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Our 7 Qtpies

November 11, 2007

Video Game ratings

We are a family of geeks, I admit it. We all love playing games on the computer and Playstation 2 and Nintendo Game Cube. It is a great way for us to all have fun together, and the investment in a game is the same as bringing our family to the movies, one time. The game gives us many more hours of fun together. So, you know we buy a lot of games, or rent them.

We need to be careful, though, because games can be so graphic, not just with violence and crime, but also with gore and sexually explicit situations. Have you SEEN the way game creators draw women??? That is another rant.

We use the rating labels on the games to choose what would be appropriate for our kids before we buy them. The Entertainment Software Rating Board, ESRB, is a non-profit company that assigns computer and video game content ratings, enforces industry-adopted advertising guidelines and helps ensure responsible online privacy practices for the interactive entertainment software industry.
They have 6 ratings for games based on the content in the games.


You can go to the ESRB site and search by game title to find out the rating and look to see what that means. You could even search by rating to find games that you would want to buy that fit the rating you think is appropriate for your child.

Parents whose children have a system with internet access need to do some extra research because some games can be adjusted with downloadable "mods" with internet access and also have access to chat with who knows what kind of people. ESRB has instructions for parents on what to look for and how to set controls so kids can't access inappropriate games online.

Target, Best Buy, Game Stop and Walmart, among others, are all retailers who partner with ESRB to have games in their stores with the ratings on them. We stick to those retailers.

Do your research before you buy those games this holiday season, because you may be surprised that E for everyone doesn't mean Everyone, it means 6years and up. There is only one game for GameCube and Playstation 2 that is for my 4yo's age group, with the Early Childhood rating.

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