Do Game Ratings Help Parents? Yes, Says Activision
Activision released the results of a new online survey for its “Ratings Are Not A Game” initiative (great concept, lame name, whatcha gonna do), which finds that a whopping 80% of the 1,014 parents surveyed follow ESRB ratings closely, and 89% of parents of children 8 to 12 years old also paid “close attention” to the ratings system. Moreover, 68% of the parents in the survey believed the ESRB system to be effective in determining the appropriateness of a game for their child; 56% cited a game’s rating as their top criterion when buying games for their kids. 74% cited gaming as a part of their family’s life in general, and 58% were gamers themselves.
ESRB president Patricia Vance was cheered by the findings:
“Video game ratings can only be effective if consumers understand the ratings and use them when making purchasing decisions for their families, and this study shows that parents greatly rely on and value the ESRB ratings in helping them decide which games to allow their children to play.”
Now for the buzzkill of common sense: this was an online survey by a gaming publisher targeting interested, internet- and gaming-savvy parents who take an active enough role in their children’s gaming activities to participate in a survey. The parents who don’t know or care what game ratings are, who don’t have time or money or interest in researching the games their children play, the indifferent or unaware or out-of-touch parents…isn’t it unlikely that they’d have been fully represented in this study? Those are the families we need to worry about – the children who are playing age-inappropriate games and the home conditions that lead legions of milksop mothers to expect the government and game developers to raise their kids and decide what is and isn’t healthy for children.
If there were more parents like those who participated in the Activision survey, there might be fewer to follow the ineffective and destructive crusades of bastards like Jack Thompson.
Activision Survey Finds Strong Parental Support For ESRB [Gamasutra]
tiny dancer
Posted to Video Games on 5 December 2006
· Comments (6)
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Also, parents are most certainly over reporting how diligent they are. Wasn’t there a survey that found that parents said they paid more attention to what their kids play than kids said their parents do?
That’s a really good point I hadn’t thought of: who wants to represent “bad parents” in a survey?
I remember when I went to get Z.O.E at Best Buy. My father asked about the game and the M rating because I wasn’t 17. I explained the game and that the M rating was only because of the MGS2 demo(mainly true). Showed that he cared. Sadly I can’t say the same for my friend’s mom who was going to buy her 11 year old nephew GTA: Vice City stories….
Z.O.E. didn’t need a M rating either, I mean come on! He only gets shot in one scene and there is no real foul language(Dingo even said “kiss my butt”).
Steven—Your right, the survey was done by the National Institute on Media and the Family. It is their annual video game report card. In it 95% of parents surveyed reported that they talk to kids about video games while only 49% of kids say that their parents actually do that.
I think the newest generation of parents look to see if a game is rated STFU – its just another version of the pacifier to them until they come home and find 8 year old Timmy’s avatar getting lap dances or Lisa asks for 2 jars of spaghetti sauce because “there wasn’t enough ketchup for it to look real like in my game.”
I just got a totally recorded survey by phone yesterday. It was some spiel that wanted to talk to the woman of the house first (yay gender stereotyping) and then asked if I was concerned AS THE REST OF THE COUNTRY about the failing rating system for “increasingly extreme” entertainment coming out of the Hollywoods.
When I said no, the recording started to tell me why I was so wrong. Silly recording!