The Euro Vision: 'Kids, Inflation, Infogrames - All Games' Fault'

The latest edition of Gamasutra's regular 'The Euro Vision' column was going to be about the suspension of Infogrames' shares, until video games got blamed for making kids depressed and causing a jump in UK inflation. Jon Jordan just about manages to squeeze everything in, though. "You know computer games have peaked as a metaphor for societal ills when they're simultaneously blamed for rising inflation and the increasingly depressed state of 21st century kids. That was the UK news on Tuesday, even on the BBC, our state-run service. Of course, we're not so important as an industry yet that the entirety of both complaints could be laid before our joypads. Nevertheless, commentators seemed happy to attribute a large causal chunk to the debit account of PlayStation and its ilk. And delving behind these headlines demonstrates just how negatively and unthoughtfully games are viewed by much of the establishment (the white, middle class, privately educated hegemony which continues pull the levels of power). At least in the US, the likes of Joe Lieberman, Hilary Clinton and Jack Thompson are generally constrained within the structures of your over zealous judicial system. Games Make Kids Stupid A letter from a group of 110 eminent teachers, psychologists, and authors to the bastion of traditional, and slightly tweedy family values, The Daily Telegraph newspaper, seemed to lump video games together with junk food, marketing, and over competitive schooling, as factors poisoning childhood. "[Children] are pushed by market forces to act and dress like mini-adults and exposed via the electronic media to material which would have been considered unsuitable for children even in the very recent past," one section of the letter states. Interestingly, despite almost every secondary commentary by other media sources, and the Daily Telegraphy itself, highlighting the impact of video games, they aren't specifically mentioned in the original text at all. Instead terms such as 'electronic media' (as above) and 'screen-based entertainment' are used. Now maybe I'm being too subtle in my analysis, but it strikes me that what's really significant is the way many people have filled in gaps of what's not been said in this letter with their own favourite brickbat, of which video games seem to rank highly. Basically some important people said, 'We think children are under more pressure than before,' and everyone else shouted, 'It's the fault of video games'. Games Ruin The Economy, Too More confusing to my mind however was the news an increase in the retail cost of computer games (and note how they're called computer games, not video games in this context), had knocked up the national inflation rate by 0.1 percent during August to 2.5 percent, which remains way over the government's target of 2 percent. The official statement from the Office of National Statistics states; "The largest upward effect came from recreation and culture, where prices for games, toys and hobbies increased by a greater amount this August than last year, with the main upward contribution coming from computer games." And while I realise I'm going up against an organisation consisting of thousands of highly trained bean-counters, five minutes with my calculator and some weekly sales data concerning the revenues and unit volumes of the UK games industry demonstrated that, as far as I could make out, the average price of a computer game during August 2006, was around £17.50 ($31.50). During August 2005 it was around £18.50 ($33.30). Hence the price of computer games should have been deflationary year-on-year. This chimes with anecdotal evidence which saw the biggest selling game of this August being Cars, which made the majority of its sales on PlayStation 2. There were no significant releases for higher priced platforms such as Xbox 360, which would have been inflationary in effect. Most sales of the £50 ($90) Prey mainly occurred in July for example. Of course, the way the ONS calculates inflation is more complex than the average monthly price of a product when it comes to items like games, but it's still surprising it reckons computer games should be such a significant factor, especially during the industry's quiet transitionary period where, if anything, shops are having to tempt punters to buy with special offers and bundles. Saving The Armadillo But, to be honest, righting such wrongs wasn't what I had in mind to write about this week. Instead, the news that Infogrames' shares had been suspended on the French stock market got me all excited. I've long been fascinated by the company and the way it's managed to entice investors, at one point becoming a top five Western publisher. Back in 2001, I wrote a long article about the rise of the French games industry, which only happened because French technology companies could raise huge amount of investment from the Bourse. At the time, one investor banker suggested UK companies considering floatation should think about setting up a French office and carrying out their IPO in Paris, such was the availability of cheap cash. Using such warchests, publishers such as Titus, Kalisto and Infogrames went on a buying spree, gobbling up established players, with Infogrames the hungriest acquiring Ocean, Gremlin, Hasbro, Accolade and GTi. It was this, together with a perceived lack of quality games underpinning such stellar growth, that inspired the article. There was also a certain amount of anger among the ex-employees of UK studios, which having been acquired by French companies, had been quickly shut down. But like cockerels coming home to roost, even cheap money comes at a cost. Titus and Kalisto are long since bankrupt. The canny accountants behind the armadillo have continued their mesmerising operation though; setting up Atari in the US as an IP holder, while restructuring bond repayments within Infogrames. Even their recent fire-sale of assets such as the Driver franchise and studios like Reflections and Paradigm has been marked out, in my mind at least, by a certain grace and poise. Certainly the European games industry would be less colourful without the presence of Bruno and his garçons." [Jon Jordan is a freelance games journalist and photographer, based in Manchester, UK. He hasn't shorted Infogrames shares nor does he have kids. But if he did, they'd only be allowed to play games after a solid hour with LEGO blocks.]