Welease Bywon!

So, The Byron Report has been published today. There’s plenty of talk on that thar interweb about it, and it’s well worth having a read of some of the stuff if you can. I’d like to say a lot more about it, but Uni and other work is preventing me otherwise. Hopefully I’ll be able to find the time to read the whole thing this week, but in the meantime I’ll point you towards some of the links of people talking about it, so you can do your own bit of research. It’s good for you, honest!

The Byron Review’s website and official home

The Review itself in a 2.7mb PDF file

MCV has a handy rundown of the highlights of the report, and lots of other stuff on it as well.

The BBC report with a couple of videos, the first being interesting viewing to show how parents view the PEGI ratings, and the second is an interview with Tanya Byron herself.

Blogochum Seniath has his say on the initial findings of the review.

..oh, and a certain newspaper manages to blow the whole thing out of proportion, and also manages to get an error in there as well.

My initial opinions are that overall, the report is good news and a good thing, although most of the content is what those in the know knew fairly well already. Hopefully the education of the public at large will increase as a result, and the understanding will lead to a lot less ignorant dismissal of games in general. Personally, it has been incredibly eye opening in my mind, to find that a lot of people were confused by both the PEGI and BBFC ratings, and assumed that the PEGI ratings were not a content guideline indication, but that of a difficulty rating for games.