Study: 72 percent of US adults favor banning games with violence to minors

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Study: 72 percent of US adults favor banning games with violence to minors

Posted Sep 13th 2010 11:00AM by John Callaham
Filed under: Biz, Culture

With the US Supreme Court getting ready to hear arguments in early November on the issue of selling games with violent content to minors, a new survey commissions by an independent ratings board claims that there is broad support from the US public for such a ban.

Common Sense Media announced today that in a survey of 2,100 US adults that 72 percent of those surveyed would support a ban of selling such games to minors. The group also claims that the survey shows that over half of US adults would rate the game industry "poorly" when it comes to protecting minors from such games. This would seem to somewhat contradict the results of another survey issued by the ESRB ratings board which handles the ratings for all retail games. As described in the 2009 ESA annual report, the survey said that 87 percent of parents were aware of the ESRB ratings system and 76 percent of parent saying they check a game's rating before purchasing a game for their children.

Tags: california-game-law, common-sense, common-sense-media, esrb-blizzard-email, US-supreme-court

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

I'm all for keeping violent games out of the hands of minors, but if they're going to outright BAN selling M rated titles to minors they better follow suit with movies and books too.

Of course, we know they won't.Posted at 11:46AM on Sep 13th 2010 by Jeff

It all comes back to the fact that we already have a system in place and it already works pretty damn well. Studies have shown game rules are better enforced than DVDs, music, etc. It is ludicrous, unnecessary, and unconstitutional to have the government step in and regulate an art form like this.

...bysmittyPosted at 12:04PM on Sep 13th 2010 by bysmitty

The less 14yr olds screaming in their mics the better this world will be for all of usPosted at 12:11PM on Sep 13th 2010 by Altxexit

Nothing will change. they'll ban it and the parents will still buy it for their child because "its nothing they haven't seen before on tv." Sorry Gamestop employee here, I don't sell M rated games to kids without parental consent because I would get fired. This whole thing is ludicrous to begin with.Posted at 1:36PM on Sep 13th 2010 by Jared

I wish they would include ages of the people surveyed. Also a survey of 2100 people is a pathetic amount of the adult population which is significantly higher from what i have read. Posted at 3:49PM on Sep 13th 2010 by White Hyena

In My opinion it isn't violent content in video games that is the problem to begin with. I grew up with violent video games, so did many of my friends, and we are not out shooting people, hurting people, or otherwise causing a problem. I've never even gotten in a fight. It's predisposition, and parenting. If they don't want kids to be able to get them without parental guidance, that's fine, but outright banning children from them is ridiculous. It is not up to the government whether or not children can be exposed to violence and how much is okay, it's up to the parents to gauge they're own children.Posted at 6:54PM on Sep 13th 2010 by Ikomasoji