Banning Inappropriate Video Games

[Hydra.]

ESRB Rating System-

The official Game Rating system, ESRB's website-
http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp

Here is the rating system for games and what each label means-

EARLY CHILDHOOD
Titles rated EC (Early Childhood) have content that may be suitable for ages 3 and older. Contains no material that parents would find inappropriate.

EVERYONE
Titles rated E (Everyone) have content that may be suitable for ages 6 and older. Titles in this category may contain minimal cartoon, fantasy or mild violence and/or infrequent use of mild language.

EVERYONE 10+
Titles rated E10+ (Everyone 10 and older) have content that may be suitable for ages 10 and older. Titles in this category may contain more cartoon, fantasy or mild violence, mild language and/or minimal suggestive themes.

TEEN
Titles rated T (Teen) have content that may be suitable for ages 13 and older. Titles in this category may contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling, and/or infrequent use of strong language.

MATURE
Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons ages 17 and older. Titles in this category may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language.

ADULTS ONLY
Titles rated AO (Adults Only) have content that should only be played by persons 18 years and older. Titles in this category may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity.

RATING PENDING
Titles listed as RP (Rating Pending) have been submitted to the ESRB and are awaiting final rating. (This symbol appears only in advertising prior to a game's release.)

Funny thing is they all say "may be suitable for -- and older" (besides the Adults only section), which is saying you don't have to be that age to play or buy the game (depending on store) but that, that age is suggested for that game.

"Retailer Support
Although it does not have the legal authority to implement or enforce retailer sales policies with respect to computer and video games, the ESRB works closely with retailers and game centers to:
a) provide in-store signage which explains the rating system;
b) support their store policies pertaining to the sale or rental of Mature-rated games to minors; and
c) help educate and train store associates and employees with regard to the rating system. For more information on the ESRB retail partnership program and the ESRB Retail Council (ERC)" http://www.esrb.org/ratings/enforcement.jsp

Where Do Kids Get These Games?
Kids generally don't have money, you have to be 14 at the very least to get a job, and sure those kids might get allowance but still they can't drive! So who buys these games for them? Their PARENTS! Sure some parents don't allow their kids to play "Inappropriate" games and some kids will find a way to get around this and get a game without their parents knowing, but that's where the parenting should come in. If you are any kind of decent parent you would know what your kid does with their time, and you would check into the games they are playing, if you really care about the issue at all.

Why Do People Want To Ban Some Video Games?
Video games sometimes contain violence, language or nudity, etc, that people are afraid will effect the audience playing that game.

"People are afraid that fiction will be imitated. I'll admit there is a chance of it, but there are plenty of people playing "violent" or even "inappropriate" games and they do nothing of the sort. Now here's the golden point... these people know the difference between fiction and reality and they know what harm they'll do if they bring it to reality. The children that try to imitate it, they are usually not parented properly on this subject. And I couldn't help but see yet again (for the 945,678,232nd time) for them to blame the entertainment game. Most people can draw differences to separate fiction and reality. And there is also a rating system to help prevent this from ending up in the hands of kids. Heck if its so easy to blame games for everything wrong, why not blame TV or television shows for adults and some of their crap (adultery, alcoholism, shooting your husband in the back, hiring hitmen to kill others).What it looks like to me is what its always been in the past, blame the easiest and most visible target... plus no one has to exert effort on doing anything real for change."

Even though some people believe video games cause violence, I believe it could go the other way around as well. Video games could release stress and anger virtually instead of bottling it all up and actually becoming violent in real life. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061030/152445.shtml

Should These Games Be Banned?
NO! Many people have tried to get a ban on "inappropriate" video games but they have all been shut down.

"Federal District Judge George Caram Steeh issued his ruling in Detroit today saying that video games were protected under the first and fourteenth amendments."
Violent Video Game Law Struck Down-
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/7445.cfm


The Family Entertainment Protection Act (Hillary Clinton)
"The FEPA would impose fines of $1000 or 100 hours of community service for the first time offense of selling a "Mature" or "Adult Only"rated video game to a minor."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1udjd2Aq3E&feature=related

"What makes me crazy is when politicians take it upon themselves to play surrogate parents"
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSSYD30911520080408

He's right passing this law would be like the government taking the parents job and the parents saying "Oh lets let the government take our job and do it for us".

Don't blame video games for violent children, blame parents. Parent's need to stop complaining about how video games make their kids violent, if you think that THEN DON'T BUY THEM THE GAME, and shut up about it.

"But I didn't know that game was violent"
SERIOUSLY? How hard is it to read a label? All you have to do is look at the cover or flip it over and look at the back side, it's not rocket science.
Even the ESRB website shows a picture of how to find the rating label, which is sad.

There shouldn't be a law, they shouldn't be banned.

 

[KrazyGlue]

I don't think anybody on a smash bros. site is going to want to ban any video games, lol.

But in all seriousness, I completely agree with you. I think that video games often take the blame from parents due to the fact that they grew up with little exposure to video games, and so they really hold little value to them and they see them as expendable. They often refuse to admit that video games could hold any artistic value, and consider them a less important form of entertainment. I think parents will become more and more tolerant of video games as the years go by. I think parents in about 10 years will hold video games with as much respect as movies, which are often much more realistically violent and sexual than video games.

Now this isn't meant to be a generalization of parents, and I know some of them (especially younger parents) take a reasonable approach to video games. And by that I don't mean letting an 8 year old playing GTA4, but simply being reasonable and taking the rating system for what it is, not the almighty end-all decider of how "bad" a game is. The "M" and even "AO" rating shouldn't mean "BAN THIS GAME!!!!!" but rather be a guideline to (approximately) how old a child should be to play the game, simlar to the current function of the "R" rating in movies.

No, video games shouldn't be banned for being inappropriate.

 

[Overload]

People used to say Rock and Roll was evil. Every time a form of entertainment becomes big, there will always be opposition of some sort. This talk of banning violent games will probably blow over once all adults have grown up in the presence of video games or play games themselves.

 

[CRASHiC]

Actually, there is a fundamental difference between video games and other mediums: reward. There is a difference between seeing someone shot on TV and hitting a button and seeing a character you perceive as yourself killing this person.
Here is self admitted video game addict talking about the effects of video games on his perception of reality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IznAvaJb5Q

 

[Lord Viper]

☆ Rated AO games are already banned in nearly every store you can go to, except for an online store, though most AO games now are PC games. Most rated M games any child wouldn't able to get without proof of being 17 or older, rated T games, though don't carry many violence but still bad for the younger kids that copy or imagine acts from those video games. Careless adults would just buy them for their kids anyways, regardless of what the child learns from them or not, as long as it makes their child happy. I'll agree with blaming the parents for blindly buying video games for their kids instead of banning inappropriate video games from the stores. ☆

 

[KrazyGlue]

Actually, there is a fundamental difference between video games and other mediums: reward. There is a difference between seeing someone shot on TV and hitting a button and seeing a character you perceive as yourself killing this person.
Here is self admitted video game addict talking about the effects of video games on his perception of reality.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IznAvaJb5Q

Ture, but it honestly either takes a very young or very mentally unstable individual to actually act on what they see in games.

Rated AO games are already banned in nearly every store you can go to, except for an online store, though most AO games now are PC games.

Yeah, this is true. I'm not sure if that should be the way it is, but what you said is accurate.

Most rated M games any child wouldn't able to get without proof of being 17 or older

Or you could just bring along a parent/guardian who knows/cares little about the rating system.

 

[Hydra.]

Yeah but it would be really sad to be like almost 18 and bring your mom in to buy you a game. xD

 

[Crimson King]

I've often wondered what makes someone more mature when they are 18 years old versus 17 years and 364 days old. In the eyes of most businesses, this is enough to actually decline a sale.

 

[Hydra.]

Do you mean that the other way around? Did you mean 18 is more mature then 17 and 364 days? Because if you didn't then I am confused.

 

[Crimson King]

Yeah... it's been a long day. Going fix that.

 

[thegreatkazoo]

I've often wondered what makes someone more mature when they are 18 years old versus 17 years and 364 days old. In the eyes of most businesses, this is enough to actually decline a sale.

Then the same argument can be made for 17 yrs & 364 days vs. 17 yrs & 363 days &c.

Unless you were trying to get @ something else with that.

 

[KrazyGlue]

I've often wondered what makes someone more mature when they are 18 years old versus 17 years and 364 days old. In the eyes of most businesses, this is enough to actually decline a sale.

I think they just wanted to set a cutoff somewhere. I don't think they wanted to go into trivialities such as days of maturity, but I guess they decided 18 is mature enough and 17 isn't. I'm sure there's some sort of scientific study about it...

 

[blazedaces]

This is comparable to a concept in mathematics: continuity. In reality, nothing changes instantaneously. We theoretically talk about it... but everything changes gradually over time. In this same way, no one "matures" in 1 day, but you must agree that the maturity level of an average 18 year old is higher than that of an average 12 year old... but did it happen in 1 day? No.

Think about puberty. No, puberty does not begin and end in 1 day, but if we were forced to draw a line for some reason for the sake of laws in society, we would have to draw it somewhere right? Where would you all pick? Well, I would go research human development to determine a reasonable location to draw the line, but now that all the laws have been made, undoing them seems foolish. Is 18 really such a bad age to draw that line?

As for this specific topic, evidence suggests that violent video games really does correlate with increased violent behavior:

The present research demonstrated that in both a correlational investigation using self-reports of real-world aggressive behaviors and an experimental investigation using a standard, objective laboratory measure of aggression, violent video game play was positively related to increases in aggressive behavior. In the laboratory, college students who played a violent video game behaved more aggressively toward an opponent than did students who had played a nonviolent video game. Outside the laboratory, students who reported playing more violent video games over a period of years also engaged in more aggressive behavior in their own lives. Both types of studies–correlational—real delinquent behaviors and experimental—laboratory aggressive behaviors have their strengths and weaknesses. The convergence of findings across such disparate methods lends considerable strength to the main hypothesis that exposure to violent video games can increase aggressive behavior. (Anderson & Dill, 2000)

-SOURCE

So there really is sound science supporting the idea of not allowing children of certain ages to play video games, being that children below certain ages might not contain the maturity level to avoid acting on aggressive behavior obtained from playing these video games...

That being said... I think banning certain video games seems unnecessary, and in America at least, unconstitutional.

-blazed

 

[KrazyGlue]

So there really is sound science supporting the idea of not allowing children of certain ages to play video games, being that children below certain ages might not contain the maturity level to avoid acting on aggressive behavior obtained from playing these video games...

Yes, there should certainly be guidelines, which is why I'm not against the ESRB. That said, I'm a strong believer that different kids mature at different rates, and it is up to the parents that know them well, not SOLELY ESRB, to determine what age their child should be to play certain games.

While the "M" rating is a useful and informative guideline, parents should really spend some time looking up the game on a site like "What They Play". If they're really concerned, it takes about 2 seconds to search for gameplay videos on youtube. They might find that based on the content in the game, their 16 year old may be mature enough to play it. Or maybe not. Either way, an "M" (or any other) rating isn't intended to be the end-all decider for who is and isn't mature enough to play a game.

That being said... I think banning certain video games seems unnecessary, and in America at least, unconstitutional.

-blazed

Agreed.