The Political Game: The Battle of Britain

Filed under: Features, Politics

Dennis McCauley contributes The Political Game, a column on the collision of politics and video games:

Suddenly, surprisingly, the UK has become Ground Zero in the political and cultural war surrounding video games.

For a long time, England was a backwater in this fight. The video game struggle raged primarily in state legislatures and federal courthouses around the United States. Oh, there was Keith Vaz, of course, a Labour Parliamentarian who made some noise about the original Manhunt in 2004 and would occasionally surface to criticize this game or that.

But in 2007 the video game issue simply exploded in the UK as one major game controversy after another made headlines. At the same time, game legislation tailed off in the US. While six states passed laws in 2005-2006, none have been passed so far this year. American politicians, seemingly, are getting the message that games are protected by the First Amendment. Not so in Britain, however.

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[via] Joystiq