I hope this isn't the beginning of a trend...

Comments

# William said on July 21, 2005 10:33 AM:

I kinda see this as progress - a few years ago the right and left were screaming about how video games that are too violent should be pulled from shelves period, now they are at least accepting the fact that the majority of gamers are 22+ years old and want 'adult' orientated games.

I agree with you though, it's the parents job - not the government's job to say what is or isn't right for their child. The ratings system is great, it gives parents an easy way to see if the game little Johnny or Suzie want is ok for them to play. The problem with this is that parents have to actually read what the rating is on the game - not just buy anything that their kid shoves in their face.

The Hot Coffee mod in GTA:SA is a difficult thing to judge, on one hand the game as shipped didn't have access to the 'offending content' so it was a M rated game...on the other hand it was unlocked by flipping a boolean in the code - should Rockstar be in trouble for this? I don't think so, and I sure hope not. As I see it the original product was M rated and only after being 'hacked' was it now changed to AO, and I don't think that Rockstar should be responsible for something like that - kind of like how you void your warrantee on your computer if you open the case.

# William said on July 25, 2005 2:39 PM:

I saw a lady at Target the other day that was the poster child for this kind of crap.

She apparently was picking out a game for a younger son, and had one of her sons with her. This could have been a friend of the son, I don't know but they were getting this mystery boy a game. Her son suggested Medal of Honor, which if you know WW2 or any of the games they aren't exactly "kid friendly" but the mom suggested something else a little more towards the E (Everyone) end of the spectrum.

Honestly I don't think she knew which way was up, but if they could just know to look for the ratings that would solve 99.9% of the problem. The problem is parents want someone else to take over their responsibilities as much as possible because let's face it: raising a child is tough. That's fine by me if you want to do that, but I shouldn't be punished because I actually care about the stuff my future children will be exposed to. I know how to read labels and hell I'd play the game myself before I let the child play it just to make sure it's really what it should be (which isn't the best idea because they might have to pry me away from it).

The only good news about this is that they'll enforce the rating restrictions more for games. What about television? Movies? Music? Why pick one when the others are just as bad, if not worse. Oh wait, they have associations that lobby and pay money. Never mind, I know why they won't be targetted any time soon.

# TrackBack said on August 4, 2005 6:52 PM:

I hope this isn't the beginning of a trend...ooeess