ESRB Seeks To Educate Parents About Games
Good God, it’s about time someone thought of this. The ERSB has joined forces with the Parent Teacher Association in order to launch a new educational campaign designed to inform parents about the videogame ratings system.
The campaign largely relies on over a million brochures being distributed by the PTA through its 26,000 chapters around the country. The brochures will be given to parents and explain the way the videogame rankings system works, as well as how what different descriptions and definitions entail.
According to Anna Weselak, national president of the PTA:
“Every parent knows how popular video games are these days, but perhaps not as many are familiar with the tools that can help them select games that are appropriate for their children. The ESRB ratings are informational and help parents to make sensible video game choices for their families.”
To be honest, it’s about damn time that someone did something like this. The gaming industry’s been in way too much hot water lately, especially since last year’s Hot Coffee scandal – so much so that the FTC was considering regulating video games and their sales. Maybe if parents actually know what the strange little symbols on the game boxes mean, they’ll actually take a little more control over what games come into their homes.
ESRB, PTA seek to educate parents on game ratings
Boy of Tomorrow
Posted to on 17 November 2006
· Comments (8)
Other stuff like this: education, esrb, kids, parents, pta, videogame ratings
It’s totally time someone did something about this. When I bought gears of war there was a mom in front of me picking up a copy for her 10 year old son. WTF? And people say homosexuals are bad parents….
Hate to be the downer here…but parents are stupid. They literally want the government to make the world completely safe for their kids. This won’t do one damn thing. Parents want to do as little as possible then sit back and bitch when things get hard. Typical American way…LAZY! Until someone finally allows their to be punishment for the PARENTS for allowing these games into their kids hands we won’t see anything good happening. Parents need to be made responsible for things that happen to their kids. The games are rated…its clear what they mean and if a kid gets a game and a parent doesn’t bother to check what their child is doing in their room…they’re responsible. NOT SOCIETY!
Exactly. Just because they know what the letters mean doesn’t mean they’ll do anything about it. I’ve seen countless parents buy GTA for their 10 and under children even after the M rating was explained to them.
The ESRB can advertise till they’re blue in the face, it’s not going to make a difference.
Working retail as I (unfortunately) do, I can tell you that no amount of explaining what the M rating means will educate parents. They just go “Yeah, he has the others” or “It’s no worse than TV” (Umm…right).
I think I should not only be allowed, but REQUIRED BY LAW to stamp “Bad Parent” on their foreheads when they buy their 10 year old San Andreas.
This probably won’t help the situation at all but at least they’re trying.
‘Bout damned time!
Get those parents buying GTA for their kids to sign a waiver…then when those kids kill people…put the parents in jail where they belong…hehe….JohnD212 for President…you heard it here!
I don’t think these parents are even looking at the ratings, they could hardly get any more simplistic. The movie ratings are harder to understand.
A friend of mine bought Halo and Halo 2 for his 11-year-old kid. As far as he’s concerned, the “M” rating was because of the online stuff (which I think deserves a rating of “CMB” in Jon Stewart’s extended ESRB system) and since he only had dialup, he wasn’t worried.
I hate the idea that someone like the FTC could regulate the sale of games like that, to the point where my friend would eventually get in trouble for child endangerment just like a parent giving his kid a beer. Talk about your slippery slope.