Mature Video Games in the Minority 82
Steve writes "Of the record breaking $7.3 billion in video games sold in 2004, only 18 percent of them were rated "M". This is surprising, considering some media watch groups have great concern over inappropriate video games landing in the hands of children, even claiming that 60-90 percent of video games have violent themes. Filefront uncovers the real trend and includes quotes from ESRB President Patricia Vance."
18% (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:18% (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, you did. The figure gets mentioned once, at the very top, which "Steve" directly copied. "Steve" didn't write jack, Andrew Serros, the author the article, wrote that. Well, Steve added "Filefront uncovers the real trend and includes quotes from ESRB President Patricia Vance."
Based on the statistics given by the ESRB website [esrb.org] (which are last year's, I can't find current), that 18% figure is by title. Unfortunately, I can't locate any updated statistics, so those figures are mostly meaningless.
Re:18% (Score:3, Insightful)
I for one, like the blow 'em up games. I just don't like arguments based on bad math.
Ratings Uncovered (Score:1)
Ratings Uncovered [esrb.org]
Too Lazy? (Score:1)
Titles rated M - Mature have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain mature sexual themes, more intense violence and/or strong language.
Re:18% (Score:1)
I will be nice and not pull out wikipedia, im sure you know what redundant means.
I must ask (Score:2)
Re:I must ask (Score:1)
This is an argument about content publishers producing too many violent games, and that is not supported by the facts in TFA.
Re:I must ask (Score:1)
Re:I must ask (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I must ask (Score:1)
Some Teen rated games are definatly violent. I have played some that make me personally un-easy, and I like violent games. In fact the only game that ever made me feel uneasy playing it was rated T.
Re:I must ask (Score:1)
I appologise if this is not somthing you want to talk about, just curious.
Re:I must ask (Score:1)
It was GC Legends of Wrestling (the worse gameplay of any game period). The sounds were just too up close and persoanl violent for me.
I actualyl purchased it for my 8 year old brother because of memmories of the Nintendo wrestling. It was a completly innapropriate gift and I ended ip getting him something else after we played half a match together.
I personally found the violence much worse then Mortal Kombat Trilogy and on pa
Re:I must ask (Score:2)
(I'm kidding)
Re:I must ask (Score:1)
If you're asking about the M rating you're not even looking at the NR rating, which is a fair percentage of titles in advertised in popular media.
No console game still sold new carries a "not rated", as all console makers require licensed publishers to submit their games to ESRB and get a rating back before the console maker will replicate the game.
Violent Themes (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Violent Themes (Score:5, Funny)
He sounds more like a criminal to me...
All Mario games should be offlimits to children everywhere.
Homeland Security (Score:3, Funny)
Sounds like a case for Homeland Security. Time to deport him to Italy, along with his ahem "brother" Luigi.
Re:Violent Themes (Score:1)
Re:Violent Themes (Score:1)
Re:Violent Themes (Score:2)
Re:Violent Themes (Score:2)
Re:Violent Themes (Score:2)
Funny as that may sound, you're probably more right than you think. My guess is "Mild Animated Violence" is considered a "violent theme" in this case.
Re:Violent Themes (Score:2)
At a couple points in the game, you have to defeat an octopus. He's about 20 feet tall, has a sickly black ink around his mouth, and sits up on land. The octopus' main defense is his tentacles: four of them writhing around menacingly. He'll try to swat Mario with all of them at once, and if Mario is quick enough, he can grab one.
Mario latches onto the end of the tentacle with his arms and legs, and tugs on it. Aft
Re:Violent Themes (Score:2)
Re:Violent Themes (Score:2)
-
Huh? (Score:2)
1) What percentage do you have to reach before there's a legitimate issue of "inappropriate video games landing in the hands of children"? 90%? 185%? 18% seems well above that threshold to me.
2) "Vi
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
A parent defines what is inappropriate. Every parent has different views of what is appropriate and not. If a parent continually finds their child in possession of "inappropriate" materials then obviously the parent isn't parenting. Don't feel like sitting with your kid while they play X-Box? Then don't buy them an X-Box. Sheesh, it's really not that difficult.
I hate people who want to be lazy parents and force the government to do the parenting for them. Oh, and btw, I have 4 kids (two are teenagers), 2 pc's, an N64 and an X-Box so I know for a fact that these types of arguments are nothing but an excuse for laziness. If people don't want to supervise their kids then thats their problem, not everyone elses.
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
The assertion presented here was that the "falling into the hands of children" argument is somehow invalidated by "18% M rated", as though 18% is such a vanishingly low number that no child could ever encounter such an item. If you and MOD PARENT DOWN dismiss the "Won't someone please think about the children?" argument in and of itself, be my guest (and I don't particularly disagree with you) but please learn to freaking read before yammering at me.
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
A parent should treat the rating system as a means to good parenting, not an end. A parent cannot know about every single game in the video game industry and about all of what it contains. So, the parent makes use of the rating system, for what it is, and then the parent supervises and takes part in the child's gaming to see if
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Kid: play games
Parent: supervise kids playing games
Game: entertain
Ratings: ASSIST parent with information
It's when parents don't feel like being parents and then get pissed at a game rating system that I wanna smack people upside the head. My kids play Halo2 but not GTA because I'm a parent an
MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me get this straight - because 18% of games sold are M-rated, that means to you that these games are falling into the hands of children. First of all, that analysis is completely without any statistics to back it up in regards to what percentage of purchases are made by or for children, etc. Second of all, what ar
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:1)
especially since games are ~$50
Console games that sell a million copies go into the $20 bargain bin. PC and GBA games may even start out $20 or cheaper.
and, presumably, children are buying games with their parent's money
What about payments for lawn care services? Or do you subscribe to the theory that children are the property (in the 13th Amendment sense) of their parents?
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Now go back and read that but replace R with M, PG with T and G with E.
"themes" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"themes" (Score:1)
a +/-15% number has to have something screwed up, especialy something where sales are tracked. Using their reasoning I could say 3-33% are M rated.
Re:"themes" (Score:2)
Well, "firm fact" in some sense, but the "M" rating itself isn't without its subjective aspects.
It's not like they're measured against an ISO standard curse word, or the platinum-irridium graphic violence bar in Paris.
Semantics (Score:1)
Rating "M" (Score:1)
IMHO, the rating "M" doesn't equal "mature" games, e.g., I don't consider Postal 2 or GTA "mature".
(But yes, I like them. I'm just a particularly immature 30-year-old nerd).
GTA sold 15 MILLION copies?! (Score:1)
Re:GTA sold 15 MILLION copies?! (Score:1)
GTA:SA probably sold more in its first month than FF:whatever sold in all of 1994.
Re:GTA sold 15 MILLION copies?! (Score:2)
litle misquote... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is not to say I'm siding with the watchdog, because it's an even less useful point then the misquote. Video games that are popular are popular because people buy them. If people are buying violent video games more then others, that's not the manufacturer or retailer or anybody's fault but the buyer's. Manufacturers make what people want them to make, or else they'd make no money.
I definately agree with the article's claims that these watchdog groups are incredibly out of touch with what parents want. I worked in retail last christmas, and on one of our busiest days of the season a group of 6 or 7 'violent-game protesters' came into the store. They were all women, probably 60-70 years old, and they kept chanting about how video games make our kids violent. I kept wanting to remind them that it was their generation that participated in world war 2, korea, and vietnam, not mine. And it's their generation right now that's invading Iraq and showing us that, apparently, the only way to solve some problems is through violence. See? I can generalize too.
These 'watchdog' groups piss me off.
Re:litle misquote... (Score:2)
Re:litle misquote... (Score:1)
I think what the dude was trying to express is that the decisions are being made by the very people protesting. I'm not sure whether or not I agree with that, but it's hard not to wonder where those protesting ladies stood on the whole war on terror or preemptive strike on Iraq. I myself have debated people that decry video game violence out of one side of their mou
The problem isn't the M rating... (Score:2)
In addition MOST kids are buying and playing M titles.
http://www.lionlamb.org/factsheet1.htm [lionlamb.org]
http://www.lionlamb.org/E_T_M_rated_games.htm [lionlamb.org]
Now personally, I think ratings are all fluff and a giant political boondoggle to argue about silly stuff while ignoring real issues (like a poor education system). A parent should be able to look at a game like Playboy Mansi
Re:The problem isn't the M rating... (Score:1)
With titles such as GTA:SA, or Halo2, etc. M titles make up much more than 18% of titles sold at my store. Part of the problem is parents: "Have you played this before?" Kid: "Yes, I played it at Johnnies" parent: "and his mom is okay with that?" kid: "Yup"
Most parents don't ever look at the game, they rely soley on the word of their kid that
Bingo. (Score:2)
Re:The problem isn't the M rating... (Score:2)
The first one uses a surveys from 3+ years ago throught. But most talk about how quick it is all changing. They all talk about Mature game sales on the rise, but what about the over 18 gaming population quickly growing at the same time? Almost all of the things about how quickly mature game sales were rising were independant of age. Also the mention of over 70% of people under 18 buying M rated games doesn't mention how su
Re:The problem isn't the M rating... (Score:1)
Are you saying most COULD buy the games with transport and money? And maybe even keep them if their parents didn't care?
I hope that when I have children I am smart enough to keep track of what they do even if it is on some new fangled (20+ year old home game console) technology that I don't really understand at all (mostly do to willful ignorance, how else would I not know that it is possible to get something violent for it
Re:The problem isn't the M rating... (Score:1)
Define "many". For that matter, define terms like "sex" and "violence". Does a kiss or embrace qualify as gratuitous sex? Does Mario jumping on a turtle qualify as violence? These are blanket terms that are bandied about without any explanation of how they are being used. They idea that a child should not be exposed to an in-game kiss, when they certainly see their
I never said (Score:2)
This is also like saying "4 out of 5 dentists" How many kids do you watch when you go into a store? When do you go into the store? What stores do you go to? I know the cliche is that parents care about what their kids buy, but in fact I've seen many kids buy games WITHOUT their parents present or buy M rated games with their parents not even batting an eye. (I watched parents bring their 6 year old kids in to see bot
Guns in Video Games (Score:1)
Re:Guns in Video Games (Score:2, Interesting)
Hell, Mega Man Zero, in which you see the robots spew out blood, oil, or whatever it was, is Rated E. I think that the ESRB guidelines are just plain retarded.
"Not M" != "Not violent" (Score:3, Insightful)
Some rateings are bs (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Some rateings are bs (Score:2)
Re:Some rateings are bs (Score:1)
Re:Some rateings are bs (Score:2)
Re:Some rateings are bs (Score:2)
Honestly, I haven't noticed those partially dismembered bodies around the dungeons. If that is true, then I'd agree with the "M" rating - but for now, let's assume that it isn't.
Re:Some rateings are bs (Score:2)
This was discussed a few years ago when the MMORPG Asheron's Call 2 was released. They had red blood and also as you damaged creatures they started to show cuts, it got rated M.
They also had the in game option to turn the blood green and according to old discussion if they had gone with that it would of rated an upper teen. They stayed with the red blood since the MMORPG demographic is already primarily adult.
Defining violence and adult themes (Score:4, Interesting)
Carmagedon the original sprite based version was banned in Germany, but I haven;t heard too many reports of games being banned now.
The huge ammount of FPS and RTS games being developed would make me question those stats - but I am not an advocate of violent games for children.
I realised that NO WAY in hell would I let my 11 year old nephew play GTA:SA. He plays soul blade and other fighting games, but this is different stuff.
Fighter against fighter, a match, a game, like boxing.
GTA:SA allows for free roaming and killing of innocents. I think it is hypocritical for R* to not place child models in the game, if somehow the proportional dimensions of the vertices makes a difference. They are walking a fine line. I do not see the peds in GTA:SA as innocent people, I just see them as utter bastards who would sooner steal my car as be mowed down by my gatling gun (nuttertools - cheat for nice weapons [gta:vc]).
Other adult themes (non-violent) are a little quaint in GTA:SA, and probably put in there as to say, hey, movies are violent, and movies contain sex, if we make our game contain sex, then you cannot complain about the violence.
People worry about the interactivity of violence in games, I did a small study into students attitudes, and those who thought games were too violent showed no more concern for violent games and children than those who didn't think games were too violent.
So, let games contain violent (yet fun) themes. I wouldn't particularly like a game that was violent but not fun, IMHO GTA isn't even violent, it is a depiction of violence on a non-realistic, joking scale. It isn't harmful (the other content is - I would happily let my nephew play a game where you could shoot people or accidentally run them all down!)
If you think about it, it makes sense.
Re:Defining violence and adult themes (Score:1)
The hell is the point of all this? (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think TFA, the slashdot editor or the filefront writer knows what the hell to think about all this. ("Mature Video Games in the Minority"?) Who fucking cares? Even if it were true that games inappropriate for kids are in the majority, so what? That's true for movies, music and books.
I mean that's a nice bit of bullshit statistics, that "60-90%" figure, but even if it were even remotely relevant the picture is clear as mud. For example, let's say that 60-90% of games (popular or no) "have violent themes", the first question you have to ask is what percentage of gamers are old enough that it doesn't make a damn difference (maybe 60-90% of gamers are over 18)? Next you have to ask what 60-90% of parents think constitutes "violent themes" - maybe your group's views represent only 10-40% of the population, if that. Next you could ask who buys more games - 20-somethings or (parents of) 8-year-olds (seems to me that I buy a hell of a lot more games for myself then my mom ever bought for me)? And so on, et cetera, ad nauseum.
Reading TFA's I have to ask: what the hell does the "watchdog group" (and their ilk) think should be done (or: what do they recommend in their "holiday warnings")? The games are clearly labelled with a big sticker on the front, and plenty more info on the back. And even if you think the labels are bullshit, the store employees are happy to give you more info if you really want it. Any parent stupid enough to hand their kid $50 and send them into EB without even looking into what they're getting doesn't deserve a voice in this debate - same goes for parents who bought the game themselves without doing proper research. Eliminate those numbnuts and what's the problem? What else would they have done?
That whole mediafamily.org page is just a scattershot of random facts without context, mixed up with a steaming, piled helping of bullshit. Why the hell is it being used for a reference anyway - it's like 3 goddamn years old? As for the filefront article, the spokeslady/president gamely tries to explain away the kooks, but the kooks shouldn't have been given any attention to begin with. The whole thing is just a waste of everyone's time... except for one tiny point:
Very good point, and true almost anywhere I can think of. Maybe video game stores having a children's section should be the norm. But what the hell does sniping at the ESRB do to make that happen?
ESRBs are there for a reason... (Score:1, Interesting)
Yo no entiendo (Score:1, Interesting)
Columbine happened because of violent video games? What? Kids become disassociated from reality because they come to believe that video games represent reality? What? It's the government's job to control media? What?
Most of the kids I've had interaction with, or have been able to listen to comments from believe that video games represent things we can NOT do in life, and therefore make a great escape.
Why is there no outr
Re:Yo no entiendo (Score:2)
The problem here is that Columbine incidents involve kids whose contact with others is minimal and disorted.
Here we go again... (Score:3)
If your children get access to material that you deem inapropriate, it is your failing as a parent.
If my children get access to material that you deem inapropriate, it is none of your damn business!
Capiche?
Re:Here we go again... (Score:1)
You want to know why there are so many violent games in stores nowadays? Because they sell!
You don't like it, fine. But if the majority of america does like it, you have to live with it. Thus is the nature of democracy.
And don't even get me started on children buying video games. It is the parent's responsibilty (and ONLY the parent's responsibility) to control what their son/daughter plays. Don't like what the next door neighbor has? Well, your son can't go over there. Don't kn
NFS UG2 is E for everyone? (Score:1, Interesting)
The songs are "blanked" every third or fourth word on most songs, but some of the others are *really* blatant. And the "don't play" feature doesn't persist between sessions.
9 out of 10 focus-tested rodents agree... (Score:2, Funny)
is an invitation to disaster. The 10th Gerbil
was too busy swearing at the Steam(tm) validation
screen to constructively comment.
Re:9 out of 10 focus-tested rodents agree... (Score:1)