Leave my Games Alone! Mature Content

I figured the ‘Mature Content’ title would get you to look!

The Video Game Voters Network is a place for gamers to organize and defend against threats to video games by registering to vote and letting Congress know how important this issue is to the community. Without a critical mass of adult video game players who are registered to vote and willing to stand firmly behind their games, politicians will continue to fire criticism at games and game players in order to score easy points for their political campaigns.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently released the results of its latest nationwide “secret shopper” survey, which employs undercover 13-to-16-year-old’s to determine if retailers follow rating guidelines and age restrictions. The annual study by the FTC is designed to show the extent to which retailers prevented unaccompanied children from buying tickets to R-rated movies, R-rated DVDs, M-rated video games and music CDs labeled with a Parental Advisory Label (PAL) for explicit content. The 2008 survey showed that video and computer game retailers scored well and indicated a significant improvement by entertainment software retailers to ensure that only age-appropriate games are sold to minors.

This year’s survey found that video game retailers are scrupulous when screening for underage shoppers, with 80 percent of underage buyers rejected at the point of sale when buying M-rated games. This is a major improvement for video game retailers from all prior surveys, as the percentage of underage buyers able to purchase M-rated games has decreased by 38 percent since 2006.

So does this mean that 1 in 5 kids is getting out the door with a mature rated game?