National Newspaper Offers Money for Anti-Games Stories

Last week's Byrons Review scared a few people, made others reconsider the way they look at video games and generally upset the entire gaming community - even though the author, Tanya Byron, said that some of the newspapers that have published her reports misrepresented her publication. Well... it seems that one particular newspaper got it totally wrong or just wants to hurt video games, gain some media attention and so on.

According to mcvuk.com, an advert on a Jobs & Casting website, invites users to send some stories to an unnamed "national newspaper" and earn "hundreds of pounds" for it. Nothing strange until now, but here is the twist: the newspaper wants stories from people who confess that video games have pushed them to a life of crime. Absolutely outrageous!

Here is the ad: "A national newspaper wants your story and will pay hundreds of pounds to the right person. Write a few lines about how computer games turned you to crime and if it's something we like, we'll call you straight back." Having in mind that the listing is dated 27 March and applications are accepted until the 1st of May, we really doubt this is a prank or something similar.

So, just imagine how things like this one can affect the video game industry or, better said, those who don't know too much about it. I could write a story detailing how video games pushed me to a life of crime, you could write the same story - everybody could do it, without it being true. And if stuff like that gets published in a national newspaper and, even more, that newspaper pays money for something that will most likely be lies... well, we might have a problem here. Because I really doubt real criminals read newspapers and are ready to send their stories for the whole world (or nation) to read them. We are talking about crimes and you know... crimes are illegal! You can't just go there, tell your true story, get the money and walk away free.