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Game Content Ratings Not Always To Be Trusted?
Thanks to Reuters for its article discussing video games rated 'T' for teens containing 'explicit' content that's not noted on the game box. According to Harvard-based researchers checking on the voluntary ESRB ratings for videogames: "Although most of the games' content matched their ratings, [the survey] found that 48 percent of games contained some content that was not noted on the game box." The piece goes on to note specific examples: "For instance, 12 of the 81 games showed the use of substances such as tobacco and alcohol, while only 1 game had received that type of content descriptor from the ESRB. And while the researchers reported sexual content in 22 games, only 16 had received a sexual content descriptor" - the survey abstract at the American Medical Association's site has further information on the researchers' results.
Over on Fark there is a debate going on about parental discipline vs. child abuse. The running theme is that parents who are consistent and firm with their children turn out well-adjusted kids whereas parents who are inconsistent and abusive turn out some really fucked up gems.
It seems to me that a parent who would take the time and effort to fall in the first category would also be the kind of parent who spent 5 seconds looking at the video game and deciding whether the kid should be allowed to play it or not.
OTOH, parents who do not put that time and effort in to raising their kids would be the type to just shell out 40 dollars to shut the kid up for a week.
It's no wonder that kids who play these violent and sexually explicit games turn into the freaks they are. It isn't the games, it's the parents.
I have been pwned because my
ESRB ratings> are intended to get parents to pay attention to their kids lives. They are placed to get parents to notice that videogames are a part of childrens lives, the same as television.
""The absence of a content descriptor did not mean the absence of content that might concern parents," she[study author Kimberly Thompson] said."
If parents talked to their children about the things that they are doing, viz. active members in their lives, they will know that the child is playing videosgames with such content in it. Think. (are you ready) Think some more. When as a child, you played duke nukem, did the you discuss your gaming with your parents? I did. I told them all about how hillarious the game was. The hillarity is one that can be experienced only through the game, but in my explination of it, they understood that the beercans strewn around stripclubs where one is killing stripping aliens was funny. They were not offended in any way with the content of the game, only with my choice to play it instead of doing homework late at night.
The warnings on videogames are not meant for parents to keep children confined by having them not purchase such games, but to brace parents for the content of the game when the child discusses it with them.
I think Ms. Thompson understands this aspect of the gaming experience, perhaps in a familial if not personal way.
"She[study author Kimberly Thompson] added that she hopes these study results serve as a "wake up call" for parents, telling them they need to be aware of what their kids are being exposed to, both in video games and elsewhere."
This study is meant to shine light on parent's lack of involvement in children's lives, not asking for more strict ratings. Lets face it, if anyone makes blanket judgements on ratings, they are being ignorant of the product's value.
-i wish i were a teapot. That way if when im boiling you could pour me out.-
"this is the gloaming"
radiohead
And violence in "E" rated games? Are we talking "Mario"-esque violence, or something that really deserves mention?
Bah, give me a break!
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I never figured out why we have a separating rating system for games when there is a perfectly good rating system for the movie industry that could be used.(I assume its some legal hullabaloo)
Anyways alot of Parents don't really know what the video game rating system entails, and because of not really knowing they will let there kid play whatever the hell they want, instead of making an informed decision that maybe that game where you play inmates that dig at each other with rusty hooks might not be suitable.
Now with the Movie rating system most people know what the hell the ratings are , or at least have a general idea. Your not going to let your 13 year old go to the R film (Heck most theatres won't even let your kid in) but the M rating on that game, your not quite sure about.
So what to do.. either raise awareness on what the ratings actually are and entail and make sure that the games get rated correctly (personally I am surprised that Manhunt only got mature) or scrap the system and rebuild from the ground up.
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
Parents dont come with a Parental Skill Rating attached to their foreheads... :-/
and me without my mod points.
the MPAA rating system is well known, well tested, and people already have a fairly good idea where their personal values diverge from the ratings.
There's no reason to rate games differently, when the content being rated is the same across media. hell, you could rate a comic book with the MPAA system if you felt like it. Why does the gaming industry feel the need to screw around with that?
Rebuilding the system would only be beneficial if they cut to the chase an outlined exactly what types of objectionable content were involved.
Eg:
'Cartoon Violence'
'Realistic Violence'
'Nudity'
'Sexual Themes'
'Strong Sexual Content'
'Language'
'Criminal Themes'
'Drug/Alcohol Content'
etc.
If we insist that games have a different rating system than what has worked for the film industry for 50 years, then for chrissakes let's improve on existing rating systems. Let's not attempt to label content in accordance with subjective community values - let's objectively list the actual content that's available in the game, and let individuals make informed decisions.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
My lord, tobacco _AND_ alcohol? Sexual activity in a game? Holy cow! I really would not have bought my latest copy of Super Slayer Commando XXIII if the label on it hadn't assured me that it was much much cleaner than Super Slayer Commando XXII!!!
I am shocked, shocked I tell you. Computer games containing graphic violence? Why seeing that guy I blew away in Quake Death Rampage Umpteen makes me so angry I want to go out and wipe out my office! I'm just glad I was not exposed to such abominations as an impressionable child--who knows, I might have turned out as a psychopathic axe murderer, or even, god forbid, a..a...MUSIC DOWNLOADER!
This revelation makes me never, ever ever want to touch another one of these products of satan again for as long as I live. And especially if I ever have children, good grief, think of what might happen if my little boy or girl were to see such morally reprehensible content while I am away working 12 hour days?!? Why, I think I might have to limit them to watching professional football, or Wile E. Coyote having wholesome anvils dropped on him on TV!
Phew, I've vented my spleen against those evil peddlers of smut and gore. Now back to watching Janet Jackson's nipple and some CNN shots of dead bodies on my wholesome, wholesome television.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Anyone?
Why is that game rated "M"?
Are there even any regulations or standards that say what kind of games get what rating? Starcraft came out with a Teen rating, but when it's expansion pack Brood War came out, it was stamped Mature, even though nothing major was changed from Starcraft.
The truth behind the ratings is they are rarely used correctly. The developers shoot for a particular rating, then get the board to agree or disagree. Just like the movies.
Some games are mismarked, like Tony Hawk 3. It says "E" for everyone, but fails to mention the blood and swearing. I personally would still let anyone play it, since the context of the blood and swearing is appropriate. Some would disagree. Like a previous few comments, you have to play with or watch your kids play games if you want to know what they're playing.
But, since the ratings are goals, and not ends, you'll have kiddie games elevated to teen with gratuitous bodily functions, blood effects, and such. You'll have teen games elevated to Mature with bouncy boobs and over-the-top violence--despite these things being very purile, but fun! By elevating the ratings, the games are more enticing to the target audience because it's taboo, and you may pull in a couple people in the "as rated" audience who think it's for their age, not their kids.
Unfortunately, the reverse is also true. Teen (PG-13) is the desired audience for almost all games. You don't want an "M" unless you feel you'll sell a lot of them on the first day. The first Mortal Kombat is a great example how to ruin a game by dumbing down the violence for a broader audience.
So in the end, the games that are rated properly seem like the ones that are mismatched with the ratings! Just like the movies.
What we really need is a consistent rating system for all forms of entertainment. Movies, television, video games and music should use the same system to avoid confusion about exactly what a rating means in one system verses another. I'm not sure how to go about doing that since these industries are all independent, and I'm reluctant to get the Government involved in a ratings system, but I think it would be the best solution for kids and parents.
If the in-game characters are not clearly using tobacco or alcohol (e.g. they are smoking something or drinking out of a bottle, but the vice is just implied, not explicit) I don't see why it's a problem.
They could be smoking clove cigarettes and drinking no-alcohol beer for all these nannies know.
This has to be based on opinion.. What one person calles sexual content, I call an every day thing.. Maybe if I reviewed these games.. I would find only 10 of the reported 18 games really had sexual content.. What is it with American's (I'm an American by the way) being all against sex.. I mean come on.. isn't everybody a closet pr0n freak anyway..
/me puts on flame resistant suit.
I say let the pr0n out of the closet! Educate our children so they know about sex so they don't have to experiment and get in trouble!
-Mikey
When we were discussin this issue on a forum, one guy said that he had been unable to rent Clerks one day before his birthday, and that nothing had changed over night. My friend posited that in fact, in the one day, he had gained legal responsibility for his actions.
I thought this very interesting, since I very much support the idea of parents actually getting involved in their child's lives, and not sheltering them unduly by refusing to let them near anything with a rating above U, or whatever the US equivalent is.
It's almost as if the game rating system, and even the people that label games aren't perfect! What next? We'll have to raise our own children? We'll have to actually spend time with them? We'll have to play the game before them, or along with them, explaining anything that might damage their fragile little minds (like, say, ANYTHING that plays on the 6 o'clock news)?
This travesty of justice should not be allowed to perpetuate. I paid good money for my one eyed babysitter, damn it!
Does narcissism count as a hobby? --Shawn Latimer
I am surprised no historians have dug up Roman Empire artifacts saying their violence came from playing too much video games.
The rating system is completely lame. My local news has more violence, sex and tobacco use.
How do they define these things? If even a background character smokes, is that counted as tobacco use? It's just a realistic background, nothing more.
The report is saying that the descriptors are applied inconsistantly. So the side debates about what the ratings should be for or about, or whether it's appropriate, or whether parents spend enough time with their kids are all beside the point.
What's missing to make this an interesting item is a list of the variations, as they see them, so we can see how outrageous the problem is. Or isn't.
From what I know of the ESRB's procedures, they require each publisher to submit a tape of all content, and that tape is watched completely. So it's quite likely that the issue is either a difference of opinion about what constitutes (for instance) alchohol use, or whether the publisher fully disclosed their content.
If it's the latter, then the ESRB has the ability to severely fine the publisher and force it to correct either the rating or the product.
ESRB is at http://www.esrb.org/ for more info...
Dear Anal Police,
Find something better to do with your time.
Sitting around, saying "OMG they missed that character smoking and that sexual innuendo WTF WTF WTF?" is not a productive use of time or resources.
It's people like you that enable psycho overprotective parents. You're far more damaging than the video game cigarette.
Sincerely,
Sane Society
Some games are mismarked, like Tony Hawk 3. It says "E" for everyone, but fails to mention the blood and swearing. I personally would still let anyone play it, since the context of the blood and swearing is appropriate.
Tony Hawk 3 (at least the PS2/GC/xbox versions) is rated T for Teen. If I were a parent, the blood wouldn't bother me, but some of the song lyrics might.
Parents might object more to "defy authority" goals in the THPS games like "grind 5 police cars", "destroy 5 no skating signs", "grind down officer Tom's banners" or "dunk 30 tourists".
Yet other parents may be horrified by Tony's ability to skitch. This features is just screaming for a lawsuit somewhere down the road.
"But mommy, Tony's always doing it!".
Could someone explain what the AMA has to do with video games?
Shouldn't they be off practicing medicine?
See, the problem with trying to evaluate/rate all of the content in a game is that, in the average game, there's too much, and it would take far too long to come up with a completely accurate rating. Unlike, with say, movies, every gameplay experience can be different, depending on the actions of the player, and not only is playing the whole game through once generally time consuming, but playing it through multiple times with an eye for every single easter egg, cheat code, and any other possible variable would take a long, long, time. For an example, look at the new Goldeneye level that was just recently discovered. Was the content from that level evaluated when the game was rated? No, I don't think so. Would it have made that huge an impact on the rating? Again, probably not. A rough approximation is pretty much the best we can hope for here, and it seems to have worked out pretty well so far. After all, ratings that involve "sexual content" are extremely subjective.
Yeah.
Um, "Wipeout" for original playstation was rated "Mature". I just don't think kids should have to look at cars going around an oval track. It could warp their fragile little minds.
(Ok, there technically were weapons, but they only slowed, they didn't kill).
Oh, and the color pallette was grey and edgy. Definately don't want your kids to see that.
When a game is named after a felony, you have the gist of the content.
I really wish that one of these days, a reporter from a mainstream news outlet would actually do their own reporting on the topic of game ratings instead of deferring to some parental group that tries its best to distort the facts. If an unbiased observer took a serious look at the ESRB ratings, they would realize that the inaccuracy goes both ways.
The ratings aren't just applied loosely, which infers that certain game publishers might be getting favors from the ESRB or that the ESRB just has a vested interest in stamping an "M" on fewer games every year. The ratings are just applied inaccurately all across the board. This article mentions all of the cases where the ratings were applied too loosely, but what about where they're applied too harshly? Ico, for instance, is rated Teen. Anyone that has actually played the game knows that that's like stamping a PG-13 on The Lion King or The Never-Ending Story. It's ludicrous, but it's done because the ESRB only looks at selected scenes from the games that they rate, and someone in this case looked at the ONE moment where there is any blood or violence in the game and said, "Oh, no, this isn't for kids." And the same applies to Maximo. Maximo is also rated Teen, but the entire game is cartoonish. It's probably less violent than the Spider-Man cartoons from the '90s and it's certainly no darker than Count Duckula.
A lot of stuff falls through the cracks at the ESRB, but it's not just in favor of the game companies. The inaccuracy goes both ways.
OK, I'll admit it. I'm a hypocritical parent who carefully screens what my kids watch, read, and play. I'm a hypocrite because, when I was growing up, my parents did none of these things and I turned out (IMO) just fine. I guess the difference is that my parents were just ignorant of what I was reading, watching, and playing, but I'm not, since I tend to watch, read, and play much of the same things as my kids. I feel like I'm actively pimping smut to my kids if I don't control their media access to some extent.
:-)
I am a realist in that I *know* my kids are exposed to just about anything imaginable when they are outside the house and I can live with that, I just don't feel comfortable being an "enabler".
When my kids want to see a movie that I haven't seen yet, I usually use Screen-It. My only gripe with Screen-it is that is can spoil certain scenes because they list *every* thing that might be objectionable to just about anyone, but at least they do it objectively.
I prefer this (even with the chance of spoilers) to any rating system (and much prefer it to outright censorship). If I don't mind nudity without explicit sex, or don't mind sexual innuendo, but don't like violence, or if I don't mind wanton sex and violence as long as no one drinks a beer, I can screen my films using this service.
I would love to have a similar service for videogames, but I just don't see it happening, because, as other posters have noted, you would have to play through every scene in a game (and all branching paths) to identify objectionable material.
Opening this to the user community probably wouldn't work either, because people would be posting Photoshopped screen images and bogus "secret" areas.
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
...is a horrible game, and you should never play it.
But my point is, it was aimed at children, the characters you could choose from were children, all of its content was child-friendly - the most violent things that ever happened were shooting fake targets and throwing wooden crates at a shark - and the game got a 'T' rating.
So it's not a one-way street.
Glog!
Gee, I can't rely 100% on the label? No sh*#!
As the predictable debate of parent-responsability vs. I-want-laws-and-regulations-to-think-for-me-and-my -family rages on, I'm glad that I still love playing games today as much as I did 23 years ago!
Even though the games my son is playing now are safe "kiddie titles", I'm still involved since it's something we can have fun with togeather. This participation establishes me, the parent, as a part of this kind of entertainment. Obviously, this approach would be frustrating for parents who prefer to rely on electronic boxes to distract/babysit their kids for a while.
And if you pay attention to most of the games, they generally fall into a few easy to recognize genres. Yea, they might have a kiddie coat of paint and silly sound effects, but the platforming/puzzle/problem solving fundamentals are still intact. This means I can still enjoy the titles my son is playing even if I'm forced into fetch-quests with Sponge-Bob.
The original story is another subtle example of how the sheep (our society) continue to be taught that it is someone else's responsability to protect them (police vs. personal firearms), care for them (medicare/prescriptions), and think for them (laws, regulations, signage).
Yea, if we could just make a few more laws, a couple more regulations, and just one more industry-oversight committee, we could finally achieve social utopia were we would all be able to stare blankly at Seinfield re-runs forever! [/sarcasm]
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
I don't have kids, but I've always thought the simplest solution is to not let your kids have TVs and computers in their rooms. Keep the TVs and computers in the family room or something like that. When I was a kid I was afraid of viewing anything too objectionable to my parents since you never knew when they were going to walk through the room. That and our 8086 couldn't display photo-realistic graphics anyway.
The idea of (even parental) censorship is not without value, but I think that it's overvalued.
The rationales for parental censorship that I can see go something like this (w/ my responses):
Issue: If I expose my child to this scary content, he/she is not old enough to have mental constructs or required knowledge in place to prevent him/her from being overwhelmed with irrational fear.
Response: I don't think I can agree. The mental constructs issue is, I think, not a convincing argument. The way people seem to develop contructs to deal with frightening-but-not-dangerous content is by being exposed to exactly that content. You can wait until they're twenty or start when they're six. I think that, ultimately, kids are going to have to have a few frightening-but-not-dangerous-experiences to learn how to deal with fright. My own parents put strict limits on what frightening movies I could watch as a child. The Thing was the first R-rated movie I saw. When I finally saw it, I was quite frightened. My friends, who had been watching frightening movies earlier than I was, were decidedly unintimidated. Today, I shrug off The Thing and similar movies. It took exposure to a good amount of frightening content, though, to build up that state of mond. I don't think that age is a factor so much as experience.
Knowledge base is a bit more convincing. I really think that a large factor is knowledge directly related to frightening content. In this case, parents can pretty easily talk about it. For example, we really don't have any reason to think that Jason from Friday the 13th could exist. It's just as reasonable to think that there's a horde of guardian angels running around overhead, a decidedly less frightening prospect. Furthermore, Jason is some guy in a (not all that great, frequently) costume. If a child is frightened by a movie, a parent can do a bit of explaining to avoid most of it.
I think that there *is* something to the argument that there is non-movie-specific knowledge that must be had to help deal with fear, however. Generally, if a movie represents something that isn't a possible danger, there's no reason to be frightened of it. A lot of things can be ruled out as possible dangers with a knowledge base -- i.e. it's pretty unlikely that an A.I. is going to fall in love with one of its creators and kill off the creator's spouse, because such behavior is not exactly easy to impart, is probably not easily accidently evolved in the kind of environment an A.I. exists in, and is pretty complex. There's not a lot of way to ensure that a child has a wide enough knowledge base to produce explanations and assign those explanations a high enough "convincing factor" (for lack of a better term). Furthermore, risk aversion is a common mental irrationality that humans are prone to that children seem to be even more vulnerable to. If shown something that is a real, potential danger, such as dying from a rattlesnake bite in California, people do not deal well with grappling with the very small degrees of probability involved, and will assign too much danger to that bite, even though car crashes pose a far greater risk to them. That's something that I think it takes a significant amount of experience to overcome. It is *possible* that a small child simply has not taken enough life risks and reasoned about them to be able to assign slight dangers a proper amount of risk.
Issue: Marketers design their campigns specifically to appeal to humans. I don't want them to be exposed to tobacco/alcohol, and let those marketers to get their hooks into my child.
Response: I really feel that a better way to deal with marketing of potentially harmful products to a child is to attempt to innoculate him to that product, rather than isolate him from it. You simply are not going to be able to shield a child forever from a product, and I think that it would be better to simply ensure that they can make an intelligent decision early on. Explaining to a child why cigarettes are b
May we never see th
I'm a single (widowed) parent of ten-year-old twins. I have trouble with figuring out what's in games, just as I do with other forms of media. Ratings services are inherently flawed, and I can tell you from experience that they're flawed in different ways, depending on what industry group's making the choices.
Movies are particularly ridiculous. The MPAA seems to live on a completely different planet; they think nothing of oceans of desensitizing violence in PG or PG-13 movies, but let a character say "the f-word" twice and it's an automatic R rating. This is a group that rated "Waiting for Guffman," a gently zany little Christopher Guest thing with no violence OR sex, as an "R": one of the characters is gay (though that's never really said), and there's a spoken reference to genitalia. Pretty hard core. I don't remember much swearing, even...
Games are difficult because there really is something different about the player being able to actively cause something to happen. Sometimes even if that something is seemingly minor, I get weirded out that my kids are doing it. Personally I find them a little easier to predict, though, because the genres are so danged set-in-stone. Once in a while, though, the cut scenes in Myth will creep up on me. Those weren't innocent cartoons.
With TV, I'm astonished at the meanness of basically everything, and I'm awestruck at people's ability to mistake what they're seeing. The Simpsons is practically a sermon on "family values" every last week, but it earns disdain from the usual scolds. I let the kids watch it -- not Itchy and Scratchy, but the rest. Meanwhile reality TV is about as degrading as anything ever thrust on kids, and I won't have that for them. Television news is shockingly evil, really actively evil, on balance, and I protect us all from learning that world view. The ratings involved are totally without any merit.
(TV commercials are hard to anticipate with kids. Lately the Simpsons has been running ads for several movies "by the makers of Old School" locally. Those ads are borderline explicit, and I try to skip away. Because the commercials tend to go hand-in-hand with the bogus ratings, it's hard to remember to look for them on shows I think are okay.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Hi. You are a stupid anonymous coward.
And I wanted to tell you I'm going to masturbate now. Wish me luck and lotsa sperm jets.