Article by Colleen Hannon (Momgamer): It’s time again for the National Institute on the Family to make their recommendations. How do we rate them? Note: You can find the report on their website here, or you can download a PDF format from that page.

We’ve had an ominous backslide, apparently. At least according to the gang at the National Institute for Media and the Family.

All of these reports use big statistics. Numbers are stacked up like cord wood. But when you try to apply them to real life, it’s not so black and white. Yes, a large percentage of kids play M rated games. What gets blurry here is how many of them are doing it out of their parent’s ignorance and how many of them are doing it because their parents have made the choice to allow their kids to play.

I can go on and on about the many fallacies in the body of the report regarding their study and it’s methodologies, and their statistics in general. Let’s just cut to the chase and address their recommendations.

A universal rating system – This isn’t legally possible at this time. The reason each ratings body has their own system is the ratings numbers/letters/what have you are copyrighted materials. The MPAA started off with their system, and when the others came along they couldn’t use the same one. I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know what it would take to get it so they could all three use the same ones. I do know I don’t want the government to get into the content assessment business on any level, nor do I want them to just go in and stomp all over someone’s copyright.

The ESRB should base their rating on all content in the game blurred or unblurred, locked or unlocked – Yeah. So we’re going to schedule a review of the half-a-million plus lines of code and the gigabytes of graphics and sounds included in each of the over a thousand games the ESRB rates every year. How about we address the fact that people who are looking at that blurred/locked content are breaking the law to do it? For a semi-technical disscussion about the topic of locked and orphaned content and the legality of hacking, take a look here.

Retailers must return to the level of compliance in previous years – That would be nice. It really doesn’t help keep the content out of the kids hands, but it would be nice.

Retailers need to educate their employees, particularly the younger ones, concerning the importance of enforcing the ratings – Educate away. Then what? It’s still just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. This sort of carding policy does nothing to address the myriad ways kids get ahold of these games outside of retail channels, and it does nothing at all to address what happens when the game gets home. If you really want to make a change, then you work on the people who should be handling what goes on in the house — the parents. How do you do that? See the next entry.

Parents need to be become better educated about the ratings and enforce them – Yes, parents should be more educated and involved. But I’m sorry, you can’t dictate what media content parents allow into their homes. Parents don’t agree on most of the details of raising children. For every precept you consider set in stone out there, there are 10 people who do it differently. There are certain baseline commonalities, but outside of that every parent and every kid have to work it out. I have certain beliefs about what children should be exposed to, and that is what my family has lived by. And I wish more people used my approach. But my neighbor down the block has a whole different set of rules and they work for them. Her kids are good kids. Even among the Gamerdad staff you’ll find each person has their own unique approach. The only really common key between us is the concept of involvement. At Gamerdad, we believe in playing games along WITH your children, but we don’t moralize on the choices you make in your household.

Libraries, schools, churches and other public institutions should follow the ESRB ratings – Their line about disapproving of churches having kids play Halo is a great look into their mindset. It’s based off a New York Times article recently about a church that is using the game to lure kids into services. The fact that they chose to waste an entire section on it and call it out like that in their conclusions shows just how little information they have about how games are used in the real world. My own church’s youth group has events that include many games and has been using Halo specifically since the initial game’s launch in 2001. We have always required notes from parents for anyone under 17 to play an M rated game, there can be no one who isn’t in high school even in the room just watching. The younger kids play something more appropriate for them in another room – Burnout is a perennial favorite. And it’s usually not an M-rated game. At our Christmas Party it was a Wii Baseball tournament with prizes started by the jr high boys that had all the kids clustered around the TV. It’s okay they put an alert out there I guess for those who haven’t been taking precautions, but again, too late and way too little.

Every year they include a list of games to avoid, and games they suggest. This is where the rubber hits the road. Let’s take a look.

Games to Avoid List

Assassin’s Creed
Call to Duty 4
Conan
The Darkness
Jericho
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men
Manhunt 2
Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles
Stranglehold
Time Shift

These games are all hard M-rated and none of them should be in the hands of kids. None of those are ambivalent, especially if you weren’t going to be supervising play directly. No argument there. But their list information itself has some issues.

They still can’t seem to read the names of the games off the front of the box. What they have listed as “Call to Duty 4” is actually “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” (emphasis added). That may seem like a minor mistake, but if you type what’s on their list into a search engine to get more information off the ESRB’s website or Google, it won’t return the real results on the game. And without that last bit at the end, you’re going to get a list with all the games in the series which can be confusing and not all of them are M rated. For someone who thinks parents should pay more attention and research they aren’t helping them out much.

They don’t disambiguate confusing titles like “Conan”. I assume they mean the Xbox360/PS3 game that just came out. But there is also a game for the PC and Xbox360 on the way called “Age of Conan” that is a massively multiplayer online game and also rated M. That one gets a double whammy for mature content and because we don’t recommend unsupervised playing of MMORG’s for kids. Which game do they mean? If you were asking me here, I vote for applying it to both.

They’re missing some key games that were recently released with very mature content that reviewed very well and had big advertising budgets. If we were going to put together a list like this (which we wouldn’t; we firmly believe in avoiding this sort of blanket statement) we would start with the list above, and add a few titles. These are games that we suggest you take great care with, and here’s and a link to our complete reviews to show you why:

Bioshock
Gears of War (Note: the Xbox360 version has been out for a year, but it just came out for the PC)
Painkiller: Overdose
The Orange Box

Or, you could just go to our Review Archive and search on games we gave our Adults Only seal. That way we don’t have to try to telepathically figure out what games your child is asking you for, and there is a lot of good information in the articles themselves that details our concerns with them. Or you can go to our forums and ask an adult who has played the game for their input.

Mediawise Recommend Games for Children and Teens

FIFA Soccer O8
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
Hannah Montana: Spotlight World Tour
Madden NFL 08
Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games
Need for Speed Pro Street
The Sims 2: Castaway
Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Mario Galaxy
Viva Pinata

I really don’t know what made them choose these particular games. It is a better list than last year’s, but there are some headscratchers and we’re missing some key information. None of them are really bad choices as far as content, but some of them aren’t all that great as games.

No platform is listed for the games so parents don’t know what hardware these games are available for. This makes it harder for them to shop from this list. Madden is available on anything that will stand still for it, but Hannah Montana is on the Nintendo DS and the Wii and it isn’t available on any other system.

NIMF’s other supporting materials, both in this report and on their website, contradict many of these suggestions. One of their organization’s main concerns with games in general is exposing kids to a “culture of disrespect”. Online situations definately fit that definition in my book, and with Madden’s increasing emphasis on the XboxLive aspects I don’t understand why they suggested it. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock has a track list dripping with music the organization doesn’t approve of. It’s not like it’s new music; some of the tracks are old enough I bet their parents didn’t approve of them listening to them.

The list really doesn’t make sense from a kid’s perspective. Several of these games are old — Viva Pinata has been out a year now. Sports games are heavily represented here, but kids aren’t really the audience for those. Most kids would not want to play FIFA Soccer if you paid them. And this list is skewed very young. A lot of tween/teen kids will play the games even though they’re E-rated (Super Mario Galaxy is just that good) but there is not a lot here anyone over 10 would put up with as a steady diet. The teens who want to play something with action in it are the ones that are in the danger zone and this list does nothing for them.

If I had to come up with some suggestions for a tween/teenage car nut that don’t involve getting chased by cops at any point in the game, I’d replace Need for Speed with either “Project Gotham Racing 4” or “Forza Motorsport 2”. For the real little ones I’d choose “Cars Mater National”. Toss out “Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games” completely and choose the new Wii Zapper pack with “Link’s Crossbow Training”. For something up-to-the-minute new, go check out “NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams”. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on the Nintendo DS is a must for a Zelda fan. For an teen who likes to skateboard, EA’s “skate” gives you a new, T-rated alternative to Tony Hawk (for a tweener you might want to rent and take a look first). “Naruto: Rise of a Ninja” is a great selection for a teen/tween on the Xbox360. It’s a cartoony fighting/action game that goes with the television series that was good enough my older kids sat down and powered through it.

Even better, I’d recommend you take a look at our handy, age-appropriate 2007 Holiday Guide for a broad look at some of this year’s best games.

Every year we read through this report and shake our heads. There is so much misinformation here it’s hard to get any real good out of it. But if it makes even one parent start looking at the covers of the games coming into their home and thinking, then I guess it’s worth something. But there needs to be more. Parents need to be involved. It’s not just games; it’s all media. It’s why Gamerdad is all about playing games with your children.

EDIT: Hey, looks like we’re fallible too. Colleen pegged Need for Speed: ProStreet wrong and used her experiences with the series, rather than her experience with the game. The reference has been stricken.

Tags: Misc