Parental Advisory...
I've been noticing that video games are getting a lot more attention from the media lately (most of it mis-informed) with the holidays approaching. Just today I saw a news report featuring a watchdog group advising parents on what games for parents to "look out for".
No I have no problem with this at all, but the way that this "watchdog" group presented itself was with an obvious bias against all video games. Why do I think this? Here are the list of a few of the games that were listed.
GTA: San Andreas
Halo 2
Half-Life 2
Metal Gear 3
Notice a connection? These are all the huge releases of the season, and they all have a pretty wide variety of content. Two of the games listed have little to no human vs. human violence and three have little to no profanity (not sure about Half-Life)
Now every parent should be aware of San Andreas. The GTA games are intended for adults only, and if I had a child I would not allow it in my household.
My problem is when they just arbitrarily lump every other big name game of the season into the same category. I've played and completed Halo 2 and if it were a movie it would have a PG-13 rating. There is little to no profanity, no nudity and no human vs. human violence. Those are the criteria that distinguish an R ratng from a PG-13 rating.
Now if San Andreas were to be given a movie rating, it would most likely receive an NC-17 due to the sheer amount of human vs. human and man vs. woman violence and bloodshed.
What the media is doing by making lists like these is lumping very content-disilimar games into the same "bad egg" category, much like saying that a PG-13 movie is the same as an NC-17 movie. Now parents are not being given a good base of knowledge in order to make educated decsions for their children because anti-video game watchdogs are simply saying that any big name release with violence is just as bad as any other big game release with violence.
But in the end, whose fault is this? In my opinion it is the video game industry's fault that this is happening. While the industry does have a great and thorough ratings system, they have not put in the time and money to make sure that parents are aware of it. Most parents still view video games as "kids toys". This is not true and has not been true for a long time. Games like San Andreas and the DISGUSTING JFK:Reloaded (a game that allows you to play as Oswald gunning down Kennedy and win $ rewards for accuracy) are tainting the entire industry because the industry itself has not done enough to distinguish its adult product from its teen and younger product.
Until the video game industry does more to inform the public on its rating systems and ENFORCE them, the industry will never be seen as a viable adult form of entertainment, or more importantly, as a legitimate artform.
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