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Games Entertainment

Parents Ignore Age Ratings? 75

Posted by Zonk from the pay-attention! dept.
GamesIndustry.biz has news of a ELSPA-funded research project that indicates that parents do not pay attention to ratings when purchasing games. From the article: "According to Freund, the study found a high awareness of the existence of videogame age ratings both among young gamers and among their parents - but parents tend to 'divorce themselves' from active involvement in deciding what their children play."
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Parents Ignore Age Ratings? More

Parents Ignore Age Ratings?

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  • ok... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @11:30PM (#12897624) Homepage Journal
    "... but parents tend to 'divorce themselves' from active involvement in deciding what their children play."

    My dad didn't have any problem with me seeing R rated movies or playing violent video games at a young age. Was he 'divorced' from it? Eh, maybe. On the other hand, I never gave him a reason to worry.

    So what bearing does my anecdote have on anything? Nothing terribly substantial, other than GTA3 sold over 30 million copies yet there has been like 2 incidents blamed on it.

    • Re:ok... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Seumas ( 6865 ) * on Thursday June 23, 2005 @11:40PM (#12897683)
      Exactly. That most parents ignore the ratings doesn't correlate to most parents divorcing themselves from being involved in choosing what their children play. Believe it or not, a little violence or even a little sex is not going to fuck a kid up and most parents know this.

      I watched Nightmare on Elmstreet and other films when I was about four years old. I saw hardcore porn when I was six to eight in magazines. And I've been checking out some pretty hardcore stuff online since about 1989. Some of it disturbingly perverse and wrong (you know, the kind of stuff friends trick you into clicking on without telling you that scat, horses or hammers and nails are involved).

      Guess what? I've never committed a violent crime. I've never held up a convenience store. I've never abused a woman or mistreated a woman. I'm a completely normal person earning a great living in a respectable career with no more or worse personal issues than your average fellow.

      Kids are more robust and versatile than people give them credit for. Your kid will not become braindead and stupid by listening to differing opinions and he won't become a rapist because he saw a boob or saw someone having sex and he sure won't become a murderer because he saw violence on television or a videogame or read about it in a book.

      Unless my kids were fucking idiots, I would assume that they have the mental faculties to discern fantasy from reality and let them enjoy their videogames. It's no big deal.
      • Exactly. That most parents ignore the ratings doesn't correlate to most parents divorcing themselves from being involved in choosing what their children play. Believe it or not, a little violence or even a little sex is not going to fuck a kid up and most parents know this.

        The issue really isn't how fscked up a little kid is going to get. The issue is that the parents of the kids that do get fsked up, that think every game on the shelf or with a TV commercial is appropriate for their little Johnnie to pl
        • Research!? The rating is spoken aloud at the end of a video game commercial, and they're displayed on all video game packaging. Your child's 12? See that M rating? That means it's not for him until you've decided it's okay. Buying your child an M (or T when they're young enough) rated game is no different than taking a toddler to an R movie. The ratings don't enforce themselves; they're parental guidelines.

          I sure wish that was all the "research" I ever had to do.
      • (you know, the kind of stuff friends trick you into clicking on without telling you that scat, horses or hammers and nails are involved).

        Offtopic, but we have a funny story behind this. A friend of mine has a domain (initially set up for an ISP that he owned) so of course we all had mail accounts.

        We'd (a friend and myself) always send him the sickest shit we could find. He'd complain, we'd laugh and keep sending.

        One day, he was reading his e-mail while I was on the phone with him. He straight out ask

      • Re:ok... (Score:2, Funny)

        by Jakeypants ( 860350 )
        "(you know, the kind of stuff friends trick you into clicking on without telling you that scat, horses or hammers and nails are involved)"

        Haha, dude, you totally fell for the hardcore animal shit-porn on crucified Jesus [hardcorean...djesus.net] site! If you want to get back at your friends, there are good revenge instructions on www.goatse.cx.
      • Guess what? I've never committed a violent crime.

        That's not really relevant. Finding one person (you) who hasn't committed any crimes after watching that stuff does NOT mean that you are a completely normal person, or that most people would act like you would.

        In other words, anecdotal evidence is meaningless when used as a generalization.

        • That most people don't commit crimes after watching violent television or movies or videogames isn't "anecdotal". It's fact. Look at the sales numbers for violent media and entertainment compared to the number of them that commit any crime of any sort ever - much less any sort of violent one - much less after being involved with the violent entertainment. Much less having anything to do even minutely related to it.
          • That most people don't commit crimes after watching violent television or movies or videogames isn't "anecdotal"

            That's the opposite of what I wrote. I don't know how you thought I wrote that. I said that the anecdote of ONE person does not mean anything.

    • Re:ok... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DrSkwid ( 118965 ) on Friday June 24, 2005 @03:08AM (#12898357) Journal
      Of course, the inability to see what harm it did you might be a symptom of the harm it did you.
      • I watched a lot of Sesame Street growing up. Heck I even saw such educational shows as Reading Rainbow and 3-2-1 contact.

        Guess what? I've never committed a violent crime. I've never held up a convenience store. I've never abused a woman or mistreated a woman. I'm a completely normal person earning a great living in a respectable career with no more or worse personal issues than your average fellow.

        Of course, the inability to see what harm it did me might be a symptom of the harm it did me...

      • Ok, then you tell me what harm was done (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Friday June 24, 2005 @08:03AM (#12899586) Journal
        So I too grew with a bunch of violence on TV. My parents had some... unorthodox views regarding censoring TV. For example, I was allowed to see wild west movies (lynchings, shootings and all), on account that there the good guys always win.

        I saw my first horror movie on VHS at the age of 10. Two of them, in fact. My brother was 6 at the time. Okay, so he was scared into shock. I was a little more robust, presumably on account of being older.

        Even earlier, we occasionally had the honour of seing grandma chop the head off a chicken to make food, on the summer vacation in the country. Oooer. Now that was a crying festival for me and my brother.

        (Which brings me to another question: the why the heck is it OK for the kids to watch Tom And Jerry and other violent cartoons? One thing I still remember is that kids are very good at anthropomorphising. See the crying festival for the chicken, or when grandma's cat got poisoned. So why isn't anyone worried then about violent cartoons?)

        Etc.

        So more than two decades later, I haven't killed anyone, haven't assaulted anyone, and generally I haven't even had a jaywalking ticket yet. I'm a firm believer in, well, what can be best described as a "lawful good" approach to the world. Though even that most likely due to mom preaching that, than because of those western movies.

        Ditto about my brother.

        An older family friend, now that was a bit more nuts. Taught his 2 year old son to play Wolfenstein 3D. (Not "Return To".) I doubt that the poor kid even understood what was happening there, but did as good a job of spraying lead everywhere with the machinegun as the stereotypical gangster-movie mobster.

        As far as I know, the kid hasn't killed or assaulted anyone yet.

        So, well, ok, I'm willing to take your point that maybe I'm blinded to whatever grievous damage all that did to me, my brother or the other kid mentioned. Well, then you tell me, please: _what_ symptoms should I be looking for?

        Because so far it seems to me like while, yes, a game or a movie (Tom And Jerry cartoons included) _can_ give someone ideas and questions, those ideas (or any other ideas) don't exist in a vaccuum. They're judged and fit into the general framework that that person has. As a kid, the framework that their parents and environment gave them.

        You're not an automaton which simply executes anything without thinking. If you played a game about jumping off bridges (e.g., City Of Heroes heroes never die when falling), you won't just jump off a bridge to get down faster. Even if the idea does briefly come to mind (I'll admit, it did come to _my_ mind), it'll be judged against that framework you have, filed under "you'd break your legs or die if you tried that", and dismissed.

        So for someone to get influenced by, say, GTA (a game which explicitly tells you that that stuff is illegal) to the point where they get their parent's gun and shoot a car driver, that framework must be deffective or largely missing to start with. If a game explicitly tells someone "this stuff is illegal. It's a crime. It can get the cops all over you" and they still do it, you have to wonder if the whole meaning of "illegal" and "crime" was missing from their mental model.
        • Bravo. An excellent post that deserves upward moderation.
        • The reason why - for example - Tom and Jerry, despite the cartoon's rampant violence, never make anyone worry about their kids is that said violence is highly stylized, with noone actually ever taking any real damage.

          For example, while Jerry might drop an anvil on Tom's head at any given second, even if he does, Tom will be perfectly fine again two seconds later after being momentarily flattened in a humorous way.

          Another difference is that cartoons usually make sure to only show violence in ways that kids
      • "Of course, the inability to see what harm it did you might be a symptom of the harm it did you."

        Perhaps, but I doubt it. Movie/Video game violence, to me, is entertaining. Seeing it for real isn't. I witnessed a car accident once. I think if you had seen my reaction to it, you wouldn't worry too much about the desensitization of video games.

    • Re:ok... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Gulthek ( 12570 )
      My parents were the same. Violence and foul language were all ok in movies and videogames; while we were young (and supposedly easily influenced) they just made sure to remind us that some things are ok in fantasy land that aren't ok in the real world.

      To the best of my recollection I never had trouble distinguishing movies and videogames from the real world. In fact, my ability to separate fact from fiction comes in pretty handy; and that doesn't come from being isolated from the world until 18 and then fl

  • ESA (Score:3, Informative)

    by VermifugeRT ( 461717 ) * on Thursday June 23, 2005 @11:35PM (#12897650)
    Interesting. I was recently reading the 2004 report issued by theESA [theesa.com](Entertainment Software Association) and it claims some 92% of parents are present at the time games are purchased or rented. Additionally, some 87% of children get parental permission before purchasing or renting a video game.

    These statistics are compiled from a dozen or so gaming companies such as Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, EA and others. I'm guessing the data could be slightly skewed to paint a more favorable picture. Though I'm more include to believe parents, on average, just don't care what kind of games there children are playing.
    • I've seen it myself time after time. Parents are present when games with an unsuitable age rating are bought, indeed are the ones handing the cash over. They just don't care, for the most part.

      But then, I've also seen parent after parent who does want to be responsible, but the kids only want games with the shiny 15 and 18 ratings on them. Pikmin, Zelda, Mario etc. may be far better games, but if there isn't a bloody great gun and a big red age rating on the front cover they just aren't interested.

    • Re:ESA (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AstrumPreliator ( 708436 ) on Friday June 24, 2005 @04:06AM (#12898511)
      Or perhaps they do care but they think their child is mature enough to handle more adult oriented games. Couldn't that also be a possibility?
      • Exactly. We let our 8 year old play Halo -- occasionally, with our supervision. We won't let him play Halo 2 no matter how he begs, because you play as Covenent and shoot at humans, and we don't think he's ready for that. Let him play Halo last year? Not on your life! He wasn't ready then.

        Maybe when he's 10 we'll let him have Halo whenever he wants, and Halo 2 when we're around. As parents, that's our responsibility. Not the government's, not the shopkeeper's, and not yours. You don't tell me how to raise

        • OK, that's weird. Why the big gap between my last line and the sig?
        • We won't let him play Halo 2 no matter how he begs, because you play as Covenent and shoot at humans, and we don't think he's ready for that.

          Have you played Halo 2? You don't shoot at humans any more than you did in Halo 1.
          • Look, you play how you like, I'll play how I like. I shoot at humans all the time in Halo 1 -- especially my wife! Damn nephew always gets me with the sniper rifle.

            Really, you're probably right, it's been a while since I played it last, I just remember that it's not something I want my boy to play right now. If it's because I mistakenly think you shoot marines or because I don't like the color of the box, it's my business. That's what parental control is all about.

  • In Australia... (Score:5, Informative)

    by trawg ( 308495 ) on Thursday June 23, 2005 @11:40PM (#12897682) Homepage
    ... the OFLC [oflc.gov.au] (Office of Film and Literature Classification) has just changed [oflc.gov.au] the classification markings system for games and movies - they now both use the same markings and have the same rating systems (though video games don't have a 'restricted' rating yet, which means anything harsher than an MA15+ gets refused classification - but that's a whole different kettle of fish).

    Part of the reason for doing this was to make it more obvious for parents when buying games for their kids that they might not be suitable. I guess its for those stupid parents that don't actually excercise critical thinking when they pick up a box of Deathstalker V: The Bloodening. Now they can clearly see its got a red sticker on it and will (theoretically) be more inclined to realise that it is Bad For Kids, because they remember that the red sticker is for grown-ups, because they saw it at the movies.

    I think its a good idea and hopefully those parents that would otherwise blindly buy their kids unsuitable titles will think about it a little bit more.

    • Re:In Australia... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Seumas ( 6865 ) * on Thursday June 23, 2005 @11:54PM (#12897739)
      Using ages is pointless. In fact, having a rating system at all is ridiculous.

      Just list, briefly, what is in the game and in what context. Let me decide if my kid (at whatever age) is ready for that material. I don't need to be told what is appropriate for the "average" 15 year old. Just tell me if it has sex or drugs or violence or crude language or nudity or anything else and then to what degree. Is it mild? Suggested? Comical? Gratuitous?

      This would be far more useful.

      Then again, I think my kid would be far more damaged by having a knife pulled on him in school or having classmates doing drugs around him. It's not what in the videogames that concerns me, but what he would have to face in real life. If parents only knew what their kids were dealing with these days, they would understand just how ridiculous and silly it is to be concerned with a god damn *videogame*.

      • "If parents only knew what their kids were dealing with these days, they would understand"



        However, most don't have a clue what it's like to grow up today, so they don't understand. They listen to the media telling them it's the television and videogames screwing them up.

    • Here in the US, both rating systems seem pretty useless regardless of whether parents understand them, anyway.

      The last G-rated movie I saw (which was put out by Disney, no less), was full of plot elements and jokes to which I would most certainly not like to expose my 6-year-old, if I had one. And I'm not exactly one of those people you'd throw in the "moral conservative" camp.

      • Re:In Australia... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Seumas ( 6865 ) *
        I find "family films" that use "poo poo" jokes, getting hit in the nut humor and other juvenile crap to be far more offensive and questionable than a little flesh or even a bit of violence. And there's a LOT of inuendo in a lot of "childrens" movies these days (take Grinch for example).
        • layering your comedy is a wonderful thing, if done properly the jokes will simply whoosh straight over the children's head and give the adults a laugh(toy story and the Simpsons being good examples of this done well). ;) honestly Children love toilet humour , its not offensive at all . Its very low brow and silly , but then you can't really expect a 6 year old to have a refined pallet .

      • I really liked The Incredibles for this reason. I was rather surprised when watching it that the kind of "cartoon violence"--complete with cops and robbers with real guns--I grew up on was in the film in spades, along with real jeopardy and scary danger. I don't mind exposing my kid to those things as part of a good adventure.

        You know what wasn't there? Disrespectful talkback and sass from kids and others, which has become a staple in kids' movies for the past few years now. Frankly, I think that does tea

  • Really no excuse (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) * <jhummel&johnhummel,net> on Thursday June 23, 2005 @11:48PM (#12897714) Homepage
    I mean, pretty much every store I've seen has the ESRB ratings inside with warnings on them. Personally, I think the issue is that too many parents expect someone else to just tell them what to do. Myself and a friend of mine were in a software store when a kid walked in (9 years old) wanting to buy Soldier of Fortune. We actually took the 5 seconds to point out the easily readable sign and explain why something like "Diablo" (T for Teen) was more acceptable for his age perhaps, or something like that.

    I'm not necessarily against laws regarind video games [advancedmn.com] as long as they're logical and thought out (example: M rated games behind the counter? Makes sense. M rated games 5 feet above the floor? Stupid, and discriminating against short people.) But until we have parents at least make the minimal effort, I don't want to hear them bitching.

    This said as a father of three children who plays games with the little rug rats (we've finished "Ocarina of Time" and, after a bout with "Paper Mario" will be hitting "Chrono Trigger").
  • Sky is Blue, water is wet, and, Parents arent parenting properly.
  • [senator]
    There's got to be a way we can fix this with legislation
    [/senator]

    Seriously though, every time this point is brought up (that parents don't stop their kids from doing things the government thinks the kids shouldn't be doing) I fear that another little facet of personal responsibility is soon to be sealed off.
  • Smokers ignore Surgeon General's warning?!?! Really though, I have seen a parent walk into a game store and slam a copy of GTA on the counter, demanding a refund due to the nature of the game that they bought for their child the day before!
    • I've have seen this exact thing when I worked in a video game store eons ago. I can remember thinking "It's called Grand Theft Auto, what did you think it was, a mathematics study aid?"

  • The usual senario... (Score:5, Informative)

    by MagicDude ( 727944 ) on Friday June 24, 2005 @12:35AM (#12897903)
    Scene: Mother walking through Wal-Mart with 1-3 eight year old brats in tow.

    "Mommy, buy me this" "No"
    "Mommy, buy me this" "No"
    "Mommy, buy me this" "No"
    "Mommy, buy me this" "No"
    "Mommy, buy me this" "No"
    "Mommy, buy me this" "No"
    "Mommy, buy me this" "No"
    "Mommy, buy me this" "No"
    "Mommy, buy me this" "OK!! OK!! Just STFU!!" (Que other shop patrons looking agast at loud use of foul language.)

    Checkout Clerk - "Ma'am, do you know that Grand Theft Auto 3 is a mature rated game, more suitable for kids in their mid to late teens?"
    Mother - "Whatever, as long as they aren't having sex with hookers and then beating the hookers up, it's fine"
    Checkout Clerk - "Well, actually, you..."
    Mother (interupting) - "Tyler, put that lamp down this instant" (runs off with merchandise).

  • Parents are just big kids (Score:3, Insightful)

    by newsblaze ( 894675 ) on Friday June 24, 2005 @12:38AM (#12897911) Homepage Journal
    And many of them don't take any responsibility for anything, including taking care of or managing their kids.

    At some stage, parents may realise they aren't doing their kids any favors. But maybe never.

    Then they wonder why their kids are little shits and why their friends don't want to socialize as much any more.

    PS. I am over 50 and I am still a kid and a geek.

    • What gets me is every time a thread like this comes up we hear "but parents have to be responsible for raising their children," as if somehow parents have some kind of absolute control over their children and the world they inhabit.

      And when anyone suggests mechanisms that, in fact, allow a parent to exert some control over what goes into raising their kid, we get the outcry that "how dare you require parents' permission for M-rated games!" and "how dare you offer software that allows you to restrict acces

  • The myth of warping fragile little minds (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dtfinch ( 661405 ) * on Friday June 24, 2005 @12:42AM (#12897930) Journal
    Parents, teachers, and nosey bystanders worry too much. Kids know the difference between game violence and real violence, and use games as a safe outlet for their frustrations. Every day, thousands of innocent little children are tricked into clicking goatse links in web forums. A violent game isn't going to do any harm, nor is a rated R movie. Chances are they know what violence is, they know what profanity is, and they've more than once practiced both without having learned it from games or the media.
    • A violent game is different from violent movies etc in that the player is an active participant in the violance rather than a passive bystander. Part of the argument is that, from a psychological point of view (this has been empirically studied) active participation (ie actually pulling a trigger or pressing the buttons in correlation with an action) has a more profound psychological effect than passively watching the same action.

      Now I personally am a complete libertarian when it comes to this issue, and t

  • I know I do (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FullCircle ( 643323 ) on Friday June 24, 2005 @12:47AM (#12897949)
    I ignore those ratings.

    Then again, I personally check into the games and movies my children get.

    My friends, reviews and my own two eyes are much more accurate than those ratings, plus I know the maturity level of each of my children.

  • "Games are for kids" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ymgve ( 457563 ) on Friday June 24, 2005 @01:22AM (#12898071) Homepage
    The problem is that you can't pin the blame for this on ignorance or bad parenting. I think a huge part of the problem is that parents don't equate games with other forms of entertainment, like movies. They still think of games as something that's only for children, and then ratings are ignored. "Yeah, it says eighteen, but it must be OK, because it's a GAME, and those are made for kids, right?" This also explains the huge outrage that leads to headlines like "Hookers getting killed in video game", while no recent newspaper has had a headline of "Hookers getting killed in latest movie".

    This misconception will be hard to change, but hopefully it will be gone in a generation, when us modern gamers become parents ourselves.
    • I wish I had mod points. I think this is exactly the problem. I know that my mom has this attitude. When I was growing up, I played Super Mario and Zelda and Castlevania on the NES. Now my 14-year-old brother is playing GTA and Halo 2, but it doesn't really even occur to my mom that these are at all unlike the games I played.

      I once called her into the room to see what was happening when he played San Andreas (he was in a sex shop and some lady was walking around with her boobs hanging out). She was flat-o

  • I Ignore Ratings (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Shihar ( 153932 ) on Friday June 24, 2005 @01:58AM (#12898162)
    I recently went out and got video games for, my older sisters kid (8), my little brother (12) and my little sister (16). I ignored the ratings. Hell, I didn't even check the ratings. Why?

    1) The ratings are stupid to begin with. Who decided what a "teen" game is. Who in the hell decided that "cartoon violence" is a 10+ game? Trying to set some magical age barrier up is stupid. I knew a girl who was 22 and couldn't sit through an PG-13 rated movie because her parents had so thoroughly sheltered her. My little brother on the other hand had no problems watching Blade with me and following it up by reading a dozen vampire books. Trusting a some foolish rating system to raise your kids is lazy.

    2) I checked into the games myself. I didn't use the stupid rating system. I learned what each game before I bought it. Glacing at their website and hitting up a review only takes a couple of minutes. Hell, the back of the box should give you a pretty friggin good idea.

    So, does the stat that most parents ignore the ESRB ratings mean anything? No. Show me a stat showing that parents are ignorant as to what they are buying and there might be some valid point in there (that point being some parents are lazy). Just showing that people ignore the worthless ESRB ratings is just stupid.
    • I might as well throw in a third reason. If your offspring is a developer (e.g. programmer, 3D artist, etc.), then he needs to buy the latest engine game, even if it has a 'M'ature rating. (But this is a special case that applies to only a few games.)

      2) I checked into the games myself. I didn't use the stupid rating system.

      "Stupid" is a bit generous. As an example, Jagged Alliance 2 got 'T'een, while Operation Flashpoint gets 'M'. If anything, it seems that the rating is based on the number of r

  • My Nephew and his games (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tod_miller ( 792541 ) on Friday June 24, 2005 @02:01AM (#12898178) Journal
    My Nephew, IMHO, does have an unhealthy gaming life, he plays too many games, but sadly, there are others who play even more games than him. (there is just an inbalance)

    Anyway, he goes out and swaps / buys games once a month, he is 10.

    He comes back with an R game, it just looked like some cool sports game, I think it was one of those 'scaintily clad pixels' games.

    His choices do get vetted, and I think it is hypocritical to allow children to role play cowboys and indians, and then to be worried about the colour of blood in a computer game.

    Needless to say, this game was taken off him before he could play it, but the reasons were explained nicely.

    If GTA* series would allow parental locks two things would happen:

    The game could ship with blood turned off, and swearing and lewdness, the parent could lock this. Why? WHY? you will say.

    Well, because, just like the SIX BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR THE TOBACCO COMPANIES MAKE ON UNDERAGE SMOKING IN THE US ALONE computer games will be sold to people under the advised limit.

    Also, you might want to play this game, with sound, in a house which has you children and "Yo mother fucker n* lets take this whoring bitch and fuck her ass good" might not be a great cut scene to have play across your 6.1's.

    Now, R* deliberately put lots of non-violent adult themes to force the issue of adult nature.

    i.e. no body complains too much about porn, but that is because it is only generally *very* interesting to those entering adult hood anyway, because of biology.

    Violence definately attracts the young, and kids immitate EVERYTHING from mortal combat to GTA. Cowboys and Indians becomes Da Boyz and Da Pigz, bow and arrows and romanticised rifles become 9's and uzis.

    Instead of smoking the peace pipe, they eerr, smoke the peace crack pipe.

    It does affect children, children always pick up on what is acceptable, and the more loose the boundaries are, the less they can work it out.

    It is arrogant for US (people who are currenlty over 20) to have an opinion on what makes people violent, in our forming years the graphics were SHIT. A reason why many parents who do not think about these things, don't realise the realism involved.

    So, unless you have an NVidia geforce chipset when you were 10, shut the fuck up complaining about the courts and parent groups concerned about violent video games: you cannot prove they are not sold to kids, they can, as a player (PLAYA) of violent video games, I appreciate their concerns.

    Now for once, take a balanced view. (that goes for pennyarcade too - they are a rack short of a hosting server if you ask me - defend the right to play violent games, not the violent games themselves - let the fuckers at EA games, who make fuckloads of cash spend some of it ensuring the violence doesn't reach children)

    -1 going against the grain
    • I grew up on a farm.

      I saw my first steer get slaughtered when I was about seven. We didn't believe in using sledgehammers, as meatpacking plants do. We thought a twelve-gauge deer slug between the eyes was more humane. I was shooting a .22 rifle by the time I was eight, albeit with close adult supervision. On weekends my brother and I would take air rifles into our barns and hoghouses and do search-and-destroy for sparrows and rats. Part of this was necessity, in that you don't want pests infesting yo
      • There is nothing shocking about the slaughter of animals, and when I was young I watched animals being killed for food. Yes it jolts you, any death does, but it is food.

        Violence in video games is human violence. It is a violence that blurs the lines between acceptable social behaviour.

        French kids drink wine from a young age, they do not binge drink wine in their teens. Society programmed them. Fashion is also a social programming. When to wear clothes, what to wear etc.

        You were trained to do this job, be

      • You think the problem today is the graphics? I had photorealistic violence. I had the real deal. I stood there with a twelve-gauge and put a steer's brains out through the back of its head. It rattled me at first, doesn't anymore.

        Actually I think the (perceived) problem is that what would normally be a revulsion against violent acts can be desensitized out, which is rather supported by your story.

        Now, those who eat meat probably think it's rather a good and necessary thing that at least somme people

  • Brother (Score:1)

    by iMJ ( 870866 )
    I have a brother who has friends, and friends and friends. Well if you ask ANY of them what they're favorite game is they are going to say Grand Theft Auto. My brother isnt stupid. He knows whats wrong and whats right and hes 9. I remember walking into the local wal mart to pick up the new Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The lady there said can i see you id? I hand her the ID which clearly says im 17 years old. She then replys "Your not old enough." Hell broke loose after that. Anyway the point is that the
    • I would have put the money on the counter and left with the game, but hey, I'm not 17.
    • WAL-MART sells San Andreas??? The same wal-mart that censors CDs and movies without even letting you know that the version you're buying is changed?

      Wow, I hate Wal-mart even more now. If they're going to censor, they could at least not be hypocritical about it.

  • I live in 2 worlds, one I can hurt one I shouldn't
    In one if I was to hold up a store or shoot up people one I shouldn't even punch for fun. If I hurt in one world nobody cares, I can go about doing it more and then i get bored. In my other world If i was to hurt at all people would be outraged at me i wouldn't be able to do anything.

    I understand the rules of both worlds and I live both diffrently I never cross one with the other, if I did there would be major problems.

    On a side note, GTA games should not
  • My cousin, it turns out, bought Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for her eleven-year-old son.

    When I heard that, it was all I could do to avoid doing a double-take. Mind you, she wasn't very concerned that he was interested in Dungeons & Dragons, which I had attributed to being rather cool of her (this is a region in which, to most folk, D&D all but equals Forces Of Ultimate Darkness).

    I don't know if she knows what the game's about or anything, or that it's filled with profanity, or contains situations very inappropriate for children -- you see, I don't think exposure to games like this warp kids' minds, but I am a bit concerned with the impression that what is depicted within is somehow normal, or even right, and kids *are* suceptable to that, especially when, on the schoolyard, they encounter other kids who'll try to emulate the behaviour patterns seen in games and movies in an effort to see "cool."

    What could I do against that kind of thing? Only thing I could: I brought over Katamari Damacy, and nearly flipped when I saw his jaw drop open when he saw the last level would take the humble ball from 1 meter all the way to 300m, and beyond. When he saw that the very island on which the level began would become part of the ball by the end....

    You're probably wondering how can this be any kind of remedy to GTA? It's simple: it's all about perspective. Just like Katamari Damacy is about how the world looks different, and yet suspeciously similar, when viewed at 5cm and 200m. It's all about exposing kids to as many different influences as they can get, making sure they get to see the really cool and unique along with the crap with which our culture is filled, and trusting that they'll be able to sort it all out for themselves.

    So, I really think Katamari Damacy should be played in schools.
    • yeah, because we should be sure to teach our kids that it's normal and perfectly okay to crush people with giant gravity balls and then shoot them into space and INSCINERATE them.
      Not to mention giving kids the idea that it's good to be in a helpless co-dependent relationship with an abusive, suporatic, and possibly alcoholic father
      And I don't even want to THINK about what ideas kids would get from watching whatever those pandas are doing at the beginning of the game.

  • I don't know, maybe violent games do effect kids... after my 7-year-old boy played Jedi Academy for a couple weeks, one of his classmates was "shooting" at him with his finger and my son "went Jedi" on him and knocked him down. He had never been aggressive before.

    Mehh, maybe it had nothing to do with JA. I asked him, "did you Force Push him?"

    "No, Dad. I just pushed him down."

    Nevertheless, I only let him play E rated games anymore, with JA only once a week (well, I can't make the poor kid quit cold tur

  • My two cents.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Sagewolf ( 885020 ) on Friday June 24, 2005 @09:39AM (#12900537)
    As someone who has worked in both game stores(Gamestop & Babbages) and a music store(FYE). Most parents don't read the game boxes, read the rating information, or really know what their child is buying. There are the parents that will flip the box over and read the back of the box or have read about the game beforehand, but those are rare. Most parents hangout near the counter waiting for their child to grab their game or music so that they can pay for it and be on their way. A majority of the time it's just the kid in the store buying the game or music why mom & dad are shopping elsewhere or they've dropped their kids off at the mall and leave.

    A few days later you get an angry parent yelling at you and demanding a refund for selling an "inappropriate" game or music to their little angel of a child. Riiight..so now it's my(the retailers) fault. Not your fault for failing to read the box, and not your little angels fault for picking the game up knowing what the games content is. Hell, if mom or dad took a look at the box art it might have helped them get a clue. Take GTA3 : San Andreas http://azz.gouranga.com/images/sa/sa_boxart_big.jp g [gouranga.com]. I think the guy's leaning out of the car shooting would have been the first big clue as to the game content along with the blonde bending over licking her lips suggestivily, but that's just me.

    Parents need to start getting involved with their kids activities. I grew up playing games and I still play them, but when i was younger my mother watched what I bought. If she didn't like I wasn't allowed to buy or play it. When she found my Doom floppies she took a magnet to them, but a year later I was able to play it in her eyes. Just the last week she called me up to ask if my fiance and I are planning on getting an Xbox 360. She's in her 50's and I'm 30 and she's still has a clue about my interests and even recommend a good wireless router.

  • It depends on the game (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DesScorp ( 410532 ) on Friday June 24, 2005 @10:20AM (#12900917) Journal
    My nine-going-on-ten year old loves his PS2, moreso since I put a wireless bridge on it so he can play games online. I buy his games, and I always look at the ratings; but then I consider what kind of game it is too. I'll even let him play M rated games depending on the circumstances. For instance, he loves Return to Castle Wolfenstein, which is rated M for truly horrid looking creatures, ghastly Nazi experiments, and scary stormtroopers. But it's basically Indiana Jones meets a horror movies. He can handle that, so Wolfenstein is in. He asked for Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, however, and Daddy said "Hell No". Because, in my parental opinion, the former game is sci-fi/horror fantasy, and the latter glorifies real criminal behavior. That's my call as a father to make. He also can't have God of War because it supposedly contains some pretty explicit sexual scenes, so that's out.

    The parent has to use their best judgement. My nephew isn't allowed to play Wolfenstein type games (he's the same age as my son) because he's still terrirfied of things that go bump in the night. You can't take that kid to a horror movie. He curls up and covers his eyes. So his parents act accordingly with his computer entertainment.
  • The ratings system is too simple. You really want to say this thing you're watching contains the following possibly offensive material that you may or may not want to subject your kids to: blood gore 4-letter words partial nudity etc instead of putting a single letter trying to sum it all up. That just doesn't work since it too simplified to accomodate everyone.

    • You say that the American(?) rating system is to simple and that a single letter is not enough to show parents why they might or might not want their kids to play a game. In the UK and most of Europe the PEGI rating system ( http://www.pegi.info/ [pegi.info]) is used which gives games an age rating (3+, 7+, 12+, 16+ and 18+) as well as having icons to show the reason for the classification - violence, sex, drugs etc. An example of this would be Halo which has 16+ & "Violence" ratings.

      In the UK certain games are al

  • While I definately think that parents should be the first-line defense against such things, and pay attention to what their children are up to, we do have to be a bit realistic about this. If little Billy has turned his room into a factory and is making bomb materials, collecting rifles, and preparing to be a front-page news article... parents should notice. However, kids can be extremely good at hiding things. Wires and batteries etc, "oh mom, that's a science project for school," or perhaps dad just think

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