Don't let government rate video games
The adult female gamers (age 18 and over) outnumber the young male gamers (age 6-17) by 4 to 3. The fastest growing segment of the video game industry is, in fact, women in their late 30s and older playing "casual" games, such as matching games and solitaire.
Obviously, video games haven't been "kids' stuff" for quite some time. But that hasn't stopped them from being labeled as such to be used as a convenient scapegoat for society's ills by anyone with a need to add more "family values" padding to their bullet-point list of accomplishments.
Based on public demand, the video game industry has already adopted a voluntary rating system (modeled after the MPAA's movie ratings system). Despite Rep. Jim Matheson's recent ill-informed assertions to the contrary, major game retailers — including Wal-Mart — have already made age-validation for M-rated games standard company policy. These retailers often have no such policy against selling other "mature" media to minors. Video games are getting special scrutiny.
The ESRB rating system is a private ratings board that the government should not turn into an effective lawmaking body. By giving this private ratings system the gravity of federal law, it would make any attempt to move to a more reliable or informative ratings system in the future nearly impossible.
There are more downsides: a rapidly growing "independent" game development segment of the industry operating out of garages or college dorm rooms. Their budgets are far, far below that of their mainstream, "triple-A" cousins advertised on TV. These games include small, nonviolent "casual" games, as well as religious, educational, experimental and "family-friendly" titles.
Forcing them to ante-up with the deep-pocketed big publishers for ratings would run most of these small, struggling companies out of business. It would also greatly increase the ESRB's ratings load each year, potentially causing greater cost and decreased quality and reliability of their ratings.
Most importantly, the proposed federal enforcement of ratings compliance fails in its aim to protect children. Many surveys demonstrate that parents are buying age-inappropriate games for their children — either by an informed judgment call or in ignorance of the posted ratings. Children also trade, borrow, re-sell and even (unfortunately) pirate video games from many vectors outside of domestic retail and rental channels.
Console manufacturers have already announced plans for future consoles to add a parental lock-out control, thus solving the problem where it should be solved: in the home. The push for federal mandate of ratings is really just a race to see whether the politicians can get their expensive paper victory before technology solves its own problem.
Russell James Barnson is a video game aficionado living in Riverton.
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