NIMF To Close Its Doors

eldavojohn writes "One of the driving forces behind the ESRB toughening its ratings is closing its doors on December 31st, 2009. The National Institute on Media and the Family was funded by Fairview Health Services, and simply could no longer justify the yearly $750,000 price tag given today's economic climate. NIMF's reign of nagging has been pretty consistent since 1996, and was often indirectly featured on Slashdot. Don't worry, president and founder Dr. David Walsh promises to keep writing and giving speeches ... and imploring us all to think of the children."

Re:Already said, but true...

[Anonymous Coward]

before the PC crowd managed to tamp that down as "civil rights violations"; this is one of the few times I've seen a government agency actually doing it's job effectively and properly

That's the problem with the two party system in America. It's the Democrats' job to be pansies for the sake of being pansies. It's the Republicans' job to be pansies in order to prove that the government can't do anything right.

This is also why there's psychos roaming the streets: Democrats said insitutionalizing the insane is inhumane (won't anyone think of the murderers?!), Republicans said institutionalizing the insane is too expensive (won't anyone think of my wallet?!), and so all the institutions were closed.

Pansies, the whole fucking lot of them.

Re:Fortunately

[morethanapapercert]

so what you're saying is that we can look forward to a huge wave of ignosticism to sweep the world? I think that would be wonderful, but I do see a small problem with that prediction. When times are tough, when the common person feels helpless in the face of forces and circumstances larger than they are, they tend to seek out explanations that are larger than they are. Religion *thrives* when things are toughest. "There are no athesists in a foxhole" is one common way of phrasing that. As I see it, every generation looks at it's kids, looks at the way society is evolving and finds that they don't really understand either one. They also tend to fear the worst. It is all too easy to take heed of those who prophesy a doom that we already suspect ourselves and at the same time promise that doom can be averted if we all just make a few changes in what we are doing.

To my mind; the fundamental problem with groups like NIMF isn't that they View With Alarm, that is a enshrined tradition of priests, politicians and the power-hungry since the dawn of human history. The real problem is human arrogance and an inability to keep from meddling. If can't we can't accurately imagine the future, how can we hope to shape it as we desire? The law of unintended consequences still reigns supreme

Re:Fortunately

[Machtyn]

While I disagree that this is an idiotic and wasteful idea, I will agree that it is inefficient. It is not idiotic, because it gives us a baseline of what content to expect. It's not wasteful, because some of us use these ratings. It is inefficient because it makes the more hardcore games seem more appealing and some parents just don't care and will let their kids play anything. And when they find out their little precious boy is severely depressed, grades have dropped, and has no social life they are *shocked*!

Be it known, I am not saying that playing violent games will lead to this, but it can be a side effect of playing violent games too much.

Re:Economic climate... or lack of concern?

[Tim C]

Either that, or the Video Game Bogeyman has been replaced by the Terrorism Bogeyman, and people are simply concentrating on that instead.

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