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A Decrease in M-Rated Sales to Kids
hammersuit writes "GameDaily Biz reports on a new undercover FTC study. From the article: 'Forty-two percent of the secret shoppers - children between the ages of 13 and 16 - who attempted to buy an M-rated video game without a parent were able to purchase one. In the 2003 shop, 69 percent of the shoppers were able to buy one. National sellers were much more likely to restrict sales of M-rated games. Only 35 percent of the secret shoppers were able to purchase such games there. Regional or local sellers sold M-rated games to the shoppers more frequently - 63 percent of the time.'"
I was in a Best Buy yesterday looking at PSP games and I noticed a mother pushing a son in a stroller and another kid of about 9 and she had GTA: Liberty City Stories in her hand. She was going to buy it for the 9 year old. Personally, I think there's only so much legislators can expect these ratings to do, and then they just have to let it go because they've given parents the information and the rest belongs out of their hands.
Anyone else see it as a good thing that the kids can't get these games without parental permission?
No, and not for the obvious "Stick it to da man" reason...
Parents have the responsibility of teaching their kids to do the right thing not just in a safe, isolated environment, but on their own and with temptation aplenty.
It might make it easier to look like a good parent if Little Billy never even has the opportunity to drink, smoke, swear, or look at porn, but it doesn't teach Billy anything at all (or worse, teaches him to look forward to his Day of Freedom when he can finally overindulge in the forbidden fruit).
Personally, I see a kid buying a video-game his parents wouldn't approve of as a WONDERFUL opportunity to teach him a hell of a lesson - When the parents catch him with it, they can make him take it and put it in the shredder page by page, disc by disc, destroying 50+ dollars of his own hard-earned money. You just don't get that same kind of lesson from a shopkeeper telling him to take a hike.
1. All the violence in Typing of the Dead is ridiculous and not serious. I mean the characters are walking around with keyboards, Dreamcasts, and giant Coppertop batteries on their backs. The voice acting is the kind of thing that in a movie would be MST3K fodder. I consider this to be an "over-protective soccer mom" 'M' and not a realistic 'M.'
2. It will be useful for this girl turn learn how to type when she is writing term papers, typing computer code, or writing her first novel. I'd like her to get started as early as possible. I learned to type playing Infocom games (I gave her those, too... but I worry they just can't hold the kids' attention these days, sadly.)
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
The movie theater I worked for, for two years, was draconian about restricting underagers from rated R movies. It was a fairly strict rule that no children under 12 - no matter what - were allowed in after 6PM. People in a rated R film typically don't want little kids screaming and crying and crapping their pants in the middle of a film. The managers were always looking for people trying to bypass the ticket taker, and if they spotted someone they'd go yank em out of a movie.
Ushers, especially on new release rated R films, would take tickets at the door and check IDs of everyone who looked under 30.
Working in the box office, I checked the ID of everyone under 30 - unless they were getting a student discount with a college ID. Not over 17, not getting in. One time a box office employee sold an R ticket to a kid under 17, the kid's parents got hysterical later on in the week and went to the general manager about it. That employee was fired (they could tell by the ticket stub which register it was printed at). It's probably not the same at all theaters - but our theater was extremely good about not letting kids into rated R flicks. It's not just about the content - it's about giving the people who are ALLOWED to be in there a decent moviegoing experience. Kids under 18 tend to be louder, tend to talk more during the film, and generally be a nuisance. The worst movies, with the most complaints about people talking during them, with the most crap lying around on the floor afterward, were always the PG-13 films. I really learned a severe disdain for the typical middle and high school groups of kids... really, the worst.