The Church of England have condemned video games, stating they are violent and feature sexual content.

Is this – once again – a case of the misinformed guiding the misinformed?

The headline, run in the on-line edition of METRO, reads “Church of England condemns ‘violent and sexual’ video games”.  Rather more annoying is the fact they have chosen the PS3 as their target, plastering pictures of it next to the article.

Thomas Benyon, a member of the the General Synod from Bladon, Oxfordshire, had the following to say;

“There is a bubbling sewer of gratuitously violent and sexual pornography and DVD games all around us.

Family breakdown and resulting chaos means more and more children are without parental control and because they have computers and monitors in their rooms, they are able to access violent material in secrecy.

Some games, especially those designed as a first person shooter experience, feature extreme graphic violence and sexual scenes.”

He added later that these games are desensitizing the young, and even seemingly harmless cartoon games are bad – as they involve killing enemies.

So here we are again, forced to defend a past time that many of us have been doing for decades.

We are baffled by Benyon’s  random attack on first person shooters.  Violent? Yes, but then they are age restricted.  Sexual?  We must have missed that part of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Team Attitude would also like to point out something to Mr Benyon regarding sex and violence.

There is a book – you may have heard of it – called The Holy Bible.  In this book there are references to prostitutes, torture and murder – and yet it is still read out every week to men, women and children alike.

We think it’s time to ditch the antiquated views.  If you are going to comment, please do it with well researched, well thought out views. The answer, as ever, is for parents to step up to the plate and ensure they are actively involved with their children, and for the same parents to ensure they do not buy age-restricted products for minors.

Shouting ‘sex’ and ‘violence’ at the end of every sentence is not the way to go, and we are tired of the negative stereotype that now surrounds the video game industry.