If  stock markets are slow to award recognition as to what drives the world, the games industry, by comparison, can be extremely quick off the mark. The latest new thing is that 41 year old Birmingham man, Mozzam Begg, (right) the British citizen  who spent two years in Guantanamo Bay as a terror suspect, is to be hero of the hour, appearing as himself in the computer game Guananamo, due to go on sale in October.

He plays the head of an organisation helping the suspect to escape in an Xbox 360  game which lets players control a detainee trying to shoot his way out. Begg, a human rights activist, says that any money he is paid will go to a charity fighting for detainee's rights

Thrown into the camp on Cuba in 2003 after the CIA held him in Pakistan, he  claims he was tortured, before being freed without charge in 2005.

“The software firm approached me with the idea for a Guantanamo game. I’m involved to make sure it is as true to life as possible,” he said.

Zarrar Chishti, director of the T-Enterprise Scotland Ltd,  spending £250,000 to produce the game, said: “We checked with police and security services. We didn’t want MI5 knocking our door down."

Both the games maker and consultant "are expecting an extreme reaction to the game in the US. But we think it will sell well in the Middle East."

Slower off the mark to 2010
Electronic Arts says that Crackdown creator, Realtime Worlds, the latest addition to its Partners label, will release the tardy All Points Bulletin (APB) first announced in 2005, and missing a number of deadline release dates, is now scheduled to arrive in early 2010.

"In terms of the actual management of the game going forward--management of the servers, management of the community--that is something that we will manage at Realtime Worlds," says (right)  new CEO Garry Dale."In that respect, we are absolutely the publisher of the game, but we need a publishing partner in order to access the bigger market on a worldwide basis, and that's what led us to the relationship with EAP."