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Mature Video Games in the Minority
Steve writes "Of the record breaking $7.3 billion in video games sold in 2004, only 18 percent of them were rated "M". This is surprising, considering some media watch groups have great concern over inappropriate video games landing in the hands of children, even claiming that 60-90 percent of video games have violent themes. Filefront uncovers the real trend and includes quotes from ESRB President Patricia Vance."
Their definition of "violent themes" likely includes plumbers jumping on the heads of turtles.
yeah, parental groups can easily say there's 60%+ with violent "themes". Their definition includes anything where something blows up, gets killed, burned, etc. Even the original Super Mario Bros and Legend of Zelda fall under their definition. We all know why they do it, so I wont waste teh space here. But things like this 18% of all sales are of M games is something that needs to be brought up, especially since it's firm fact, whereas the 60-90% figures are based on subjective measures. Unfortunately, the propogandist isn't interested in fact, they're more interested in public opinion.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Yes, you did. The figure gets mentioned once, at the very top, which "Steve" directly copied. "Steve" didn't write jack, Andrew Serros, the author the article, wrote that. Well, Steve added "Filefront uncovers the real trend and includes quotes from ESRB President Patricia Vance."
Based on the statistics given by the ESRB website (which are last year's, I can't find current), that 18% figure is by title. Unfortunately, I can't locate any updated statistics, so those figures are mostly meaningless.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Oh god not that argument. Please.
A parent defines what is inappropriate. Every parent has different views of what is appropriate and not. If a parent continually finds their child in possession of "inappropriate" materials then obviously the parent isn't parenting. Don't feel like sitting with your kid while they play X-Box? Then don't buy them an X-Box. Sheesh, it's really not that difficult.
I hate people who want to be lazy parents and force the government to do the parenting for them. Oh, and btw, I have 4 kids (two are teenagers), 2 pc's, an N64 and an X-Box so I know for a fact that these types of arguments are nothing but an excuse for laziness. If people don't want to supervise their kids then thats their problem, not everyone elses.
So then, the critics' higher number isn't misleading, it is simply a different way of looking at the numbers. I love when folks use apples and oranges comparisons to make their arguments.
I for one, like the blow 'em up games. I just don't like arguments based on bad math.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Sounds like a case for Homeland Security. Time to deport him to Italy, along with his ahem "brother" Luigi.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
The article claims that the watchdog groups say 60-90% of ALL games are violent, however what the page actually says is 60-90% of THE MOST POPULAR games are violent. This sounds more believable to me, when you factor in GTA and HALO's marketshare.
This is not to say I'm siding with the watchdog, because it's an even less useful point then the misquote. Video games that are popular are popular because people buy them. If people are buying violent video games more then others, that's not the manufacturer or retailer or anybody's fault but the buyer's. Manufacturers make what people want them to make, or else they'd make no money.
I definately agree with the article's claims that these watchdog groups are incredibly out of touch with what parents want. I worked in retail last christmas, and on one of our busiest days of the season a group of 6 or 7 'violent-game protesters' came into the store. They were all women, probably 60-70 years old, and they kept chanting about how video games make our kids violent. I kept wanting to remind them that it was their generation that participated in world war 2, korea, and vietnam, not mine. And it's their generation right now that's invading Iraq and showing us that, apparently, the only way to solve some problems is through violence. See? I can generalize too.
These 'watchdog' groups piss me off.
Not exactly true. One perfect example would be the Mega Man series. Since 1987 Mega Man's been shooting up other robots, and since the ESRB put ratings on games, Mega Man's gotten K-A (Kids to Adults, before it became E) and E.
Hell, Mega Man Zero, in which you see the robots spew out blood, oil, or whatever it was, is Rated E. I think that the ESRB guidelines are just plain retarded.
Not having an "M" rating doesn't mean it doesn't have a violent theme. Medal of Honor is rated "T" and it looks like it's based on a violent theme. The fact it has no blood doesn't make it any less violent: You're still shooting people and they still scream in pain.
I know we have all played Diablo 2. Its rated M. I don'y know why it just is. Its recockulou, that a game wher you use magic to kill made up animals and save the world is rated M. On a side note, is Madden considered violent becuase you tackle people?
Fair enough, but more people would probably argue that 82% of games are not violent in nature. IMHO 82% of games being non-violent is more than adequate, and if those 18% that are happen to be the best sellers then that is due to market forces, and not anything underhand by the producers.
R* games seem to revel in being the violent and edgy game company, whereas lucasarts are reknown for thier familyesque non-violence (non-human death).
Carmagedon the original sprite based version was banned in Germany, but I haven;t heard too many reports of games being banned now.
The huge ammount of FPS and RTS games being developed would make me question those stats - but I am not an advocate of violent games for children.
I realised that NO WAY in hell would I let my 11 year old nephew play GTA:SA. He plays soul blade and other fighting games, but this is different stuff.
Fighter against fighter, a match, a game, like boxing.
GTA:SA allows for free roaming and killing of innocents. I think it is hypocritical for R* to not place child models in the game, if somehow the proportional dimensions of the vertices makes a difference. They are walking a fine line. I do not see the peds in GTA:SA as innocent people, I just see them as utter bastards who would sooner steal my car as be mowed down by my gatling gun (nuttertools - cheat for nice weapons [gta:vc]).
Other adult themes (non-violent) are a little quaint in GTA:SA, and probably put in there as to say, hey, movies are violent, and movies contain sex, if we make our game contain sex, then you cannot complain about the violence.
People worry about the interactivity of violence in games, I did a small study into students attitudes, and those who thought games were too violent showed no more concern for violent games and children than those who didn't think games were too violent.
So, let games contain violent (yet fun) themes. I wouldn't particularly like a game that was violent but not fun, IMHO GTA isn't even violent, it is a depiction of violence on a non-realistic, joking scale. It isn't harmful (the other content is - I would happily let my nephew play a game where you could shoot people or accidentally run them all down!)
If you think about it, it makes sense.
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Regardless of the bad argument that only 18% of games are M rated, a parent still DOES define what is inappropriate, but that does not mean that we shouldn't have a rating system.
A parent should treat the rating system as a means to good parenting, not an end. A parent cannot know about every single game in the video game industry and about all of what it contains. So, the parent makes use of the rating system, for what it is, and then the parent supervises and takes part in the child's gaming to see if there is STILL something in it that is questionable.
To summarize, it is not the parent who makes use of the rating system that is lazy, but the parent who ONLY makes use of it.
I don't think TFA, the slashdot editor or the filefront writer knows what the hell to think about all this. ("Mature Video Games in the Minority"?) Who fucking cares? Even if it were true that games inappropriate for kids are in the majority, so what? That's true for movies, music and books.
I mean that's a nice bit of bullshit statistics, that "60-90%" figure, but even if it were even remotely relevant the picture is clear as mud. For example, let's say that 60-90% of games (popular or no) "have violent themes", the first question you have to ask is what percentage of gamers are old enough that it doesn't make a damn difference (maybe 60-90% of gamers are over 18)? Next you have to ask what 60-90% of parents think constitutes "violent themes" - maybe your group's views represent only 10-40% of the population, if that. Next you could ask who buys more games - 20-somethings or (parents of) 8-year-olds (seems to me that I buy a hell of a lot more games for myself then my mom ever bought for me)? And so on, et cetera, ad nauseum.
Reading TFA's I have to ask: what the hell does the "watchdog group" (and their ilk) think should be done (or: what do they recommend in their "holiday warnings")? The games are clearly labelled with a big sticker on the front, and plenty more info on the back. And even if you think the labels are bullshit, the store employees are happy to give you more info if you really want it. Any parent stupid enough to hand their kid $50 and send them into EB without even looking into what they're getting doesn't deserve a voice in this debate - same goes for parents who bought the game themselves without doing proper research. Eliminate those numbnuts and what's the problem? What else would they have done?
That whole mediafamily.org page is just a scattershot of random facts without context, mixed up with a steaming, piled helping of bullshit. Why the hell is it being used for a reference anyway - it's like 3 goddamn years old? As for the filefront article, the spokeslady/president gamely tries to explain away the kooks, but the kooks shouldn't have been given any attention to begin with. The whole thing is just a waste of everyone's time... except for one tiny point:
Very good point, and true almost anywhere I can think of. Maybe video game stores having a children's section should be the norm. But what the hell does sniping at the ESRB do to make that happen?
It's hard to soar like an eagle when you're surrounded by turkeys.
> some media watch groups have great concern over inappropriate video games landing in the hands of children
If your children get access to material that you deem inapropriate, it is your failing as a parent.
If my children get access to material that you deem inapropriate, it is none of your damn business!
Capiche?
...that letting someone else think for them
is an invitation to disaster. The 10th Gerbil
was too busy swearing at the Steam(tm) validation
screen to constructively comment.