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The ESRB Bites Back
Next Generation has an interview with ESRB president Patricia Vance, who is not taking the criticism of the Board lying down. From the article: "There are people who just don't believe in self regulation. They don't believe that an industry can regulate itself, even though there are plenty of examples of successful regulatory bodies out there, including the film business."
Mind you I'm not trying to be particularly argumentative, but blanket statements don't really lead to productive discussion, examples do.
If forums teach us anything, it is that logic and critical thinking should be required courses in the public schools.
Showing the movie ratings as an example of successful self regulation probably isn't the best argument to give a guy who blamed an R rated film (Basketball Diaries) for the murderous behavior of a 14 year old murderer.
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Open Source Sysadmin
You can hide content in a game, you can't hide footage on a reel.
Yes, all of this is up to the parents, which is why any adult (society consider only adults to be parents) can buy those things and offer them to its child. The sale of those articles to minors is restricted, but what parents offer to their children is up to them.
In that same logic, i would not oppose a law that would enforce the ESRB ratings. The ratings themselves are great, a lot more detailed that the movie ones and so far, they have been quite exact (even for GTA: SA. What part of Strong sexual content is not clear to those people?).
Part of the problem seems to be that sales are pretty much unregulated, so any kid can go into a shop and buy anything.
The game creation industry might do everything right, put warnings on the labels and carefully ensure that their game doesn't exceed the rating they want to put on it, but if the sales staff at the local shop hand out copies of Doom III to ten-year-olds, then the rating system is completely in vain.
There should be a crackdown on the sales of games to minors too young to meet the rating age requirements. Enforcing that system at the point of sale would do a lot to help strengthen the image of the gaming industry.
Also, a strong rating system at point of sale means that if little Timmy goes off the rails because he played Quake 47 too much, then the parents can be asked who bought the game for him. If he can't have bought it, then...
And the content creation industry itself could do a lot to avoid being targeted. The hidden content revealed by the Hot Coffee mod was a truly stupid thing to do in many ways. If it's not part of the game, don't ship the content. Shipping sexual content in a video game, even hidden away and requiring a mod to uncover, will raise an army of parents screaming "think of the children" faster than Jack Thompson claims harassment when someone criticises him.
The industry has an image that it needs to protect. A bad image means that at some point it will be regulated from outside. If you don't mind that so much, imagine Hilary Clinton and Jack Thompson appointing a board to regulate game content. That's a worst-case scenario, but it's all about public perception.
and jack thompson is a twat so what of it?
the kids who shot up columbine did it because they were fucked up kids not because they played video games. if violent video games caused kids to be killers there would be a rise in homicide rates among young teens at school, but there is no such rise linkable to the invention and wide-spread appeal of video games
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
the MPAA IS run by members of the industry
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Jack Thompson would say that the kids who got shot at Columbine weren't raised by shit parents, the kids who did the shooting were.
These are the kids who they say trained on Doom, right?
Doom (the game) was released in 1993.
The ESRB was founded in 1994.
Columbine happened in 1999, but has it been determined whether Harris (18) or Klebold (17) acquired the game, if he bought it, it was bought for him by a parent, or if it was pirated?
Until that is determined, I don't want to hear anything about ESRB self-regulation failures in the context of Columbine, because you're going to be hard pressed to find grounds for it to have been rated AO.
BTW, Doom's content ratings: USA: M (T for Game Boy Advance version) and UK: 15. You know what? Everyone can just STFU about Doom and Columbine from now on.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
because rap music and rock and roll are illegal now? shit i must have missed it jack thompson is as much a joke in D.C. as he is to the rest of us
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
The most well-known example is the furore over Soldier of Fortune.
The game was marketed from conception to release as an adults-only product, unsuitable for children. Yet when the Canadian authorities officially classed it as adults-only (so it could not legally be sold to children) there was a court case to get the decision over-turned.
The logical conslusion, to my mind, is that the publisher wanted it to be legal to sell the game to children because they wanted children to buy it.
It was a ridiculous situation. We had a supposedly self-regulated industry imposing an age restriction on a game, and then taking a government to court over its support for that age restriction! It was almost as if the game's publisher was using the ESRB rating as some kind of cynical marketing device... but surely that couldn't be true?
No-one argues that the kids who shot up Columbine were fucked up, and that their parents were responsible for raising such fucked up kids. Violent video games were just one contributing factor in the creation of these little monsters. What parents are calling for in the US is government regulation to ensure kids get "raised right". They want kids who get raised with an attitude that violence is ok in society to be taken away from their parents. They want this to protect their children. I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying that's where it is going.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I was just under the impression that they didn't want any sort of violent anything produced. Ever.
A child raised (raised meaning 'brought up by their parents') to believe that violence is ok, and then being taken away from said parents is worlds apart from 'stopping video game makers from creating a video game with any sort of violence'. I'm all for the first one; if a parent can't raise their kid, take the kid away. But I'm against the second part; don't take away the video games just because one kid was raised wrong and went psychotic, and happened to play the game.
Jack Thompson and his ilk have the second one as their goal. Not the first.
"If Common Sense was so common, it wouldn't be such a valued trait."
Was it just the publisher of Soldier of Fortune that brought the court case together, or was it the industry itself? Maybe the ESRB, the EFF, or their Canadian equivilants did it, because the ratings system as it existed was already in place, and there was no need for further rating?
There's also a difference between 'Mature' games, which I believe Soldier of Forture was rated, and 'Adults Only' games. Mature carries the conotation that it's violent, or dark, or moody. Something like Apocalypse Now. And at least in America, you can still get Wal*Mart and Best Buy to stock Mature-rated games. But Adults Only carries the connotation that it's pornographic, like Debbie Does Dallas, and Wal*Mart and Best Buy refuse to carry it.
The logical conclusion in my mind is that the publisher didn't want it's game to be labelled pornographic, and kept out of the major retailers, cutting into it's profits. If they had a marketting campaign that focused on the fact that Soldier of Forture was NOT a kid's game, there was no need for the authorities to classify it as Adults Only; the Canadian ESRB (or do they use the American one?) and the advertising campaign would have been enough to inform parents that this game was not for children.
There is a difference between pedalling to children, and making sure your bottom line isn't slaughtered by uptight government officials.
"If Common Sense was so common, it wouldn't be such a valued trait."
No, they don't. They want the games kept out of the hands of children. They don't give a shit about whether or not adults want to play the games. But like everything in our society, parents fuck it up. The number of people in our society who are actually qualified to raise children is minimal. Generally that's not a big deal, as a fucked up kid is more of an annoyance than a burden on society, but when kids start killing other kids, the parents of the slain want the parents of the killers to be held responsible. So long as parents have the right to raise their kids any way they see fit some parents will continue to raise monsters. I don't think it is too extreme to suggest that parents should be prohibited from raising their children in certain ways. Quite a number of things are considered "abuse" and to suggest that exposing your children to hyperviolent interactive media is also abuse is hardly a stretch.
Of course, I don't have kids (thank God) so I'm more than willing to trade the rights of parents to maintain my own right to buy violent video games.
How we know is more important than what we know.
"the advertising campaign would have been enough to inform parents that this game was not for children"
Anecdotal evidence (which is all I have) is that only a minority of parents exercise enforcement of age ratings. And children who are not allowed to buy adult games can still get hold of the games by borrowing them from a friend, playing them at a friend's house, etc.
The situation as it stands at the moment (with self-regulation that doesn't regulate) is that marketing a game as not-for-children is a great way of making it desirable to children, and the age rating does little to stop children from buying the game.
You are right. They don't give a shit whether or not adults want to play the games; they feel that the games are an affront to their god, and should not be created, period, end of story.
A parent raising a kid the wrong way, and developers making violent video games are two exclusive actions; take away the violent video games, and you'll still have parents raising their kids the wrong way.
And as for the 'parents of the slain wanting the parents of the killers to be held responsible', did anyone actually try sueing the parents of those two kids from Columbine? I remember the parents of the victims going after Smith & Wesson (the guns), id (Doom), Sony (Playstation), the Wachoski siblings (Matrix- that's why they wore the trenchcoats!), Anne Rice (Moody vampire stuff, she has to be involved!), and the makers of Sharpee markers (black markers! They wrote in their notebooks with black markers!), but nothing about going after the parents who ignored their obviously mentally unstable children (or the jocks that made their lives living hell, or the school that let it happen, for that matter)...
"If Common Sense was so common, it wouldn't be such a valued trait."
That makes me wonder - what would the film industry do if someone tried to pass a state law making it illegal for minors to watch, purchase, or rent R-rated movies.
At least where I am, plenty of retailers have a policy on this, but there is no actual law about it.
they feel that the games are an affront to their god, and should not be created, period, end of story.
Where do you get this stuff from?
or the jocks that made their lives living hell,
That was my initial reaction, but it's the easy way out. They didn't just kill jocks, they killed anyone they could.
How we know is more important than what we know.
That's the parents fault then, not that of the publisher/developer.
But then again, I'm not the developer/publisher for Soldier of Fortune, nor am I their marketing department. So I can't tell you that no, they were not specifically trying to get the games into the hands of kids. Then again, you are not any of those bodies, so you cannot try and tell me that selling violence to children was the only reason they brought the suit forward and got the adults only classification overturned.
But it is easier to assume, in a multi-billion dollar industry, that they'd be more apt to go after something that would possibly cut them out of a huge chunk of the market (game rated adults only, and therefore no longer carried by the bulk of the retail chains, and therefore no longer easily accessible to the adults it is intended for), then it is to believe that they were trying to specifically get kids to play the game.
The video game industry is in it for the money. That's the bottom line; their bottom line. Johnny-Twelve-Year-Old does not readily have $50 to spend on a video game, so they are not the ones buying the games. Johhny's parents, on the other hand, do have $50 to spend on a video game, if they so choose. Clearly labelling the game as not for kids and marketting as not for kids is enough. It's not the government's place to do a parent's job for them, just because some parents can't be arsed to read the ratings and parent their own child.
"If Common Sense was so common, it wouldn't be such a valued trait."
Go read some of Jack's diatribe against the video game industry. If you listen to him, he's on a mission personally given to him by his god to go erradicate all the sinners in the video game industry. He's just the pointman and most vocal one of them, but from reading interviews with the rest of the anti-Video-Games people, it's pretty much the same sentiment: They are personally appalled at what these games are, so these games should not exist. It's not 'they shouldn't be allowed into the hands of children,' its not 'they should be regulated,' it's 'they should not be made.' Yeah, everyone throws up the 'think of the children!' argument, but that's just to further their cause.
That was my initial reaction, but it's the easy way out. They didn't just kill jocks, they killed anyone they could.
I read the interviews with the people that knew those two. They might have shot everyone they could get a bullet into, including themselves, but they were tormented in school by the jocks & the rest of the 'ruling body' of high school.
"If Common Sense was so common, it wouldn't be such a valued trait."
Man, just about everything taken from those interviews has been discredited. The whole "Trenchcoat Mafia" thing was wrong. The whole "Marlin Manson" thing was wrong. The anti-depressant warning issued by the FDA was wrong. As for being tormented by jocks, duh, that's what jocks are for. It's a fucked up part of US highschool society, but it's been that way for decades.
How we know is more important than what we know.
And, of course, we all know that things that have been around for decades never drive people off the handle. Only new forms of torment really bother people.
People who claim the ratings are bad are a vocal, idiotic minority. Most of the time critics can't even get it through their fucking skulls that the games they find such a terrible influence on children are almost always rated 'M', and NEVER MEANT FOR CHILDREN IN THE FIRST PLACE. This is obvious to anyone who has made an even cursory examination of the facts, yet remains mysteriously absent from mainstream public debate. Usually pointing this out results in a shifting ground fallacy attack, then claiming that these games are "advertised to kids". Uh, but we were talking about the ratings...
Are you talking about the ESRB or the ESA (Entertainment Software Association)? The ESRB is responsible for rating games and also vets advertizing for appropriateness, but the ESA as the video game industry policy organization I would figure to be responsible for these issues, like the ban on selling games to minors in California.
Though I agree with you. The industry, while I think the ratings are accurate, seems incapable of keeping mature games out of the hands of minors.
Don't forget, self-regulation has given us Standards and Practices for network(and cable) television, the comic book code(which killed things such as tales from the crypt), the MPAA(which routinely causes things to be cut), etc., etc.
Self-regulation is oooohhh so much better than government regulation thus far.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
Which brings us to another point which is that the parents should be paying attention what their children are playing, watching, and listening to. My manager at work has a 13 year old son who has a playstation 2 and an xbox. She keeps an eye on him, however, and after she got home from work one day she allowed her son to have a friend over.
As it turned out, his friend brought over GTA: Vice City. So his mother is walking around the house cleaning up and hears them say something about some "titties". I havent played the game, appearently there are strip clubs in it...but she took the game away and told the *other* kids parents, to keep HER sone from playing the game, and to make sure the other childs parents knew what was in it.
This is how its supposed to work. Its bad enough when parents by mature rated games for their kids without thought, its worse when they dont pay attention to what their children are playing or doing. My manager doesnt allow the consoles to babysit her kids and actively watches what they do when they play games, get online, watch tv and movies or listen to music, and if she doesnt approve of something *SHE* stops them from doing it.
Kids will always, always, always want to be entertained by content more mature than they should be enjoying. Violent games and movies, skin mags and music videos with dancing scantily-clad women, or music and tv with language they probably shouldnt be familiar with at such a young age. THIS IS NORMAL. Hell, I remember wanting to check out some playboys when i was 11, watch the predator when i was 7, and listen to music full of harsh language when i was 13.
Its still the parents job to make sure they approve of what their kid is doing, and to stop them when they dont. My parents didnt watch me, so I did most of what I wanted. When they complained, i pointed this out to them. Mom, you werent around to keep tabs on me, and shes not happy with the way i grew up. She gets to deal with it because she slacked-off as a mother. So will others, and no amount of bitching about ratings and what kids can or cant buy is going to change that parents have to be responsible and watch their kids *themselves*
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
I looked at porn when I was a kid, i have an aversion to drugs and excessive amounts of alcohol, and would probbly never hurt anyone unless they attacked me first. In fact id certainly never hurt anyone except in self-defense.
My parents brought me up to look low on drugs and heavy alcohol use (a glass of wine or a drink in the evenings is another thing entirely) and I decided on my own that violence is a terrible thing. But i played many violent games and have seen many violent movies; i was brought up to know the difference between reality and fiction, so the violence ive seen hasnt affected me. Yeah, i looked at porn. Youd be hard put to find a boy that didnt, and I dont feel that its ever affected me negatively, but it was techincally illegal.
So, a line is drawn in some places already. You should have known that, why ask the question the way you did? Whats important is your first question. Yes, parents have the right to decide whats appropriate for their kids, but if what they or their children do is illegal, they'll get caught at some point and have to face the law. Otherwise, if its not illegal, its probably fair game.
Some parents wouldnt agree with how you were raised, some wouldnt agree with how I was raised. Tough, our parents had a right to do it how they wished and this is how we turned out. Alcohol, drug and physical abuse hurt other people, thats why its illegal, thats why its wrong. Pornography is arguable by some, i suppose, but i consider it on another level from the above entirely. Society shouldnt have a say in what my kids watch, listen to, or play if its possible for it all to be taken in without hurting anyone.
I listened to outrageous music, watched television and movies with sexual overtones, and played alot of violent games. Im not a bad guy, have never hurt anyone, abused any substances, or been to jail for anything. I turned out ok, and so will my 2 kids, because *im* going to watch them and be responsible for them.
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
yes. That is WHY they are the parents. It's in their job description.
The Dutch will inherit the earth. If not, we'll settle for a bit of ocean. Beta delenda est!
Yes, you are one of those people who want the government to do everything for you right? Listen, they do a good job of self-regulation. I do not know many (if any) retailers that sell 'M' rated games to children. It is not the ESRB's fault or the fault of the retailers if kids wind up playing these games. It is the fault of their parents for not doing their job.
Let's look at the game rating system in the same light as the movie rating system. We have the 'AO' games. These arguably cover NC-17 which is a movies most dreaded rating because you just knocked out a lot of people who would otherwise not go see it. You also have the 'M' which more or less the 'R' of movie industry fame. Very, very few games ever get tabbed 'AO' and very few actually get 'M' ratings. If you take a peak at game sales the best selling games fall into the 'T' and lower category. So they are typically no worse then PG-13 movies, a rating only added after complaints about Temple of Doom and Gremlins, the first PG-13 movie being "Red Dawn" and the only reason anyone will ever remember that horrid movie, but I digress.
The point is this game violence issue is blown WAY out of proportion, and many parents didn't seem to mind their kids playing GTA until the 'Hot Coffee' BS. There is a line from South Park about this that basically says parent's don't care about violence when they have sex issues to worry about. Especially here in the good ol' US of A this is VERY TRUE. What is worse is that parents expect the government to protect their kids! Parents would rather hide behind a big rock and say keep that evil video game, movie, pornograph, etc. away from my child.
Inevitably parents shirk all responsibility because they do not want to have to worry about raising their children. Every generation has found something new to complain about. Almost 50 years ago is was rock and roll being 'devil music'. Now we have Rap taking its place. Anyone who has ever worked for a government will tell you why you don't want them regulating anything. The simple fact of the matter of it is they do a horrible job of regulating themselves.
Listen, whether the regulation is done by an independent group, like the movie industry, or by the government, like alcohol, there are still people who will beat the system. A kid who wants to see an 'R' rated movie can get another adult to take them, or wait for it to be out on DVD and use the same scenario. Trust me, I went to college and know for a fact that underaged drinking happens, and in high school is was underaged smoking. When someone really wants something, they will get it and blaming the industry and sticking the government into a place it does not belong is wrong. This is the same reason I hate government instituted smoking bans, because they have no place enforcing ideas and beliefs for any reason on private business and industry.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
Figuring out how many piece puzzles, board games, etc, are appropriate for their child to play but can't for the life of them see that "M" rating on the copy of GTA they bought for their 12 year old?
Blows my mind.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
And that impact is in jeopardy. As you know, The National Institute on Media and the Family has distanced themselves from Jack Thompson.
When he also attempted to attack Penny Arcade, readers sided with the Comic Strip instantly because of their much more professional persona (because they tactically controlled their use of profanity and insults much more than you-know-who.) The general reply was a suprising quantity of letters citing very specific violations of the Florida code of conduct, the removal of the e-mail addressees on you-know-what, and the closure of both JT's e-mail addresses.
There's also the fact that he is attempting to write a law similar to those that got stuck down. When it does, it just shows that policitians are wasting money on laws that quickly get struck down (especially since minors can just as easily pirate the game.)
Besides, Market self-regulation can work fine: Microsoft Windows Vista is including an operating system featre that can restrict access to games based on ESRB ratings (along with a closer finetuning.)
If parents don't care enough to monitor their kids activities, and allow them to buy/play inappropriate games, how is it that these same parents can then scream bloody murder about said games?
You don't get to have it both ways, mom. If your kid is playing an inappropriate game, ask yourself what you did to prevent it. It should be something better than "I expected the manufacturer..." if you want to have any credibility.
The ESRB is trying to do something that parents are too lazy to do for themsleves. Why are tese lazy parents being allowed to shirk their responsibility? And what lessons are they teaching their kids as a result?
I think this is partially a problem that the ESRB brougth on themselves - they have no distinction between pornography and adult material. No X vs NC-17. While it shouldn't matter (either way it requires an 18 year old to purchase) it does to the twitchy prudes. Whatever category hosts the porno games will be left off of store shelves in a blanket action.
Really, while I know that San Andreas isn't a kids' game, does it really belong in the same category as Battle Raper?
It seems like the middle ground would be the best solution here.
Enforce the ratings as they are now. Not 17 yet? Then you can't buy GTA:SA without your parent/guardian there. If they decide you can handle it, they can buy it and give it to you (just like anything else). It's up to parents to decide what's right for their children.
This goes for all retail outlets, and money isn't always an issue. My imaginary child might not have $50 to blow on a game all the time, but you can buy Manhunt used for $12. It's not unreasonable to think that a 14 year old would have enough money for a $12 game. It's not just Best Buy and Fry's that need to enforce the ratings, second-hand shops need to play by the same rules.
Ratings are ratings; it doesn't matter how old the game is or if it's fallen out of the public eye. A parent can buy a used game for their kid just as easily as they can buy a new one.
e2 | LJ
If the names Enron, Arthur Andersen, Global Crossing and Morgan Stanley don't mean anything to you, get over to Wikipedia and learn about self-regulation in action.
Of course, if you live in California and have ever paid an energy bill, then you know a little something already about allowing capitalists to govern themselves.
As for the ESRB: who could possibly take it seriously? It's just a PR front to hold off those who get queasy over the idea of children playing mass murder simulators. Stuffy types, bug off--American kids love mass murder.