With the release of The Byron Review, the gaming community was almost waiting for another Cooper Lawrence incident, and the resulting backlash. Almost. However, Tanya Byron appears to have her head screwed on for the most part. She doesn’t lash out at specific games, more so commenting on the lack of coherency between the ratings of films and the ratings of games. Many people jumped on the bandwagon and blew things way out of proportion, but the resounding retort is that it was over hyped and didn’t really say much than to dumb down the ratings system, and as such make it easier for parents.

Maybe said hypers got a hold of the Cover Art.

I have to say that I think she is wrong, that the BBFC (Read: British Censors/Raters, most recently embroiled in the aftermath of the Manhunt 2 he-said-she-said) should take on the burden that PEGI currently deals with. The BBFC seems to overstate the interactivity of games, and as such come down much harder on them (refer to Manhunt 2) than films, that have much worse content in them, although are devoid of interactive situations. However, on occasion they are right on the mark, Mass Effect being rated ‘12′ as an example.

It was also said that the PEGI rating system is “ineffective because it uses symbols that are confusing and distributors effectively chose their own ratings by filling in a form about their product”. I have to ask myself which is more important; a picture-based rating system which is used across the continent, or a false-advertisement-esque suit brought down by said continent on a games company for incorrectly filling in a form. If there was a massive scandal on this, we would’ve felt it several times over by now.

Going back to BBFC vs. PEGI, one needs to think of the steps taken to view a movie, or to play a game. BBFC, as I have said before, come down a lot harder on games simply because they are an interactive product, rather than a roll of film. To be able to play a game, you need to do the following:

• Purchase the relevant games console.
• Look old enough to purchase/rent the game (as per the current PEGI rating)

These steps either put the responsibility with the parents for buying the products, even if they ‘didn’t know such content was available’ (in less precise terms) because they didn’t do their research, or it puts the responsibility on the child, because they either have a job, or they have scrimped and saved to buy it. And because the child cannot be responsible for themselves, it falls upon the parent once again.

If the parents are worried about their children playing games for too long, or playing games that are potentially dangerous, they should either put the console in an open area of the house (preferrably living room, because most often the best TV is there; ask your children [if you have them]), or place parental controls on the console if it has them available. Or do both. It is not the developers’/publishers’ responsibility to monitor every copy of Call of Duty 4 from the Disc Press to the Console, so why has the blame been placed on them, for “filling in a form about their product”?

The onus lies with the retailers who are selling the games to check the age of the person buying it, and with the parents to monitor the child playing the game. Most of the time, the parents buy the game for the kids, and don’t even look at the rating. It is their fault that their children are getting damaged by their purchase.

It seems like the Government (who employed Dr. Byron to do this Review, please remember) wants to have a petri-dish situation, where they can micro-manage every little thing that happens on this subject. No doubt Keith Vaz is wringing his hands at the Review, as it places restrictions on the games content. Whatever happened to guidelines, and letting a company do what they were set up to do?

Parents are neglecting their duties to look after their children, by placing them in front of these games consoles and forgetting about them until it’s time to cook their meal or occasionally rant on at them about their grades, because it reflects on their abilities as parents. I played Resident Evil 2 at the age of ten. It freaked me out, I spoke to my parents about it, and they bought a game for me that they knew I played a demo version of and liked, while at the same time deleting the game and removing it entirely from the house. They took the initiative. My Mother can’t even use a computer, and Dad has average skills with a computer. But they took the time to sit down with me, talk to me about what was scaring me about the game, then did their research to replace it with a game I could deal with at the time.

Byron’s right; playing video games constantly, when of a gritty, disturbing nature, will desensitise the player to said violence, and consider it normal. But this happens at a certain age; an age which is different per child because it’s about mental growth. And at that point in time, the parents are in almost total control of what that child is exposed to. So why are companies being scapegoated for parents’ mistakes?

Tags: byronreview, gaming, video game violence, keith vaz, vaz