This Year's MediaWise Videogame Report Card

Mercury News has the complete, unedited release of this year's MediaWise videogame report card. The bottom line of the release is that "Parents Can No Longer Ignore Their Children's Video Game Habits". Citing evidence that games are responsible for increased aggression and poor health, the report urges parents to take a more active role in their children's lives, and moderate their game usage. In many other areas of the report (which is typically quite negative) high marks were handed out. Gamespot has a synopsis of the findings. From that article: "Specialty game retailers were given an 'F' for allowing anyone to purchase titles rated M for Mature, despite whatever store policy might have been in place. Also, in a category that wasn't present in last year's report, the NIMF gave an 'incomplete' grade to Parental Involvement for the year. 'As the world of video games continues to evolve, parents are falling behind,' the group said in a statement. 'As we found last year, this year's parental survey uncovered an alarming gap between what kids say about the role of video games in their lives and what parents are willing to admit.'"

Comments

Who now?

[4solarisinfo]

If TV can't raise America's kids, and now Videogames can't either, who is left?

It's about time

[mahoneyj]

All I can say is it's about time the parents are being talked about here. I'm sick of everyone thinking the government should regulate what kids can and can't play (they do that with other things too, like abortion, and it's sickening). It's the job of the parents to raise their own children. Make sure the parents are informed and the games have the proper labels so everyone knows what the content is (which the game makers are doing). Then tell and let the parents do their job.

Re:It's about time

[SirSlud]

If I had mod points, you'd be looking at a -1 for yet another useless, invalid, irrelevant 'damn government regulation' whine. The government should regulate these things because the fact of the matter is some parents *don't* give a shit about their kids and the government should and tries, and to varying degrees of success, DOES, provide a safety net to children (and other exploited citizens) where their parents or their community fails them.

People like you miss the point; the 'regulations' are not meant to absolve parents of their responsibility, and they don't excuse parental indifference or outright failure of responsibility, but are meant to provide a decent fallback for children who are failed by their parents.

Do you think government funded at-risk youth centers should be shut down because it encourages parents to kick their children out of the home? Should we scrap the age requirement for drivers licenses because parents should be the sole determinator of when their children are of a suitable age to drive? No amount of "its the parents responsibility" hand-wringing excuses somebody from failing to support reasonable external guidelines to childrens' access to unsuitable material.

I'm not talking about the first amendment here, because nobody is talking about making laws. But your 'its the job of the parents' lament is a common false dichotomy of any discussion in which multiple parties share responsibility for the health of citizens. Its the job of the parents, the community, the local government, and the federal government. Plenty of law related regulation is perfectly valid as it applies to age suitability; think driving, voting, sex, etc. Some parents fail their kids, and some kids actively succeed in nullifying their parents judgement. So whats so wrong about laws being a reasonable and positive last resort? I think your problem lies more with *what* those laws are, not that they exist, which renders your blanket grudge with regulation somewhat disingenuous.

heh

[moheezy]

What do you know... The best substitute for old fashioned parenting is... old fashioned parenting.

Duh

[ZWarrior]

Look, this isn't really anything different from the past few years. "The games are violent and kids are getting violent because of it" and "Parents are failing to monitor the kids play"... hmm could there be a link? Perhaps the problem isn't about the violence of the game, but rather a failure of parents to manage the kids time playing the games.

I applaud the earlier poster who stated that his kids don't have time for games because they keep them busy with chores, etc. I believe kids should be able to play but their time should be moderated and limited.

    I have several friends that use games as a carrot for good behaviour. If the kids are behaving, doing their chores, and getting good reports from school etc, then they get a hour or two credited to their "playtime bank". The kids have learned that failing to do as expected will cost them the credit and maybe cost them some time they have stored up. These same kids are learning to save up time so that they can go with dad to LAN parties and play, or spend a little more time one night playing that favourite game. But they are still limited in the amount of time they can play.

The games they play are checked out by the parents before the kids even get to play them. It helps that their father is a gamer as well, but at least he is taking the initiative to monitor what his kids are doing. I wonder if a large portion of the problem comes from the way many of our generation was raised. Our parents would put a tape in the VCR and let the boob tube babysit us. As we grew up we began to trust the screen to be friendly and so if the game is on a square glowing screen it must be OK, and we don't have to be engaged with our kids at all. Just feed them, send them to school and take them to sports.

Re:Duh

[ShawnMcCool42]

Or maybe it has less to do with the video games at ALL, and more to do with lack of parental involvement in the children's lives..

Where is the slashdot "bias" when you need it?

[0xdeadbeef]

Why is a group of whiners with no authority and no credibility with actual gamers given serious attention by Slashdot, much less Gamespot? Just because some front group calls themselves the "National Institute on X" does not make them an expert on X. Just because they have the ear of a senator does not mean they deserve respect.

Since they are a threat, their "report" deserves our attention, but reporting this as anything other than propoganda is playing directly into their hands. Would you give the same credulity to the press releases of creationists or animal rights activitsts? Why is their report reproduced without much analysis, criticism, and outright ridicule?

We win this battle by marginalizing our opponents, by chipping away the edifice on which they construct their credibility in public opinion. Jack Thompson the bafoon is their representative, not a faceless dispassionate scientific-sounding interest group.