Family Group Releases Annual Games Report Card

The National Institute on Media and the Family has released their annual 'report card' for the videogames industry. Brian Crecente has some great commentary on the release, which he refers to as 'increasingly out-dated and unnecessary, something that probably explains the desperate tone of this year's report'. "What's interesting is that the summary cites very specific examples for the positive, such as Target removing Manhunt 2 from shelves after finding AO content was viewable with a hack, or that GameStop has started firing people for selling M-rated games to minors, but doesn't really do the same for the negative. Instead [NIMF's David Walsh] writes that 'Complacency, especially on the part of retailers and parents, appears to have caused a backslide in ratings awareness and enforcement.'" The ESRB was quick to point out the flaws in the group's assertions, while a UK study indicates that some 75% of parents are worried about the games their kids play.

Comments

Then 75% of parent's

[aztektum]

Should make sure they don't play the particular games they are worried about. It beats the alternatives I can come up with.

Re:Then 75% of parent's

[Gideon Fubar]

Parents? responsible for taking care of their own children?

you sir, are clearly a terrorist. :/

Re:Then 75% of parent's

[enderjsv]

75% of parents are worried, eh? Yet, when a Fox affiliate interviewed a group of parents about the parental control settings on the Xbox 360, most of them had no idea there were controls and the ones who did had no idea how to set them. Laziness > Concern.

Re:Then 75% of parent's

[HappyDrgn]

This is not very hard to do. My son knows which games he can play and which ones he can not play. When I buy a new game and he sees it he will always ask first if it's a game he is allowed to play. If he wants to keep playing games and wants me to keep buying him new ones, then he is to not complain about which ones he can play. Which there are some very fun kid friendly games out there, mostly for the Wii, which he has a large library. The xbox is a little limited however, I've only found a few that are for his age. This works the same for movies too! I don't understand parents who have trouble with this. I was over at Gamestop the other day picking up Mario Galaxy for him and Mass Effect for myself, while a mother was there buying Halo3 for her son. She asked the guy at the counter if it was violent and if it had adult language. When he answered yes to both questions SHE BOUGHT IT ANYWAY!!!
 
That being said I would like to see better parental controls in game systems. An access allow/deny list type thing would work perfectly if added into the xbox style profiles. Give each person in the house a profile, perhaps with a password and choose to allow all access or only certain games to each profile. This would prevent a child who was able to buy/borrow/rent a mature game from a store that did not care the ability to play it. This is not to say good parenting can be replaced with a switch on the game system (which is how most parents would treat it I'm sure), it would be a reliable extra step to make sure kids dont play adult games in my house however.

Ratings systems

[Merls the Sneaky]

Rating systems are no substitute for good parenting. That includes playing or at least monitoring the games your children play.

Re:Ratings systems

[Nos.]

Absolutely, but there is nothing wrong with a rating system in general. As a parent, am I expected to keep up on every game for the game platform(s) in my household. Suppose walking through the store one day a child sees a game on sale and wants it. The child has been behaving and doing extra chores, and I feel buying a game for him/her is not out of the question. If there is no rating system, I have little choice but to say "No", or at least "Not yet", and go home and research the game before returning to the store to purchase it, or another instead.

As a parent I'm all for the rating system and fining retailers for not enforcing them. If, as a parent, I feel its okay for my child to play a game rated for older than he/she is, then I will go to the store with said child and purchase it for them. This is not a big deal to me, and certainly preferrable to my child doing hookers and mugging them afterwards in a game, when they're too young to even know what sex is.

When my children are old enough for games, they will only be playing them in common areas of the house so we can monitor what they are playing. But as much as you try to, you can't watch what they're doing 24/7.

So 75% of parents need help parenting

[Sciros]

If you're "worried about the games your kids play," then you either
a) haven't taught them to listen to you when it comes to not playing certain games
b) haven't bothered to look at what games your kids play to begin with
c) don't trust your kids to not be adversely affected by the games they *do* play
d) haven't a freaking clue about games, period, and don't understand that they don't affect your kids in any harmful way unless there's some other serious issues that need looking into in the first place.

Concerned != worried

[PMuse]

From TFA: 75 per cent of respondents were concerned about the content in videogames that their children played.

Of course parents are concerned. Any responsible parent would be. But that's not the interesting question. The interesting question is "Do you feel that you have access to enough information ensure that the games your kids own meet your standards for content?" Put that question in your survey and smoke it, why don't you!

I'll always be concerned at one level or another about what's in the media my kids consume, but I'm not worried about it in the slightest.