When Senator Joe
Lieberman and I unveiled the 11th Annual Video Game Report
Card in Washington, DC, a lot of people were surprised by
what we said. In the past, we've been tough (but fair) on
the people and companies who make and sell video games.
The fact is, in years past, they deserved it. But this year
is different.
Oh, don't get me wrong - the industry powers have a long
way to go. The rating system still isn't as accurate as
it should be, and some retailers still seem to care a lot
more about profits than the welfare of kids. But lately
we see the industry making important strides.
In years past, the big box retailers like Best Buy, Target,
and Wal-Mart, didn't do a very good job of keeping Mature-rated
games away from kids. This year, in our sting survey, the
small stores that specialize in video games still let young
children buy M-rated games about half the time. We gave
them an F. On the other hand, the big box retailers received
a perfect record. It was easy to give them an A. The big
box retailers have educated their employees and proven how
easy it is to protect kids.
Also encouraging are the console makers. Microsoft, Nintendo
and Sony all released new platforms in the last year or
so, and each of these consoles includes parental controls,
something we've requested for years. These companies got
an A too. Furthermore, the game makers and most of the retailers
make a good, though not perfect, effort to educate parents
about the video game ratings, earning them a B.
All of this praise for the industry surprised the reporters
who cover the Report Card. But another grade we gave created
even more of a buzz. That's because this year, for the first
time ever, we gave a grade to parents: INCOMPLETE.
The fact is the tools and information parents need to protect
their kids are mostly available. And yet, as our survey
of parents and their children showed, too many of us parents
don't do a very good job of providing a healthy media diet
for our kids. For instance, while nearly two-thirds of surveyed
parents said they had rules about how much time their children
may spend playing video games, only one third of their children
said they had such rules. When issues such as obesity, addiction,
and impaired brain development are increasingly linked to
playing video games by unassailable research, these rules
seem more important than ever.
To be fair, the industry still sends mixed messages, providing
a rating system that recommends keeping certain games away
from kids while at the same time denying their games have
any effect on kids. The incomplete grade means we parents
are failing our kids, but it's not all our fault. Well,
it's time to wake up, folks. We can't count on a for-profit
industry to do our work for us. Let's get MediaWise before
it's too late.
David Walsh, Ph.D. is the founder of the
MediaWise Movement, a program of the National Institute
on Media and the Family (www.mediawise.org).
His latest book, No! Why Kids Need It and Ways We Can
Say It (Free Press) is available in bookstores on January
9, 2007.
