmail@dh.gsi.gov.uk

f) Email Diabetes UK this email - info@diabetes.org.uk

g) Your own MP - Write to Them - http://www.writetothem.com/" onclick="window.open ( this.href ); return false;" class="comment_url" >http://www.writeto....com/

h) You can leave comments on DUK's face book wall. http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=20583485166&topic=6289

I've just submitted a complaint to the ASA over this advert. I made a point of highlighting the deliberate bias, and also the subtle connection between the colour of the word DEATH and the colour of the controller.

Colour association is a very common trick in advertising and it's little subtleties like this that stick. They could have chosen a white controller but they didn't, they created a very visual link between the activity and the subject.

I can see a lot of different "variations" of that advert appearing all over the net... in fact, I might even create some of them... So if anyone has a link to a full res image of teh advert, I'd be very grateful. There's not much you can do with the one on here, it's too small.

Submitted my complaint too.

LeeC, I'd like to see this full-size ad but I can't find it. I want to know what the small text says.

It's funny how backwards the advert would be if the child was waving a Wii-mote, on a dancemat, or infront of an EyeToy.

Made my complaint and for those that wanted it here's a link to a higher res image:
http://www.psu.com/Sony-contemplating-lawsuit-over-Change4Life-ad-News--a006637-p0.php

John Carpenter Presents:
Scape From London

Snake Plissken is back!

TV Ad: Snake Plissken has sent to London (which is now a maximum security prison holding the most dangerous gamers and game developers) to save ASA CEO's Grandmother.

Col. Pennyworth: "Plissken, you bloody bastard. you'll save her or else."
Snake Plissken: "Fine, but when I'm back, I'll kill you."

Snake is bounded with a PSP (which incase you didn't know is a highly hazardous device these days and will kill him in 18 hours). Therefore Plissken has only 18 hrs to rescue and bring back one of the greatest minds of the 21st century's grandmother otherwise he'll become ill, very ill, seriously ill.

"Call me Plissken"

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