Minister for culture, media and sport Ed Vaizey has criticised the UK parliament for only caring about video games when they're violent.

Gamers are familiar with the old 'violent game controversy', whereby any popular violent game is criticised in, typically right-wing, press and sometimes government comments on the issue too. It has happened with games such as MadWorld, Manhunt and Grand Theft Auto and it seems its not just gamers who have noticed this.

Ed Vaizey, the Minister for culture, media and sport, has criticised UK politicians for this very thing. A few days ago we reported about how he was engaged in the tax break debate but now he is commenting on how politicians only engage in discussions about video games when they want to criticise them.

"One of my regrets about the industry has been that the only time it has featured in Parliament is when individual members of Parliament have wanted to use it as an example to pick on violent videogames. These seem to be the only way that some politicians think that you can get headlines for the videogames industry when, in fact, what this inquiry will show is that you have got a fantastically successful industry with a huge range of applications."

Mr. Vaizey then continued to address other issues to to Scottish Affairs Committee. He mentioned how there are similar rating systems for films and video games and yet generally British films are celebrated and video games are only talked about in terms of violence.

He also noted that while parents have the right to say 'that is a violent videogame and I don't want my children to play it' but they shouldn't jump to 'that is a violent videogame and the videogames industry is coarsening our children.'