SIDEBAR: "There's this club down the street that's fun, so I go in and shoot this woman in the head, and people are screaming, and running all over, and there's blood everywhere. There's this cop next to me, who sees what I did. He's got body armor so I can't shoot him, so I throw gasoline on him, and light it, and he screams and runs around, and he died. There's this prostitute and they're super hard to kill, so I grab a machete and cut her head off." Those are the words of a young child in a National Institute on Media and the Family Mediawise public service announcement, one the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services used to start off a 24-minute presentation titled, "Video Games and Children: Virtual Playground vs. Danger Zone." (NIMF is most recognized in the gaming world for its annual industry report card, the most recent of which was released earlier this month).

　　Created in October and heralded this week in press releases from both the Division of Criminal Justice Services (whose Missing and Exploited Children Clearinghouse created the clip) and New York Governor Eliot Spitzer (pictured above), the presentation was "designed to assist parents in making informed decisions about the video games they allow their children to play."

　　As pointed out by GamePolitics earlier this week, the presentation may not be the best way for people to arrive at fully informed decisions, as it contains a number of factual errors and misrepresentations.

　　The video recaps the Entertainment Software Rating Board's rating system, but neglects to include the E10+ for Everyone 10 and Older rating. It states that "Grand Theft San Andreas" is rated AO for Adults Only, when the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was re-rated AO after release and promptly recalled, edited, and re-released with an M for Mature rating.

　　The presentation also includes tips and resources for parents. One of the suggested resources is Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence (pictured at right), a satirical blog that pokes fun at a variety of anti-game arguments. According to the MAVAV site, games "have led to an epidemic of youth violence around the world," and they are "an inherently inferior medium to film and literature." As for the tips, in addition to checking ratings and talking with their children about what games are appropriate, parents are urged to "avoid 'first-person shooter,' killographic games."

　　The video pads out its running time with TV news reports focused on unsavory aspects of gaming, including a profile of a World of Warcraft addict and a look at a non-commercial, homemade game based on the April shootings at Virgina Tech. Elsewhere in the presentation the narrator states that the Virgina Tech shooter was reportedly a big Counter-Strike player. One online report in the aftermath of the tragedy included that bit of news, but it was later removed from the story, and a state investigation into the shootings found that what few games he did play were not violent in nature.

　　The presentation also espouses Spitzer's own legislative agenda, including a quote from the governor in support of game-related legislation.

　　"How is it that it's against the law for a child to walk into a 7-Eleven and buy a Playboy, yet every day, children walk into video game stores and buy video games that contain far more disturbing images of sex and violence," the governor is quoted as saying. "In the absence of an effective industry effort to clamp down on those types of games, our state must take action."

　　The narrator couches facts with phrases like "researchers believe…," but frequently neglects to offer specific citations as to who came to what conclusions and when. Sometimes she just leaves it up to the viewers' imagination, showing a clip of a violent game and saying, "Imagine a young child playing games this violent for more than 13 hours per week. What kind of effect do you think it would have on a child?"

　　The presentation draws parallels to smoking, marking the second time in as many months the issue of violence in games has been publicly linked to the habit.

　　"Violent video game play does not affect all children equally, just as cigarette smoking affects people differently. Not all smokers will get lung cancer, but the lungs of all smokers are compromised, and it's not safe to smoke," the narrator says, without mentioning what exactly is supposed to be compromised in gamers who show no ill effects from playing games.

　　The Division of Criminal Justice Services pulled the presentation from its Web site so it could remove the MAVAV reference, but told GameSpot that it wasn't necessarily changing anything else.

　　"We firmly stand by the core, overriding message of the presentation," a representative of the state told GameSpot. "Parents and guardians need to know the types of games that are available, and use their own good judgment to decide if something is right for their child. … If there are other issues brought to our attention, and we can independently verify a purported error, we will certainly address it. But our message remains exactly the same: Consumers need to be aware of the content of video games and determine if a particular game is appropriate for a particular audience."