Sony’s UK chieftain Ray Maguire has said the videogames industry has to do more to vanquish negative stereotyping that still surrounds us today.
It’s partly our own fault for shock value ads back in the ’80s and ’90s, like ”baths full of blood” for Resident Evil, ”that’s what they remember.” Such narrow targeting left ”a dangerous legacy.”
”The industry has changed more in the past five years than in the previous 15, but the general public’s image of this industry has hardly changed at all,” writes Maguire for MCV.
”Games marketing in the 1980s and ‘90s was anarchic and controversial, with giant poster ads featuring baths full of blood for Resident Evil and all sorts of other shock tactics.”
”That’s what the population saw. And that’s what they remember. Whilst our industry used this strategy to appeal to what was then its only target market, we left a dangerous legacy,” notes the Sony executive.
Maguire points to the recent BAFTA awards ceremony for videogames, saying, ”this is now a grown-up industry centred on art, creativity and innovation.”
”The games industry must constantly demonstrate when it has been a cause for good,” he continued.
”We must explore what elements we have that are positive, such as our contribution to GDP and technical training at colleges and in-house.” He explains the industry as a whole must get closer to the Government, speaking of the UK, ”we must become partners.”
”Then the stereotype might just fade.”
Source: CVG
