Richard Taylor, father of murder victim Damilola Taylor has spoken out in favour of a tax on violent games. The Telegraph have reported that he believes violent games are “too cheap” and that taxes on such products should be “very high”. He also lambasted rap music as a negative influence on the youth of today.
Firstly, no one can doubt that Mr Taylors words come from a profoundly compassionate mindset. The man lost a son to violent crime and his motives are beyond question as far as I’m concerned. To want to protect other young people from a similar fate is as noble as it is understandable. Still, the idea of a tax being levied on violent games is unworkable, unfair and ultimately pointless. Whilst Mr Taylor has every right to express his concerns, his position as a special adviser to Gordon Brown gives his proposals undue prominence.
Personally, I doubt that such a tax would ever be introduced. Games retailers employ a lot of people and anything that could damage an already fragile high street would be too dangerous for the government to seriously contemplate. More likely it will be a talking point for rightwing commentators and politicians that eventually tails off as the ridiculous nature of such a tax becomes apparent. Still, coming on the back of the recent Change4Life ad campaign, it paints a very disturbing image of what effect videogames have on young people. There are a number of different things that videogames can do, they can entertain, excite, even horrify us.
What they can’t do is kill children.
Via: Gamepolitics
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Another problem with such a tax would be that it’s hard to say where it ends. Does it translate to movies or graphic novels? Who’s to say that SAW can’t inspire someone to injure someone or worse.
On a side note, that Manhunt pic makes me wish Manhunt 2 had made it’s way to 360 or PS3. That and Bioshock were the only scary(ish) games I ever really liked.
Wasn’t it Sterling who said that games can’t be violent? As in physically they are incapable of violent actions since they’re just games. They can be full of violence clearly, but they can’t ‘be’ violent towards anything.
Also, I refuse to acknowledge this after he tried to tie ‘Rap music’ up with it. You would think politicians would at least look to the past to see where others like themselves have screwed up in the past. I mean even after the ‘tales of the crypt’ controversy and such way back when, when was the last time -anyone- complained about violent comic books? This guy is just a fossil, but taxation does worry me. I don’t see many governmentites being against getting money for losing nothing on their part.
However, I’m pretty sure it’s an impossible scenario. Otherwise you would simply come up with excuses for taxing everything, and it can’t simply be raising the price to keep them out of the way of children because any child who can find £40 or so to buy the new GTA at retail probably doesn’t have a problem with the price.
Idea: procreation tax.
Until people can control that which plops out of them.
I can’t stand people who hold righteous campaigns as a way of coping with the loss of a loved one. There’s a police officer around here who has had several legitimate lawsuits against him, partly due to the fact that he holds 80% of all DUI’s in my area. My Mother got one last year, and he’s gone out of his way to pull her over, brought her in on false charges for being high on drugs, and assaulted her. All because he almost died in a car crash thanks to a drunk driver. So yeah, fuck people like this.
I agree with this. Still,
I cant believe this dude really want the govt. to augment taxes on violent games how farcical is that!