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Why would this require an app? Dang, y'all consume a LOT more media than I do. That's not healthy. Sheesh.

I do however recommend Common Sense Media as a way to discover and screen movie, TV shows, and games for children.

Only covers kids whose parents have email and are on some unspecified email list. "Methodology. This report presents the results of a nationally representative, probability-based online survey of 1,454 parents of children age 8 or under, conducted from Jan. 20, 2017, to Feb. 10, 2017. The survey was designed by Common Sense and VJR Consulting and fielded by the research firm GfK, using its KnowledgePanel©, a probability-based web panel designed to be representative of the U.S. population." https://www.commonsensemedia.o... Aren't surveys fun?

Really?
Although, I guess it skips most of the actual nudity.
Super hero shows don't do it for me and I didn't really enjoy stranger things.
Try Ozark, Narcos, & Marco Polo.

Check out http://www.commonsensemedia.org/mobile-app-lists/best-action-apps - we love their site. ^.^

If you go to the source article it's quite clear they are offering alternatives for what they consider to be very good games that (according to the age rating) are unsuitable to kids.

In kid logic, games are "cool" when they have awesome graphics and gameplay, envelope-pushing storylines, and all manners of weaponry. And they aren't wrong. The games they want typically are well constructed, thoughtful, and exciting. But they're often inappropriate for the teens who hunger for them.

The descriptions of the games are also generally very positive with the only issue being the suitability for minors. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the article inspired some parents to make a few orders for when they "confiscate" the xbox at night:

Authentically recreated Renaissance cities, near photo-realistic action, and historical accuracy make this a great game for mature players. But playing as an assassin who relies on an arsenal of weapons makes the violence excessive.

I don't see what is at all objectionable about that. Perhaps you disagree with the ratings system, but that's another issue.

Now, it's a shame the NYT article is less than clear about the games and is lacking in the good substance of the original article, but they had to change something in an otherwise plagiarised article. Still, my criticism is limited since if you want appalling media you have no better example than this here on Slashdot. It leads to a derivative article that adds nothing whatsoever to the original source on CommonSense. There is no justification for not "going to source" unless the objective is to ignorantly trash the NYT for ignorantly trashing violent games (well, at least the "irony" does have some relevance after all). I'm also unsure why, despite evidently being aware of the source, the OP actually states "the NYT names its list of big bads". Objective assertions like "provokingly" also seem unnecessary.

All this is quite bizarre given the same criticism can't be said of the hothardware article the OP lifts from (by the way it seems rather bad form to lift so heavily from an article when it is not prominent). His name in the OP linking to hothardware implies MojoKid is from the site though I can't see anything to corroborate that and am included to assume that is another error.

I was reading about one of the recommended games on the linked site and my brain exploded when I read "six-legged creatures: a scorpion and tarantula"

By the way, Braid is a great puzzle game.

Are they really recommending Braid as a "kid-friendly" game? Braid? I'm generally impressed with Common Sense Media's take on reviews in that they look at all aspects of a movie or game when judging its appropriateness. But with Braid, the themes of the game are going to be way over the heads of most kids. I guess if your 12-year old really wanted to play it, why not. But as High Fidelity taught us there are other dangers of exposing impressionable teens to this kind of thing:
What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?

Or at least, the guy everyone is saying is going to be appointed by Obama to the job: Julius_Genachowski

You know, a board member of a number of media-related organizations like Common Sense Media, and Chief of Business Operations at IAC/Interactive.

Of course, he's a supporter of so-called 'net neutrality' (as all his business ventures are online-based), which is probably a good thing (depending on your POV) because it affects his bottom line, but at the same time, they're antagonizing all the broadcasters that have spent millions investing in the technology needed for this cutover by the date set over 4 years ago. Not to mention Qualcomm, AT&T, and Verizon, who spent millions to set up their MediaFLO network with the expectation that the analog channels would be freed up for their use by this date.

Lesson to these guys: Next time, make sure to contribute more to the Messiah's campaign.

Well, apparently he's involved with Common Sense Media which seems to provide ratings, tools, and advice for parents with concerns to the media. It seems to be fairly parental-responsibility oriented. However, their "Common Sense Belief" sections contains a couple of statements you might be interested in:

# We believe in media sanity, not censorship.

We believe that the price for free and open media is a bit of extra homework for families. Parents need to know about media content and need to manage media use.

# We believe appropriate regulations about right time, right place, and right manner exist. They need to be upheld by our elected and appointed leaders.

# We believe ratings systems should be independent and transparent for all media.

Seems like they'd support some government toe-stepping in the form of mandatory ratings and enforcement of time-slots, but stop short of outright censorship.

This single issue is so important that I will vote for Gulianni. His policies may include 1984 type directives, but at least he will not make GTA V illegal.

For some odd reason, neither Slashdot nor the GamePolitics site made it simple to find the original CSM survey. After a little digging through GamePolitics, here is the link: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/news/specials/question1.

I was leaning toward Hillary until I read this survey. She really intends to spend millions of dollars just to (1) determine the effects of games on children (how many times has this already been done in academia?) and (2) to police vendors based on ESRB ratings that are only slightly less suspect than MPAA ratings? This is insane. I'd far prefer to see those same tax dollars put back into the school systems to better educate the children.

Follow the link above and read for yourself. But, to summarize, Clinton and Edwards both skew closely to Romney on this issue. Obama seems the only one who prefers to educate parents and then let them decide what is best.

Perhaps my vote in the caucuses will yet go to Obama...

Dear Random Nobody,

Okay, you don't like legislation affecting video games, we get it.

But please, your blog entry comes off as incoherent, at best, and childish at worst.

a) You start off with a straw man. No legislators are calling for people to burn video games. No legislators are claiming that they're the root of all evil.

b) You take a quote from someone who runs Common Sense Media -- an lobbying organization that also happens to provide rating services -- at face value. In the same article you call journalists lazy.

c) You mistakenly cite GTA as the "start" of this. "This" has been going on since Doom. GTA3, and Hot Coffee, weren't out when Colubine happened, if you remember.

d) You waffle, and end up attacking video games yourself by saying "I wouldn't let my children anywhere near one of these games", and that the game sucked. That's like defending Manhunt by saying it was so bad people wouldn't play it.

e) You talk with "a psychologist". No citations, no refernces, no studies that indicate when a child can seperate reality from fantasy. Just your word.

f) You commit the fallacy of accident -- just because you haven't been violent, means that video games don't make people violent. That's not proof, that's circumstance.

g) You site crime statistics that are meaningless in support of your proof. There are well understood reasons why the crime rate dropped nationwide in 1993. This does not preclude, in any way, video games from having a detremental effect.

h) You "read studies" -- you don't cite, you don't reference, you selectively remember. For someone with an alleged Master's degree, you sure as hell don't know how to form an argument.

By the way, I live in a province where the government regulates video games and movies. Oddly, I'm still able to go to EB and buy GTA if I want. And my son can't.

I can't for the life of me figure out why that's bad.