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A Real Mom Reviews the Games Industry Report Card
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:42 AM
from the oooo-you-are-so-in-trouble dept.
from the oooo-you-are-so-in-trouble dept.
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.
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Call of Duty 4 Review 183 comments
The Call of Duty series is a benchmark for first-person shooters. The first title refreshed the already-tired World War II setting by added a gripping gameplay-based narrative, while the second was an important launch title for the Xbox 360. The newest chapter in the series, Call of Duty 4, is a new standard for the series and the genre. Set in modern times, the title breaks the mold of previous CoD titles in other ways as well. Most intriguing is its online 'character' development system, which takes some of the great ideas used in Battlefield 2 to the next level. Though the game suffers somewhat from overly-familiar gameplay in the single-player component, you'll probably be too busy gawking at the scenery to care. Read on for my impressions of this extremely attractive series update.
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Family Group Releases Annual Games Report Card 72 comments
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.
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Mom I'd Like To... (Score:5, Funny)
If he's such an expert.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:If he's such an expert.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Even those of the 'gamer generation'.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
And 'feature'.
Christ I need to preview before I hit post more often...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:If he's such an expert.. (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
The bottom line is parent's don't care (Score:5, Insightful)
Parents that don't care, or are just prone to give into their kids anyway aren't going to do any research and aren't going to be watching their kids play.
Re:The bottom line is parent's don't care (Score:5, Insightful)
Today's parents just suck at parenting. They lack the minimal backbone required to tell their kids "no," because they try to be friends rather than parents.
I can't stand how bad parents let their fat kids keep grabbing the Frosted Flakes instead of insisting on Cheerios or Raisin Bran. My grandmother had a strict "no sugared cereal" policy. My siblings and I knew it and didn't even bother trying to get her to budge on it. When I got to choose a computer game for my birthday present one year (the original Civilization), my grandfather not only looked at it (out of parenting and curiosity), he made sure that I was firm in my decision, and didn't just grab I'd toss the next day. Today the most sugared cereal I eat is store brand honey nut cheerios and I don't make impulse purchases. I owe it to the previous generation's parenting skills- my parents were pretty lousy at it.
Kids used to watch too much TV instead of playing outside. Now they play idiotic action games* on their game consoles (the new "idiot box") and have asthma as an excuse. As Mike Gravel said: "Americans are getting fatter and dumber". Hard to imagine, given the current the amount of flab you see everywhere and the numskull currently occupying the White House.
* see http://www.gamershell.com/articles/884.html [gamershell.com] on what's wrong with today's games.
Parent
Re:The bottom line is parent's don't care (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
So we counter a biased "report card" (Score:3, Informative)
OK, so she's a "mom", but that doesn't make her the spokesperson for all moms.
Re:So we counter a biased "report card" (Score:5, Interesting)
Most moms think "he wants this game, so I'll get it for him".
My old man retired from the computer industry to work at walmart (cause it's the law).
He constantly turns away moms trying to buy M rated games for their kids. He explains that the game is rated M and it's not meant for minors.
Most moms say "oh, it's for me", because most moms are bad parents.
I commend her for taking the time to read about games and their ratings.
Parent
Re:So we counter a biased "report card" (Score:5, Interesting)
I asked if she saw the rating on the game, and she said yes, but he said that he'd played it at friends' houses and told her it was just about blah blah blah... I cut her off and asked, if he'd pointed out an R-rated movie, claiming he'd seen it at a friends' house and it wasn't that bad, would she just believe that and let him watch it with no supervision? Well of course not, she said! Luckily, at that point she had the sense to get a bit sheepish and let me rant to her about how the video game industry wouldn't be under such fire from lawmakers if parents would pay even a small amount of attention to the freaking ratings like they do to movie ratings.
I actually remember the incident in question, because I was home for a vacation soon after he got the game. I remember my sister and I watching him do something involving prostitutes in the game, and running to our mom saying "Uhhhhh.... why are you letting him play this?" and her original indignation when she realized what was going on, and the original version of the same argument wherein I pointed out to her THEN that it was an M-rated game and it was her own fault...
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:So we counter a biased "report card" (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
"Real mom" (Score:2)
(I'd complain about the irritating use of "mom" but nowadays I'm just grateful for any adult who doesn't say "mommy".)
Ok, this is a joke right! (Score:4, Insightful)
"Retailers must return to the level of compliance in previous years" - Ok, lets see when I was a Babbages(Now Gamestop) Manager we didn't enforce anything. You have $59.99 to buy this game here is your copy. You know what - thats the way it should be. Your the parent pay attention to what your kid is buying and playing.
Then:
The list of games to avoid, thats a joke too, at least without context. My Daughter is 10 weeks old, but lets scale this up and say she was 10 Years Old instead. I'll go an record as saying several of those games I would let her play when she is a 10yo I don't see a problem. The Half-Life franchise, Gears of War, Call Of Duty and several others I'll let her play those from the moment she can point the mouse in the right direction. She will know the difference between shooting someone on a computer and really shooting someone. Thats my job as a parent to teach her that. Its not some out side random organization's job to dictate that to my child. Now its also important to note that she will not have a computer/game system (or TV for that matter) in her own room until she is 14 at least. Therefore the only systems she will have access too will be in shared and/or public spaces in our house. We will know what she is doing.
"Mediawise Recommend Games for Children and Teens"
Not a shooter among them interesting...guess what shooters are fun, and they always have been Atari 2600 when I was kid had a shooter came with the system it was called "Combat" funny that...all those games of combat and I'm not twisted warped or on death row.
My future with kids and games (Score:5, Interesting)
Both of us have no problem (and quite enjoy) violent video games. What happens when we have a kid?
The same thing that happend to us when we were little. Both her parents and my parents would ensure that we could discern the difference between the fantasy in a game and the reality in life...as long as we did that, there were no restrictions insofar as what we watched or what we played.
I imagine I'm going to do the same with my kid. Naturally, since both of us are regular gamers, we would prolly know what is in their games because we will have played them. Don't get me wrong, they aren't going to be in a Dukematch when they are five, but if at age 12 they want to play GTA7 and can prove to me that they know it is fantasy (and that they know what would happen if they did such things in real life), then they can play it to their heart's content. I would rather my kids be exposed to sex and violence early on in life enough to be able to look at it objectively and not be suprised when they are older and suddenly see something violent and react in the same way that most of the sheep do. I don't want them to be sheltered, I want show them that the world is a violent place, but I don't want to have to show them using national media or ogrish.com or some place like that. Video games make for the perfect medium to introduce children to modern day real issues while not succumbing them to all the bullshit that usually goes along with it.
After all, would you rather your kids learn about sex and violence WITHOUT you by their side?
Missing... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Some people fight each other. Like punching and kicking. There's not really so much blood, but the girls wear very revealing outfits."
"You skateboard around doing tricks. The crashes are pretty brutal, and there's some crude jokes."
"You collect and control little monsters that fight and stuff. You don't actually see them fight, you just kind of read what they did."
And I think that's what's missing from the ESRB web site - they don't give the kind of context many parents need to evaluate a game. Now I think it's reasonably clear a young kid shouldn't be playing either Dead or Alive Extreme 2 or Mass Effect (and both are M rated, which seems right) but look at the content descriptors:
Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes, Simulated Gambling
Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes, Blood, Language, Violence
From just that, you might think these are comparable games. Compare that to the information you get from a synopsis:
"You ogle bikini girls and buy them bikinis. That's the whole point of the game."
"You buy guns and shoot aliens. In the story, there's a love scene where you can see a girl's bum for a second."
Whatever you may think of the relative offensiveness of that content, I think that's information a parent needs to have in order to make a decision. These games' content are very different.
Re:Missing... (Score:4, Insightful)
My intended point was that the sexual content - described as "Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes" for both - is of a very different nature in the two games. I didn't search the list to find two very different games with an exactly identical list of descriptors, but I'm sure such a pair could be found, and I imagine you get my point.
I just dont think the one word description needs to be on the ESRB rating.
To be clear, mostly I was thinking about the ESRB site and how it could be more useful. Currently it shows only rating and a list of descriptors. I think it should also contain or link to a synopsis (or trailer, or site, or something) so that parents have something more substantive to evaluate, and can learn about video game content from a central, trustable source.
And, yes, I do think this would be a valuable service - a lot of parents, especially non-gamers, are going to have more difficulty judging the content of a game than the content of a movie or book, and could use the help. Sure, there's plenty of info on games on the web already - but it is serving a lot of different purposes (advertisement, discussion of gameplay or quality, etc..) and may be hard to find for the people who need it most. The game box, while likely very helpful for some games, isn't always on hand - and again isn't really geared towards giving this kind of info.
Parent
A few silly things about game ratings... (Score:3)
2) Age is a number, it may provide a yardstick for maturity but it doesn't have a 1:1 correlation to it...just because someone made it to 20, doesn't necessarily mean that should any more or less freedom than a 14 year old.
3) As an individual, it's my responsibility to evaluate whether or not something is an acceptable risk. I know I evaluate all the games my children are allowed to play and determine yes or no based on their maturity and the content of the game. Ratings provide a false sense of security and don't usually tell me anything until I play the game. There are some pretty obvious ones but football is based on the principle of pummeling the other guy to stop the ball yet all of the games I've seen have been rated E...with no-one bothering to acknowledge the violence.
4) Thank you puritans for managing to mess with American society 300 years later! That's so swell!
Parent's responsibility (Score:4, Informative)
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.
In defense of everyone (Score:3, Informative)
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.)
Enough with the censorship nonsense! (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps you think ignorant children playing with imaginary friends are cute. I prefer rational and logical children I can have a discussion with. Ignorance may be bliss but I don't know many adults who would choose to be ignorant or mentally retarded. Maybe you are in the other crowd who wants them to be childlike, read ignorant, for as long as possible so that they are easier to control. Unlike those other pesky teenagers who use critical thinking skills and ask authority figures, such as parents, hard questions, like "Why?"
How about you try something new. Stop censoring your children altogether, to hell with the other parents, and start advising your children on how THEY CHOOSE to interpret the input. There is nothing wrong with a child learning about the birds and the bees while a toddler. Exposure to foul language can an excellent introduction to the sensitivities of others and consequences. A video game with cars being chased by police (as mentioned in the article) is a great opener to a continuation of the discussion on consequences, being less of an establishment type I would have fun with that discussion. A three year old won't fully understand, but it all goes into that mind somewhere and who said these talks only occur once?
Worried about desensitization? Don't be. Sensitization is a bad thing, it's what happens when you are underexposed to something and you are unable to cope with the something. It may be a sad world we live in and there may be some things we don't want to have to cope with, but that is a seperate issue. Whether pleasant or unpleasant, it is never advantageous to not be able to cope with something. That leaves you less able to take rational action in the face of that something. Interestingly, the more you let yourself encounter things you are underexposed to, the better your brain becomes able to cope with not being able to cope and the more capable you are acting rationally.
I'm not saying go find the nastiest goat porn you can and start driving into your child's mind 24/7. I am merely saying don't censor what comes your way anyway.