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New bill: No ID, no 'mature' video games for you
LAST UPDATE: Thursday, 8 May 2008 - 11:52:12 PM
A new bill in the U.S. Congress would force retailers to card kids attempting to buy video games bearing "mature" or "adults only" ratings.
In addition to the identification-checking requirement, Reps. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) and Lee Terry (R-Neb.)'s Video Game Ratings Enforcement Act, introduced on Wednesday, would also require stores to post explanations of what the ratings, devised by the industry-backed Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), actually mean, according to a press release. A copy of the bill's text was not immediately available on Thursday.
"As a parent, I know that I'm the first line of defense against my kids playing Mature-rated video games," Matheson said in a statement. "But parents can't be everywhere monitoring everything and some reasonable, common sense rules ought to be in place to back parents up."
For the record, games with an M-rating, by the ESRB's description, are considered suitable for people age 17 and older and "may contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language." Those with an AO or Adults Only rating "may include prolonged scenes of intense violence and/or graphic sexual content and nudity" and are recommended only for people age 18 or older.
Whether the new rules are necessary may be up for debate. Some stores already attempt to verify the age of game purchasers. Wal-Mart, for example, says on its Web site that it already posts information about the ESRB ratings and has programmed its cash registers to automatically prompt sales clerks to check the age of the customer when M-rated games are scanned. GameStop also checks IDs before selling M-rated games.
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