ESRB Asks, "OK to Play?"

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I saw over at Voodoo Extreme that the ESRB is going to start an awareness campaign this holiday season asking parents if it's "OK to Play?". The new campaign is targeted at parents and seeks to educate them about which games are appropriate for thier families by placing adverts at cash registers in retailers soon. Patricia Vance, President of the ESRB explains

This campaign gets to the point quickly and effectively ... By using the information provided by the rating system, parents can stop wondering and start making educated purchase decisions

If parents become educated about ratings, they may realize that games like GTAIII were never supposed to be played by kids. Educated parents will be more likely to know when thier kids play violent games and in the end that just makes parents who don't check the ratings look like they should, irresponsible. Hopefully the next time some kids kill somebody and blame a video game the rest of the parents will know enough to go "Where were your parents, anyway?" I can't see how this is anything but good news.

Comments

I saw this in the latest GameDaily Newsletter as well... here's the one quote from it :

The campaign features a new slogan "OK to Play?" and is specifically aimed at women ages 30-49. Created by MK Advertising Partners, and endorsed by the Ad Council, the public service ads will begin running later this fall in publications such as the December issue of Redbook.

I find it interesting (although not surprising) that they specifically targeting mothers (honestly, who are they kidding, "women ages 30-49"?).

Let's hope people take the time to read about the ESRB and learn that the Video Game Industry is not out to kill your children.


I find it interesting (although not surprising) that they specifically targeting mothers (honestly, who are they kidding, "women ages 30-49"?).

They should cover "49 and older" as well though. The basic idea is correct. Friend of mine owns a game store and I've seen it so often that mommies or grannies get GTA or State of Emergency for their brats. Sometimes there are male adults who buy games for their children, but most of them have an idea of what kind of game they're purchasing right there. In the "mommy/granny" case it's always "Little Henry told me to get some game called [blahblah] or something like that. Wait a second, he wrote it down here..."

You know, maybe it shows a difference as to how I was raised... but if I wanted a video game when I was younger I had to buy it myself. I had to do chores or something during the pre-driving days to get the money, and if I couldn't buy the game myself because I was too young, I didn't get the game. Maybe kids need to be tought not to beg for every new hyped up game, and to appreciate what they've got. Let them buy the games themselves, that way the ESRB rating kicks in. Little kids don't really have any reason to be playing GTA3. The violent games when I was younger consisted of Double Dragon and Robocop, maybe times have changed.

Of course, this is coming from someone who first found out about Leisure Suit Larry when he was 9, via a modem BBS.

Eh.