The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is pondering whether or not to introduce a single rating system across video games, TV, mobile content and movies – which would end the ESRB’s 15-year tenure as the video games rating board of America and would introduce Government intervention to the system.
The FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski, has expressed concern in regards to the lack of control parents have over their children when it comes to digital content and wants a firmer hand to deal with those troublesome youths.
“Parents worry not only about the TV in the den, but about the computer in the kitchen, the gaming console in the basement, and the mobile phones in their kids’ pockets.”
Yes, the basement…that perennial dwelling of gamers everywhere, of course.
The ESA, creators of the ESRB, has claimed that the FCC have no jurisdiction over video games and responded with a swift ‘thanks, but no thanks’ when questioned by Kotaku over the matter.
If there are any kids reading this out there, what we’re all basically saying is: television/video games are evil, mobile phones give you cancer and there ain’t no damn well Santa Claus.
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I would agree with that esrb gives a rating but parents dont care…..working at gamestop i see 5 yr olds and kids buying m rated games like grand theft auto though i dont let them buy it with out a parent like my job requires me to the parents never care. If there are stronger rules 5 yr olds wont be playing m rated games they’d be harder to get also on those good m rated games such as halo you wont have the screaming kids crying when they lose…things like that sickens me and ask myself what happened to the good ol’ days of xbox live when everyone respected each other and parents cared about content in games. im not saying games are evil but i think that m rated games should be left to 17+ people that can handle loss it only makes sense there are stronger rules
I think PEGI should take over all game rating systems because they are the best and I live in the US.
Seriously, parents should be parents. Enough with government intervention. The government can’t be parents to all the kids in the nation.
Chuck is right. The FCC hijacking the ESRB will likely lead to many problems. If their excuse is simply to “make game ratings easier for parents to understand” they are taking the wrong route. Game ratings make sense. E for Everyone, hmmm, who can play those? T for Teen? M for Mature? Good grief people, this isn’t rocket science. My Aunt, who is not the type that plays many games herself cares enough to not only learn the ludicrously simple ESRB system, but to enforce with her young child’s buying and consuming habits, that is to say disallowing him to play a game that is not suitable for him no matter how much he wants to. He and my other cousins then really enjoyed playing something that was more suitable for them. It’s not like the nebulous and bizarre movie rating system where G means….ummm, kiddie movie? PG means Parental guidance which in turn means something about my parents? and PG13 allegedly means something about 13 and up can watch it…but let me tell you, there’s a lot of stuff I would not allow with that rating for a teenager. There’s R, which I’d only presume means RRRRrrrrrrrr! This here be a pirate movie matey, or a movie soon to be pirated…ok, restricted, but who’s restricted again?
Ok, enough of that silly rant. Let’s get real about the awful effects of the FCC regulating this. Fact, government don’t know sh!t about games, or anything remotely computer related. This will change, in fact it already is changing. But it remains that many, too many government people are senile old white guys that don’t know much about computers, and care even less. I think computers are only used by them to expose stupid love letters sent to lovers in a country that I doubted they even knew existed. Another fact: government regulation of something that already works will screw it up. I have to qualify that because I strongly believe the government should regulate other things that are broken. Take our country’s financial system. You know how you don’t have a job and are running out of cash? Well certainly you know someone like that right now. Where did all the money go? To financial firms, mostly Goldman Sachs. They do not need CEO welfare. They will find they can live just as well on a single million per year rather than tens of hundreds of millions, even billions that they pay themselves.
So what’s the solution? Education. Plain and simple. The FCC, should it feel compelled to do anything about this issue can invest a lot in PSAs and classes and in store or online eduction for parents. Parents may be ignorant, but lets hope, an realize that they probably aren’t idiots. They care about their kids and once informed of the decisions, be they healthy or unhealthy, betcha can guess what they will pick for their kids.
very true government hsould not control hings but even still there are still young kids getting life lessions from grand theft auto and games they shouldnt play its not right. and the thing is there are parents that care but for every 3 parents who care there are 10 who dont and its not right i tell them whats in it and they still dont care……i just think esrb needs to make it more difficult for m rated games to fall into kids hands
You know it is pretty ridiculous what is being proposed here. 1st their is a rating system in Place for Video Games and that is…
EC = Early Childhood
E = Everyone
E10+ = Everyone 10+ Years Old
T = Teen
M = Mature
AO = Adult’s Only
2nd not only are there those but their are Parental Controls in the System’s themselves. Just like their are for TV’s,DVD Player’s,Blu-ray Players,PC’s,etc…etc…etc… and parents just don’t use them.
Now I would admit they are not as easy to understand as one would think.For example in the PS3 instead of going by the ESRB’s rating system they have different incremental levels which stand for the ESRB’s letter system. Here is what I got off the Original PSP’s 1000′s Manual…
AGE GROUP/ UMD PARENTAL CONTROL LEVEL
EC = Early Childhood Level 2
E = Everyone Level 3
E10+ = Everyone 10+ Level 4
T = Teen Level 5
M = Mature Level 9
AO = Adults Only Level 10
The problem here is that they don’t really explain what mean’s what, not even in the PS3′s Instructions. Also since it is different and very incremental when a parent goes to buy a game and it says T for Teen but when she get’s home and sticks in the game and it denies her because the Parental Level set in the game is 7 but the system is set to 5 then it is really hard to tell just by looking at the game box. Although Sony and the other systems have made steps to fix this they need to streamline it so it is easy for parents to tell.
As for Parent’s who just don’t give a F*ck well it might get to a point where the goverment will try and enforce mandatory Parental Level’s by having retailers take the system’s out of the box in front of the purchaser and have them set up the Parental controls in front of them. Although that seems like a lot of work it would probably be easier for the manufactures to set the Parental Controls to the Highest Level’s Causing Parent’s to get involved and tinker with the system’s parental controls, or end up calling tech support. So at that point if they don’t care they will shut them off and if their kid goes on a shooting spree at his/her local school and blames it on a game the parent’s should be held responsible as well as their kids.
Well at least that is the way I see it. The Goverment can’t raise your kids. You the Parent’s have to do that yourself.
Right. Government CAN’T raise your kids. But apparently, parents can’t either. I mean, look at how many T-M rated games are being played by kids.
Now, I’ve played several M-rated games, and watched several R-rated films. It’s not a big deal, even though I’ve under 17. By a couple months, but still, under 17. My 12 year old sister playing Prince of Persia 2? No way! But I’d prefer her to play that than the latest GTA. Why? Lemme count the reasons. At least it’s just violence in PoP.
And that’s another thing: why is violence considered to be acceptable for only ‘mature’ people? My younger sister saw the first loTR movie when she was 9. Yeah, with all the killing and destruction: age 9. Not that that’s uncommon, though. My younger cousin, same age now, watches violent stuff on YouTube. Families sit down to watch NBC’s Heroes, and one of the characters cut her toe off. Yeah, it’s graphic. But the younger kids watch. They’re already desensitized. So labeling a game ‘M for violence and language’ is pretty useless.
not that I’m saying the ratings are bad. Heck, at least SOMEBODY is trying to rectify this problem. But parents SHOULD be the ones enforcing this stuff. Not the government. But, as I pointed out earlier, neither are doing jack squat.
Off-subject: Anybody notice that the debate going on in the comments is more interesting and involving than the article itself?
The FCC taking control of the ratings system for video games doesn’t equal the government trying to raise our kids anymore than the FCC rating movies does. Let’s be honest about this. It makes sense. The FCC ratings are something that everyone understands ’cause they’ve been used for years. An R rating throws up more red flags for an adult than an MA does. They’re is nothing wrong with the FCC trying to provide some guidance for parents to use when determining what their kids can play and what they can’t. The only people that will have a problem with this are those under 18 and think they’re mature enough to handle an R rating.