...today is 30, and our industry has very strict rules about marketing, targeting marketing to children and making sure no products rated inappropriate for children are marketed to them. We enforce those guidelines very strictly and very actively, so I think that yes, there are different standards that are being applied, and I think most of the time that's based out of [people] just not being familiar with the facts and not being gamers themselves.
Are there studies about how the ratings resonate with parents?
We do nationwide research with Peter Hart, a very well-respected opinion polling company. [Hart found] that 54 percent of parents never allow their children to play Mature-rated games, while 37 percent sometimes do, which says that the overwhelming majority of parents are limiting what their kids are playing and making choices that are appropriate for their own children. Eighty-three percent of parents agree with the ratings that we assign and another 5 percent actually think we're being too strict. In a country as diverse as ours, I would say that those statistics indicate a high success rate for the rating system.
There was a study out the other day showing that there was no provable link between video games and violence. What do you think of that?
Well, if you look at the research on this subject — the surgeon general did one back in 2000; various courts have done them in the state of Washington; and the government of Australia has done similar surveys — and no organisation of any stature has concluded that there is a causal relationship between playing video games and behaviour, particularly when it comes to violent behaviour.
And yet there's this perception that video games lead to violence.
If you look at the crime statistics over the last 10 years, where you've had the largest increase in penetration of games in this country, you've seen that crime has dropped precipitously, whereas playing video games has increased exponentially. It suggests that actually there has been a drop in criminal behaviour since the introduction of video games.
So the popular perception is wrong?
Back to the political argument. If you want to create a picture that's not based on fact, you can draw that picture, but it's not based on fact. The media reports what they want to report, and the politicians say what they want to say, and people who are critics of the industry will continue to be critics of the industry.
Going back to the "GTA" situation, do you think in the aftermath, there will be changes to the way the ESRB rates games or examines them?
Well the criteria have not changed nor will they change for rating assignments. The one thing that will change is that, particularly for PC games, publishers will be required to disclose all pertinent content, whether it's playable or not, that ships with the disc. That doesn't mean that...
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Well, let me see if got it. If the game ONLY showed police officers being killed, it would not be imoral. Since it also shows sex scenes than it showld never been done. To me it's quite weird such measure of morality. That's maybe because I'm brazilian so can't realize the real meaning of morality in an american society, where a game that shows scenes of human life being taken is less offensive than showing sex scenes.
Weird, very weird.
The rating was probably increased because it now contains sex AND violence as opposed to just violence. But, in my opinion, the violence of itself should have led to an 18+ (adult) rating anyway.
I imagine there are many people that think sex should be without ANY kind of moral imperatives. (They should probably think more with their brains, and not with other organs!)
George: No-one has said the game would not be considered immoral if it contained ONLY police officers being shot. Where did you get this from apart from your prejudice?
It was already given a "mature" rating for that very reason and was always considered to be immoral by many from the outset. The reaction against the "Hot Coffee" scenes was because it appeared that the games company had tried to sneak such scenes past the censors and into the hands of minors.
I see too often a desire to just "bash" Americans and paint them as "simple prudes" which I think is affecting people's ability to think through issues such as this logically.
Sex isn't always innocent; the context is important. In this context, the sex was placed in the vicinity of violence which in some people's eyes doesn't go too well together. There IS a moral dimension to sex which many "liberal-minded" people would like to convince you doesn't exist...