Red Button Gaming

A recent report that was drafted by the European Parliament committee states that while video games have a “broadly beneficial effect” on children, they believe that the whole thing needs policing properly. They feel this should be done with the aid of a “red button” or equivalent, where parents have full control of what their children are being allowed to interact with. This comes on the back of research that shows more than half of all European children are unsupervised whilst gaming.

The Dutch MEP Toine Manders who drafted the report states that, “Videogames are in most cases not dangerous and can even contribute to the development of important skills”. It also went on to say that video games encourage children to use important skills such as creativity, cooperation and strategic reflection. Despite all this however the EP committee is adamant that “not all games are suited to all age groups” and hints at possible damaging effects to children’s minds if exposed.

The committee are in strong favour of backing the Pan European Game Information system (PEGI) and they are now calling for it to be strengthened and hopefully win more support from member nations. This could then result in consoles and such being fitted with a “red button” which disables a machine or switches off a game on demand, thus giving total control to the parent.

Craig Bryan, NoobFeed