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."

Comments

ok...

[NanoGator]

"... 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.

Re:ok...

[Seumas]

Exactly. That most parents ignore the ratings doesn't correlate to most parents divorcing themselves from being involved in choosing what their children play. Believe it or not, a little violence or even a little sex is not going to fuck a kid up and most parents know this.

I watched Nightmare on Elmstreet and other films when I was about four years old. I saw hardcore porn when I was six to eight in magazines. And I've been checking out some pretty hardcore stuff online since about 1989. Some of it disturbingly perverse and wrong (you know, the kind of stuff friends trick you into clicking on without telling you that scat, horses or hammers and nails are involved).

Guess what? I've never committed a violent crime. I've never held up a convenience store. I've never abused a woman or mistreated a woman. I'm a completely normal person earning a great living in a respectable career with no more or worse personal issues than your average fellow.

Kids are more robust and versatile than people give them credit for. Your kid will not become braindead and stupid by listening to differing opinions and he won't become a rapist because he saw a boob or saw someone having sex and he sure won't become a murderer because he saw violence on television or a videogame or read about it in a book.

Unless my kids were fucking idiots, I would assume that they have the mental faculties to discern fantasy from reality and let them enjoy their videogames. It's no big deal.

Re:ok...

[DrSkwid]

Of course, the inability to see what harm it did you might be a symptom of the harm it did you.

ESA

[VermifugeRT]

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.

Re:ESA

[AstrumPreliator]

Or perhaps they do care but they think their child is mature enough to handle more adult oriented games. Couldn't that also be a possibility?

In Australia...

[trawg]

... 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.

Re:In Australia...

[Seumas]

Using ages is pointless. In fact, having a rating system at all is ridiculous.

Just list, briefly, what is in the game and in what context. Let me decide if my kid (at whatever age) is ready for that material. I don't need to be told what is appropriate for the "average" 15 year old. Just tell me if it has sex or drugs or violence or crude language or nudity or anything else and then to what degree. Is it mild? Suggested? Comical? Gratuitous?

This would be far more useful.

Then again, I think my kid would be far more damaged by having a knife pulled on him in school or having classmates doing drugs around him. It's not what in the videogames that concerns me, but what he would have to face in real life. If parents only knew what their kids were dealing with these days, they would understand just how ridiculous and silly it is to be concerned with a god damn *videogame*.

Really no excuse

[Dark Paladin]

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").

The usual senario...

[MagicDude]

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).

Parents are just big kids

[newsblaze]

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.

"Games are for kids"

[ymgve]

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.

My Nephew and his games

[tod_miller]

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

Ok, then you tell me what harm was done

[Moraelin]

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.

My two cents..

[Sagewolf]

As someone who has worked in both game stores(Gamestop & Babbages) and a music store(FYE). Most parents don't read the game boxes, read the rating information, or really know what their child is buying. There are the parents that will flip the box over and read the back of the box or have read about the game beforehand, but those are rare. Most parents hangout near the counter waiting for their child to grab their game or music so that they can pay for it and be on their way. A majority of the time it's just the kid in the store buying the game or music why mom & dad are shopping elsewhere or they've dropped their kids off at the mall and leave.

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.