Parents and Video Game Ratings...

I am often approached by people I know about what video games are appropriate for their kids. So as a bit of a public service I thought I would put this out for any parents out there whose kid(s) want to get into video gaming. As an avid hard-core gamer( AKA: dork, geek, nerd, actually it is a term to describe serious gaming hobbyists) I feel it is a good thing to reach out to “newbs”, causal players and parents in the marketplace on behalf of their children, and try to help them out a bit.

Content tends to be the big issue for parents, who are rightfully concerned about what that their kids are experiencing when they boot up a game and start playing.

Why is there a rating system?

A little history:

The history of video game ratings can be traced back to the early 1990’s. That time period is referred to by gamers as “The Sixteen Bit Era” or “The Golden Age” Sega Genesis and Nintendo SNES ruled the home console world at that time. The jump from the previous “8 Bit Systems” to more powerful “16 bit” systems meant a considerable jump in developer’s abilities to display much greater detail on the screen during game play. Characters on the screen previously represented by what amounted to stick figures were given a more distinctly human appearance and consequently a much greater potential to depict graphic violence.

In 1992 the spark of outrage from concerned parents and politicians was ignited by the release of Mortal Kombat. MK was a two dimensional fighting game that debuted in the arcades and then made its way on to home consoles. Traditionally in fighting games one or two players battle characters on the screen. Usually these games would end with one of the character’s running out of “Hit points”, submitting, or time running out. The vanquished character may have been stunned or exhausted but no indication of any real injury was ever shown and the losing character lived to fight another turn. In Mortal Kombat however there was another option. The winner, using a “code” (a sequence of button pushes) could enact a finishing move called a “Fatality” on the losing character. The “Fatality” caused the losing character to be killed in very graphic ways (dismemberment, beheading, burning alive etc) Parent’s groups outraged by this display began pressuring congress to act.

In 1994, the video game industry, fearing censorship, set up the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, more commonly referred to by its acronym: ESRB. The ESRB consists offolks both inside and outside of the gaming industry. The purpose of this group is to assign ratings to games based on content. The ratings are designed to help parents understand the content of what they may be buying so they can make purchase decisions appropriate to the age of their children.

How are games rated?

A developer or a publisher (on behalf of a developer) must pay a fee and submit footage of the game in question that the developer feels is the most objectionable in content. Along with the footage the developer submits a written synopsis of the game describing plot (if applicable) and objectives of the game. The footage is reviewed for certain elements, such as violent content, sexual suggestiveness, nudity, harsh speech (use of the 7 dirty words) storyline content and character design. Once the board reaches a decision they advise the developer of their findings. The developer then has an opportunity to either have the game marketed as is with whatever rating is assigned or rework or remove the offending content for a lower age rating and resubmit for further review. If the ESRB cannot reach a consensus, they will ask the developer for additional footage to review.

Where do I find the ratings?

On the front cover it’s on the bottom left corner, on the back cover its on the bottom right corner with a detailed description. If you are buying a used game at Gamestop or EB and it’s in a “generic” cover, ask the sales clerk to look it up for you.

What do the ratings actually mean?

E: stands for Everyone. This will be the gaming equivalent of G rated film. Themes should be appropriate for any age player. There should be no violence, suggestiveness, or offensive language. These will usually be titles oriented towards young children and should be safe to buy without any concerns.

E10: This means Everyone 10 and up this will be the equivalent to a PG movie. Themes may be a little more complex and mature than E, if there is violence it will be mild or comic in nature, these games should not depict the death of character. There should be no suggestiveness or foul language in any of these games.

T: Stands for Teen, this would be the equivalent of a PG-13 Film. There will likely be some violence depicted, but it should not be graphic, blood should either be non existent or kept to a bare minimum, the titles may have some slight titillation (females in tight or scanty outfits) but should not depict nudity or sexual activity. Themes may be a little darker and more ambiguous than the above. T games may touch on controversial subject matter.

M: stands for Mature Only, 17 and up. These are the equivalent to R rated movies and will have one or more of the following: Frequent and graphic violence, dark themes and subject matter, morally ambiguous protagonists, partial nudity and strong hints of sexual activity. Objectionable speech. (Use of the “Seven Dirty Words)

AO: Adults only, 21+ this is the X rating and will contain lots of the above, plus pornographic sex. Fortunately, developers and publishers are will avoid getting this rating on anything they put out ( none of the major outlets, EB, Gamestop, Best Buy, Walmart, Target, etc will sell them to the public) Anytime a publisher is threatened with this rating, they will edit the content and resubmit to get down to an M rating.

I think overall this rating system works pretty well; although some makers have figured out how to skirt things a bit to get the more family friendly rating. Remember too that the ratings are still the product of subjective judgment. I would suggest reading the back cover for more details on what the game is about.

Who has the most titles appropriate for younger players?

I would definitely say that of “The Big Three” Nintendo carries the safest collection for the young ones. Very few Wii titles are M rated as opposed to high number of Xbox, PS2 and PS3 games (there is actually a large amount of kid friendly titles on PS2 though). It would be safe to say that the majority of Wii games are E or E10.

I hope this helps some of you out. If any of you have further questions about games or game systems, you are welcome to PM me and I will be glad to answer to help you out.

Thanks Tim, this is very helpful.

Of course, it isn't helpful when my husband buys my 10-year old son Grand Theft Auto Trilogy

Glad you enjoyed the post! Too bad about hubby buying GTA though, while it is a great game (I own all three, plus 4 on my PS3) It's content is wholly inappropriate for a 10 year old.

Take care

TJ

Being a fan of videogames that aren't too violent, I own some titles I could recoment for kids

It's kind of obvious that my favorite videogame series is Pokemon, the series is basicly you are a kid who runs around collecting and battling creatures called pokemon. You also can do more then just battling and collecting though, the newest games lets you enter "super" contests (kind of like a beauty pagent), dig underground for treasures, and well...alot of cool stuff! You don't have to worry about violence in this series because in an interveiw with time magazine the creator Satoshi Tajiri specificaly stated that he kept the games nonviolent on purpose because he did not like how kids "don't respect death". There are also alot of other games too, so there is alot to choose from.

My second favorite kid-friendly series is Harvest Moon. (I actualy recomended this to my chemistry teacher for her two daughters lol) you play as either a boy or a girl farmer and the whole point of the game is to take good care of your animals, grow alot of crops, build up your farm, and eventualy get married and have a kid. Apparently the game ends after 100 of the games years has passed but nobody has made it that far yet. it's fun, and 100% naughty-things free.

And of course, I love Nintendogs, it's so cute raising your own virtual puppy!

And I agree that Nintendo releases more kid-friendly titles. It's part of their image as a system that is fun for the whole family. (My impression is that Sony and Microsoft are more geared to looking cool for Teens and Adults.)

I'm not a fan of GTA, but it has the right to exist...just out of the hands of youngsters and restricted to the age group it was meant for: Adults.

those are all great titles K, I agree with you, PS3 and Xbox360 are definately oriented toward more adult and hardcore (serious) gamers. But I am glad Wii has the audience that it does, there really does need to be a more kid and casual gamer oriented rig.

My rig by the way:

PS3 60 Gigabyte (I actually am going to kit this out with a 330 gig aftermarket HDD soon)
Hooked to a 37 inch 1080p LCD TV via HMDI port
Bluetooth Headset and Microphone
Wireless 7.1 Surround Sound Theatre system, 1200 Watts ( in addition to being a hardcore videogamer I am also a big time movie buff and Blu-Ray totally kicks DVD to the curb - 6X the resolution of DVD)

I do not recomend this for everyone who wants to play games, but for really high powered cinematic gaming nothing comes close to this set up.

Hehe, I'm definately a casual gamer.
I mean, I don't play videogames often, I usualy tend to stick with one or two games and playing them for a long time though (I think if you added up my total gameplay on all my pokemon games you would get about 500 hours. )

I have my Wii, but my only Game for it is Super Smash brothers and Wii Sports (which it came with) I can't really afford $50 per game, even though there are quite a few that I'd like or am interested in (Okami, Trama Center: Under the Knife, Animal Crossing, Pokemon Battle Revolution, and Harvest Moon: Tree of Peace all come to mind.)

My poor little 4-year-old DS is starting to get pretty beat up though because I use it so much. One thing that I know about Nintendo though (and thank goodness for this) is that the concils(sp?) they make are very durable. I can't tell you how many times this poor thing as went flying because being the smart person that I am, thinks it's okay to run down the stairs while playing gameboy at the same time but after all that it still works like new. (even though the paint is a little faded, I put a few little stickers on it anyways, it USED to have a big pikachu sticker on it that it had for months until the sticker was so worn out that I took it off and now I added a few little ones)

The one thing that I hate about the new generation systems is that they lack color! When I was a kid you could but a gameboy color is any color that you wanted. Lime green? Go for it. Deep red? Go for it. Hot pink? Clear plastic purple? Indigo? The choice was yours. Now a days it's like they've taken a step backwards and only sell systems that are either black, white, gray, silver, or in the DS Lite's case some pastels. I honestly don't care if it's "modern" in my world it's called drab and boring.

Color choice would be nice, I have seen some custom PS3s in red and white and some 360s in black, silver and white as well. I have not seen Wii in anything but white. I like my black PS3 though as it makes it look like a high end piece of electronic equipment and it matches my TV and SS system. Eventually there will be addtional color options on all of these before the next gen comes out. I am not really big on that sort of thing myself. Just what it can actually do. I chose my PS3 for the following reasons:

1 I have an extensive library of PS2 and PS1 games that I revisit from time to time and the PS3 will play all of them
2. As mentioned before it has the ability to play both DVD and Blu-ray fromated movies, as well as CDs, MP3s and MP4s this means my media set up only needs one device to play everything.
3. It has the most powerful processer and the deepest capability of any system ever made, it will take till 2010 before developers can get close to 100 percent of its ability.
4. Firmware updates allow for it to continue to be upgraded throughout it's life cycle for free.
5. The hard drive can be replaced by any off the shelf SATA PC drive which means I can download HD movies and TV shows as well as videos from You-Tube.
6. The only system capable of 7.1 surround sound.
7. God of War 3, Gran Turismo 5, Killzone 2, Little Big Planet, Home, Heavy Rain, Resistance 2, Metal Gear Solid 4, Drake's Fortune, Rachet and Clank Future Tools, Motorstorm 2, and many other games that no other system can do.

Like I said it's not for everyone, and for joe shmoe that wants the occasional party toy or basic game system the Wii fits the bill nicely.

Well, I'm not so much concerned about how much a system can do so much as if I like any of the games. So even if the Wii can't play your music and DVD's like the XBox, or be the cutting edge in Graphics like the PS3, it still has more games on it that I like then both of the other systems put together (from what I've seen of course)

I was thinking about getting a PSP, but it they're as fragile as the PS2 (my brother had to replace his PS2 twice because either it was knocked over or had somebody bump into it) then I'm not quite sure how long one would last in my hands ...

PSP is pretty cool, I have an eight year old cousin that has had one for three years, his parents were smart enough to buy the hardshell case for it. So far he has not had any trouble with it.

The is a new model PSP 3000 I do not alot about it but the one cool thing is that it allow for remote play with PS3, which means I can link to my PS3 anywhere where there is a hot spot and play the PS3 game in the machine using the PSP as the video screen, totally wicked. Sony Rules!

I looked up the PSP online, and aparently they do have it in colors like teal, pink, purple etc. Except of course, they were only for a limited time in Asia...that seems to be the case with ALOT of systems these days.

Honestly, Asia is not the only continent who likes color
But oh well.

It was funny though, I was talking to my mom about this:

Me: *rants about color*
Mom: Write an e-mail to them saying that!
Me: In Japanese?!
Mom: Sure! Just go: "Mo Kala!" "No boring kala!" "Bright Kala! Good!"
Me:

LOL, of course you could write your email in English, then use Babel Fish.com to translate to Japanese and then copy/paste the translated text and send it!

TJ

thought I would repost for the Xmas shopping season

I hear you there.... and I can say that while I had to fight tooth and nail with my husband at times to the games our sons could play when they were younger I would not budge (and still will not) on GTA - YUCK YUCK Spit on that Game.

I am of 2 minds on GTA, on the one hand it is very well made (though not perfect) and has a compelling narrative, on the other hand as I stated earlier it is highly inappropriate for a child. If I had children, I would not own this game at all or any like it. As a parent it would be up to ME NOT THE GOVERNMENT to censor content. If parents cannot take the time to protect their children, they should not be parents.

One does have to understand that gamming has changed substancially over the last several years the average PS3/ Xbox 360 player for instance is a 25-35 year old male.

If I had the money and were buying a system for a child, I would not hesitate to get a Wii for them and play it with them, encouraging family friendly content and helping them get extra exercise.

Kudos to you, for exercising good judgement, there need to be more parents like you!

TJ

my son has a wii I can play the tennis
I have to be real honest with this
when he was younger he played alot of those games. Alot I would not rent or buy as they were awful in my eyes as ppl have said.
The one thing i did find was when he gave them up and started doing other stuff is when he dropped over 100 lbs.
Of course he started going to the gym and eating right too....
I had to myself come to a choice . As i felt he was living in those games. To hide from the world.
I also have to say some of those games need imo need to be rated higher.
Some are really not good
hope this was ok to write
muffy

I think you make an important point about life balance, no one should ever get so obsessed with anything that consumes them so much, they do not have time for anything else. This is especially important for kids

thank you Tim