Video Game Violence - MediaWise
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The MediaWise Video Game Report Card recommends the following:
- Eliminate double messages to parents and educate them about why it is important to monitor game play and observe the ratings. The reasons should be based on scientific evidence about both the potential benefits of educational games and the potential harm of violent games.
- Retailers without policies should adopt and enforce verifiable policies that prevent children and teens from buying M-rated games without parental permission.
Retailers with policies should diligently enforce them.
- The ESRB should apply the AO rating in accordance with their own guidelines.
- The Advertising Review Council should continue to enforce guidelines for marketing and advertising.
That sounds pretty reasonable. The suggestion that ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) apply AO ratings, or “Adults Only” ratings, would lower game violence because most major retailers will not sell AO games. Publishers therefore would have to manipulate the criteria to avoid the AO rating.
Meanwhile, California state assembly member Leland Yee has introduced legislation this past December to ban the selling of all first-person shooters like Doom and Quake to minors, and enforce restrictive display of such games in stores. Yee presents evidence that lots of kids get their hands on games not intended for kids. His website also notes an academic consensus statement that exposure to violence in media, especially interactive media, makes kids more violent.
Next: On the flip side... >>
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