I'm going to miss working with Rob Watson.

Up until yesterday, Rob was the Philadelphia Inquirer's full-time video game reporter. I've written a weekly freelance column for the paper since 1998. Rob moved into the video game gig in August of last year, writing about games for the paper's Weekend section, maintaining a game blog, helping me with coverage plans and creating a weekly podcast on which I would occasionally appear as a guest.

Sadly, Rob got caught in a numbers game at the newspaper this week. He was one of 68 people laid off by the Inquirer as the paper's management made deep cuts in the newsroom.

Rob's final column appears today. In it he offers his thoughts about video game legislation and points out a situation in Vietnam that slipped under GP's radar:

The U.S. body politic has been struggling (somewhat ineptly) with the proper legislation concerning video games and their content. We added Germany to the list last year when it threatened to jail folks for committing acts of violence against "human-looking" characters in games.

Well, put Vietnam on that list as well.. The Vietnam Ministry of Post and Telecoms has restricted online gaming to five hours a day. How the ministry will enforce that is anyone's guess... But wait, there's more. Gaming cafes are also to be located no less than 200 meters from schools. That's the same as massage parlors, liquor shops and strip clubs.

The last thing governments would want, I would think, is millions of people who are computer literate with an ax to grind.

Rob also looks at survey data which indicates the ESRB ratings are working and concludes:

The ESRB... is a success with parents... 79 percent of parents say they follow these ratings closely...  That's welcome news. The need for legislation is trumped by involved parents any day.

Best of luck to Rob Watson. He's a fine journalist, a passionate gamer and a good guy.