Gaming Industry and Retailers Work Harder to Educate
Parents and Keep Inappropriate Games out of Children’s Hands
FTC
Finds Retailer Compliance Improvements
A new report by the Federal
Trade Commission showed a dramatic turnaround for an industry that seemed to be
growing complacent on the issue of protecting young people just last year. Only
20 percent of kids who tried to buy M-rated games from retailers were successful
in the FTC’s secret shopper survey. This rate of one in five is a vast improvement
over the results of previous “sting operations.” In 2006, 42 percent
of secret shoppers were allowed to buy M-rated games. The 2008 figure of 20 percent
also means that  young
video game buyers now have more difficulty buying M-rated games than they do purchasing
tickets to R-rated movies, the first time the video game retailers’ standards
exceeded those of the movie theater industry. The retailers that had the best
record of preventing underage gamers from purchasing M-rated games were GameStop,
Wal-Mart, and Best Buy, all of which achieved the rate of 20 percent or under.
A few retailers such as Hollywood Video and Circuit City only turned away three
in five underage customers of M-rated games, but even this rate marks an improvement,
since this year’s outliers still exceed the average ratings enforcement compliance
rate from two years ago.
ESRB Ratings Education Makes Major Progress
At the same time that retailers have improved their record of keeping
ageinappropriate content out of children’s hands, the Entertainment Software
Rating Board (ESRB) has stepped up its efforts to educate parents about the importance
of video game ratings. The ESRB launched a new ratings education campaign in April,
distributing copies of its Parent’s Guide to Video Games, Parental Controls
and Online Safety to all 26,000 American PTA chapters. Also in 2008, the ESRB
renewed its commitment to helping retailers train employees, providing 25 retail
partners with sales associate training information.
Other ESRB ratings
education efforts include in-store PSAs running in Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target,
and Blockbuster retail locations as well as radio PSAs running on several major
radio networks. Print PSAs running in family and gamer magazines and partnerships
with state governments to create local PSAs have also extended the ESRB ratings
education effort’s reach.
The ESRB’s efforts to raise awareness
were accompanied in the fall by new resources for parents. Beginning in November,
online “ratings summaries” were made available for all games rated after
July 1, 2008. These summaries explain, in a few sentences, a detailed rationale
for the rating each game has received. The summaries offer a level of information
not provided by any of the other major media rating systems, and as such they
represent an unprecedented resource for parents. The ESRB will also provide this
information on a mobile-phone-friendly site so that parents can access the information
at retailer locations. In addition to the “ratings summaries,” the ESRB
also launched a new service, ParenTools, a twice-a-month consolecustomized list
of all the new game releases and accompanying ratings. Again, these new resources
represent a quantum leap for parents in keeping tabs on the games their kids want
to play. The National Institute on Media and the Family is proud to partner with
the ESRB to help families find these resources.
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