The BBC reports that Cuba has finally joined the modern world with the arrival of the first legalised home computers at the Carlos III shopping centre in Havana.

The BBC reports that the PCs are selling at $800 (£400) while the average monthly wage for Cubans is only $20 (£10) a month. However many Cubans have relatives living abroad who send cash back to the island.

President Raul Castro has been making moves towards modernisation in recent weeks with mobile phones and DVD players becoming available. However those who have been fortunate enough to get hold of one of the PCs won’t be joining us playing EVE Online or Day of Defeat as internet access is limited to certain workplaces and education facilities.

This is because of the US trade embargo with Cuba that prevents the island from connecting to under-sea fibre optic cables. Instead the internet access in Cuba is limited to costyl satellite connections.

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez is currently laying a cable under the Carribean to Cuba, though it is not known if internet access will become common place once the new connection is laid.

This is great, after last weeks analysis of why British papers hate video games we get another piece of shite ‘journalism’ from The Times regarding the banning of Kane and Lynch ads here in the UK.

Advertisements for Kane & Lynch were accompanied by the claim that the game is “grittier and nastier . . . than anything you’ve seen before, the violence . . . visceral, brutal and very, very real”. The ruling yesterday by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) comes after the report last month by Tanya Byron, the psychologist and television parenting guru, who proposed cigarette-style health warnings on video games to protect children from unsuitable material.

(my highlighting)

I really find this hilarious that The Times in continuing with their theory that the Byron Review was planning to impose cigarette-style health warnings even though anyone who reads the Byron Review knows this is an absolute lie.

Goodness, well fair enough that the ads got banned, they were for Kane and Lynch so I have no issues with it. Though the fact that it took…well quite a few months for this to take place is just a sign that the UK really is going down the shitter.

One last thing from The Times article. Julian Brazier the Conservative MP for Canterbury had this to say;

“This is one more example of the ASA showing leadership and cracking down on the glamorising of violence when the BBFC is dragging its feet and the Video Appeals Committee has failed completely.”

News to me that the BBFC and VAC are involved in managing and controlling what kind of adverts are allowed to be shown on TV and in magazines. I always thought that was the job that the ASA was meant to be doing anyway…

According to Jim Rossignol in the newest issue of PC Gamer UK ‘Relic feel like the beating heart’ of the PC and judging from his mega-preview of Dawn of War 2, Relic are just that. While Jim was unable to break down the mental defenses of the Relic staff and find out what races other than Space Marines and Orks are due to appear, he was able to gain a magnificent insight into the game itself.

Boy does it sound fantastic and wow it bloody well looks gorgeous! Dawn of War 2 surely is going to be the best looking RTS when it is released. If these screens are anything to go by then it really will be, the look fantastic! And that is just from minuscule magazine pics!

Read the rest of this entry

Most people now have had time to sit back, relax with a cup of tea or a pint of beer and read through it all. So just a few follow ups regarding the Byron Report.

First off I would like to direct everyone to John Walker’s very good piece regarding the Byron Report on Rock, Paper, Shotgun. With a rating of 8/10 John thinks that the report is pretty darn good!

I have to agree with John, the report does make a lot of sense and presents a good balanced take on the issue of video gaming and the internet in todays society. That is unlike The Times which lost credibility in my eyes for being pretty crap in their coverage of the report.

Secondly we have Seniath who takes a look at the increasing confusion that will occur with the dual-rating system that Dr Byron recommended in her report.

And I agree with young (or slightly older) Seniath, the plans that Dr Byron has set out for using both the BBFC rating and PEGI rating systems are just going to further confuse parents. This is where the report falls down in my mind as Dr Byron sets out in the report to help stop the confusion for many parents, but yet makes a recommendation which will just further the confusion.

But still, the report was generally very good, but as we all know it is up to Gordon Brown et al to pick and chose what they want from the report and use it to their own ends. Hopefully they don’t ruin it all.

The long awaited Byron Review has been published. This report has been carried out by Dr Tanya Byron and was commissioned by the UK Government.

The report is entitled ‘Safer Children in a Digital World’ and takes a look at the internet and video games and their impact on society and children today.

Dr Byron has presented a string of recommendations to the government on both the internet and video games.

Read the rest of this entry

According to Games Politics the all important (to the UK at least) Byron Report is due to land on March the 27th.

I must say I am highly anticipating the report being published to see how Dr Tanya Byron has navigated her way through what is bound to be a mass of conflicting arguments, and also to manage the current anti-gaming sentiments in the Houses of Parliament.

This report could be make or break for the UK gaming industry and its significance cannot be underestimated. It the report is straight down the middle as it should be, then we should expect to see recommendations for legally enforceable age ratings on games and a recommendation to adopt the PEGI rating system over the BBFC.

I can’t wait to see what the report says, it will be of great benefit to me in my university dissertation. Soon we will find out what will happen here in the UK.

Random Bob Dylan song reference aside, are the days of the BBFC soon to be up in regards to games classification in the UK? According to MCV it is! Following the Manhunt 2 affair which saw the BBFC refuse the game classification, but then get overruled by its own appeals body it seems that the BBFC is facing an uncertain future in games rating here in the UK.

The MCV article mentions that some commentators think that following this disaster for the BBFC it has lost credibility and that DR Tanya Byron is due to give her support to PEGI, the European rating board in her report due to be published soon.

It will certainly be interesting to see if the BBFC can recover from the Manhunt 2 affair and regain credibility. The PEGI rating system which currently rates games accross Europe is, in my eyes the better system offering clearer advice to parents on what different games contain.

However the PEGI ratings are not currently enforceable under law at the moment in the UK and it will be interesting to see what happens if the BBFC is forced out of the games rating scene.

PEGI is better than the BBFC when it comes to games classification according to Microsoft’s head of corporate affairs in the UK, Matt Lambert. GamesIndustry.biz reports that Matt was at a recent Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee which is focusing on the effect of violence in videogames and is running parallel to the Byron Report.

“If there’s going to be one ratings system, it should be PEGI,” he said. “With PEGI, they think very carefully about age appropriacy…but the BBFC is set up to rate films, and it takes that approach for games when a different approach is required.

“PEGI breaks it down to a different level. If there’s bad language it will give you a specific symbol, if there’s gambling there’s another symbol, and some games will have a whole raft of symbols on the back. It’s a different depth, it’s more sensible, and it also has a European aspect to it.”

This is a very interesting story, read the whole thing here.

In a recent Press Release from the Department for Culture Media and Sport it has been revealed that the software and computer games sector are the biggest sectors and contribute the most growth among creative industries in the UK. Creative industries contribute £60 billion to the UK economy according to the report and the software and computer games sectors contribute massively to this.

Software and computer games comprise the biggest sector and contribute most to growth, accounting for over 50per cent of turnover growth between 1995 and 2005.

The report which can be found here also indicates that NCSoft, the company behind games such as Guild Wars and City of Heroes, has signed an agreement to help provide 5,000 formal apprenticeships by 2013 from the entire creative sector.

In a related report entitled Creative Britain: New Talents for the New Economy a Centre of Excellence for Computer Games is due to be set up. The report also details that there are over 100 further education courses in the UK dealing with computer games, it goes on to say that University courses dealing with computer games are looking for students with a mix of Maths and Art A Levels. This is an unusual mix and the Government plans to increase awareness of the skills required to University computer games courses.

Further the report says that;

The Government will also increase awareness of the current R&D tax credit scheme and investigate how to make it more user friendly for small business, with a particular focus on the computer games industry.

These are two very interesting reports, it will be very intriguing to see if they have any effect on the Byron Report. For now, we must wait and see what the next few weeks and months bring in what is sure to be a crucial time for the games industry in the UK.

US Politician Lyndon LaRouche (info) has launched a scathing attack on Microsoft blaming them for the latest US university shooting claiming that (and I quote) International Fascism: Microsoft Will Kill More Youth than Hitler and for some strange reason, only known to himself, says that Microsoft were behind Counter-Strike, a game made by Valve.

LaRouche and his cronies take their lead from the sensationalist New York Post article which also blamed the Northern Illinois University killings by Stephen Kazmierczak on Counter-Strike while giving little mention to the fact that he stopped taking prescribed medication for an undisclosed medical condition.

In further evidence of LaRouche’s mad conspiracy theories read this;

The intended effect, to foster an environment of mass suicide terrorism in the U.S.A., is a by-product of the ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ policy, organized by Felix Rohatyn and George P. Shultz; the same individuals, who not only helped to install the fascist Pinochet into the Chilean government, but are the prime backers of a fascist Bloomberg Presidency.

Getting such basic facts as tying Microsoft to Counter-Strike, making outlandish claims about other US politicians and giving little credence to what was the probably cause of this tragedy, the fact that Stephen stopped taking his medication.

Politicians like this make me sick, people in positions of credibility need to take a stand against this. Microsoft should reply and set the record straight and distance gaming from this awful event.

[Kotaku