Poll: Don?t restrict my gaming purchases! Sub question why is sex conidered worse than violence?

[fluffylandmine]

Im 12, but just cause doesn't mean Im not smart
I hate it when adults think that theyre so much better
I have to go soon, Im on my mom's computer
Fucken *****, I hate her, she ruined my life

Yep, and that is why your games SHOULD be regulated.

I think he's joking.

he is but he did a good enough job to fool you darth

 

[fluffylandmine]

but really do you think someone like that would be at the escapist?

 

[fluffylandmine]

i think i know what you mean but they were relinquished by the hammer of ban

 

[ADDLibrarian]

Edit: Something tells me I just typed all this for naught, lol. Oh well. That's my 2 cents, jumbled and incoherent 2 cents as they are.

I am a 16 year old gamer, and one of my largest pet peeves is that I need to be 18 to buy M rated games. In my opinion (otherwise known as ?fact?) this is unnecessary. It is a parents responsibility to monitor there child?s gaming, not Best Buy?s responsibility.

I know it sucks, but thems the rules. Believe me, I'm not a censorship fan by any means, but just because you're responsible for your age doesn't mean others are. The last thing we want is little Billy buying a game that he shouldn't have bought, then mommy suing Best Buy, which then has to pull things off their shelves or ruin other things for responsible adults.
I agree, it is a parents responsibility to monitor what their child watches, but stores don't want to be slapped with a lawsuit. They have to enforce the ratings system because some parents aren't responsible *sarcastic shock*

(Side note: in some cases, really young gamers ARE kind of annoying. When they come on the TF2 servers I play on, it's just not fair to the rest of us older kids that we need to change our language or behavior just cause some 12 year old kid walked in, who shouldn't be playing the game anyway. There's a big difference developmentally between a 12 year old and a 21 year old, duh.)

It's the same deal with the library that I work at: we have different levels of library cards. A person with a "juvenile card" cannot check out a rated R movie, it doesn't let you. You have to have an "adult" card to rent R movies and you can have an "adult" card when you graduate from high school. (There is a transition period "Teen" card as well). Even this rule can be bent a little, if a parent is with the kid and says it's ok, we can override the ban and check it out on their card.

But we have these rules and limits for a reason. We don't need parents making a fuss about little Johnny's movie selection, even though they may be the ones at fault. Stores and libraries and schools are supposed to enforce the norms of society and in our society, the majority say that kids under 18 shouldn't be allowed to watch graphic violence or sex. *shrug* not saying its right or fair, but it's what's been established.

As for why sex is a bigger deal than violence, sex is still a taboo subject in our western society. It's still considered something "private" or "inappropriate". Violence is sadly pretty common; look at the news- war, crime, etc. etc. But sex...that's something that our society says "hush hush" about. You show a boobie and it's the end of civilization.

 

[ADDLibrarian]

Heh, yeah. I hear from friends that have lived in China and Japan that the reason their porn is so "weird" is the fact that they're more liberal about sex in the media. It's not uncommon to see nudity in magazine ads and on tv. My friend who lived in China said that they think our porn is boring (Why would you just want to see a man and woman having sex? That's not that big a deal)

 

[some random guy]

J-e-f-f-e-r-s that was an excellent and humourous answer to a question that I never really asked. I made it quite clear earlier on in this thread that I support a ratings system (page 8) and that I understand how age discrimination and assumptions are necessary within the law to prevent chaos (page 9). What I was having a problem with were the assumptions and stereotypes being used by people within this thread unnecessarily. That then led to mockery and numerous people taking the phrase "you don't know me" completely out of context.

Still, it's on topic and the question has been asked multiple times within this thread so it was still relevant. Thanks for the pretty abstract and humourous look into why rating systems are needed.

Also, what's with all the hyphens in your name? Do you have any idea how annoying it is typing your name out using the sixaxis!?

 

[s0denone]

Some Random Guy, I believe you were asking why you should be stereotyped along with all the other teenagers when it comes to buying games. I shall attempt to answer using the medium of a parable:

Say that Gamestop listened to you, and decided to sell mature games to underage teenagers. Now obviously they can't sell them willy-nilly to whatever teenager comes in to buy them, otherwise they'd end up in more trouble than a pedo in a playground. Instead, they have to give each and every kid who comes to the counter with a copy of Manhunt a thorough psychological evaluation, to make sure that the wackos don't end up getting a copy. Sounds good, right?

But oh no! All of a sudden, profits start going down. Because each sale now takes so much more time and effort than before, Gamestop ends up losing money. Where they could once hawk 15 copies of Ninja Gaiden inside an hour, it takes all day to shift the same amount, as each teenager has to be evaluated to make sure they're sound of mind. And half of those evaluations don't even lead to a sale.

And shock horror! Even with all that evaluation and testing, bad acorns still slips through the net. Copycat acts of violence still make the news. Teenagers, no matter how mature they may seem, remain impressionable balls of clay who seem to give in to peer pressure at every opportunity. The government wants to know why Gamespot hasn't created a proper ratings system like with movies in order to combat this. Gamespot tries to reply, "We're doing this for the people like Some Random Guy, the teenagers who know they're different." The government responds by sending a committee to evaluate the methods of psychological testing that Gamestop uses. The committee naturally finds the results to be less than impressive. This is enough for the media to start an anti-Gamestop campaign, claiming that they're deliberately advertising adult media to young people. This results in a number of high-profile lawsuits against Gamespot, causing them to lose even more money in legal costs and payouts, from their already dwindling coffers.

Eventually, Gamespot dies and goes to Heaven. Outside the Pearly Gates, it sees God, St Peter and the Archangels all sitting in a celestial courtroom. Gamespot is brought to the defendant stand. God rises and says in a deep booming voice,

'GAMESPOT. WHY ARE YOU HERE?'

And Gamespot, in a timid voice replies, 'because all our profits disappeared and I went bankrupt.'

And God says, 'WHY DID YOUR PROFITS DISAPPEAR?'

And Gamespot replies 'because we got rid of our ratings system and sold directly to teenagers.'

And God leans closer with a puzzled look on his face and asks, 'AND WHY DID YOU DO THAT?'

And Gamespot finally breaks down and cries 'because they assured us that they were different. Colton and Random and everyone else, they told us they were different from the other kids and we believed them.'

And God, with a look of smug satisfaction, says 'YOU BELIEVED THEM? YOU BELIEVED THAT THE GROUP RESPONSIBLE FOR CHAVS, EMOS, GOTHS AND SCENESTERS WAS SOMEHOW MATURE ENOUGH FOR GRAND THEFT AUTO? YOU BELIEVED THAT THE MOST HORMONALLY UNBALANCED, TEMPERAMENTAL, PRONE TO SUDDEN CHANGES IN CHARACTER AND PERSONALITY DEMOGRAPHIC OF SOCIETY WERE READY FOR MANHUNT? YOU BELIEVED THEM???' And Gamespot looks down at its feet in humiliation and starts to weep.

All exaggeration aside, try and imagine the practicalities of making sure that each teenager you sold a game to was mature and responsible enough to handle it. The logistics would be astronomical for such a small demographic, and that's not even going into whether emotionally stable kids are still at risk from violent games. As has already been mentioned, the brain doesn't stop developing until well into your twenties.

If it really grinds your gears, just try to think of it as a rite of passage. After all, how much fun would your 18th birthday be if you could already buy alcohol when you were a teenager? Don't be so quick to leave your childhood behind. Once it's gone, you can never get it back.

It's all about culture, as I told Saevus a page or two ago.

In my country, Denmark, we haven't had any "gaming-related-crimes", and I mean *not ever*.
You don't have to look up our crime rates, because our crime rates are much lower than the US' - We do, however, still have crime, naturally, this has never had anything to do with gaming.

I've been able to buy games in shops on my own, since I've had the age to walk, talk, and give another person my allowance. This goes for buying movies, and anything related to that.
And guess what, the exact same goes for every other inhabitant of my dearly beloved country, but still this has caused no problems for anyone, even if you can be sure we have JUST AS MANY impressionable morons as you do, and just about as many psychopats as well.

As stated, we have very low crime rates, this may be partly due to the wealth of Denmark, the welfare-system, as well as numorous other things that we have come to take for granted in Denmark, but much of the world is still missing.

So perhaps teenagers aren't really as much affected by the games that they play, or the movies they watch, but moreso the people they encounter, hang out with, their good friends, and their environment in general?

I remember playing Resident Evil when I was about 10 years old, watching the Godfather trilogy at age 12, and playing Counter Strike since the earliest beta. I turned out alright, and you can bet that 99% of anyone like me in Denmark, will turn out alright as well.

-- You are making assumptions, and assumptions are never a good thing, although they may be required. But making assumptions about American children not able to regulate their own behaviour, that means acknowledging that American children are not able to think for themselves until they turn 20. Or whatever the age requirement for AO games is.

Sure children, and indeed very much teenagers are very impressionable - But don't you think they have other problems, if they by age 10 don't know that murdering people isn't a good thing? Of course they have other problems.

There was 2 cases in England about 10-year olds killing their "mates", these were STANDALONE examples, of children not raised right, children that were completely insane. I remember going through it at school, and thats when it was just around 10 years ago it had happened. Never heard of anything alike, in Europe, since then.

So the real question is: Why is America so bloody fucked up?

 

[Sgt. Dante]

Anything i say will likely has already been said, but i still wanna through in my two cents.

I fully agree that it is the parents responsibility to monitor a child's gaming, as well as movies and television. but to say that you should be allowed to buy a M rated game because your parents are responsible is like saying a kid should be able to buy a porno because he's old enough to jack off. Now if you'll excuse the crudeness any kid of that age is probably doing it anyway and has probably got a porno hidden somewhere anyway, but if the parents were to find it they would be (and rightly so) outraged, presumably chasing up where he got it from and then giving whomever it was what for.

now that real reason for that rant was to point out the following. no child is "Mature" enough to watch that kinda stuff, and I'm not gonna argue that doing so will only make him sexually objectify women. I don't believe in all that media-brainwashing shit. But it was the decision of a group of level headed-mature adults to try their best to prevent children from walking into their local video store and buying that kind of movie.

Then mortal combat happened. Thus creating the ERSB. many adults (rightly so) felt that allowing young children to beat someone else to a bloody stump, computer game or otherwise, was not so cool. and sought to protect the impressionable from such things. 14 years later and lets be fair, games are more realistic than ever. and if they felt that a game from more than a decade ago could mess with kids minds then what would doing the same thing to a person that looks like a person do to them.

it's not a case of these people thinking the parents do nothing. if i found my 5 year old sister playing one of my violent video games I would be at fault. actually as a result she's not allowed to play my consoles without me being there. yes the parents should be responsible, but alot of them aren't, buying whatever their screaming brat demands when they go through Wal-mart, only to be outraged later when they see on the news that a kid in a far away land played said game and then murdered a taxi driver (you all know what i'm talking about)

basically this system helps to cover the asses of the companies. if it's an M/18 rated game, the companies can say "we clearly told you that this kid shouldn't have been playing that, it's the parent's fault."

long story short, it's all about passing blame. most people playing GTAIV wont' run about trying to do whatever the hell makes you keep coming back to it. but for teh few that do and then use it as an excuse it's a get-out-of-jail-free-card for the companies. the company shouldn't have made it -> tha store shouldn't have sold it -> the parent shouldn't have bought it -> the kid shouldn't have played it.

 

[anNIALLator]

even though i'm 16 i got turned away in GAME while trying to buy RS V2. i emptied my wallet and showed the guy every piece of ID i had but since i didn't have photographic evidence he didn't let me buy it. 16 year olds don't have photographic ID!
Also, why do the PEGI have a 16+ rating? why not just stick with the BBFC 15+? grrr

 

[fluffylandmine]

Some Random Guy, I believe you were asking why you should be stereotyped along with all the other teenagers when it comes to buying games. I shall attempt to answer using the medium of a parable:

Say that Gamestop listened to you, and decided to sell mature games to underage teenagers. Now obviously they can't sell them willy-nilly to whatever teenager comes in to buy them, otherwise they'd end up in more trouble than a pedo in a playground. Instead, they have to give each and every kid who comes to the counter with a copy of Manhunt a thorough psychological evaluation, to make sure that the wackos don't end up getting a copy. Sounds good, right?

But oh no! All of a sudden, profits start going down. Because each sale now takes so much more time and effort than before, Gamestop ends up losing money. Where they could once hawk 15 copies of Ninja Gaiden inside an hour, it takes all day to shift the same amount, as each teenager has to be evaluated to make sure they're sound of mind. And half of those evaluations don't even lead to a sale.

And shock horror! Even with all that evaluation and testing, bad acorns still slips through the net. Copycat acts of violence still make the news. Teenagers, no matter how mature they may seem, remain impressionable balls of clay who seem to give in to peer pressure at every opportunity. The government wants to know why Gamespot hasn't created a proper ratings system like with movies in order to combat this. Gamespot tries to reply, "We're doing this for the people like Some Random Guy, the teenagers who know they're different." The government responds by sending a committee to evaluate the methods of psychological testing that Gamestop uses. The committee naturally finds the results to be less than impressive. This is enough for the media to start an anti-Gamestop campaign, claiming that they're deliberately advertising adult media to young people. This results in a number of high-profile lawsuits against Gamespot, causing them to lose even more money in legal costs and payouts, from their already dwindling coffers.

Eventually, Gamespot dies and goes to Heaven. Outside the Pearly Gates, it sees God, St Peter and the Archangels all sitting in a celestial courtroom. Gamespot is brought to the defendant stand. God rises and says in a deep booming voice,

'GAMESPOT. WHY ARE YOU HERE?'

And Gamespot, in a timid voice replies, 'because all our profits disappeared and I went bankrupt.'

And God says, 'WHY DID YOUR PROFITS DISAPPEAR?'

And Gamespot replies 'because we got rid of our ratings system and sold directly to teenagers.'

And God leans closer with a puzzled look on his face and asks, 'AND WHY DID YOU DO THAT?'

And Gamespot finally breaks down and cries 'because they assured us that they were different. Colton and Random and everyone else, they told us they were different from the other kids and we believed them.'

And God, with a look of smug satisfaction, says 'YOU BELIEVED THEM? YOU BELIEVED THAT THE GROUP RESPONSIBLE FOR CHAVS, EMOS, GOTHS AND SCENESTERS WAS SOMEHOW MATURE ENOUGH FOR GRAND THEFT AUTO? YOU BELIEVED THAT THE MOST HORMONALLY UNBALANCED, TEMPERAMENTAL, PRONE TO SUDDEN CHANGES IN CHARACTER AND PERSONALITY DEMOGRAPHIC OF SOCIETY WERE READY FOR MANHUNT? YOU BELIEVED THEM???' And Gamespot looks down at its feet in humiliation and starts to weep.

All exaggeration aside, try and imagine the practicalities of making sure that each teenager you sold a game to was mature and responsible enough to handle it. The logistics would be astronomical for such a small demographic, and that's not even going into whether emotionally stable kids are still at risk from violent games. As has already been mentioned, the brain doesn't stop developing until well into your twenties.

If it really grinds your gears, just try to think of it as a rite of passage. After all, how much fun would your 18th birthday be if you could already buy alcohol when you were a teenager? Don't be so quick to leave your childhood behind. Once it's gone, you can never get it back.

It's all about culture, as I told Saevus a page or two ago.

In my country, Denmark, we haven't had any "gaming-related-crimes", and I mean *not ever*.
You don't have to look up our crime rates, because our crime rates are much lower than the US' - We do, however, still have crime, naturally, this has never had anything to do with gaming.

I've been able to buy games in shops on my own, since I've had the age to walk, talk, and give another person my allowance. This goes for buying movies, and anything related to that.
And guess what, the exact same goes for every other inhabitant of my dearly beloved country, but still this has caused no problems for anyone, even if you can be sure we have JUST AS MANY impressionable morons as you do, and just about as many psychopats as well.

As stated, we have very low crime rates, this may be partly due to the wealth of Denmark, the welfare-system, as well as numorous other things that we have come to take for granted in Denmark, but much of the world is still missing.

So perhaps teenagers aren't really as much affected by the games that they play, or the movies they watch, but moreso the people they encounter, hang out with, their good friends, and their environment in general?

I remember playing Resident Evil when I was about 10 years old, watching the Godfather trilogy at age 12, and playing Counter Strike since the earliest beta. I turned out alright, and you can bet that 99% of anyone like me in Denmark, will turn out alright as well.

-- You are making assumptions, and assumptions are never a good thing, although they may be required. But making assumptions about American children not able to regulate their own behaviour, that means acknowledging that American children are not able to think for themselves until they turn 20. Or whatever the age requirement for AO games is.

Sure children, and indeed very much teenagers are very impressionable - But don't you think they have other problems, if they by age 10 don't know that murdering people isn't a good thing? Of course they have other problems.

There was 2 cases in England about 10-year olds killing their "mates", these were STANDALONE examples, of children not raised right, children that were completely insane. I remember going through it at school, and thats when it was just around 10 years ago it had happened. Never heard of anything alike, in Europe, since then.



So the real question is: Why is America so bloody fucked up?

Some Random Guy, I believe you were asking why you should be stereotyped along with all the other teenagers when it comes to buying games. I shall attempt to answer using the medium of a parable:

Say that Gamestop listened to you, and decided to sell mature games to underage teenagers. Now obviously they can't sell them willy-nilly to whatever teenager comes in to buy them, otherwise they'd end up in more trouble than a pedo in a playground. Instead, they have to give each and every kid who comes to the counter with a copy of Manhunt a thorough psychological evaluation, to make sure that the wackos don't end up getting a copy. Sounds good, right?

But oh no! All of a sudden, profits start going down. Because each sale now takes so much more time and effort than before, Gamestop ends up losing money. Where they could once hawk 15 copies of Ninja Gaiden inside an hour, it takes all day to shift the same amount, as each teenager has to be evaluated to make sure they're sound of mind. And half of those evaluations don't even lead to a sale.

And shock horror! Even with all that evaluation and testing, bad acorns still slips through the net. Copycat acts of violence still make the news. Teenagers, no matter how mature they may seem, remain impressionable balls of clay who seem to give in to peer pressure at every opportunity. The government wants to know why Gamespot hasn't created a proper ratings system like with movies in order to combat this. Gamespot tries to reply, "We're doing this for the people like Some Random Guy, the teenagers who know they're different." The government responds by sending a committee to evaluate the methods of psychological testing that Gamestop uses. The committee naturally finds the results to be less than impressive. This is enough for the media to start an anti-Gamestop campaign, claiming that they're deliberately advertising adult media to young people. This results in a number of high-profile lawsuits against Gamespot, causing them to lose even more money in legal costs and payouts, from their already dwindling coffers.

Eventually, Gamespot dies and goes to Heaven. Outside the Pearly Gates, it sees God, St Peter and the Archangels all sitting in a celestial courtroom. Gamespot is brought to the defendant stand. God rises and says in a deep booming voice,

'GAMESPOT. WHY ARE YOU HERE?'

And Gamespot, in a timid voice replies, 'because all our profits disappeared and I went bankrupt.'

And God says, 'WHY DID YOUR PROFITS DISAPPEAR?'

And Gamespot replies 'because we got rid of our ratings system and sold directly to teenagers.'

And God leans closer with a puzzled look on his face and asks, 'AND WHY DID YOU DO THAT?'

And Gamespot finally breaks down and cries 'because they assured us that they were different. Colton and Random and everyone else, they told us they were different from the other kids and we believed them.'

And God, with a look of smug satisfaction, says 'YOU BELIEVED THEM? YOU BELIEVED THAT THE GROUP RESPONSIBLE FOR CHAVS, EMOS, GOTHS AND SCENESTERS WAS SOMEHOW MATURE ENOUGH FOR GRAND THEFT AUTO? YOU BELIEVED THAT THE MOST HORMONALLY UNBALANCED, TEMPERAMENTAL, PRONE TO SUDDEN CHANGES IN CHARACTER AND PERSONALITY DEMOGRAPHIC OF SOCIETY WERE READY FOR MANHUNT? YOU BELIEVED THEM???' And Gamespot looks down at its feet in humiliation and starts to weep.

All exaggeration aside, try and imagine the practicalities of making sure that each teenager you sold a game to was mature and responsible enough to handle it. The logistics would be astronomical for such a small demographic, and that's not even going into whether emotionally stable kids are still at risk from violent games. As has already been mentioned, the brain doesn't stop developing until well into your twenties.

If it really grinds your gears, just try to think of it as a rite of passage. After all, how much fun would your 18th birthday be if you could already buy alcohol when you were a teenager? Don't be so quick to leave your childhood behind. Once it's gone, you can never get it back.

It's all about culture, as I told Saevus a page or two ago.

In my country, Denmark, we haven't had any "gaming-related-crimes", and I mean *not ever*.
You don't have to look up our crime rates, because our crime rates are much lower than the US' - We do, however, still have crime, naturally, this has never had anything to do with gaming.

I've been able to buy games in shops on my own, since I've had the age to walk, talk, and give another person my allowance. This goes for buying movies, and anything related to that.
And guess what, the exact same goes for every other inhabitant of my dearly beloved country, but still this has caused no problems for anyone, even if you can be sure we have JUST AS MANY impressionable morons as you do, and just about as many psychopats as well.

As stated, we have very low crime rates, this may be partly due to the wealth of Denmark, the welfare-system, as well as numorous other things that we have come to take for granted in Denmark, but much of the world is still missing.

So perhaps teenagers aren't really as much affected by the games that they play, or the movies they watch, but moreso the people they encounter, hang out with, their good friends, and their environment in general?

I remember playing Resident Evil when I was about 10 years old, watching the Godfather trilogy at age 12, and playing Counter Strike since the earliest beta. I turned out alright, and you can bet that 99% of anyone like me in Denmark, will turn out alright as well.

-- You are making assumptions, and assumptions are never a good thing, although they may be required. But making assumptions about American children not able to regulate their own behaviour, that means acknowledging that American children are not able to think for themselves until they turn 20. Or whatever the age requirement for AO games is.

Sure children, and indeed very much teenagers are very impressionable - But don't you think they have other problems, if they by age 10 don't know that murdering people isn't a good thing? Of course they have other problems.

There was 2 cases in England about 10-year olds killing their "mates", these were STANDALONE examples, of children not raised right, children that were completely insane. I remember going through it at school, and thats when it was just around 10 years ago it had happened. Never heard of anything alike, in Europe, since then.

So the real question is: Why is America so bloody fucked up?

i'm an american and i was raised virtually the same way you were except i watched die hard, most movies with leslie neilson, JAWS, the good starwars, and mel brookes movies, and jurrasic park, all funny, but mature right? well i saw them at much younger ages than 10, and i am actually smarter and more sophisticated than my peers, and i have only exhibited a spark of insanity through out my life and that was just enough insanity to make me funnier and bit more interesting like a random thoughts that turn out to be funny, not like haha he's on fire don't help, just watch.sort of like my idea of the bacon flavored treat.

what i must say is that my parents raised me right and knew i was slightly more mature, much like my older sister is. they knew when we were ready because they listened to us and not many parents do now and they seem to have the idea i must tell tell tell all there is instead of listening to or for issues.

what i'm trying to say is if the parents of the columbine shooters had listened to why they felt so frustaited to a point where death was on the menu.

 

[IndieRocker]

I have NEVER been offended by a video game and neither has anyone I know

 

[Saevus]

You don't know, you think you know. And believe me, there's a world of difference.

o shi~ is that some wisdom?

This thread seems to have actually demonstrated, quite neatly, what answer the folks at ESRB should give to the question at hand. I think I'm strangely pleased at how this has all turned out.

 

[Monkeybone]

Wait, what? OP's original post is "I know I'm breaking the rules, BUT IT'S EVERYONE ELSE'S FAULT BUT MINE." So, it's Gamestop's fault for not selling the game to OP, who is a minor, and it's his parent's fault for not checking under his bed every second minute to make sure he didn't sneak off and by a game he's not allowed to play? He knows what the rules are and he's going to break them just because he can't wait, so he'll blame his parents for not babying him 'Moooom! You're SMOTHERING ME." and he's just ruining the game industry for everyone else who's like, legal. Ugh, what a rancid little bastard.

IT'S TWO YEARS. God... The game wont go anywhere.