The Advertising Standards Authority has rejected a request from U.K. video game makers to take action against a government ad campaign promoting healthy lifestyles that the game makers say unfairly links gaming with early death, MCV reports.
The ads, put together for the Change4Life campaign backed by the British Heart Foundation, Diabetes U.K. and Cancer Research, shows a child with a video game controller under the headline ‘Risk An Early Death, Just Do Nothing.’ The British video game industry protested the ad, saying it implies playing video games leads to obesity, health problems and death.
But the ASA found insufficient grounds for forcing the ad to be withdrawn. In a statement sent to the plaintiffs, saying in a statement that ‘the ad did not claim that playing computer or console games alone would lead to illness or premature death.”