Guns Don't Kill People - Games Do?

Sometimes it's genuinely difficult to fathom out what's actually going on with society, and quite how we've even made it to the Information Age at all. It seems to be ingrained into group nature to respond to innovation with such fear and contempt that one can only assume living through the Industrial Revolution was one long and extremely uncomfortable panic for all concerned.

Given the hysterical reaction to last week's tabloid assertion that videogames were now responsible for causing Rickets in children - a disease most commonly associated with a lack of Vitamin D or calcium, and most prevalent today in developing countries - it's hard to work out what readers of such stories must have thought. Would they take such claims seriously and start eyeing that console under the telly with suspicion, or would they rightly dismiss them as a cynical attempt to shift tomorrow's chip paper?

So where did it all come from? Unpacking the claims a little, the facts at the root of the 'story' are based on solid, scientific research - essentially that there's been a rise in cases of Rickets in children, and the evidence points to not enough time spent outside.

It's clear that where there's a problem, the dangers need to be communicated. The scientists concerned have identified through research and analysis a worrying trend and released the findings - along with speculation as to what could cause or exacerbate the issue.

That speculation isn't unreasonable, as far as "not enough time spent outside" goes - but of course the problem lies with how far that argument is then extended, and crucially what's missing along the way.

The majority of the nonsense written last week seems to indicate that the reason why children were spending too much time indoors was because of videogames, and the tone in the vast majority of pieces proceeded further in establishing that therefore games were giving kids Rickets. Anybody who's worked in the games industry in the past decade or so will see a pattern in the formula used to calculate such solid conclusions. It goes something like this:

Society has a problem, and there must be a cause. What has been influencing society increasingly recently? Well, everybody's playing videogames these days. That must be it - look, little Johnny's sitting in front of the TV instead out playing in the park. Problem identified and neatly gift-wrapped.

You can substitute this Rickets problem for any number of society's modern day ills, including obesity and violence, because the underlying argument is nothing new.

Now - children contracting Rickets, or becoming obese, or acting violently are all serious issues which need discussion and attention, so why is it so fashionable to try to box all the difficult questions in with one oversimplified answer?

The truth is relatively simple, in that inappropriate engagement with videogames can cause all of those issues with children. If they're playing games indoors all of the time, they're unlikely to be getting enough Vitamin D. If they're playing sedentary games all of the time without doing any exercise - and eating the wrong kinds of foods - they'll put on weight. If they're accessing adult-rated content with no ability to contextualise what they're seeing or doing, they may be influenced by on-screen violence.

All of those things are obvious, straightforward conclusions - but videogames isn't the only, or even the most important, common factor. It's parenting, and the biggest hurdle society faces is that nobody knows how to fix parenting when it's broken.

Should the government offer advice and be accused of nannying? To an extent, it's tried with varying degrees of accuracy and success. Can it legislate to force parents to do a better job of bringing up children? Social care ticks that box at an extreme end, but realistically there's nothing practical the government can really do except encourage parents to educate themselves more fully about the risks and potential dangers - it can't create better parents overnight.

And because that's a tough issue, which needs a lot of thought, input and investment from any number of sources, it's too difficult to process into a nice, attention-grabbing headline, and therefore the easy answer is to look for a different solution.

Does that mean we should give up trying to improve the situation? Of course not, and action is being taken. The industry's already combating the obesity issue in some ways by producing huge-selling active titles such as Wii Fit. Obviously, that's not a solution, but it might become part of one, while a greater focus on age ratings and the restriction of adult content with the forthcoming PEGI system is an attempt to curb inappropriate access for children.

But even as and when that is written into UK law that too can only be part of the solution, because if parents aren't doing their part, nothing the industry does will make any difference.

That's the point at which the industry has to apply a little bit of perspective to the flak it seems to be getting. Yes, the stories are ill-researched and unfairly misleading. No, it's unlikely that in the short term anything much will change.

However, stepping back, what's really likely to happen as a result of this latest attack on games? Frankly, very little. People won't stop buying videogames because of the danger of contracting Rickets - let's face it, the economy's been a far greater danger to sales in the past year - but some parents might actually think a little more seriously about balancing their kids' lifestyles as a result.

And, being honest, if the research in question was broadcast in it original form without any claims subsequently attached, would anybody have paid any attention? If there was no fuss made, no inflammatory headlines, would anybody have even blinked? Very doubtful, and that would certainly do nothing to prevent this particular situation from getting worse.

Ultimately, the industry needs to lose its persecution complex and change its mentality to understand that sometimes it just needs to take it on the chin. The business of games has grown beyond recognition in the past 20 years, and with the good times will come the bad.

It doesn't mean that we like it, or that it's fair, but we have to accept that it will happen. As long as the industry continues to improve its messaging on issues that are genuinely important (such as age ratings) it will continue to strengthen its argument that videogames are a cultural and creative expression - and eventually we will sit on par, in society's mind, with other more established media.

In the meantime, don't be surprised if such ill-informed, ill-judged headlines continue. Thankfully, the industry is big enough to take it.