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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."
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.
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."
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.
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
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?