14 DAY TRIAL // A new study from the Entertainment Software Association of Canada seems to indicate that gamers parents are not aware of the online gaming activity of their kids, meaning that they have little control over the kind of content they are experiencing.
The study is based on a poll which included more than 3,500 gamers which shows that no less than 77 percent of the children from six to seventeen have played games online, with most of them saying that they are engaged in one on a weekly basis.
CBS News reports that only five percent of the parents questioned as part of the same survey were aware that their kids were playing online games.
Danielle LaBossiere Parr, who is the director of the Entertainment Software Association of Canada stated, “That was very surprising to us. We need to get the message out to parents that they should know what their kids are doing.”
The problem with online games is that the Entertainment Software Rating Board cannot and does not place a rating for them, only adding a message saying “Online Interactions Not Rated By The ESRB”.
Still parents are able to control the content that their kids access as long as they known about the titles they enjoy and they offer a way of setting parental controls, restricting the range of experiences they can access.
The ESA study has also found that 93 percent of all adult gamers surveyed though the ESRB ratings are useful in making decisions about which games kids should play while only 81% of respondents think that the ratings accurately depict the video games they are attached to.
Protecting the kids from inappropriate content has long been a concern for those watching the video game industry and has been used by some groups as a motivation for severely limiting access to them.
Better and clearer use of the ESRB rating is one of the best way to make it clear what is appropriate for certain age groups.