Parents 'ignore game age ratings'

Jim Hall writes "With all the fervor recently over the 'Hot Coffee' mod and the upcoming 'Bully' game, I found it interesting that no press time seems to have been given to this little gem from the BBC: Parents 'ignore game age ratings'. I think most of us agree that the games are already rated appropriate to their audience - GTA:SA was previously rated "M" (17 and up) in the US, before public outcry forced the ESRB to move it to "AO" (18 and up). However, as this article points out, parents are more concerned about children spending too many hours playing games, rather than about what type of title they were playing."

Comments

Re:Their lives are too stressful to pay attention!

[Ironsides]

Studies have shown that games do increase aggression in kids. Maybe not to the levels that incite violent crime, but probably things like schoolyard fights. I suppose you could argue that things like that don't matter to society, but that would be a little shortsighted, IMO. If keeping some snot-nosed kid from having one video game will stop another kid from being bullied at school, isn't that worth it? All I'm saying is that just because a game doesn't lead a kid to murder doesn't mean it has no effect on anyone.

I wonder what they would make of me then. I was one of the ones who would get bullied at school al the time. I then went home and took it out on the characters in the first person shooters or the pins at the bowling alley. It helped me cool off steam instead of punching someone in the nose.