'Health' Ad Criticises Claims Games Cause Early Death

[Omnipotent_Mortal]

A recent Change4life Ad has caused controversy amongst the video game industry by claiming that games are responsible for shortening life span.

Taken from http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/03/07/uk-health-ad-sparks-video-game-biz-backlash

My personal opinion of this is one of outrage. While it may be true that playing games excessively can cause health problems, it seems like the ad is demonifying games in general.

The associate editor of MCV has published a strong reaction to the ad, and I agree with him. http://www.mcvuk.com/opinion/245/Its-time-to-fightback

So what do you think? Is this ad justified? Or is it picking on a popular media to criticise?

EDIT: Apologies for the poor wording and title, illness does not a good coherency make.

 

[EzraPound]

I guess they cause earlier deaths than average to the extent that most players are male...

And yeah, this is ridiculous. Seems like the UK's government has some serious problems courting game developers - whereas in Canada, by contrast, massive tax benefits are offered and the initiative has been taken to present games as art.

 

[Johnnyallstar]

meh I think it's based on correlation, and correlation graphs only go so far. Yeah, sitting down playing video games will make you fatter if you only sit and eat and never do exercise, but how many of us do just that and only that?

 

[Abedeus]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/89973-UK-Government-Ad-Campaign-Attacks-Deadly-Games

It was yesterday, damn it. Use the search button.

 

[Omnipotent_Mortal]

Apologies, my skills with the search function are apparently god awful.