So I have this idea for a great sitcom with smart, sassy dialogue and political savvy at the same time. Sort of like Dharma & Greg meets The West Wing. What we’ll do is take this deeply conservative homophobe called John and by some whacky turn of events he will end up having to team up with a flaming liberal called Bill to save the UK games industry (which neither of them know from a hole in the ground!) on a weekly basis. It’ll be comedy gold, and we’re going to call it Play Together. See what we did there? They overcome adversity, learn a little about life, they find…

You what? We can’t make that a show because it’s actually happening in real life in the UK parliament, starting this Monday June 15th? Get me goddamn Bill Shatner on the phone to cancel his screen test and follow me over the jump…. 

The UK parliament, after recently hearing in detail of how computer games will make us all fat and psychotic, has come together in rare harmony to work out how the country can make more computer games. Parliament has created a multi-party organisation called an ‘All Party Group’ for the Computer and Video Games Industry in order to ‘address issues in the gaming sector’.

In a website press statement games industry organisation Tiga said the Group’s purpose is to “provide a forum to discuss business issues affecting video games software developers, to develop policies to enhance the sector and to champion an industry that responsibly creates content for an audience ranging from children to adults.” Tiga has in fact been looking for a parliamentary body to convince that games developers should get better tax breaks and their products not be subject to the same age-rating system as movies, and have now succeeded in creating a pudgy governmental shoulder upon which to perch like Jabba’s little mate.

Exactly how much clout the Group will have over the games industry is yet to be made clear, but based on prior examples from other governments it  will range from between ‘None at All’ at best down to ‘WiiFit Now Compulsory in Pubs’. The cast of this Cabal have predictably spotty credentials, but at least have sufficiently diametrically opposing political views to nearly guarantee gridlocked ineffectuality.

The Group will have around 60 members under the lead of Bill Olner MP. The chief lieutenants include John Whittingdale MP (Chairman of the government’s Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport), Philip Davies MP, Nick Plamer MP, and I swear to God a man called Baron Puttnam of Queensgate.

Puttnam produced some fine films, including Midnight Express, Chariots of Fire, Local Hero, Memphis Belle, The Killing Fields, and The Mission. On the other hand he is by many accounts legendarily dismissive of what he considers low-brow entertainment, and as such is also credited with running Columbia Pictures into the ground. This bodes badly for…well, just about everything the games industry makes and I love.

Philip Davies has been part of a bunch of All Party Parliamentary Groups - unfortunately they’ve mostly been about Horses, Libraries and Cricket.  My personal favourite is sage luminary John Whittingdale, who has campaigned to get rid of sex education in schools and warned us all that downgrading the illegality of marijuana would be ‘giving control over cannabis to drug dealers’.

Politics is, in the words of Spider Jerusalem, all gibberish and horseshit. However, consider how much sweetness and light will ensue when Whittingdale and Davies who have a voting record of just above 0% for ‘Homosexual –Equal Rights’ issues and a 100% approval of iThe UK should not Ratify the Lisbon Treatyi a.k.a ‘Fuck Off, Johnny Foreigner’ whilst Chairman Olner has 80% and 0% respectively. I think we can be safe in the knowledge that it’s likely little will ever get done. Although it might be natural to assume all such government bodies are by default impotent, do not underestimate just how much damage they can cause when allowed, with case in point Brazils insane and prohibitive tax laws on imported games.

Together, the Group will be hosting the Play Together initiative on Monday 15th with special guest star Creative Director and CEO of Rebellion, Jason Kingsley. Expect hilarious consequences when Whittingdale mistakes a COD: World at War poster for an anarchist rallying cry and starts chasing Kingsley with a loaded musket.

Whilst it is unlikely that many members of the SG community will disagree with the idea of encouraging home-grown developers, it also seems clear that there is some help that you can do without. In the original sitcom we wrote the All Party Group for the Computer and Video Games as the well-meaning but dementia and syphilis riddled Uncle who is well meaning but generally just sits asleep in the corner.

Now your conniving brother Tiga has woken the old geezer up and convinced him to insist on helping you with your science project, because all along sneaky old Tiga is hoping to schmooze a bigger allowance from Daddy Government.  Clearly your working model volcano will suffer for this, and Debbie will never go to the prom with you. Admittedly, by now I have no idea who Debbie is in this analogy, but my point stands.

Whilst dedicated government bodies may be able to provide a step-up for a fledgling studio, they also provide exactly the platform for the public knee-jerk reaction to land squarely in the balls of creativity and independence rather than just letting it spasm out in tabloid grumbling.

Recently a Cabinet Minister actually called video games ‘an art form’ – should we snatch up this craven attempt to appeal to the young voter and milk it for all it’s worth for the homegrown and independent studios, or go back to ignoring Big Brother (both the governmentand the TV show) safely out of sight and out of mind from the creaky old ghouls ?

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