common-sense-media posts

Dead Space 2 is apparently selling well for publisher Electronic Arts and part of the reason might be those fairly unique "Your Mom Hates Dead Space 2" TV ads that started running a couple of weeks before the game was released. Now the Los Angeles Times reports the parents group Common Sense Media organization has attacked both EA for running the ads as well as the ESRB ratings group for approving the ads.

Common Sense, who has their own ratings system in place for games and other entertainment media, claims the ads violate the ESRB's own ad standards, claiming that the commercials will make the game more desirable for children (Dead Space 2, in case you didn't know, was rated "M" for Mature by the ESRB). In a response, ESRB president Patricia Vance defended its approval of the TV ad campaign stating, "... just because a product desires to be seen as 'cool' or 'edgy' does not in and of itself necessitate that it is directed at children."

[Via VG247.com]

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.

We no longer have the National Institute for Media and the Family offering up their video game reports cards but today another media watchdog group, Common Sense Media, has offered up a list of 10 "cool" games that they are "uncool for kids" to play.

As one might expect the list consists entirely of games that are already rated "M" by the ESRB. Therefore we are not quite sure what the point is supposed to be since all of them are clearly labeled as not being for children anyway. The group does give "T" rated alternates to the games on their "uncool for kids" list. You can check out the list of games, which is a mix of PC and console titles, at the Common Sense web site.