Parents ignore game age ratings

[netcraazzy]

BBC News has a short article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4118270.stm) about recent research in the UK showing that parents are not stopping their children from playing mature rated games despite their awareness of rating systems that are in place.

Like movies, all games receive an age classification. This works through a two-tier system involved the British Board of Film Classification and a voluntary European setup known as Pegi.

But the research presented at the Elspa (Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association) summit in London suggests that few parents pay much attention to the age ratings.

Personally, I'm not surprised. How else would every 10 ten year old I've run into know all about GTA. Somebody has to buy it for them.

[Ailer]

We all know what this means. Various governments are going to try the ban video games thing again, without placing any blame on the people who are supposed to be raising their so called 'kids'. bah, and people wonder why the youth are all upity. Its kinda off on a tangent, but I remember going to a elementry school grade 4 class and hearing a very large amount of sweraring, death threats, and overall what I would consider... unprofessional behavior. When I think back to grade 4 I can't remember knowing any swear words, let alone plotting to kill a teacher. Whats worse about this particular class was it was what I would consider a class of upper-middle class children.

[Nesta]

Bad parenting skills have been screwing up kids for thousands of years. But instead of placing blame on them, societies are always looking for scapegoats. In our current times, it was Rock n Roll, then it was T.V., then it was comic books, then Video Games. There's always something to blame, but when you look deep and hard at it, it's usually the parents not raising their kids right.

/hopes he's being a good Dad.

[Groo]

A lot of the people "in charge" don't understand videogames. So they are scared of them. Videogames are a fairly new thing. Once the people who have been raised their entire lives around videogames take the reigns of control in the government, there will be no more controversy.

When comic books and rock music were new, the same thing happened. People were TERRIFIED of them, beause they didn't understand them. Now, you never hear about comic books or Elvis corrupting kids.

[Kelegacy]

And videogames are getting the horrible rap lately. Kids under 17 shouldnt be killing cops anyway [in 25 to Life] if parents actually did their fucking jobs. If games that show cop killings are banned, then movies should be banned, too. No more GTA, no more Godfather. Now THAT would be a travesty.

The media has really started to get on my nerves AGAIN lately.

[emperordahc]

Know what your kids play. If it's not appropriate, then don't buy it, and if they already have it, get rid of it. It's not that hard.

[if76]

You guys are all making a lot of assumptions and should be ashamed of yourself. Here you have a lot of parents who are conscious of the ratings system and are conscious of what their kids are playing and yet you all call them bad parents.

MAYBE not all kids should be playing GTA, but a ton are mature enough to play a game like that and not do anything bad in the real world as a result. Parents who respect their kids enough to realize this shouldn't feel the need to censor their entertainment.

Growing up my parents let me play whatever I wanted (Mortal Kombat, GTA 1 & 2, Postal, whatever) and I've never committed a violent act outside of sports. So lets not start calling all parents negligent when they're just excirsizing their right to raise their kids the way they see fit.

[Ailer]

A lot of the people "in charge" don't understand videogames. So they are scared of them. Videogames are a fairly new thing. Once the people who have been raised their entire lives around videogames take the reigns of control in the government, there will be no more controversy.

When comic books and rock music were new, the same thing happened. People were TERRIFIED of them, beause they didn't understand them. Now, you never hear about comic books or Elvis corrupting kids.
To this I have one thing to say. What? I know its not 'mainstream' or anything, but isn't D&D still rather demonized? Or even Harry Potter, from a society that encourages reading. These books are seen as both the rise in child reading(which was politely ruined by the intro to the silver screen, but thats another thread) and still demonzied for their show of 'magic'. I think what it comes down to is that we, the people, have let extremists take control of the world we live in, people who do not see the middle ground, and yes, people who honestly believe that after years of doing something else, that children are once again the problem of EVERYONE as oposed to just their parents.

I can't say I disagree with the children should be raised by a village, but there is a limit to how many people that includes. I set the line at 100, which pretty much lets me say my immediate family, the childs siblings, uncles, aunts, and grand parents are the people who are involved in shaping the child. Not everyone in the freakin country.

Oh, and just for the sake of it, I blame TV.

This subject just peeves me off to no end, if you guys would like however, I will play devil's advocate and show you the other side of the coin, as I have atempted to just do.

[Ailer]

You guys are all making a lot of assumptions and should be ashamed of yourself. Here you have a lot of parents who are conscious of the ratings system and are conscious of what their kids are playing and yet you all call them bad parents.

MAYBE not all kids should be playing GTA, but a ton are mature enough to play a game like that and not do anything bad in the real world as a result. Parents who respect their kids enough to realize this shouldn't feel the need to censor their entertainment.

Growing up my parents let me play whatever I wanted (Mortal Kombat, GTA 1 & 2, Postal, whatever) and I've never committed a violent act outside of sports. So lets not start calling all parents negligent when they're just excirsizing their right to raise their kids the way they see fit.
Thats not what we are afraid of. We are afraid a government is going to see this stat, blame all the troubles of children on video games, and proceed to make it a pain in the ass to buy a Mature audience game.

[Mrbunchypants]

Just the other day i saw a kid in EB with his dad buying a copy of GTA 3. While not as bad at the newer ones. i still had to wonder why he was being allowed to get it. The kid looked about nine or ten. and it was for him cuz he was hold it like it was a new toy all close to his chest. he dad had another game in his hand.

I'm not too happy about this being that I am a soon to be father. Does this mean i'll have to look at all of my kids friends games collection?

:(

[if76]

Thats not what we are afraid of. We are afraid a government is going to see this stat, blame all the troubles of children on video games, and proceed to make it a pain in the ass to buy a Mature audience game.

Well what I think you're really afraid of is that developers will stop making mature games. So am I.

Still by condemning all parents who let their children play mature games, you're giving weight to the argument that playing a mature game will have a detrimental effect on a child. This is what the lawmakers believe (or say they believe) and that's the claim we should be fighting.

[Cha-Ka]

Know what your kids play. If it's not appropriate, then don't buy it, and if they already have it, get rid of it. It's not that hard.

Exactly! And don't pull that "I can't be with them every moment" crap either. Of course you can't, but if you can't maintain dicipline as a parent, or you're letting your kid visit friend's houses where they're not sufficiently supervised then (drumroll...) you're not doing your job as a parent!

I'm not too happy about this being that I am a soon to be father. Does this mean i'll have to look at all of my kids friends games collection?
Maybe not if you take the time to meet the the parents of your child's friend and satisfying yourself that those parents runs a tight enough ship to meet your standards of good supervision.

[Ailer]

Still by condemning all parents who let their children play mature games, you're giving weight to the argument that playing a mature game will have a detrimental effect on a child. This is what the lawmakers believe (or say they believe) and that's the claim we should be fighting.

I don't think thats what any of us ment. If you think your son/daughter is mature enough to watch pulp fiction, I'm fine with it. However, if they are watching pulp fiction and you don't know about it, or even worse, know they are, would rather not have them, and still don't do anything about it, then it is a problem in my eyes.

I think the problem is more of a kids doing things their parents wouldn't approve of behind their backs. I wouldn't have any problem if I saw some kid buying GTA if his dad was there. However, if I saw that kid buying it without his dad, thats when I begin to have a problem with the scenerio.

[Royal Fool]

Let's not forget that games and the media as a whole (Movies and even various music genres) have become increasingly more extreme and uh, realistic, for lack of a better word. I'm trying to avoid using the word "violent" here because that's really just become a buzzword. What I mean is that there is a bit of a connection between kids' apparent craziness and the new trends in media.

But kids are just kids... right?

[Zeal]

The reality is that the goverment is going to stop fucking with videogames, now. It brings in billions and is too much of an asset to America's entertainment industry and economy in general. It's only going to get bigger, too.

[Heretic Machine]

Stupid kids do stupid things, nothing will change that. No matter how few or how many video games they play, it has no effect what-so-ever. I know plenty of kids who never even touched a video game, and here is some of the things they have done:

Splash battery acid on their little brother
Shoot the neighbors dog
Skin cats and hang the skulls up in their room
Mug someone in the middle of the school hallway
Steal from the lunch room's cash register
Slit a teacher's car

Video games didn't cause any of this, they had no exposure to them. This was just plain old fashioned stupidity, and there is no reason to believe video games cause any of the things they are blamed for. Just stupidity.

[B_Money]

I think we're missing the real point. What's the common cause of all these kids commiting crimes? They're all children. Obvioiusly we should ban all children.

[Heretic Machine]

Obvioiusly we should ban all children.

I'm all for it.

[Salat]

MAYBE not all kids should be playing GTA, but a ton are mature enough to play a game like that and not do anything bad in the real world as a result. Parents who respect their kids enough to realize this shouldn't feel the need to censor their entertainment.
Wrong. If a game's rated M, nobody under 17 is mature enough to play it.

That whole argument of, "But, my 13 year old is really mature," is just a bunch of rationalization by parents who don't want to have to deal with the wrath of a disappointed child. The point of ESRB ratings is to allow parents to make informed choices as to how much potentially objectionable content they will allow their children to access. Good parents censor their kids entertainment, and may occasionally beat them (http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=beat), as needed.

Still by condemning all parents who let their children play mature games, you're giving weight to the argument that playing a mature game will have a detrimental effect on a child. This is what the lawmakers believe (or say they believe) and that's the claim we should be fighting.

Wrong. There's plenty of credible scientific evidence that violent media affects children. People aren't complaining about this stuff because they want to be dicks - they're complaining because violent entertainment has a strong relationship to violent behavior (http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~ker/index.htm). The fact that many of these folks are dicks is just a bizarre coincidence. Is there a direct, causal relationship between violent media and violent behavior? Probably. The evidence is pretty strong, and the effect of violent media behavior have been replicated enough to make reasonably bright people worried. What's not well known is the effect of violent video games on children. Most of the media studies show that watching violent TV or movies can increase children's aggression. Since games are more interactive (you're actually participating in the violence rather than just passively observing it) - people are worried even more about games than other media. There's not a large body of evidence on the links between violent video games and children's behavior, so many people want to play it safe and restrict their kids from playing violent games. If anyone know of any scholarly reports about this, respond here or PM me with the info.

[EyesNoMore]

I'll tell you the #1 thing a kid says when you tell their parents that GTA has brutal violence, graphic language and sexual situations. They say, "Well, Jimmy already has it." And this actually *works*. I guess their rationalization is that it is better for them to be playing it under their supervision, but wouldn't the better idea be to maybe talk to Jimmy's parents?

It saddens me when parents don't care.

[Kelegacy]

My little cousin was playing GTA3 when she was 12. Of course, she's a spoiled brat, but she didnt ever really play the missions. She liked the aspect of driving around and doing whatever she wanted. She never went out of her way to kill people, but instead just liked driving all over the city. I'd actually watch her follow the traffic laws and stop at red lights. Hell, i even bought her Vice City for Xmas one year.

Now she is 13 and could give a rats ass about all that. I seriously think it all depends on how you raise your children, and if they have some sort of mental defect/inability to discern reality. My parents were very lax in making us follow ratings for movies while growing up. After karate flicks sometimes we'd act up, but that's what boys do. They'd reprimand us and control out outbursts, but i never had the urge to karate-chop my brother's face off. I also never felt the urge to kill someone after playing a videogame. Now, I DO have the urge every day to end some fuckwit's life, but i dont think that has anything to do with media...it has to do with growing up and witnessing fuckwits every day on your morning commute.

Also, to my parents' benefit, videogames werent overly violent when i was growing up. it wasnt until the 32-bit days that games started to take on an edge where environments started to appear realistic. Movies have always been brutal, but I think a parent can tell whether or not their child is old enough to handle the subject material. I'm a wussy democrat for christ's sake, but I dont think games or other media should be outlawed just because it's a viable scapegoat. My parents taught me very young that the movies/shows I watched on tv were VIRTUAL...see: fake.

I am an example of how healthy and sane kids can turn out, even in the face of being allowed to watch adult media at a young age. It may depend on the child and his ability to comprehend, but then again, that's another job for a parent. It's called TEACHING. And having loving, caring, and involved parents doesnt hurt either.

[Heretic Machine]

I agree with Kelegacy completly... I had a very similar experience growing up, and I'm five years younger. Though, I do blame the media for the violent urges I experience these days. I'm usually seeing the fucktards I want to bash in the media... -.-

[lpmiller]

Wrong. If a game's rated M, nobody under 17 is mature enough to play it.

Wrong. It's a guildline, not a law, not a hard and fast rule.

[Citizen Philip]

Wrong. There's plenty of credible scientific evidence that violent media affects children. People aren't complaining about this stuff because they want to be dicks - they're complaining because violent entertainment has a strong relationship to violent behavior (http://www.uweb.ucsb.edu/~ker/index.htm). The fact that many of these folks are dicks is just a bizarre coincidence. Is there a direct, causal relationship between violent media and violent behavior? Probably. The evidence is pretty strong, and the effect of violent media behavior have been replicated enough to make reasonably bright people worried. What's not well known is the effect of violent video games on children. Most of the media studies show that watching violent TV or movies can increase children's aggression. Since games are more interactive (you're actually participating in the violence rather than just passively observing it) - people are worried even more about games than other media. There's not a large body of evidence on the links between violent video games and children's behavior, so many people want to play it safe and restrict their kids from playing violent games. If anyone know of any scholarly reports about this, respond here or PM me with the info.

Large bodies of evidence are supplied by those with the desire to convince someone to change their mind, or to have an opinon.

Right now America has invaded a country under false pretense, continues its occupation and civilans continue to die on a daily basis; children also watch the same news programs as adults that contain the same grisly stories and ocassional video footage. They know people who have been been assaulted/beat, and maybe even know some child that may have died or killed either accidenatly or with evil intent. They may not watch the news, but they hear about it. And that's real life, which is apparently completely different from fake blood charges errupting, dinosaurs eatting people or characters running around in a game shooting other people with guns - who come back to life and do it again

Violence is violence, you want your innocent virginal children to stop witnessing horrible things, stop doing horrible things. It's all or nothing, a child with violent intentions isn't going to start playing devil/angel on their shoulder if you have still have any violence at all.

All you can do is teach them what is good and what is bad, and unless you're a terrible parent or your child has some physiological problem, they will listen.

GOOD parents do not censor their children, they teach and they guide: ommiting reality is not a positive thing. As a parent you can decide to disallow "violent entertainment" in your house or you can have an open door policy - either can be positive or negative: as a parent it's your job to tell which is the best thing to do, not someone giving you a pretty article with lots of tables and poles and other people's opinon.

[Kelegacy]

Large bodies of evidence are supplied by those with the desire to convince someone to change their mind, or to have an opinon.

Right now America has invaded a country under false pretense, continues its occupation and civilans continue to die on a daily basis; children also watch the same news programs as adults that contain the same grisly stories and ocassional video footage. They know people who have been been assaulted/beat, and maybe even know some child that may have died or killed either accidenatly or with evil intent. They may not watch the news, but they hear about it. And that's real life, which is apparently completely different from fake blood charges errupting, dinosaurs eatting people or characters running around in a game shooting other people with guns - who come back to life and do it again

Violence is violence, you want your innocent virginal children to stop witnessing horrible things, stop doing horrible things. It's all or nothing, a child with violent intentions isn't going to start playing devil/angel on their shoulder if you have still have any violence at all.

All you can do is teach them what is good and what is bad, and unless you're a terrible parent or your child has some physiological problem, they will listen.

GOOD parents do not censor their children, they teach and they guide: ommiting reality is not a positive thing. As a parent you can decide to disallow "violent entertainment" in your house or you can have an open door policy - either can be positive or negative: as a parent it's your job to tell which is the best thing to do, not someone giving you a pretty article with lots of tables and poles and other people's opinon.

Yeah, what he said. Good post, Dr. Phil! ;)

[mister_slim]

Well what I think you're really afraid of is that developers will stop making mature games. So am I.
I'd like them to make some actually mature games.

Yeah, I know 'mature' is entirely measured in liters of blood spilled, joules of explosives detonated, and number of titties viewed. In slim_world, it's not like that.

[Abash Alarmist]

Wrong. If a game's rated M, nobody under 17 is mature enough to play it.


Wrong. Just because someone reached the age of 17 doesn't mean that they have the mental capacity, or maturity to play the said game. I know plenty of immature 17-20 year olds, and in retrospect, I know just as many mature 15-16 year olds. Like it was said previously, it is a guideline...not a law.

[pur3r4ge]

I'm suprised that no one has mentioned the fact that many parents let their young children watch R rated movies as well. I think that the game industry is willing to meet parents half way on this, and give them the tools to help them parent. A rating system will let a parent know at a glance what sort of content to expect. If they choose to ignore this, that's their own fault, not the fault of the industry.

Regarding the absolute nature of age ratings: I believe that it's been pretty well established that girls mature at a faster rate then boys, and that people mature at different rates. Ratings are a guideline. It's still a parents responsibility to determine what their kids are capable of handling in a mature manner.

[Rommel]

A lot of the people "in charge" don't understand videogames.

That's bullshit. Apologist tripe. The fucking warnings are obtrusive labels on the cover of ever title. They have their explanation right on them. The only way to not understand them is to pretend (Something I believe is mandatory to truly be an "Adult" is to pretend to be stupider or more ignorant than you are) or not know how to read. I have no sympathy for people who fit either descriptor.

Certain games are inappropriate for children. They are not going to turn them into gun-waving lunatics like EA over there, but they are still not the kind of input for a child. It should not be factor, since most of the time the average nine-year-olds do not have fifty-dollars to drop in their pockets for games or three-hundred for the system itself. The only way they can get these titles is if parents pretend they have never heard of GTA and buy it. They pretend because shutting your brain off is alot easier than dealing with the unhappiness that is your life.

[Salat]

GOOD parents do not censor their children, they teach and they guide: ommiting reality is not a positive thing. As a parent you can decide to disallow "violent entertainment" in your house or you can have an open door policy - either can be positive or negative: as a parent it's your job to tell which is the best thing to do, not someone giving you a pretty article with lots of tables and poles and other people's opinon.
I certainly agree with your sentiment, but your take on what good parents do is a bit unrealistic, and your notion that scholarly research is the same as opinion is somewhat naive.

Are you sure good parents don't (at least try to) censor the information their kids recieve? It happens every day in households all across America: parents often refrain from cursing in front of the kids, and often wait until after the kids go to bed until they can drink, smoke, have sex, or watch something more adult than Dora la Exploradora on TV. Parents - even imperfect ones - put quite a bit of effort into censoring what their kids see, hear, wear, and do - usually in an effort to protect them.

Eventually, however, kids are going to have to face reality, which as you imply, can be pretty frightening. The real question is whether you've done an adequate job guiding your kids so that they can make reasonably good decisions when that time rolls around. Sure, the ESRB ratings are guides, and I certainly agree that the fact that many parent ignore the ratings reflects badly on parents, not the gaming industry. The only reason I say it reflects badly is that, based on credible research, your proposed open-door policy for violent entrertainment isn't usually positive or negative - it's usually neutral, occasionally negative, and not ever positive.

As for research vs opinion vs pretty articles, here's the general lay of the land: Opinions are irrelevent. Pretty articles and poles[sic] are irrelevant. Research, on the other hand - real live scientific results, however, are relavent. So far, there are no credible, scientific studies on this specific subject. Why is that? Because the only way to really establish a causal link between game violence and real violence is experimentation : Let's randomly assign 300 kids into three groups: 100 kids get 4 hours a day playing GTA:SA, the second 100 kids get 4 hours a day playing Animal Crossing, and the last 100 kids play Boggle or something like that for 4 hours a day. After 3 months, lets measure all groups violent behavior. You could answer the question in three months: Do all groups have exhibit the same level of violence? The problem is that nobody would ever be able to run this kind of experiment due to ethical problems. Asking kids to play violent games when you suspect that doing so could make them more violent would be frowned upon in every reputable academic circle on the planet (Also asking kids to play Animal Crossing for 4 hours a day could be an ethical violation).

So, the next best thing would be to use quasi-expeimental methods like other researchers have done when studying the effects of violent TV and movies on behavior. Most of the scientifically convincing studies with passive media use longitudinal or cross-sectional designs - the researchers track the same kids (or cohorts in CS designs) over years or decades to see what the outcomes are for those that were exposed to violent media at a young age versus the outcomes of those who were not. As Craig Anderson reports (http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/Video_Game_FAQs.html), these studies demonstrate clear effects of violent media exposure and violent behavior. As for videogames, the jury's still out, because it sometimes takes decades to run these kind of studies.

In the absence of proof - most people that are concerned about violent games argue that these games are unlikely to impact kids less than violent TV or violent movies. There's a big assumption there - but not about the fact that violent TV and violent movies are at least a verified risk factor in violent behavior. What's unfortunate, is how our politicos and media outlets play (prey?) on the concerns of reasonable people - blowing away any chance that most parents would otherwise have of making informed decisions about what to let their kids do. Many "Concerned Parents" groups leverage this kind of fear to get political action. On the other hand, the lack of proof is taken by those in the industry - as well as the occasional gamer - as proof of no effect. These aren't the same thing. For example: Lack of evidence that Michael Jackson is a child molester doesn't mean he's not one. Of course, it doesn't mean that he is one, either. So - what's a good parent to do when Jacko asks your kid to come over for the night?

Here's a hint: Say, "No" - or take your chances with an open door policy. He might just be innocent, even though he's a freaky-looking flake of a human that would certainly rate an ESRB of M for "Wine consumtion and internet porn" if he were a video game.

Wrong. Just because someone reached the age of 17 doesn't mean that they have the mental capacity, or maturity to play the said game. I know plenty of immature 17-20 year olds, and in retrospect, I know just as many mature 15-16 year olds. Like it was said previously, it is a guideline...not a law.

So, by saying "Wrong" and then agreeing with me, you really mean "Right". Thanks for that. As for the 15 through 20 year olds you know, clearly, the facts don't matter: By 16 (in most states) you're mature enough to get a driver's license, by 17 you're mature enough to play M rated games, by 18 you're mature enough to join the Army and get sent to Iraq or Afganistan, and by 21 (in most states) you're mature enough to have a beer. I didn't make this stuff up, and I don't care if they're guidelines or not. My house, my rules. If a parent caves to their kid's pressure for something they know the kid really shouldn't be doing, they're a pussy. Doesn't matter how they rationalize it. If, on the other hand, a parent is too much of an idiot to not know that their 15 year-olds shouldn't be playing M-rated games, that's probably even worse, since the kid is also more likely to be an idiot - just the kind of kid that's most at risk of the effects of violent media (if they exist).

[MasterChief55]

I understand where everyone is coming from but, these days in schools and on the streets, have'nt they seen or heard all these bad things.