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ESRB Adds New 'Tween' Rating
The Entertainment Software Rating Board announced yesterday that it was adding a new category to the entertainment software rating format. The new "E10+" "would mark games that might contain moderate amounts of cartoon, fantasy or mild violence, mild language and/or minimal suggestive themes." This puts the category between "E" and "T", and allows for racing games with violent crashes and superhero violence.
Why bother with all these abbreviations? Why don't they just specify a number from 0 to 18 on the box, indicating the minimum age. If they had done that in the beginning, they wouldn't have need to introduce this new rating level. They could have just used "10".
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
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Why does 'cartoon violence' mean 10+? From what I remember of the kiddie cartoons (tom and jerry, coyote vs roadrunner, etc etc), they're about 70% violence and 30% preparation of violence; it's funny,(Laugh.) because it's toon violence.
And now the games industry says only ten year olds and older are the appropriate category for it? What? This also implies that before now, it was higher? (Yeah, where have I been. I just never needed to look at or understand the reasoning behind)
If kids watch cartoon violence regulated by their parents, the same levels should be taken to games. As the cartoons become more realistic, then sure - but as the adult is still the regulator, this 10+ seems incomprehensible.
Browsing with +2 to insightful posts and a higher threshold makes the average post seen seem a lot more ingenious
Mario eats potentially-dangerous mushrooms, kills turtles by stomping on their heads and does incredibly stupid stunts, such as jumping over bottomless pits and sliding down flag poles. I think it's time we slap a "not suitable for anyone" rating on the game.
I don't think parents are overprotected; I think they are being cautious. Of course I would rather see a more complex rating system for movies and games. Basically it could have on the front of the box something like this:
l **
i *
v *
e
s ***
That is v is violence, s is sexual themes, l is language, e is for evil or demonic themes, and i is illegal or harmful behavior. Then underneath it could highlight some of the things parents should be cautious about in the movie or game.
Thus we can take a game such as Zelda.
l
i
v **
e *
s
Contains Mild Fantasy Violence
Contains Ghosts
Parents can then judge right away whether the want that game. Just as another example we can take Sonic Adventure 2: Battle
l *
i *
v **
e *
s *
Contains Mild Lyrics
Contains Resisting Authorities
Contains Fantasy Violence
Contains Sports like Violence
Contains Mild Romantic Themes
If we used a rating system like that, parents could more easily pick out the right movie/games for thier kids based upon their moral values of what kids should be exposed to.
Tween was coined by J.R.R. Tolkien in LOTR as a hobbit between the ages of 20 and 32. That is, a hobbit too old to be a Teen and to young to be considered adult, thus Be'tween'. Thus, the term tween somewhat predates Mary Kate and Ashley
What is acceptable for 16-year-olds isn't necessarily acceptable for my 16-year-old. What is acceptable for 10-year-olds isn't necessarily acceptable for my 10-year-old.
The basic flaw of age-based rating systems - this in includes movies, too - is that parents should know their kids best and determine what is most appropriate for them. A Mormon 13-year-old probably is going to be scandalized by relatively tame material.
That's why ratings should be based on content - language, sexuality, violence, etc. That way, that special population who think it's okay for games and movies to contain gratuitous violence, but absolutely no sex know which games to buy their children.
Indeed. Summed up my thoughts exactly, and even added the footnote I was going to include. ;-)
To continue that thought though, I might add that I was brought up in a free thinking environment, and I was free to watch, play, or read anything I wanted as soon as I was old enough to do so. (About 5 years old). My parents chose not to simply shelter me from the "bad stuff" like most parents, but to give me guidance on that sort of thing instead. As a result, I grew up much more prepared for the world than my peers.
I personally wish that the world would do away with the archaic belief that sex, violence, and profanity are unfit for children to know about. I believe that knowledge is power, and kids should have all that they want.
But yes, my original point was that there's absolutely nothing wrong with SSBM, and it just irritated the hell out of me to see parents blindly following the ratings without using any other form of judgement. I believe that people should think for themselves instead of just trying to get some letter on a box to think for them.
I overheard this conversation in my local Target while I was trying to find something to spend a gift card on.
Girl: Um....What about this one?
Mother: Diabolo? Isn't that a devil game? Why don't you get a book with your money instead? All these games are too violent.
Girl: But I want a game! Oh, I like this one, mommy! (Picking up a copy of Roller Coaster Tycoon.)
Mother: (sarcastic) Are you sure? But you don't kill anybody in this one. (Puts RCT back on the shelf, picks up a copy of Spider-Man 2.) How about this one? You can kill this guy on the box here.
Similarly, when my boyfriend showed his mother the gameplay in Animal Crossing, she said, "I bet nobody really plays this game. It doesn't have any shooting." It's a sad thing when the parents are so convinced that video games are bad, they go after the violent games because they can't think of games having any other appeal. Geesh.
A strain of paranoid prevention can be worse than the disease, whate'er the intention.