Government pledges tougher games sales law The government is to toughen videogame sales regulations and introduce a legally enforceable 12 rating. The Video Recordings (Labelling) Regulations (VRLRs) 2012 will put videogame classification solely in the hands of the Video Standards Council, an organisation formed to review video packaging. Under the new regulations, …
The parents will buy them and the children will play them.
Is Uncle Vaz going to send an inspector to every home or will we have to sign a form and wear a.pledge ring to promise not toet children have access to the home pc and game console's.
This.is pure SOUND BITE LEGISLATION.
It has no relevance in the real world.
As a parent I've found the full BBFC reports available from their website to be very useful in deciding whether to let my kids buy certain games. I don't know whether the VSC publish such details. I find the simple 12, 16 or 18 rating too simplistic. The last game I eldest bought was rated 16 and he isn't. But the primary reason for the rating was bad language. Well I'm sure he'll use worse language in the play ground, but he knows that if he uses in front of his mother he'll get busted. The full report gave me the information to make the decision to let him buy the game, where as a simplistic rating and tick box approach wouldn't.
So, as a parent, I won't welcome this move it is results in there being less information about content available to let me make informed decisions.
You are doing it wrong.
You seem to think that it's your job as a parent to look at what your children are doing rather than using the convenient "Yes or No" rating system.
I bet you are one of these terrible people who want to supervise their Internet activity as well rather than trusting the good old government to do it for you.
Okay just kidding, but still this just seems like a waste. Half these ratings seem dated anyway.
I mean lets face it, compare todays culture to the ratings and it doesn't make sense. The level of violence and blood and language needed to give a videogame an 18 rating these days would barely make a film a 15 half the time.
Back when I was a kid I'd get in trouble for saying things like bastard. Now you go outside and there are 12 year olds f'ing and blinding on the street corner at each other. It just seems like the ratings as a whole need some kind of re-evaluation.
But removing this additional information is just a bad move. I think part of it is to speed up the process of getting games into the market, since geting a PEGI rating AND the BBFC can slow down games getting released in the UK (although not that often)
I'm also of the opinion that refusing to rate games is rediculous. If its really that bad, have a 21 rating for it, but banning a game outright just seems absurd. Especially with some of the films which get released.
That the various ratings boards can still effectivley censor a game by refusing to classify; I thought the worst they could do was slap an 18+ rating on it. how do the commentards feel about that? I'm undecided; on the one hand it smacks of de facto censorship, but on the other hand the only game I can recall being refused classification in recent times was Manhunt 2 (which apparently was really dreadful.)
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
