Government changes its mind about games

A new TV advert which begins airing today encourages kids to get healthy by playing, of all things, video games!

The new ad, issued as part of the Department of Health’s Change4Life campaign, is created by Aardman Animations (of Wallace and Gromit fame) and urges browbeaten mums and dads to ensure that their offspring are getting 60 minutes of vigorous exercise each day. The focus being, as one health dept. spokesperson reveals, “Active video games, where kids need to jump up and down or dance about.”

Well, this is all a bit rich isn’t it? After all it was only a few weeks ago that video games were vilified in a Change4Life print advertisement, in which a schoolboy sat slumped and blank-eyed in front of an unspecified console game. The slogan, in case you’ve forgotten, read “Risk an Early Death. Just Do Nothing.”

Needless to say the collective arms of the UK games industry were raised in protest at the time, thus today’s turnaround must feel like some kind of victory – if only until the next time that the evils of video games are lazily articulated in some scaremongering campaign or other.

So, video games can be good for kids – and that’s official. We got there in the end, eh! So what’ll it be for you? An excuse to dust down the Balance Board or drag Dance Dance Revolution out of the attic? Enforced star-jumps while playing Pokemon Platinum?

Moreover, is this a sensible move from a Government that has finally wised-up to the potential health-giving benefits of video games, or just a knee-jerk reaction following the complaints of an industry that’s been generating untold millions in tax revenue for years now?