Violence for children: The failure of games age ratings

CVG investigates glaring loopholes in age verification

[TheLyonKing]

I hate when they blame anything other than the parents who buy the games for their kids.

They are the problem they will continue to be the problem. That is the only problem aside from online purchasing which is near impossible to stop.

[AtomicGerbil]

I'd be much happier blaming the media for not highlighting this to parents from day one instead of bleating on about GTA corrupting children.

[isarai]

Why do they have to highlight something that's right on the front of the box when you pick it up?

[AtomicGerbil]

Because many parents seem to be blind to it, and then cry foul when the media and politicians spout bull about violent games causing real world violence.

What I meant by my comment was that the media should be more informative rather than sensationalist and scare mongering.

[Kevlar009]

Retailers want to make money, also the ESRB and such isn't required to sell a game. In fact publishers pay them to get a rating, to prevent this kind of backlash. If parents paid more attention to what their kids were playing (like actually playing the game themselves) maybe there would be better control and supervision. I'm not saying it's 100% the parent's fault (it's like blaming parents solely for poor children health when so much of our food is overloaded by the food industry), however there needs to be a point where both sides are doing their part

[Kevlar009]

Edit: So there are retailers and console makers who won't sell a game if it doesn't have ESRB rating. Nevertheless, the ratings exist for a reason. And no, "M" doesn't stand for "Mild"

[ninjahunter]

Holy crap, a boxed copy of Mad world, so the legends are true, at least one copy did sell...

[Saryk]

This is so funny. My wife is like the most computer/gaming illiterate person in the world. She knows these ratings!

[ZeroX9876]

they should just make an age check when your buying those titles. And when creating an online account, well if the parents gives his credit card to his child, that's his own problem.

[PooEgg]

Instead of politicians wasting tax dollars to point fingers at video games, how about we use them to actually teach parents how to be proper parents, perhaps they might take a few hours and sit down with their kids to see what the video game they just bought for their kids actually contains, instead of simply relying on the rating system.

I would totally vote for a system that required all perspective parents to take parenting classes and be licensed in order to prove they were mentally and financially capable to actually raise a proper human being.

[matchu_peechu]

How about we remind America of what responsibility is? No one thinks that a video game is reality in any sense. Yes, video games are simulations, but they are video games. Anyone who wants to blame an outside influence for their own actions should be deemed insane and any type of defense should be taken away.