A reminder to parents on videogame ratings:
Use them!
BY LELAND RZPECKI INDEPENDENT INTERN
Now that summer is here, plenty of kids are making more regular trips to the gaming console. In recent years, the videogame industry has come under fire by parents and the media for exposing children to large amounts of violence and sexual content.

But many of today's young parents - who grew up on Pac-Man and Asteroids - suffer from the misconception that, like when they were growing up, all videogames are made for and marketed to children. The videogame industry has evolved to reach a much broader audience. Now, just like there are movies for kids and movies for adults, there are games for kids and games for adults.

Many parents are still not aware that there is a ratings system in place that is even more thorough than the system used to rate movies; it's designed to help them make better decisions about what games are suitable for their children. "It took me a while to realize that there were ratings," says Sandy Mitchell, mother of a recent NHS graduate. "One day someone at the video store finally told me what an 'M' rated game was."

Every game sold in a retail store is rated by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), a non-profit, self-regulatory body established in 1994 by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). The ESRB rates games based on content and community standards, much like the MPAA rating system for movies. Says ESRB President Patricia Vance in an interview with gaming website Kotaku, "… the degree of player control is one of several elements that the ESRB considers in the assignment of ratings, including the content itself, its frequency, intensity and realism, context within which it is presented and the reward system." Identifying a game's ESRB rating is as easy as it gets: The rating is printed as a large black letter in a white box on the front of the package. "E" for "Everyone," "T" for "Teen" and "M" for "Mature." (There is also an "AO" rating for Adults Only, but those games are not sold in major retail stores.) On the back of the package is another white box that shows the rating and a set of content descriptors like "Strong Violence" or "Use of Drugs and Alcohol". Most retail stores that sell games, like Best Buy and Gamestop, even have explanations of each rating mounted on the same shelves as the games themselves.

The only problem with the rating system is the average parent's unwillingness to use the ratings to make better decisions about what game to buy for their children. My advice to parents is this: Think about what kind of movies you let your kids see. If you wouldn't let you child see an R-rated movie, don't let them play an M-rated

game. It's that simple.

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