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.

Re:Why are violent games controversial?

[ucblockhead]

You should talk to a third grade teacher. You'd be shocked what parents let their kids watch.

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.