Age Restriction a Touchy Issue

Quick thought based on the article:

What is the most violent videogames of the previous generation?

Certainly given advances in technology and graphics, depictions of violence are more movie-like and realistic that the old 8-bit/16-bit eras of gaming. However, there was plenty of violent content around there as well.

For myself, Splatterhouse for the TG16 (circa 1990) probably is the best example of blood and gore in the 16-bit era.

However, if you wanted to go even further, I remember an old arcade game called "Chiller" where you had a rifle shooting people in a torture room and shooting off body parts - certainly "excessive" even by today's standards.

Terminator 4: Passing The Bill

http://www.mavav.org
Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence

updated with the Terminator himself

It means less pre-pubescant voices calling you a fag on Xbox Live or TeamSpeak.

It means parents have nobody else to blame but themselves when Jimmy walks out of EB with a copy of GTA.

They haven't come up with a perfect law yet (which would simply enforce and put teeth on the ESRB system) but they're getting there. A previous story about this on the Shack said that studies find something like 70% of underage teens can purchase M-rated games with no problem, so something isn't working right the way things are.

Common Sense Media's rating system is even more confusing and inconsistent than the current ESRB ratings.

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/

Their highest rating contains T-rated games including Warcraft III and Mercenaries. Even with the wide range of age ratings, it doesn't seem their highest category can differentiate well-made games with violent content from the utter trash.

I love this quote..

"Any 15-year-old working behind the counter at Blockbuster can rent a 13-year-old an M-rated video game, and there are no consequences."

Replace 'M-rated video game' with 'R-rated movie'

I can't be the only one that doesn't think this is a big deal, don't sell GTA:SA to 12 year olds, doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Time moves fast, these kids will be 18 before they know it anyway.

I certainly wouldn't condone little kids playing some of the games I play. Let the parents make the decision.

So if another underage killing is blamed on a video game, we can now say it's the parents' fault for buying the game?

Latest headline on hardocp - game industry suing California because of this.

It's gone from really stupid to even more stupid than it was before.


Then there's the whole thing where kids see blood, gore, violence and naked people before they turn 12.. then there's that thing with a hundered different kids with headwrongs that really do impersonate actions they play out in games.. then there's..

I've made my thoughts on this subject explicitly clear on more than a few occassions. But I just want to touch on one point today.

Question: Has playing videogames, chiefly, first-person shooters, taught you to act in a conflict situation in a manner that hasn't been widely recognized for centuries prior?

For example: "Oh, so that's the end the bullets come out of." Or how about "oh, shooting this guy in the head will do more damage than the foot."

Let's take the most "realistic" gaming examples.

Personally, I haven't learned proper handgun tactics from playing Counter-Strike. Don't ask me to cover you just because I played Call of Duty. I don't even know how to lead a task-force from my time logged with Ghost Recon or America's Army.

I think we'd all agree that, for the most part, our elders, who weren't brought up on Grand Theft Auto, would, when presented in real-life with an enemy and firearm, have the sensibility to aim for the head and stay behind cover.

Videogames have taught us nothing new in this regard.

As I understand it in the US some retailers will refuse to stock games that are the mature rating, but they are seemingly willing to sell any other rating to any age.

Retailers need to have a rating system they're willing to use and will enforce and make customers aware of. If they don't do this I can see a lot more tighter controls coming.

When I worked in EB most mothers simply didn't realize what type of content was in GTA for example, but they were told MOST reconsidered their purchase.

I saw the title up in the "Latest Comments" box and thought it was a clever reference to porn. :(

My confusion is that parents should be in their childs life enough to do this without any help. THat's a whole different story though.

My concern is for all the gaming fathers that will no longer be able to receive violent games for Christmas.