Dear Future Gamer

I apologise about the delayed reaction to a comment in FG61 (it's been a very busy week) but I feel that I must object to the term "convicted rapist" in your coverage of Mike Tyson and Codemasters in this issue.

True, he is a convicted racist, as well as many other things that you failed to mention. He's black, he's been convicted of a road rage crime, he's assaulted senior citizens and he's an ear biter. Why did you feel it necessary to comment on only one aspect of his character? And what relevance did it have to the article concerning a videogame? If the article concerned Tyson donating money to a rape counselling service, for example, then the comment would have been in context (although an odd story for a games mag), but that was not the case in this instance.

The journalism in Future Gamer is usually of a high standard and such incidents are rare. However, in this instance it seems as if you were jumping onto the Tyson backlash bandwagon, which was unnecessary.

Richard Stratton

FG: We mentioned Mike Tyson's conviction for rape because it was totally relevant. Codemasters are planning to use the man to promote their boxing game in America. His other crimes, although serious, are nothing compared to rape, which is why we focused on that alone. We're not jumping on any bandwagon, merely stating that Codemasters are planning to use a convicted rapist in their marketing strategy in America. If we gave the impression that we find this crass and tasteless then good, because we do.