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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."
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.