🚀 go-pugleaf

josh fishburn wrote:

> "Dave Oldridge" <daveol...@comnet.ca> wrote in message
> >     Just look at the rating system for VHS and DVD movies.  Parents are
> more
> > likely to know of a title that's new and violent there, the packages come
> > with well known violence ratings (PG, R, etc.), and list exactly what's in
> > the movie (brutal violence, drug use, foul language, etc).  Yet some
> parents
> > still rent or purchase these movies for their young or pre-teen child, and
> > sometimes go as far as blame the moviemakers anyways if little Timmy tries
> > to emulate what he saw.  Your suggestion would be like giving every video
> > game an 'AO' rating, and as ineffective towards actually solving any
> > problem.  And American publishers would still edit content out of some
> > games, despite the rating anyways.
>
> Right on...I still think its ignorant parents that are mostly the problem.
> I remember my mom being astounded that Best Buy sold my 11-year old brother
> the MA-13 Mortal Kombat for Sega CD.  That situation has become slightly
> better, a lot of retailers do pay attention to the rating system.  I can't
> help but feel that the ESRB system is not taken seriously by most though,
> especially compared with the MPAA.  Personally, I think it is better than
> the MPAA.  Its not as corrupt, you have the rating on the front of the box
> and a listing of exactly why it got that rating, as well as a number you can
> call about the rating.
>
> Another theory I have is that the US still hasn't universally accepted that
> Video Games are not only a kid's medium, but can also be for adults.  Its
> the same thing with adult cartoons; for the most part they are still not
> accepted by the general public.  I agree that this is changing slightly, but
> not to the point where everybody gets it yet.  Blockbuster Video slaps an
> adults only rating on Akira because it wasn't rated by the MPAA, and its a
> cartoon so it would be deceiving to parents if they rented it and it was
> violent.  I keep coming back to this, but if parents want their kids to play
> games, they have to be serious about it and REALLY do some research on
> gaming.  Its the same thing they should do for anything their child is
> interested in that is foreign to them.

Though actually, in a way, the Companies *are* at fault.  The problem is that
they and the Government took the complaints of parents too seriously and
harshly, and suffered because of it, which in turn made the IQs of parents go
down the toilet.  If the companies had, rather than edited out the content, said

to the parents "You should have looked at the ratings, you fucking bitch," then
the parents would have wisened up.  My parents were the same way before
I did that exact thing to them, and that shut them the hell up.  You have to
make the guilty party realize who it is that is at fault before they'll wise up,

otherwise they'll just keep finding scapegoats, and the wise will suffer because

of it.