Nottingham's GameCity: Who’s Afraid Of Videogames?
Plus, world premiere of 'Playing Columbine' documentary
SPOnG informed you earlier today of some of the key events taking part at London’s Game Festival and Nottingham’s GameCity later this month.
More GameCity news just in, is that the event will see the world première of the anti-censorship gaming documentary 'Playing Columbine' as well as being host to a series of events tackling the serious side of videogames.
The timing of such events and debates could not be better, with issues of videogame censorship and violence at the forefront of both gamers and concerned parents’ minds, following the recent rejection of Rockstar’s Manhunt 2 by the censors at the BBFC.
But just what should the standards be for the violence portrayed in games? Should they be tougher than for film or TV? How sophisticated is the BBFC’s understanding of games and how they work?
To look at all these issues in more depth, GameCity has invited Jim Cliff, a longtime BBFC examiner to the festival to take part in a ‘Who’s afraid of videogames’ panel with a number of other specialists, including addiction researcher Mark Griffiths and Jonathan ‘LEGO Star Wars man’ Smith from Traveller’s Tales.
In other ‘gaming and censorship’ news you may remember that last year’s SlamDance Guerrilla Game Festival’s decision to ban one of the nominees, Super Columbine RPG, inspired and drove the designer of that game, Danny Ledonne, to create a documentary addressing the issues his provocative game had raised.
Are there some subjects games should never tackle? Are games always trivial, or can they shed new light on historical or social issues?
GameCity is set to be showing the world premiere first-cut of Ledonne’s documentary Playing Columbine (promo poster pictured here) - followed by the chance to put your questions to director Danny Ledonne and Sam Roberts, the curator of the Slamdance Guerrilla Game festival, who took the difficult decision to disqualify Ledonne’s game.
More GameCity news just in, is that the event will see the world première of the anti-censorship gaming documentary 'Playing Columbine' as well as being host to a series of events tackling the serious side of videogames.
The timing of such events and debates could not be better, with issues of videogame censorship and violence at the forefront of both gamers and concerned parents’ minds, following the recent rejection of Rockstar’s Manhunt 2 by the censors at the BBFC.
But just what should the standards be for the violence portrayed in games? Should they be tougher than for film or TV? How sophisticated is the BBFC’s understanding of games and how they work?
To look at all these issues in more depth, GameCity has invited Jim Cliff, a longtime BBFC examiner to the festival to take part in a ‘Who’s afraid of videogames’ panel with a number of other specialists, including addiction researcher Mark Griffiths and Jonathan ‘LEGO Star Wars man’ Smith from Traveller’s Tales.
In other ‘gaming and censorship’ news you may remember that last year’s SlamDance Guerrilla Game Festival’s decision to ban one of the nominees, Super Columbine RPG, inspired and drove the designer of that game, Danny Ledonne, to create a documentary addressing the issues his provocative game had raised.
Are there some subjects games should never tackle? Are games always trivial, or can they shed new light on historical or social issues?
GameCity is set to be showing the world premiere first-cut of Ledonne’s documentary Playing Columbine (promo poster pictured here) - followed by the chance to put your questions to director Danny Ledonne and Sam Roberts, the curator of the Slamdance Guerrilla Game festival, who took the difficult decision to disqualify Ledonne’s game.