M-Rated Game Sales to Kids Down, Shows FTC Report

Kotaku examines a report drawn up the the Federal Trade Commission on 'inappropriate content' sales to children. The study (pdf) examined sales of M-Rated games, R-rated movie tickets, and explicit music to underage persons in the most extensive look at the topic since 2000. While it appears the games industry still has a way to go, the study shows that it's much harder than it was four years ago for a young person to buy an M-Rated game. "Video games showed the greatest improvement, dropping from 69 percent being able to make the purchase in 2003 to 42 percent in 2006. That's just three percent more than the number of underage children able to get into R-rated movies."

Comments

Eh, it won't make a difference

[Coopjust]

Personally, I don't think the fact that the sales of M-rated games to minors dropping. Why? Well, many times it goes like this:

Child: Mom, I want Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Mom: Oh, what do you do in that game?
Child: You drive cars.
Mom: Oh, OK then.
Clerk: Ma'm, you realize this is an Mature Game, intended for ages 18 and up?
Mom: Yeah, sure, whatever.
*Kid plays game full of violence*

Forget the fact that it's on the back of the box (inappropriate content warnings), parents will blithely ignore them. All of the sales restrictions to minors don't prevent bad parents from buying them.

Re:Eh, it won't make a difference

[ZakuSage]

And it's really going to make a difference if a kid plays GTA? I know when I was growing up I watched a whole bunch of violet movies and it didn't "corrupt my moral fiber" or anything of the sort.

Re:Eh, it won't make a difference

[rhombic]

Finally, I think most of us accept that a video game (or other virtual reality experience) is valid training for real-life events.

So you're gonna be allright with your oncological surgeon having learned via "Trauma Center: Under the knife", right?

Anyone who has watched kids get fired up by watching Power Rangers and run around kicking shit knows that media has an effect on children.

As you so cleverly pointed out, the plural of anecdote is not data. Kindly point us to a statistical study showing a causative relationship between watching violent TV or playing violent videogames results in real-life violence (actions resulting in serious bodily injury, not kids wrestling). TIA.

Re:Eh, it won't make a difference

[Darth]

Anyone who has watched kids get fired up by watching Power Rangers and run around kicking shit knows that media has an effect on children.

The kids also know they are playing make-believe. If you stopped the kid and asked him what he was doing, he knows it isnt real and he knows the Power Rangers arent real.
The kid is having fun pretending. That doesnt tell us anything about long term effects of watching power rangers on real life incidents of violence.
It is really no different than when kids used to play cowboys and indians. That didn't lead to mass shootings by children.

Finally, I think most of us accept that a video game (or other virtual reality experience) is valid training for real-life events.

Sure. Video games can be, and have been, used to train leadership skills, tactics, pattern recognition, etc. video games do not teach you how to shoot a weapon because the interface you use for the game has to relationship to firing an actual weapon. You can maybe learn academic information through simulation of causes and effects (like firing a mortar in a simulation), but you aren't going to get better at firing a gun without experience firing an actual gun.

The 9/11 highjackers, for example, learned to fly through the use of a simulator. So referring to Grand Theft Auto as a thug-life simulator is not as unreasonable as a lot of us make it out to be.

The 9/11 hijackers learned to fly at a flight schools in the U.S. Some of them trained on flight simulators in flight schools. That isnt the same thing as playing microsoft's flight simulator. (though, to be honest, i found microsoft's flight simulator boring enough that i started crashing my plane into buildings)

Calling Grand Theft Auto a thug life simulator is as reasonable as calling the Rainbow Six series anti-terrorist training simulators. (which, personally, i find absurd)

So, by that line of reasoning, I entirely support the restriction of sales of violent games, movies, music, or what have you to persons over the age of 18.

Considering that i disagree with that line of reasoning, you probably won't be surprised to hear that i do not support the restriction of sales of violent games for those reasons.

Why? Because parents are [ostensibly] responsible for what children do. Note that I do NOT support EVER treating a minor as an adult. You can't give someone responsibilities without rights. Respect works both ways, but fear only works in one.

Yes, parents should be responsible for their children. And for that reason i support voluntary enforcement of the rating system that exists, just like the system used for movies. It isnt that i think the material is harmful to the child, it's that the parent has a right to restrict the child's access to material the parent thinks the child isnt ready for, or disapproves of. That's the responsibility of the parent and i'm ok with a voluntary rating system that requires the parent to approve the child's purchase of the material. If the parent doesn't do that job, or the child finds an alternate way to get it (getting an adult friend to buy it for him or something), that's the parent's problem to deal with and has nothing to do with the stores or the content producers.

With respect to your issue of never treating a minor as an adult...even as kids, they have inalienable rights. They also do have some responsibilities inherent in those inalienable rights. I dont think being a kid mitigates your responsibility to respect other peoples' right to live, for example.

I agree that it is the parents' responsibility, but we shouldn't be passing laws to do it for them, even if they aren't doing it. Maybe, instead, we should pass laws requiring the parents' to be involved in raising their kids. (note, i'm not seriously suggesting that. a law like that would be even more ridiculously abused than our current child protective care laws)

Even zero percent is not good enough

[biocute]

Since they have been thinking of children so much, I would recommend a -1% target, so there are absolutely no kids allowed to get their hands on a M-Rated game, additionally 1% of eligible gamers will also be turned away because they couldn't produce a ID, this includes senior citizens too.