In a curious editorial featured within EDGE online, BBFC boss David Cooke rubbishes suggestions that his organisation is involved in any kind of ‘spat’ with PEGI and / or ELSPA. Since the Byron report and the opening shots in their very public, public consultation at the Westminster Media forum, things have been getting progressively more bitter. Even if the BBFC aren’t engaged in a spat with ELSPA (the software publishers alliance), ELSPA are definitely engaged in a spat with them.
Since the media forum, and the news that ELSPA had instructed its members not to cooperate with the post-Byron report dealings with the BBFC, every opportunity to discredit the ratings body has been seized. At the Labour conference ELSPA boss Paul Jackson reiterated his claim that the BBFC were not fit for purpose and then last week told Gamesindustry.biz that they would continue the fight for PEGI, irrespective of whatever legislation is passed post-Byron.
Of course what’s still lacking from all of this is any deeper discussion or even disclosure of the real stakes. Whilst ELSPA are keen to emotively characterise the whole dispute, with Jackson employing language like, “This is not a fight about boring things, this is a fight about how we really deliver child protection in the future”, it’s surely time that both sides started to admit the business development agenda in this.
In other, tangentially connected news, this Halloween sees the final release of controversial title Manhunt 2, itself the subject of a prolonged legal battle earlier in the year when the BBFC refused to grant a certificate to the title. It’s difficult to square ELSPA’s accusations of the BBFC being ‘too lenient’ on 18 titles when episodes like this are played out so publicly.
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