The UK government has a very ‘Sam and Diane’ relationship with the games industry. It’s perfectly happy to jump on it as the root of all evil when Manhunt is dubiously linked to a murder case, but is happy to gleefully accept the economic benefits the creative industry creates.
Now a pretty dreadful Change4Life advertising campaign displayed in magazines such as Heat, Reveal and Star implies an lazy link between time playing video games and a grim early death.
Tech Radar reports that the advert – which shows a pre-teen boy slumped in front of a Playstation with the caption “Risk an early death, just do nothing” – suggests that gamers are “at greater risk of contracting heart disease and dying younger than non-gamers.”
The TV adverts for the government sponsored campaign also plays on the idea that videogames lead to an unhealthy lifestyle, as you’ll see at around the 30 second mark of the video embedded below.
What do you think? Is the video games industry reading too much into this, or is the government exploiting the lazy gamer stereotype to make a heavy-handed point?
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