Dawn of games dream


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	Dream Dawn Games to the dark side of the screen

Claims linking video games to murders rattle the powerful industry, reports Deborah Cameron.
WHEN a leading Japanese brain specialist said playing video games rendered parts of the brain inert, it did not take long for Nintendo to arrive at his door.

The video gaming mammoth did not threaten him with legal action, that's not the way in Japan. But it became the No. 1 donor to his research institute, drew him into a commercial arrangement and made his dream come true by letting him create his own game, Brain Training.

It has sold 4 million copies. It is a hit in Japan and the US and will be released in Australia next month. The game has transformed Professor Ryuta Kawashima from obscure scientist to celebrity in less than five years.

He insists he has not been corrupted by Nintendo: "The donations are happy for us but it doesn't affect anything," he told the Herald.
There are various views: the luckiest day in the career of an innocent; a random alignment of commerce with science; or, the brazen seduction of a critic by the second-biggest video games company in the world. Make no mistake, say sceptics."The video game industry is taking the same approach that the tobacco industry took for many years," said Professor Bruce Bartholow of the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is the co-author of a soon-to-be-published study suggesting video game violence has "lasting deleterious effects on brain function and behaviour".

"When faced with mounting evidence that their product has harmful effects on users, they spend millions of dollars per year on public relations and lobbying efforts in an attempt to sway public opinion that the research is faulty or that the findings are inconclusive," Bartholow said.

The industry has nurtured experts, romanced a gullible trade press, deluging it with valuable free samples, and targeted children in a way that has unleashed pester power.

Nintendo and Sony, the biggest companies, earned $14 billion last year, and with a dozen or more other global players employ thousands of staff and spend billions, mainly on marketing.

The industry has cultivated influential friends. When the filmmaker George Lucas was named last year's "champion" of the Entertainment Software Association in the US, he joined an A-list of past winners including a former chief executive of Toys 'R' Us and the creator of the most successful game ever, The Sims.

Glamour, excitement and addiction - a word often used by games developers - make a potent combination. Stir in money, rapid change and the rush to lock up new markets and it becomes clearer what is at stake. Keeping the lid on negative news is now an industry obsession.