Mayor of London Boris Johnson has performed a curious U-turn on his stance on the video game industry, announcing a £1.2 million investment in the London Games Industry only 10 years after claiming it was a reason behind poverty in the UK, saying that gaming was having a “catastrophic effect” on the region’s young males.
Johnson made the announcement in a twee video in which he was transformed into a Minecraft (a game not made in the UK) character, unveiling the new Games London strategy, saying: “We’re home to fantastic software studios, like State of Play and Sports Interactive, who make world-leading games, like Lumino City and Football Manager.”
He continued: “From NASA to the NHS, games software now influences the way we manage our health, educate our children, and even how we explore space but international competition remains fierce and we need to ensure our city can compete with our global gaming rivals. Games London will be a three year program that will help the game sector shout louder and attract more investment.”
However, as pointed out by Kotaku UK, we’re not that far removed from the mayor’s inflammatory Telegraph column in which he attempted to peg many of society’s ills on gaming, saying: “Some children have it bad. Some are miraculously unaffected. But millions of seven- to 15-year-olds are hooked, especially boys, and it is time someone had the guts to stand up, cross the room and just say no to Nintendo. It is time to garrote the Game Boy and paralyse the PlayStation, and it is about time, as a society, that we admitted the catastrophic effect these blasted gizmos are having on the literacy and the prospects of young males.”
John also stated that he “refuses to believe these hypnotic little machines are innocent”, adding: “An amazing 89 per cent of British households with children now boast a games console, with distribution right across the socio-economic groups.
“Every child must have one, and what we fail to grasp is that these possessions are not so much an index of wealth as a cause of ignorance and underachievement and, yes, poverty.”
Johnson also called for the UK’s parents to “go to where your children are sitting in auto-lobotomy in front of the console,” and “steel yourself for the screams and yank out that plug.”
Now here’s Johnson, celebrating video games, saying that UK’s game developers must rivals their international competitors in the industry, and claiming that Games London will add £10 million to the country’s economy whilst creating 300 new jobs.
It certainly seems more than a little disingenuous, but hey, at least the government are pledging their support to the London Games Industry, and we’ll also get a neat little London Games Festival out of it… even if the guy planning it once said that we should garrote the Game Boy.
Watch the video below:
So what has changed Johnson’s mind in the span of a decade? What has seen him
