The state of Delaware is starting a new campaign in association with the ESRB with advertisements, such as this one, all over the place. It’s to educate parents to understand the rating system for games better and to ensure that they only buy games appropriate to the age of their children.
Personally I think that’s a great idea. Games only seem to be in the press whenever another school, mall, college shooting happens, regardless if the assailant ever played a game. There are still too many people that have no idea just how far games have come; someone I was talking to recently hadn’t played a game since Tetris. Compare that to games like Mass Effect that are a completely different level.
And all the people that don’t realise that games aren’t just for kids. According to a BBC study, the average age of UK gamers is 28.
Cat
6 Comments
It’s a very good idea. Finally then the parents will not be able to blame video games for their kids’ foul language and weird attitude. If they can take the time to filter websites on the internet, they can do so for games too.
Indeed. I do hope it works out and doesn’t fuel another ‘let’s ban games’ thing.
I wish we had one here too. I’d be in business for one thing. :P
In times where people blame games for making them shoot people [which is a shitty reason. How can you be so LAME as to lay the blame of such a deed on a game?] and the whole media exploiting that for their own profits, this is something good coming. Games don’t kill people, people kill people. :)
Well, it’s more that people blame games as it’s considered as ‘targetpractice’ and ‘lonely hobby’ by some. But those are mostly the same people that think that the average gamer is a spotty teen in his dark bedroom.
Really, it should be as simple as the way they put labels on movies. It shouldn’t cause anyone to get in a fit and start trying to ban things if they do it properly! Parents still have the choice to make 17+ games available to younger crowds, but with the advent of such great systems now, the age of gamers is much higher! I didn’t realize that it was 28 in UK, but nothing surprises me! I am 30 and still game for myself and with my 3 year old ;)
I didn’t think it was as high as 28 either, but it doesn’t quite surprise me. Just imagine, in 20 or more years all will have changed, as we get older and probably [hopefully?] still play games.
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[...] have written about games politics on this blog before; once praising the state of Delaware launching a campaign to make parents aware that games carry ratings and another time on how Germany passed a new legislation disallowing games on the index to be [...]