Panel decides parents need to be more involved in children’s gaming habits

A conference was recently held by the National Institute on Media and the Family to discuss the 12th Annual MediaWise Video Game Report Card released on Tuesday (December 4, 2007) in Washington, DC.

The panel was comprised pf David Walsh, Ph.D, founder and president of the National Institute on Media and the Family; Dana Markow, Ph.D, vice president of Youth and Education Research; Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Joe Lieberman (ID-CT); Representative Betty McCollum (D-MN); and Harris Interactive. Together the panel discussed issues and reviewed surveys conducted by Harris Interactive surrounding parents and children in relationship to gaming habits, usage and ratings.

The National Institute on Media and the Family is an independent non-partisan, non-sectarian, nonprofit organization. The Institutes’s mission is to maximize the benefits and minimize the harm of media on the health and development of children and families. According to the report, a survey was made necessary because of the recent popularity of games such as Halo and Guitar Hero and the growing public concern over the possible effects of violent games on children and the marketing strategies used for violent entertainment.

The results are from the 2007 Video Game Report Card just released on December 4, 2007.

How the interviews were conducted.

MediaWise’s Harris Interactive along with the National Institute on Media and the Family conducted a national survey of parents and children to first determine the role of video games in their lives. The survey conducted included the gaming industry, retail market and the average family to get a more accurate view of video gaming behavior within the American family.

“We also know the average age of gamers continues to increase, as the generation who grew up with the Atari and Nintendo continue to play video games well into their adulthood. Sequels to popular game franchises like Halo and Guitar Hero, and increasingly intricate massive multi-player games, made 2007 an exciting year for gamers,” the report added then listed this year’s scandals from efforts of game stores clamping down on game ratings to headline games that have caused a stir this year. “While the medium and its audience continue to grow, efforts to protect children from the now undeniable potential harms of excessively violent video games have not kept pace with industry growth. Some of this shortfall is due to a chronic phenomenon: as the industry and its influence continue to grow, video games present new challenges for families. However this year, our findings suggest that the unacceptable negative impact of excessively violent video games on young people is a problem depicted in an ever-expanding body of research. Increasingly, the companies which create and market the games, the retailers who sell them and the parents who buy them have become too comfortable with the voluntary standards they set for themselves in previous years.”

Findings: Family understanding of the ESRB system

Note: The following statistics and general information have been taken from the MediaWise 2007 Video Game Report Card. The family understanding of the ESRB system is based on a survey sent to parents to determine if they have a clear understanding of the ESRB rating system and how effectively they are using this system to monitor what their child plays.

Children know more about the ESRB rating system than their parents. According to the Harris Interactive Poll, only 54 percent of parents claimed to have use the ESRB rating system while 72 percent know little to nothing about the ESRB system. Which to me is sad, because most of these children have always believed that their parents had full knowledge of the ESRB rating system according to the report card.
Parents are not playing the game with their child. According to the report only 38 percent of mothers and 31 percent of fathers of children who play video games claimed that their parents never played any games with them. Which the report attributes to 50 percent of children ages 8 to 12 and 79 percent of teens who were able to play an M-rated (Mature) video game.
Parents understand television ratings more than they understand game ratings. Like movie ratings, game ratings are clearly displayed by the retailer and posted clearly on the packages an television ads by game makers. Which doesn’t seem to be enough according to the report card as 54 percent of parents admit to knowing more about TV ratings than video game ratings and 27 percent of parents claim to understand video game ratings.
Video games cause friction within the family. Both child and parent have agreed that friction between family members have been started by video games. In the report, 38 percent of the parents interviewed for the report have said the arguments were mostly about the amount of time their children were spending on a game system. Of the children interviewed, 36 percent admitted this fact was true.

Findings: Retailer efforts to educate and enforce the rating system

Now let’s look at how the retailers efforts to educate their customers about ESRB ratings and enforce the rating system when selling video games to customers. According to the report, a survey was conducted on 96 video game rental and retail stores located in the cities of the following 12 states—Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Mexico, Texas, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

One out of three retailers have failed in educating their customers about the ESRB ratings. The report showed that 59 percent of the retailers they surveyed have made an effort to educate their customers about ESRB ratings through brochures, signs or videos. This percentage is a huge drop from last year in 2006 when the survey found 73 percent of retailers made efforts to educate their customers.
Children have been successful in purchasing M-rated games. Out of all the stores surveyed, 94 percent claimed they have a policy prohibiting children under the age of 17 from purchasing M-rated games. The survey reported that 50 percent of the “secret shoppers” they sent to these stores were able to purchase an M-rated game. The stores found to have been 100 percent compliant to the policy are K-mart, EB Games and Hollywood Video.
Younger sales clerks tend to be more lenient with children. The survey report found generation gaps within retail store clerks and have found that the younger clerks tend to be more lenient with children, especially those closer to their age group when it came to store policies. While older clerks are more compliant with existing store policies. Of all the stores surveyed, the report found only 60 percent of the stores have trained their employees on store policies concerning ESRB ratings.

Findings: The Report Card

Parents received a C for not doing enough to protect their own children from the potential harms of video games. The recommendation stated in the report asks that parents learn to use the ESRB rating system when determining what their child plays and start taking their child’s video games seriously.
The ESRB received a grade of B (minus). The only recommendation the panel gave was for the ESRB to continue their partnership with government officials to create newer more educational PSAs. The report said ESRB’s downfall was due to their limited reach resulting in the failure to educate parents and the retailers.
Retailer policies overall received a C (minus) for not educating their employees or enforcing retailer policies. Retailer enforcements were broken down into three sub groups with individual grades—National Retailers received a D, specialty stores received a B and rental stores received an F.

The gaming industry received a C. While the report commended console manufacturers on their efforts to make games safe for children, a special kudos went out to Microsoft for creating a timer feature that allowed parents to limit the amount of time their children spent playing games and were praised for their innovation.
ESRB rating system received a C (plus) on its efforts to educate the public and how it handled the Manhunt 2 issue.

Read [2007 Videogame Report Card] Site [MediaWise] Site [Media and the Family Organization] Site [Entertainment Software Rating Board]