14 DAY TRIAL // There are people who would like to ban any and every video game there is in this world and totally wipe them out of our memory. Others have problems regarding the violent ones, while certain groups focus their efforts on different items/features within the video games. And things are not likely to change.
So, a new ban request appeared. Strangely, I totally agree with this one - and I am generally against the "ban" world. What's the story? Well... according to scottsman.com, HEALTH campaigners have called for a ban on junk food adverts played in video games. According to them, even though they have managed to wipe this sort of ads out of TV programs, the younger audience has moved from watching TV to playing video games (which is, I guess, completely true). Also, even though games have an age restriction, it's a known fact that many kids still play them.
To be more specific, there were some ad campaigns that drove the health campaigners mad: the Sprite add in NBA Street Homecourt, the opportunity to order pizza straight from EverQuest II, the ads for Subway in Counter Strike or the Coca Cola banner within Football Manager. And it seems that these ads have the tendency to influence the youngsters.
Ben McKendrick, spokesman for the BHF Scotland and Northern Ireland, said: "There needs to be a ban on all junk-food promotion in games. We have succeeded in removing these ads from children's television, but children spend so much time playing these games that this is another way that these companies get into the consciousness of the children."
He added that he was especially concerned about the Subway sandwich chain because of the high salt and fat content some of the company's product have. Still, a Subway spokeswoman said: "Counter-Strike is a computer game that is targeted at 18 to 34-year-old men, and not children."
Yeah, right! I've met some 14-15-year-old blokes who rule at CS! But that might be just an exception, who knows? Anyway, all this fuss regarding junk food ads and, especially, the CS and EverQuest II titles, makes me think that somebody has already thought about it and tried to solve the situation: I'm talking about the recent ban these specific two titles got in Brazil. Strange coincidence!