Parents advised to make Better Use of Game Ratings.

The Video Games industry has been getting its house in order over the past few months, improving the rating systems used on games, the information, explanations, the visuals used to show the ratings, and industry guidelines around the ratings too.

This now highlights an altogether new problem, that despite huge efforts made by games retailers, and publishers, some parents are failing to use all of this information to protect their children.

“For 13 years, the National Institute on Media and the Family has been asking the video game industry and retailers to take responsibility to keep mature-rated video games away from kids,” said Dr. David Walsh, president and founder of the group.

“This year the industry has improved its ratings enforcement and given parents new tools when choosing the right videogame for their child. That’s a significant step in the right direction.”

A recent report produced in America produced by the Federal Trade Commission that found only 20 per cent of children who tried to purchase mature-rated games from retailers were successful, compared to data from 2003, where 55 per cent of under-age consumers bought M-rated games.

The weakness in the system lies now with the adults, the adults that purchase M-rated or 18+ games for underage children to play them, or give them as presents, or knowingly let them play their own adult games.

It is very easy for a society to pass on the responsibility for monitoring & enforcing ratings onto the games publishers and retailers. But as history has shown with Films, the cinemas aren’t the places where children are watching films past their age range, it’s at home with the parents, watching the DVD. The retailers have the guidelines, and all indications are that they are properly enforcing them at point of sale.

Parents have been given all the tools and information necessary to allow them work out whether the content is suitable for their children. It is now up to the parents to make those unpopular decisions and enforce the guidelines which have been provided at their request.