Parents: Read the damn box

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/126017-parents-read-the-damn-box

by evo_9 • 14 years ago

71 67 14 years ago

astrodust• 14 years ago

I thought the way these things were handled in the Mass Effect series was good. You really do have to go looking for these sorts of things, they don't force it on you in any way.

It's like paying cover at a strip club, going to the back room, and being offended by nudity.

This isn't a case of not reading the box. It's a case of getting your pitchfork because you heard a rumor.

rollypolly• 14 years ago

I agree, but another problem is the fact that people read the box cover as much as they read the game manual, which is to say, not at all.

sophacles• 14 years ago

No matter how clearly labeled, common-sense, or standard practice something is, people will always find a way to rationalize not knowing or push their dislike of it on to someone else, usually an undeserving person. It is a simple lack of personal accountability, and happens everywhere.

I worked for years at a bar, the number of people who tried get more scotch put in the glass when they ordered it neat (no ice), because it didn't look as full as their friend's on-the-rocks was astonishing (poured via shot glass, simple displacement effects here). These were ph.d level people who should know better. Of course the on-the-rocks people tended to complain about it tasting "watered down"... sigh.

Anyway, there is a highly amusing website: http://notalwaysright.com/ that will probably provide insight into this phenomenon. I believe most of those stories have happened, having witnessed most of the scenarios (albeit with my own customers...)

Point being, excusing people for not noticing the big rating that is on the front of the box is probably the wrong answer, at some point we have to accept that someone needs to be responsible. Otherwise, we just keep passing the buck, I mean how long until we can just claim "oh I didn't understand the rules for labeling, it is obviously too much to expect me to read all those rules, we need a better rule system from $oversight_org", and then the org says, "oversight is too hard, how were we supposed to know that those naked people actually meant nudity"... and on and on

corin_• 14 years ago

> It's a case of getting your pitchfork because you heard a rumor.

Completely disagree, it's a case of using an argument that isn't exactly what you think because you think it will serve your agenda better. The people complaining here want to get rid of gay content, they don't want themselves to be warned about it - just happens that saying the latter makes them sound more reasonable (well: slightly less unreasonable).

Of course, the overall homophobia thing is roughly speaking a case of pitchfork/rumour, people who become bigots through hearing that they ought to be, not any logic at all.

moxiemk1• 14 years ago

One minor quibble: "sexual content" is a set that most definitely does include "homosexual content". There's no need to grant Happeh the idea that they weren't properly warned.

It seems to me that we should not feel any compulsion to cater to those who think that there is inherent moral difference in non-heterosexual behavior.

kappaknight5• 14 years ago

For those that think they can control EVERYTHING their children will ever see, hear and experience - I have news for you, you're going to fail. Not only will you fail in your attempt, your children will most likely be handicapped living in your bubble that lacks critical thinking.

Also, while you may be a Christian/religious person here on Earth, I don't see how that applies to a future with aliens, other planets, etc. With the way things are going, it's almost guaranteed that religious power will be a thing of the past as soon as we can prove other life/civilizations exist besides the one here on Earth.

One obviously does not need religion to have good morals or good values. Different doesn't mean wrong, and certainly not in this case. Homosexuality, polygamy, asexuality, and natural gender change (clown fish) already exists here on Earth in one form or another. It's not hard to conceive that these behaviors also exist on other planets even if we don't get to witness it firsthand today.

Anyway, if you want to live in a bubble, make yourself blind and deaf and just don't buy anything. If you choose to interact with the growing, ever changing world, expect to learn something new when you do it.

philwelch4• 14 years ago

> With the way things are going, it's almost guaranteed that religious power will be a thing of the past as soon as we can prove other life/civilizations exist besides the one here on Earth.

OK, I'll bite. Why?

tdfx• 14 years ago

Agree. They've so far been able to reinterpret religious writings to encompass pretty much any development, regardless of how illogical it sounds. I don't think the discovery of life elsewhere would break this trend.

Oxryly• 14 years ago

> With the way things are going, it's almost guaranteed that religious power will be a thing of the past as soon as we can prove other life/civilizations exist besides the one here on Earth.

I'm not so sure about that. Buddhism in particular goes to great length to emphasize it's teachings apply to all sentient beings in all universes past and present. We may be hard pressed to escape it's presumption.

I believe most faiths take a similar approach even if they aren't quite as explicit about it.

jacoblyles• 14 years ago

Most people who practice religion don't do so primarily because of factual belief in some mythology. Rather, it is motivated by deep human social and psychological needs. Many atheists get this wrong, especially if they spend too much time on the internet only mingling with their own kind.

If we meet aliens, theology will adapt and evolve. It won't disappear.

kappaknight5• 14 years ago

You can be religious but not have it dictate everything you do in life. Sorry, but that was the distinction I was trying to convey.

gyardley• 14 years ago

This argument has about as much chance of persuading the public as the 'read the damn terms of service' argument.

People don't want clear warnings, disclaimers, or notices - they want the things they dislike to simply not exist.

duzins• 14 years ago

Exactly.

endersshadow• 14 years ago

See: The internet's response to Twilight or Justin Beiber. Or the book burnings and bannings of Slaughterhouse Five or Huck Finn.

Even going all the way back to the Salem witch hunts, it seems it's human nature for us to attempt to unexist anything we disagree with, don't like, or are scared of. I wish I had an answer to make that problem subside, but I'm not sure it's a solvable problem.

pjscott• 14 years ago

ToS agreements are long, convoluted, and full of confusing legal verbiage. Sentences like "Contains violence, sexual innuendo, and some nudity" are short, direct, and easy to read, if a bit vague. That's a pretty big practical difference.

Splines• 14 years ago

> People don't want clear warnings, disclaimers, or notices - they want the things they dislike to simply not exist.

They want an excuse. Being told "you should have tried harder" is not an easy pill to swallow, however truthful it may be.

zdgman• 14 years ago

I am still a bit shocked that this is an issue. As clearly pointed out, if you don't want to see homosexual content it is not forced upon you.

The fact that homosexual content is in the game is great because it allows the user to direct the relationships as they see fit. This is a huge selling point for the Mass Effect series in general.

Corin_11 hit the nail on the head though, they are not surprised because they were not warned about the content. They are using that argument to mask the fact that they don't want any homosexual content in the game at all.

sopooneo• 14 years ago

Orthogonal to everything brought up in the article: I'm still stunned by how many parents have no problem with depictions of graphic violence but go nuts over sexuality and nudity. Arab culture is the most sexually repressed I've ever encountered, but we here in The States are not that far behind.

AceJohnny2• 14 years ago

I keep wondering about this. The argument comes back all the time, and yet sexual repression continues unabated.

I wonder if it's because violence doesn't provoke the same copycat response as sexuality does. After all, the whole existence of porn is based on it being a stimulant for sexuality. However seeing a violent scene doesn't stimulate you to go beat something up. Or at least any human that I know of ;)

kappaknight5• 14 years ago

I don't know about that... as a kid, I would usually jump off the walls for about 30 minutes after watching Jackie Chan flicks.

Luckily, he only fights bad guys. =)

79522• 14 years ago

Violence is essentially fictional to the vast majority of Americans. It's something you see on television. Sex really happens. There is an awful lot of this [sex], largely because of the total lack of anything else to do.

redthrowaway• 14 years ago

Violence really happens as well, especially where America is concerned.

lotharbot3• 14 years ago

Parents are usually wary of exposing their kids to violence when it's emotionally realistic. They may let their preteens play the latest Explode The Bad Guys game, but are less likely to let them watch surveillance footage of somebody being beaten to death.

Most of us want our children to grow up to have a positive, healthy sexuality. That means developing certain attitudes and emotions. Sexual content in media tends to distort or completely lack those emotions and attitudes; the same is true of decontextualized nudity.

Most of us don't want our children to grow up to have the attitudes that come from a life of violence. Adults who train to do violence (soldiers, police, etc.) often need help to deal with the emotional scars. That's not something we want to expose our children to. But "graphic violence" in movies and games tends to distort or completely lack that emotional content.

The unrealistic or disconnected nature of media violence makes it more acceptable, while the unrealistic or disconnected nature of media sexuality makes it less so.

moe4• 14 years ago

You just said: Kids can handle unrealistic violence fine but unrealistic sexuality is a problem.

That makes no sense. None at all.

Either your kids can distinguish reality from fiction. Or they can't. Right?

astine• 14 years ago

For most middle-class Americans, sexual misconduct among youngsters is a more pressing issue than violent misconduct. Kids having sex and getting pregnant is fairly common while kids going on shooting sprees is very uncommon.

I can tell you though, that back in the 90's when there was a string of shooting crimes by middle class kids, there was a big outcry against violent cinema. Tarantino films, which were seen to glorify violence and some of the kids imitated to some degree, took an especially big backlash. For the most part though, that was just a passing panic.

natesm• 14 years ago

Good reply to the original comment:

> Do you have a big sign on your head that says "CONTAINS BIGOTRY. DO NOT APPROACH THIS PERSON IF BIGOTRY OFFENDS YOU."?

adestefan• 14 years ago

The front of the box could be nothing more than a giant M ESRB logo and these parents would still buy the game for their kids.

cantankerous• 14 years ago

I find it intriguing that, in the Sci-Fi genre, for so long nobody has really taken issue with the idea of inter-species romantic relationships, but yet when homosexuality is thrown into the mix, some people who probably wouldn't care about humans in relationships with robots or aliens really get bent out of shape.

I guess the upshot of my comment would be: If you're so worried about a child bumping into deviant views on anything, why are you exposing them to science fiction?

I'm sure there's sci-fi written to abide by current moral bounds, but I find it somewhat less "believable" than sci-fi that leaves all options open.

pavel_lishin• 14 years ago

> “CONTAINS HOMOSEXUAL CONTENT. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME IF HOMOSEXUAL CONTENT OFFENDS YOU”

Well, then, you'd also have to include:

> Contains Aliens. Do not buy this game if the concept of extra-terrestrial sapient life conflicts with your religious beliefs.

> Contains women not covering their face. Do not buy this game if unaccompanied and uncovered women offend you.

> Contains the destruction of a historical site. Do not buy this game if poor archeological practices offend you.

You could go on forever.

maw• 14 years ago

> Contains the destruction of a historical site. Do not buy this game if poor archeological practices offend you.

You know, there's probably the germ of a pretty cool idea for a game in that.

heretohelp• 14 years ago

Yeah, we could call it Tomb Raider and make a hot chick the protagonist.

DanBC• 14 years ago

I'd love to see a remake of "BomberHehhe!" - (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDFbFmZCsHY). An option to play as evil and destroy ancient monuments (or cause as much damage to non-target buildings as possible) would be funny.

79522• 14 years ago

This game may offend bigots.

roopeshv• 14 years ago

so succinct

rmc2• 14 years ago

Or: "Contains no represetation of people from the following minitories: [ ] Asian [X] Homosexuals [ ] Black [ ] Jews, maybe give skewed one-sided view of society"

philwelch4• 14 years ago

> Contains a depiction of the prophet Muhammed. (The names of the people who worked on this title have been withheld for their safety.)

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

I resonate with the rant (not so much the light grey text on white theme but that's something else) which is that many parents are not proactive in their kids upbringing with regard to morals or societal expectations. But lets look at that part of it for a moment.

Parents are really busy these days, most often they both work, a depressing number are single parents, they have a certain amount of 'parent/child interaction' time available when they are both in the same place as their child and they are not asleep. Further, the normal foibles of kids consume some of that time uncontrollably (you have to go to the doctor to get that bean pulled out of your nose, you have a history project due tomorrow that needs help, going to and from soccer / band / daycare / school Etc. Parents also need times for themselves to process work stress, spouse stress, family issues, etc.

Now in that environment your kids like to play computer games (seems pretty common) and the friction of getting games is fairly loose, but games (like books) can introduce your kids to concepts before you as a parent have had a chance to put some structure around it. That will lead to questions and discussions that really do have to happen 'right now' because not giving kids any guidance when they encounter those questions is really bad parenting. My personal opinion is that 90% of a parent's 'job' is to prepare your kids for the society they are about to enter, poor preparation reflects badly on them, on you, and is generally a losing proposition for society in general.

So 'read the box' as an indicator for 'good parenting' is not sufficient.

We always made dinner time a time when everyone got together, had a meal, and talked. We have an old copy of the World Book encyclopedia, a dictionary, the CRC Handbook of Physics and Chemistry, a world atlas (post USSR breakup) and the desktop science reference all to settle arguments of fact :-). But more importantly as our children aged we talked about money, violence, relationships, crimes of intent, crimes of passion, morality vs legality, responsibility, politics, civics, religion, and books. The goal was to have the conversation about a topic started before it came up as a question so that when it did come up they would bring it to the table and we'd talk about it.

So exhorting someone to do that, embrace parenting as your primary responsibility to your children, its a good thing. But I totally understand when folks are so exhausted from the rest of their life that it takes a back seat.

So read the box, talk about 'cartoon violence' versus 'real' violence, go sit in the local ER some time if you're in a major metropolitan city to see what 'real' suffering looks like rather than on screen, add a med kit and blam back into the action. Most kids can separate imaginary from real at a pretty young age. Personally I don't think it is inappropriate to understand reproduction and sex fairly young, it's probably not worth trying to explain the impact on ones brain until puberty since it's really hard to convey that the chemistry of your body can work against your judgement.

Understand that when you have kids it is a bigger commitment than just saving money for them to go to college. :-)

timwiseman• 14 years ago

You make good points. As a busy parent, I certainly sympathesize with people that feel like they have too little time to monitor what they're kids are exposed to.

I think one very significant factor is making sure that they can come to you, as a parent, when they come across a new concept. Of course, as you said, I would prefer to introduce the concepts on my timeline, but I also need to be ready to deal with them whent he come up. More than that, I need to make sure my kids feel comfortable coming to me when they come up. Otherwise, it won't be a discussion I need to have "right now", it will be a discussion that happens with other friends that are probably just as confused and unprepared as mine are.

darklajid• 14 years ago

"one would think the presence of any sexual content at all (to say nothing of “partial nudity”) would convince most parents that Mass Effect 3 isn’t right for their children"

Fun. Dismissing weirdo homophobic comments and ending with weirdo "nudity is certainly bah and not for kids".

For me, both is a reason to shake my head in disbelief.

InclinedPlane• 14 years ago

The funny part of all of this is that games like Mass Effect barely brush the PG-13 barrier in terms of depictions of sex. What people are the most upset about is the frank and open acceptance of homosexuality. To which I say: go crawl back under your rocks, and good on EA/Bioware for not being bigoted asses.

stopcodon• 14 years ago

The "consumers hate us because of homosexuality in our games" is a PR move from EA to cover the fact they were voted worst company in America for reasons that have nothing to do with sexuality.

They were voted worst company because of their spyware distribution service, anti-consumer DLC practices, and ruining otherwise great developers by buying them and forcing out lackluster sequels designed for profit over all other considerations. I'm not saying that's wrong for a company to do, I'm just saying that's why online communities are upset.

But as long as they keep claiming the people who don't like their company are homophobic, they draw attention from these things in the media.

bashzor2• 14 years ago

I hugely disagree with this. I'll give 3 examples and some more explanation:

I'm not sure about others, but playing GTA 1 at 10 years old didn't make me a serial murderer as far as I know, nor did it offend me to shoot people's heads off on the PS2 with GTA III later. My parents did actually return this game though, they thought it went a bit far. Or my father did, my mother never got to see it, probably for the better.

Earlier, I think at about 7-8 years old, I played Command and Conquer 2: Tiberian Sun. I think it was 16+, might have been 18+. Yeah you really could see a few pixels blood for like two fifth of a second. Now that made me a real dictator, and afterwards I was screaming under the table. Sure...

Then the last game I really played a lot is OpenArena, mostly a Quake 3 copy. So with real pixels resembling some 90's version of blood and gore. Must say I never noticed it until I started playing a bit more pro, and I noticed the gore was actually in my field of sight. Then I set com_blood 0 and my visibility was improved... I was about 15 when I started playing. The game is 17+ but I only noticed that when I was 17 (I'm 18 now). That, too, didn't quite offend me.

So WHY do I ask? Why are we even bothering to print these things on the covers anymore? It is a very slight indication of what age category the game is for, but much more useful would it be to put on the covers something like "Blatant sex" or "Dull game good for children under 10". Now that won't happen, but the equivalents wouldn't be such a bad idea. Then they could stop making judgments of which size fits all (since you can hardly put up a personality test in the shop before getting an age recommendation).

Also something people apparently fail to notice how it's called an age recommendation. Here at least. Still though, as 15-year-old you won't be able to buy a 16+ game. Like the expansion pack for Command and Conquer 3. It doesn't even contain blood or sex or anything! Maybe in the cut-scenes of the campaign, but I never even played that (skirmish and online ftw). How could they know? They can't! So why make anymore judgment than a recommendation?

Moral of this rant: Parents: Don't you dare looking at the age rating! If it says what's in the game, like drugs or violence, that might be of some use. Best would be to just watch a gameplay trailer someone put on Youtube, then make the best decision for your child. Can you really trust other's to make the best decision?

nitrogen3• 14 years ago

Some of the video game ratings here used to include a more detailed summary of the content, with meters indicating the level of language, violence, sexual content/nudity, etc. in the game, making it easy to decide if a game had too little or too much of a particular category of offensiveness for one's tastes. These days, though, all I see is the unhelpful letter "M", or maybe the occasional "T".

ctdonath• 14 years ago

Those letters are helpful in making the snap decision as to whether to even bother investigating the content further. I can't give every game/book/movie/whatever proper review, so it helps to know that some sane adult marked it with an easily-understood cue. If there's an "M" or "T" on the box, I don't want to waste another second wondering if it's suitable for my toddlers.

Example: "Happy Tree Friends" is advertised & starts with cute forest animals in simple & colorful renderings; an appropriate parental cue helps prevent having to explain other definitions of "rendering" to a kid who can barely talk and is wondering why seconds later that cute squirrel is shrieking, spewing red, and has a bad case of the ouchies. A prominent "T" would be helpful to those adults who don't know the show and are being pestered by a 3-year-old to watch it on Netflix.

eshrews• 14 years ago

Did you even read the article?

His point isn't that parents should follow the box ratings, its that parents should be proactive in choosing the content that they expose their children to. Especially if they are going to complain about it later.

RedwoodCity• 14 years ago

Of course having games that encourage killing people is better than games that might have sexual undertones.

kaeluka• 14 years ago

As a company, I want many people to buy my game.

If some homophobes feel cheated -- that's even better than the money they payed for the game.

slyn• 14 years ago

I'm not hugely privy to the storyline, but it is my understanding a loose group of forum-goers from reddit, 4chan, neogaf, and probably other communities banded together to vote EA into the #1 status of worst company in america for various legitimate reasons. EA then very shortly after (like within a week) introduced this idea that they received the designation in part because of backlash regarding homosexual content in one game (of a series that has been featuring such content since '07). Now no one cares about why EA was really voted into this honor, but rather all the issues related to this (seeming) misdirection. This article is a perfect example.

EA: 1 Consumerist+Voters: 0

rmc2• 14 years ago

Oh yes of course, there are no people who oppose gay rights. There is a complete equality, legally and socially among people of different sexualities. No sir-ee, completly impossible that there are people opposed to gay rights,

Parents: Read the damn box

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