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FTC: "Video Game Self Regulation Works"
Itesh writes "Following an established trend, a Federal Trade Commission undercover shopper survey found that video game retailers continue to enforce most vigorously the ratings governing age and content that were established by the entertainment media industry. Music CD retailers lag far behind movie theaters, as well as movie DVD and video game retailers, in preventing unaccompanied children under age 17 from purchasing entertainment intended for mature audiences."
And yet all the politicians who think we need to enact all these stricter laws when it comes to video game sales will ignore this and try to claim that any 5 year old can walk into a game store and buy GTA IV on their own.
Hmm... not that I support the nanny state or game censorship but self-regulation doesn't ever really work.
Look at BP and the natural gas fracking disasters.
I don't know anyone who would seriously wait till they are 17 to play Grand Theft Auto. I mean you can drive to the store to buy it at 16.
Though your still better off finding and fucking a girl IRL once you get a car.
People who sell DVDs to kids won't have to listen to them over voice chat when they get off work.
Does not shock me in the slightest, I see kids get turned away at my local gamestop routinely, and I actually get carded there pretty often as well despite the fact that I'm 30 and have a full beard.
Strange, i will have to read the article again. I missed the part about parents being responsible for their children.
If someone is old enough to walk into a store and purchase a product, then that person is probably old enough to not be significantly harmed by hearing, seeing, or playing the content. The ratings should exist as a guide to parents, who shouldn't purchase these products for young children. By the time they're teenagers and have their own money and transportation, there are more pressing things to worry about than if they're seeing boobs in a movie, hearing explicit lyrics in a song, or turning enemies into a mass of blood and gore in a video game. Let's worry about keeping them in school, off of drugs, and not pregnant.
If the purpose of the ratings are to increase piracy and disdain for authority, then yes it's working just fine.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Of course a six year old can't walk to the store and buy a mature rated video game. That's what torrents are for.
We're not supposed to have a problem with censorship when it's by private industry, because it's only censorship when the government does it. But if the industry is self-censoring because the only alternative is the threat of the government stepping in and doing it (which would presumably be unconstitutional) and that results in a whole range of content not having distribution and titles that do have distribution being modified so that they have less teeth (think of the most mature game versus the most mature movie you can get at the theater or on DVD) . . . and I have to ask "what's the difference?". One is a result directly mandated by the government and the other result is derived through extortion by the government. Worse, the extortion/threat method allows them to accomplish the same thing through a ratings middle-man in a private industry that keeps them from getting their hands dirty at a legal level.
I would be a lot happier with the ESRB if they changed their second-highest category to some name other than 'Mature' or anything else with a positive context. Most of the games in this category handle their subject matter in the least mature ways possible, so the name isn't accurate (and yes, I'm aware of how the name is intended to be used; the fact remains that it's not used that way). Worse, by using a word with positive connotations, the ESRB only increases the rating's viability as a marketing tool, which developers know all too well is a big selling point among their true target audiences: namely, people not mentally prepared to handle their content.
Maybe "C" for "Creepy," as in "you are unlikely to enjoy this game unless you have the mindset of a 14-year-old male, and if you do, that's just creepy."
"Amazon".
With the exception of things legally forbidden to children (alcohol and tobacco), kids can get anything they want online. It amazes me that brick-and-mortar retailers bother even trying to enforce "industry standard" self-regulation (then again, compare their sales, and it doesn't look so surprising).
And before someone points out the obvious (but wrong) problem with the above - Visa gift cards. Greatest things ever.
When the parents will just buy the games anyways. Its cheaper the babysitters.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I have no problem with self-regulation, however, it needs to be simplified. There is one rating system for movies, one for TV, and one for games. Let's make one common scale, and something easy, and then have all the boards work together - I mean, TV shows are like movies. Games are like movies. TV shows are sometimes about movies, and games are sometimes about both. It only makes sense.
How about a rating system like what Xbox Arcade uses?
Sex: 0/5
Violence: 3/5
Language: 1/5
Drug References: 0/5
Then, add up the numbers and apply to a chart to determine overall age appropriateness, and say, "Not appropriate for children under X." Do that for all three types of media (hell, even books). Only makes sense.
Natural human responsibility? You're not a student of history, are you? Everyone's always been blaming everything on someone else. Even the bible toting population can escape it with the myth of the first man Adam blaming eating an apple on the first woman Eve who blamed it on a snake. So... If that's your baseline "natural", then there ya go, nobody takes responsibility "naturally".
Of course, if we're talking evolution, taking responsibility only makes sense if it propagated our species. Doesn't make much sense in a death penalty court case. Doesn't make much sense in telling your lover you screwed around on her/him (since you are now very unlikely to procreate with said lover).
So... what's this "natural" thing you are talking about? Or is that some 1950's sounding buzzword to return us all to the "good ole days"?
If everybody took responsibility for themselves, their children, and their own actions and words, then what's in that for government? The goal is to transfer that natural human responsibility to the business of government, justifying yet even more power and revenue for the elite few. The goal is to have the populace run to government at the first hint of a problem -- NOT to think for themselves and come to a reasonable solution, skipping the middleman entirely.
You're not in the buisiness of government, are you?
I8-D
They won't fix parents who put their five year old kids on killing games. Five year old kids would never have chosen such a thing.
Of all the ratings systems I think the ESRB ratings are the most informative as to the nature of the material:
Eg: Rated T for teen
Contains:
violence, alcohol and tobacco references, some blood
Rated E for everyone
Contains:
Comic Mischief
Compare that to movies (Rated PG-13, no reasons given) or worse, music (explicit or not), and you'll see that ESRB ratings give far more info to parents/buyers to decide on if the game is a good idea before purchase. (Should I let my kid play World of Goo? oh, E, comic mischief, sure why not).
This SOUNDS like they're enforcing the sales on video games more than on other things, but it's really more a matter of how video games are sold in most retail stores.
Buying a CD or DVD just involves grabbing it and going to a cashier, at least at most of the stores I frequent. Video games (console ones, at least) are in a locked cabinet, so you have to get someone to get it out for you.
That means an underage kid has to actually talk to someone to get a video game, vs just grabbing it and throwing it down in front of a cashier who's running on auto-pilot.
Unless the major retailers flag the items in their POS systems, that probably won't ever change.
Of course they lag behind, they are just happy to actually sell a CD, they don't care to who.
I worked at Suncoast several years ago and we were explicitly told not to enforce age restrictions on movies (discretion allowed on the "adult" movies, but still no carding). Anyone with the cash was allowed to buy R or Unrated movies. Meanwhile, the Gamestop next door was turning away kids trying to buy Grand Theft Auto. Often parents would come in, ask why their kid couldn't buy it, then buy it for them anyway.
End of line..
I hang out with my 8 yr old cousin sometimes. He roughly says,"I want to play a mature game, all the cool kids play games designed for older kids above their age." He then says,"I want gore and language in my games" If there wasn't a system in place that rated gore and language, he probably wouldn't care. But since there is a system in place, he wants this stuff because it is what older and "cool kids" get.
God spoke to me.
The United States is a federal system, and these censorship laws are often made at the state level. Convincing an appellate judge to declare a statute unconstitutional in one state followed by what amount to routine filings for summary judgment in other states is likely cheaper than buying legislators in all 50 states.
Show me a study where violent video game playing is shown to increase future criminal behavior.
People who play video games are more likely to make infringing copies of video games than people who don't play video games. I don't have a study yet though.
But it still appears to be useless and based on the assumption that fictional media somehow changes people. They should have to have real-world evidence that that is true before enacting any sort of "regulations," in my opinion.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
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If you want to sell anything on a game console anywhere in the world, game ratings are non-voluntary. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft all require that all of their content has an ESRB rating before you are allowed to sell it. Most European countries have similar ratings systems, although they are usually governmental and not privately held companies like the ESRB.
As a developer, I consider the game ratings an unnecessary drain on our very meager earnings, and an incredibly unfair racket from which there is no escape.