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A Real Mom Reviews the Games Industry Report Card
Last month's National Institute on Media and the Family 'report card' was pretty much more of the same from the reactionary group. Recently a real parent (Colleen Hannon from GamerDad) sat down with the report to offer up some comments. "They still can't seem to read the names of the games off the front of the box. What they have listed as 'Call to Duty 4' is actually Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. That may seem like a minor mistake, but if you type what's on their list into a search engine to get more information off the ESRB's website or Google, it won't return the real results on the game. And without that last bit at the end, you're going to get a list with all the games in the series which can be confusing and not all of them are M rated. For someone who thinks parents should pay more attention and research they aren't helping them out much." Via GamePolitics.
... with someone who's completely biased the other way?
OK, so she's a "mom", but that doesn't make her the spokesperson for all moms.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
The problem I've observed with too many parents is that they try to hard to be their children's buddy or they don't want to come off as uncool. So they wont even venture to ask about a game at the risk of coming off as a prude. Too many parents also apparently can't be bothered to look into what their kids are playing.
Earlier in the year when the media has spun itself into a frenzy, yet again, over violence in games they ran a story about a mother who was shocked to discover that the game she had purchased for her son, Grand Theft Auto, was violent. As if the name wasn't enough of a tip off to questionable subject matter she didn't even have the wherewithal to flip over the damn box and look at the rating or at least see what she could glean from the screenshots. Then again I've seen parents getting games for children which considerably more graphic imagery on the packaging. And I've seen parents taking small children to see fairly intense movies.
Too many parents can't be bothered to see what their kids are up to. The excuse I often hear is that they can't observe their kids 24 hours a day, so why even bother? They absolve themselves of responsibility and then expect the government to take over for them. And this is where the problem arises. They want to government to oversee everything so that they don't have to worry about anything.
Parents aren't supposed to by cool; they aren't supposed to be buddies. They need to be responsible for what their kids do and what they're exposed to.
The more I read this stuff, the more I realise that it's all terribly ironic that all of the opposing factions are fighting for the same thing.
The ESRB, flawed as it is, is trying to provide information for consumers to make decisions. Two interesting quotes from their website:
"ESRB ratings are an excellent source for guidance and information about game content, but we also encourage parents to go beyond the ratings and do their own research about the games they or their children are considering for purchase or rental."
"While the ESRB does not have the authority to enforce its ratings at the retail level, it does work closely with retailers and game centers to display information that explains to customers how the rating system works."
The goofballs at NIMF may be going about things the wrong way, but they honestly do seem to believe that they're protecting children. By making decisions for parents, they are implicitly informing them. (Compare this to the movie industry: If a parent sees that a movie is rated NC-17, they don't have to make any decisions about whether it's appropriate for their 10-year-old, because the kid won't be able to get into it anyways.)
The good folks at Gamerdad are trying to avoid the protectionist attitudes of NIMF and the studied neutrality of the ESRB, and examine the content of games in context with regards to kids. They also are more than happy to enjoy adult games as adults, while keeping them away from their own kids (and letting you make your own decisions with your own kids). This is really how a maturity rating should work.
Finally, I'm sick of reading that most parents suck for not being the sole voice of responsiblity their kids' lives. YES, parents need to make these decisions. YES some parents neglect that field, and some of them (certainly not all!) do so because they don't care. However, most parents want what's right for their kids as well. ESRB ratings should be used as an indicator for the parents on what to look for. If some parents rely too havily on the ratings (or the comments from NIMF or gamerdad, or their kids' word, or...) part of it may be because they're not aware of the potential for video games. Consider someone in their early 40s, with a ten-year-old kid. It's entirely possible that the last video games they played were before the Commodore 64 hit the shelves. In order to make informed decisions about video games, they need to know that video games have evolved to the point where informed decisions need to be made, and they're worried about their kids making friends, not taking candy from strangers, avoiding street drugs, school, etc., etc., etc..
Bottom line in defense of flawed parents: raising a kid is different now than it was when we were raised, to the point that you can't always see where the new risks are coming from. More tools and more information is an asset, not a 'crutch for shitty parents who don't care.'
(Random aside: This also applies to 'netnanny' style blocking software. My son is being raised to use the internet responsibly, and until he's older, not without one of us being present. That doesn't change the fact that I ALSO am going to install blocking software, maintain and review firewall logs, and bring up any issues that occur. It's called defense-in-depth, and it works.)
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban