The Entertainment Software Association has criticised a UN report on cyberviolence for promoting "outdated notions of video games and gamers."

Entitled "Cyber Violence Against Women and GIrls: A World-Wide Wake-Up Call," the UN report delves into the "systemic societal concern" of gender-motivated cyberviolence.

Though the report does not focus on video games (GamerGate is merely one example cited), the video game industry's trade association and lobby group took exception to one of the few paragraphs that do.

Its disagreement concerns the citation of an opinion piece from 2000 entitled "The Mark of the Beast: America’s Children Are in Mortal Danger," which describes the video game industry as "a truly Satanic oligarchy" and says Pokemon "sucks the souls" out of children.

"If the overall issue was not so serious, it would be laughable that the U.N. is citing this work. It is willful ignorance to utilize such incredibly outlandish and outdated data," said ESA CEO Michael Gallagher.

Game developer and Crash Override co-founder Zoe Quinn, who spoke at the UN on the day the report was published, also criticised the report, in correspondence with Vice.

"I'm grateful that the UN is taking notice of the very real problems of online abuse, and I was thankful to see stories from all across the globe as well. [...] However, it's unfortunate that the report has so many problems between needlessly bringing in video games as a scapegoat... and trying to cram a huge, complex issue like sex trafficking into general online abuse issues."

The ESA's release did not address the rest of the seventy-page report, other than to say it "strongly supports empowering women and minorities and creating an inclusive digital environment that welcomes all perspectives."