Tag Archives: elspa

ELSPA head Paul Jackson has said he welcomes the Byron Report in a just-issued statement, but has warned that the paper may not be complete enough to cover issues related to online gaming.

“We fully support Dr Byron’s advice to parents on the use of technology in the home and parental awareness of their children’s activities, including the need for wider awareness of age ratings on video games,” he said.

“We believe in one legally enforceable system for classification of video games and to build increased public awareness of both the age ratings system and the long-standing availability and use of parental controls on all games consoles.

“However, we are concerned that the proposals as they stand may struggle to keep up with the public’s increasing desire to buy and play online.”

Jackson also welcomed the desire for the Government to talk to the industry in general, and from his comments it’s clear that no decision has yet been made on who’s actually going to be rating games in the UK on the basis of Byron’s recommendations.

“The games industry would need to be re-assured that the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) would be capable of delivering against any new remit, or whether PEGI may be more appropriate. We welcome the news that the Government wishes to consult with the industry on any changes to the classification system,” he said.

Press release after the link.

More »

These are awesome. Suart Campbell’s posted up some anti-piracy ads from the 80s, revealing the lengths ELSPA used to stoop to to stop people putting Amiga games on floppy discs. It was all bobby’s on the beat and bags of chips as big as your head back then. See for yourself.

Whoops. The ELSPA story doing the round a few days ago concerning R4 carts and US DS piracy is, to be blunt, a load of old bollocks. The newspaper piece claimed that manager of ELSPA’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit, John Hillier, had said, “The implications are massive. In America it’s thought 90 percent of Nintendo users are playing pirated games because of R4s.”

The organisation spoke to GI today, claiming, “The quotes from The Sunday Post were ascribed to his name from another article which originates from a website in Singapore. This, it appears, is where The Sunday Post first found out about the supposed R4 situation and for some reason unknown to John have quoted him on what this article said.”

“[John] didn’t quote The Sunday Post on any figures whatsoever,” the spokesperson added.

GI goes as far as to say the report is “completely false”. That’s that settled, then.