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Parents Ignore Age Ratings?
GamesIndustry.biz has news of a ELSPA-funded research project that indicates that parents do not pay attention to ratings when purchasing games. From the article: "According to Freund, the study found a high awareness of the existence of videogame age ratings both among young gamers and among their parents - but parents tend to 'divorce themselves' from active involvement in deciding what their children play."
"... but parents tend to 'divorce themselves' from active involvement in deciding what their children play."
My dad didn't have any problem with me seeing R rated movies or playing violent video games at a young age. Was he 'divorced' from it? Eh, maybe. On the other hand, I never gave him a reason to worry.
So what bearing does my anecdote have on anything? Nothing terribly substantial, other than GTA3 sold over 30 million copies yet there has been like 2 incidents blamed on it.
"Derp de derp."
Interesting. I was recently reading the 2004 report issued by theESA(Entertainment Software Association) and it claims some 92% of parents are present at the time games are purchased or rented. Additionally, some 87% of children get parental permission before purchasing or renting a video game.
These statistics are compiled from a dozen or so gaming companies such as Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, EA and others. I'm guessing the data could be slightly skewed to paint a more favorable picture. Though I'm more include to believe parents, on average, just don't care what kind of games there children are playing.
... the OFLC (Office of Film and Literature Classification) has just changed the classification markings system for games and movies - they now both use the same markings and have the same rating systems (though video games don't have a 'restricted' rating yet, which means anything harsher than an MA15+ gets refused classification - but that's a whole different kettle of fish).
Part of the reason for doing this was to make it more obvious for parents when buying games for their kids that they might not be suitable. I guess its for those stupid parents that don't actually excercise critical thinking when they pick up a box of Deathstalker V: The Bloodening. Now they can clearly see its got a red sticker on it and will (theoretically) be more inclined to realise that it is Bad For Kids, because they remember that the red sticker is for grown-ups, because they saw it at the movies.
I think its a good idea and hopefully those parents that would otherwise blindly buy their kids unsuitable titles will think about it a little bit more.
I mean, pretty much every store I've seen has the ESRB ratings inside with warnings on them. Personally, I think the issue is that too many parents expect someone else to just tell them what to do. Myself and a friend of mine were in a software store when a kid walked in (9 years old) wanting to buy Soldier of Fortune. We actually took the 5 seconds to point out the easily readable sign and explain why something like "Diablo" (T for Teen) was more acceptable for his age perhaps, or something like that.
I'm not necessarily against laws regarind video games as long as they're logical and thought out (example: M rated games behind the counter? Makes sense. M rated games 5 feet above the floor? Stupid, and discriminating against short people.) But until we have parents at least make the minimal effort, I don't want to hear them bitching.
This said as a father of three children who plays games with the little rug rats (we've finished "Ocarina of Time" and, after a bout with "Paper Mario" will be hitting "Chrono Trigger").
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Scene: Mother walking through Wal-Mart with 1-3 eight year old brats in tow.
"Mommy, buy me this" "No"
"Mommy, buy me this" "No"
"Mommy, buy me this" "No"
"Mommy, buy me this" "No"
"Mommy, buy me this" "No"
"Mommy, buy me this" "No"
"Mommy, buy me this" "No"
"Mommy, buy me this" "No"
"Mommy, buy me this" "OK!! OK!! Just STFU!!" (Que other shop patrons looking agast at loud use of foul language.)
Checkout Clerk - "Ma'am, do you know that Grand Theft Auto 3 is a mature rated game, more suitable for kids in their mid to late teens?"
Mother - "Whatever, as long as they aren't having sex with hookers and then beating the hookers up, it's fine"
Checkout Clerk - "Well, actually, you..."
Mother (interupting) - "Tyler, put that lamp down this instant" (runs off with merchandise).
And many of them don't take any responsibility for anything, including taking care of or managing their kids.
At some stage, parents may realise they aren't doing their kids any favors. But maybe never.
Then they wonder why their kids are little shits and why their friends don't want to socialize as much any more.
PS. I am over 50 and I am still a kid and a geek.
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Parents, teachers, and nosey bystanders worry too much. Kids know the difference between game violence and real violence, and use games as a safe outlet for their frustrations. Every day, thousands of innocent little children are tricked into clicking goatse links in web forums. A violent game isn't going to do any harm, nor is a rated R movie. Chances are they know what violence is, they know what profanity is, and they've more than once practiced both without having learned it from games or the media.
I ignore those ratings.
Then again, I personally check into the games and movies my children get.
My friends, reviews and my own two eyes are much more accurate than those ratings, plus I know the maturity level of each of my children.
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
The problem is that you can't pin the blame for this on ignorance or bad parenting. I think a huge part of the problem is that parents don't equate games with other forms of entertainment, like movies. They still think of games as something that's only for children, and then ratings are ignored. "Yeah, it says eighteen, but it must be OK, because it's a GAME, and those are made for kids, right?" This also explains the huge outrage that leads to headlines like "Hookers getting killed in video game", while no recent newspaper has had a headline of "Hookers getting killed in latest movie".
This misconception will be hard to change, but hopefully it will be gone in a generation, when us modern gamers become parents ourselves.
I recently went out and got video games for, my older sisters kid (8), my little brother (12) and my little sister (16). I ignored the ratings. Hell, I didn't even check the ratings. Why?
1) The ratings are stupid to begin with. Who decided what a "teen" game is. Who in the hell decided that "cartoon violence" is a 10+ game? Trying to set some magical age barrier up is stupid. I knew a girl who was 22 and couldn't sit through an PG-13 rated movie because her parents had so thoroughly sheltered her. My little brother on the other hand had no problems watching Blade with me and following it up by reading a dozen vampire books. Trusting a some foolish rating system to raise your kids is lazy.
2) I checked into the games myself. I didn't use the stupid rating system. I learned what each game before I bought it. Glacing at their website and hitting up a review only takes a couple of minutes. Hell, the back of the box should give you a pretty friggin good idea.
So, does the stat that most parents ignore the ESRB ratings mean anything? No. Show me a stat showing that parents are ignorant as to what they are buying and there might be some valid point in there (that point being some parents are lazy). Just showing that people ignore the worthless ESRB ratings is just stupid.
My Nephew, IMHO, does have an unhealthy gaming life, he plays too many games, but sadly, there are others who play even more games than him. (there is just an inbalance)
Anyway, he goes out and swaps / buys games once a month, he is 10.
He comes back with an R game, it just looked like some cool sports game, I think it was one of those 'scaintily clad pixels' games.
His choices do get vetted, and I think it is hypocritical to allow children to role play cowboys and indians, and then to be worried about the colour of blood in a computer game.
Needless to say, this game was taken off him before he could play it, but the reasons were explained nicely.
If GTA* series would allow parental locks two things would happen:
The game could ship with blood turned off, and swearing and lewdness, the parent could lock this. Why? WHY? you will say.
Well, because, just like the SIX BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR THE TOBACCO COMPANIES MAKE ON UNDERAGE SMOKING IN THE US ALONE computer games will be sold to people under the advised limit.
Also, you might want to play this game, with sound, in a house which has you children and "Yo mother fucker n* lets take this whoring bitch and fuck her ass good" might not be a great cut scene to have play across your 6.1's.
Now, R* deliberately put lots of non-violent adult themes to force the issue of adult nature.
i.e. no body complains too much about porn, but that is because it is only generally *very* interesting to those entering adult hood anyway, because of biology.
Violence definately attracts the young, and kids immitate EVERYTHING from mortal combat to GTA. Cowboys and Indians becomes Da Boyz and Da Pigz, bow and arrows and romanticised rifles become 9's and uzis.
Instead of smoking the peace pipe, they eerr, smoke the peace crack pipe.
It does affect children, children always pick up on what is acceptable, and the more loose the boundaries are, the less they can work it out.
It is arrogant for US (people who are currenlty over 20) to have an opinion on what makes people violent, in our forming years the graphics were SHIT. A reason why many parents who do not think about these things, don't realise the realism involved.
So, unless you have an NVidia geforce chipset when you were 10, shut the fuck up complaining about the courts and parent groups concerned about violent video games: you cannot prove they are not sold to kids, they can, as a player (PLAYA) of violent video games, I appreciate their concerns.
Now for once, take a balanced view. (that goes for pennyarcade too - they are a rack short of a hosting server if you ask me - defend the right to play violent games, not the violent games themselves - let the fuckers at EA games, who make fuckloads of cash spend some of it ensuring the violence doesn't reach children)
-1 going against the grain
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So I too grew with a bunch of violence on TV. My parents had some... unorthodox views regarding censoring TV. For example, I was allowed to see wild west movies (lynchings, shootings and all), on account that there the good guys always win.
I saw my first horror movie on VHS at the age of 10. Two of them, in fact. My brother was 6 at the time. Okay, so he was scared into shock. I was a little more robust, presumably on account of being older.
Even earlier, we occasionally had the honour of seing grandma chop the head off a chicken to make food, on the summer vacation in the country. Oooer. Now that was a crying festival for me and my brother.
(Which brings me to another question: the why the heck is it OK for the kids to watch Tom And Jerry and other violent cartoons? One thing I still remember is that kids are very good at anthropomorphising. See the crying festival for the chicken, or when grandma's cat got poisoned. So why isn't anyone worried then about violent cartoons?)
Etc.
So more than two decades later, I haven't killed anyone, haven't assaulted anyone, and generally I haven't even had a jaywalking ticket yet. I'm a firm believer in, well, what can be best described as a "lawful good" approach to the world. Though even that most likely due to mom preaching that, than because of those western movies.
Ditto about my brother.
An older family friend, now that was a bit more nuts. Taught his 2 year old son to play Wolfenstein 3D. (Not "Return To".) I doubt that the poor kid even understood what was happening there, but did as good a job of spraying lead everywhere with the machinegun as the stereotypical gangster-movie mobster.
As far as I know, the kid hasn't killed or assaulted anyone yet.
So, well, ok, I'm willing to take your point that maybe I'm blinded to whatever grievous damage all that did to me, my brother or the other kid mentioned. Well, then you tell me, please: _what_ symptoms should I be looking for?
Because so far it seems to me like while, yes, a game or a movie (Tom And Jerry cartoons included) _can_ give someone ideas and questions, those ideas (or any other ideas) don't exist in a vaccuum. They're judged and fit into the general framework that that person has. As a kid, the framework that their parents and environment gave them.
You're not an automaton which simply executes anything without thinking. If you played a game about jumping off bridges (e.g., City Of Heroes heroes never die when falling), you won't just jump off a bridge to get down faster. Even if the idea does briefly come to mind (I'll admit, it did come to _my_ mind), it'll be judged against that framework you have, filed under "you'd break your legs or die if you tried that", and dismissed.
So for someone to get influenced by, say, GTA (a game which explicitly tells you that that stuff is illegal) to the point where they get their parent's gun and shoot a car driver, that framework must be deffective or largely missing to start with. If a game explicitly tells someone "this stuff is illegal. It's a crime. It can get the cops all over you" and they still do it, you have to wonder if the whole meaning of "illegal" and "crime" was missing from their mental model.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
My cousin, it turns out, bought Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for her eleven-year-old son.
When I heard that, it was all I could do to avoid doing a double-take. Mind you, she wasn't very concerned that he was interested in Dungeons & Dragons, which I had attributed to being rather cool of her (this is a region in which, to most folk, D&D all but equals Forces Of Ultimate Darkness).
I don't know if she knows what the game's about or anything, or that it's filled with profanity, or contains situations very inappropriate for children -- you see, I don't think exposure to games like this warp kids' minds, but I am a bit concerned with the impression that what is depicted within is somehow normal, or even right, and kids *are* suceptable to that, especially when, on the schoolyard, they encounter other kids who'll try to emulate the behaviour patterns seen in games and movies in an effort to see "cool."
What could I do against that kind of thing? Only thing I could: I brought over Katamari Damacy, and nearly flipped when I saw his jaw drop open when he saw the last level would take the humble ball from 1 meter all the way to 300m, and beyond. When he saw that the very island on which the level began would become part of the ball by the end....
You're probably wondering how can this be any kind of remedy to GTA? It's simple: it's all about perspective. Just like Katamari Damacy is about how the world looks different, and yet suspeciously similar, when viewed at 5cm and 200m. It's all about exposing kids to as many different influences as they can get, making sure they get to see the really cool and unique along with the crap with which our culture is filled, and trusting that they'll be able to sort it all out for themselves.
So, I really think Katamari Damacy should be played in schools.
A few days later you get an angry parent yelling at you and demanding a refund for selling an "inappropriate" game or music to their little angel of a child. Riiight..so now it's my(the retailers) fault. Not your fault for failing to read the box, and not your little angels fault for picking the game up knowing what the games content is. Hell, if mom or dad took a look at the box art it might have helped them get a clue. Take GTA3 : San Andreas http://azz.gouranga.com/images/sa/sa_boxart_big.jp g. I think the guy's leaning out of the car shooting would have been the first big clue as to the game content along with the blonde bending over licking her lips suggestivily, but that's just me.
Parents need to start getting involved with their kids activities. I grew up playing games and I still play them, but when i was younger my mother watched what I bought. If she didn't like I wasn't allowed to buy or play it. When she found my Doom floppies she took a magnet to them, but a year later I was able to play it in her eyes. Just the last week she called me up to ask if my fiance and I are planning on getting an Xbox 360. She's in her 50's and I'm 30 and she's still has a clue about my interests and even recommend a good wireless router.
My nine-going-on-ten year old loves his PS2, moreso since I put a wireless bridge on it so he can play games online. I buy his games, and I always look at the ratings; but then I consider what kind of game it is too. I'll even let him play M rated games depending on the circumstances. For instance, he loves Return to Castle Wolfenstein, which is rated M for truly horrid looking creatures, ghastly Nazi experiments, and scary stormtroopers. But it's basically Indiana Jones meets a horror movies. He can handle that, so Wolfenstein is in. He asked for Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, however, and Daddy said "Hell No". Because, in my parental opinion, the former game is sci-fi/horror fantasy, and the latter glorifies real criminal behavior. That's my call as a father to make. He also can't have God of War because it supposedly contains some pretty explicit sexual scenes, so that's out.
The parent has to use their best judgement. My nephew isn't allowed to play Wolfenstein type games (he's the same age as my son) because he's still terrirfied of things that go bump in the night. You can't take that kid to a horror movie. He curls up and covers his eyes. So his parents act accordingly with his computer entertainment.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel