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ESRB Responds To Mixed Review From FTC

Posted by simoniker on from the return-to-acronym-city dept.

Thanks to GameSpot for its interview with Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) president Patricia Vance, following yesterday's publishing of a 'Marketing Violent Entertainment To Children' report [PDF link] by the Federal Trade Commission. The report's findings are discussed by 1UP, noting the FTC "still gives mixed marks to the American games industry when it comes to marketing mature games to a younger audience." Vance indicates that "ESRB's focus will continue to be on getting retailers to display signage at the point of purchase that increases awareness and use of the rating system", although, even after improvement over previous years: "69% of survey participants (aged between 13 and 16) were able to buy an M-rated game without hindrance, including 55% of unaccompanied customers." Outside of the ESRB's duties, "The FTC's chief sticking point was still with the placement of [M-rated] videogame advertisements... [which] still frequently appear in enthusiast gaming magazines and other publications technically aimed at a teenage audience."

3 of 35 comments (clear)

  1. Ads? by bugbeak · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You see ads for those energy drinks (what's that one drink that starts with B?) and the FTC doesn't throw red flags all over the place about how dangerous that drink is to developing teen bodies.

    Sheesh.

  2. Who will think of the children? by qrowh · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've just skimmed the first 30 or so pages of the report, and there seems to be a whole lot of waffling, with statements such as "Although neither of the magazines have a readership that is 45% or more under 17 (years of age), each has a sizable readership among teens and older children."

    The 45% figure cited is the limit that the gaming industry's regulatory commission allows a magazine's readership to be before it is considered to be aimed at a teenage audience. What worries me is that the FTC report mentions that companies are in compliance with these guidelines, then slams them by claiming their "sizable teenage readership" without defining what exactly that means.

  3. Typical bureacrat ic slippery slope.. by the_skywise · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When the ESRB was first forced on the game publishers ~10 years ago the standard byline of the time was "We don't want to censor game manufactureres. We just want parents to have the ability to know what their kids are actually buying!"

    Now 10 years later... There are too many M-rated games being advertised in game magazines that kids read. This is bad.

    Check out the seat belt laws too... 20 years ago in my state it was "We don't want to arrest people for not wearing their seat belts, we just need a seat belt law to increase awareness." So the law was written such that you couldn't be pulled over for not wearing a seat belt. You could only get a ticket for not wearing a seat belt if you were pulled over for something else. 2 years ago, they had the law changed. "Too many people are still not wearing seat belts, so we need to pull people over so that we can save more lives." So now we have random spot checks throughout the city where they take a look and see if you're not wearing your seat belt.

    But remember, this is all for your own good.