The Houses of the British Parliament are known to have bars. One MP, the minister for culture in fact, wishes to put in a video game room. Ed Vaizey thinks it would do some good in educating his fellow MPs on the industry that he has forcefully supported in the past.
In an interview with Edge, Vaizey relates that he asked for permission to put a games console (unspecified) in his room at the culture department. “The powers that be were against it, because people coming for meetings would assume that I was spending every spare minute playing games! Yet I’m allowed a TV; I should have been more firm,” he says.
But taking the suggestion from Edge, he thinks a gaming room would be useful to “put on display and show the best of British gaming. I would happily do that!” Considering that Parliament is said to have a shooting range — “although I’ve never found it” — he thinks a gaming room is reasonable.
Vaizey, as a Conservative MP, has taken to the floor to laud award-winning British games producers while lamenting “the complete lack of support from Government”, and challenged one member’s rather ill-informed assertion that rape is a gameplay component in video games. For gamers, he’s been one of the good guys, in other words.
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Ed Vaizey: My Favourite Game [Edge]
the British have also figured out that its a rapidly growing industry and by supporting video game development you are creating profitable jobs and business…
Money for video game developers was in every major party’s election promise. There just was this thing called the recession which limited the amount of money actually available to invest in these companies
This us a CONSERVATIVE politician? Wow.
Australian parliament has a nice bar, too. We need a games room in Canberra!