According to an interview with the shitrag Sun newspaper our Prime Minister Gordon Brown is calling for a ban on knives in the real world…and the gaming world!

The PM went on: “I am very worried about video and computer games.

“No one wants censorship or an interfering State.

“But the industry has some responsibility to society and needs to exercise that.”

Now while I can fully understand (and support) the banning of knives being carried about in the world today taking it to include games is too far. While he is right that the industry has responsibilities to society banning knives from games is possibly setting a dangerous precedent. Are we going to see an end to the use of Swords? Are cooking games going to be effected? How long until this includes guns?

Knives (and Swords) have a critical role to play in some games, in Opposing Force (Half-Life expansion) it is a defensive weapon to protect yourself from the alien rampage and to break open crates. In adventure games I am sure there are many instances of using knives or swords to cut ropes and do other knife like things to complete puzzles. In Manhunt it is (as shown in the article from the Sun) as weapon to aid your survival.

Really the humble knife has many roles in video games and many needs, it can be a valuable game mechanic and to have the possibility of it being banned from video games because of a problem common in society today is frankly a bit of overkill.

Go ahead and ban knives from being carried on the street and enforcing tougher punishments for those that carry them, but please Gordon, don’t ban a key tool from our beloved video games.

Tags: Brown, Politics, Sun

This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 4:10 pm and is filed under Games politics, General News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.