NIMF Report Card: Games Biz Passes, Parents Don't

The National Institute on Media and the Family has parents on the defensive with its annual Video Game Report Card, which gives the ESRB an A on both ratings and ratings education, but gives parents an "incomplete" when it comes to being involved with their kids' choices of video games. Console manufacturers also earned an A, while retailers got a B+ for ratings enforcement.

ESRB Ratings.... A The addition of ratings summaries is yet another step forward in the growing list of improvements that the ESRB has made in recent years.

ESRB Ratings Education.... A We commend the ESRB for intensifying efforts to help parents understand the video game ratings. The ESRB has become the entertainment industry leader in educating retailers and parents about the rating system.

Retailer Ratings Enforcement.... B+ The 80 percent enforcement rate shows significant progress with still some room for improvement.

Gaming Console Manufacturers.... A Parental controls, timing devices and parent education efforts are all major
improvements giving parents more tools to supervise game play.

Parental Involvement.... Incomplete The focus of this year's report card is providing parents with the information they need. All segments of the industry have made significant improvements in recent years. Parents now have more information and tools than ever before. However, the constant changes present new challenges. Parents need to pay more attention to the amount of time and the types of games their kids play. The parent guide section in this report card is intended to motivate and equip parents to do this.

Clearly there's a breakdown here: the ESRB, retailers and manufacturers are all on the same page, and are in each others' loop as far as sharing a business space and enjoying the lines of communication that come with such fraternity. Parents, on the other hand, are all by their lonesome - and failing to reach a level of involvement that their own standards mandate.

Then again, NIMF has no way to measure parent involvement, while the game biz has improved dramatically and measurably since the days of David Walsh and Joe Lieberman, who enjoyed a damning annual polemic.

NIMF Report Card Praises Game Biz, Gives Parents an Incomplete [GamePolitics]