Parental Controls

[Dregun]

I just read in the Killzone thread that gore may or may not have been turned off because of it being a demo and the thought angered me. As well as the complaints of both sides of the fence; those who want the gore and those who don't want the gore. Since both sides want something and current games do not offer that option to be have both present both have a reason to complain and at the same time "shouldn't" have a reason to complain...see below.

What's so hard about creating games and consoles that use predefined parameters within the consoles settings that can turn language, nudity, violence and gore on and off.

If the games were released so that by default all violence, nudity, language etc etc was set to "off" and it was up to the console that told the game what could be ON or OFF every Walmart employee could sell any game to any 12 year old no matter what the game is about. They could sell a game about becoming a hooker and if you don't have the right permissions your basically playing a version of "Hannah Montana saves the world"

When the character on the screen is about to say an expletive I'm sure they could institute a "beep" or silence into it and put **** in replace of the captions.

If its a FPS they can replace the guns with what looks like laser tag, no bullet effects and when the person/enemy gets shot hit detection just makes them flash and they stand up. Possibly even giving a cheesy "Nice shot" audio clip from the person/enemy they just shot. Grenades would just flash a bright light and you would see your health go down. Your character would never die, just be "out" of the game. The word "Kill" would be replaced with the word "Tagged", ammo would be replaced by batteries and monsters with scary faces could have clown masks...etc etc

Nudity would just require the person to have clothes on in that scene, easy fix.

GTA type games
Car jacking animations would have the person get out of the car and give you the keys and say "Merry Christmas". Hookers would not be present. Your malee weapons would be silly like plastic bats that make funny noises when you hit someone and the person getting hit laughs; once they piss themselves from laughter you can't touch them anymore. No matter how hard you tried you couldn't hit a pedestrian, they always got out of the way. Etc etc

I know games now implement ESRB ratings and the console when setup properly wont let those games to be played without a password. However why not take it that extra step, make every game "G" rated unless the console is setup to take it above that level? Why not have BIG stickers on the boxes that state "Parental security in effect, proper setup required before machine will function"? Then in the user agreement the very first thing they see is "X Company not responsible for the content of games once initial setup is completed, press START to continue".



I expected this generation to implement such features, then if a child plays a game that subjects them to these "evils" it now becomes the parents who were solely responsible because you would have to be over the age of 18 to buy the console. Therefore the console on initial setup would require the parent (if they f***'n pay attention) to input a username and password to adjust those settings.

Why the video game industry hasn't moved forward with this is beyond me; it would remove the "GTA caused this boy to kill his friend and take his money" crack pot lawyers and activists and put the blame where it belonged all along..the parents!


Get these damn parents involved so I can enjoy games I want to play and at the same time give people the option of having someones head blown to pieces or covered with blue paint. I know many of my "replacement" activities sound funny and maybe thats a good thing too, who knows maybe games would have a completely different feel if you turn around a dark corner and a monster comes charging at you with a Styrofoam hand as a weapon and a finding nemo mask on?

My kids are not going to see or hear anything in my home I don't want them too if I have the option/power to do so. So many tools are available to parents now that they are not using and unless CE manufactures take the imitative and force parents to do such things before using the equipment we will never completely have our freedom to play, listen or watch what we want. It's time we stop letting parents be lazy when it comes to entertainment and force them to be responsible for what their child sees, hears and plays.

</Rant>

 

[TheWretched]

Mature games should not be played by children, plain and simple... (and I really suffer from "youth laws" coming from Germany and all)

 

[Rodéric]

Violence in games is the problem, I don't see how turning down gore does change the fact that you are advertising violence as a (good) mean to solve a problem. (Or worst, as entertainment.)

The parental control should rather lock the console for a given game rating, and prevent anything else from running, would make much more sense.
But then those ratings would need be redefined, I for example don't care much about nudity in games, but violence is surely a much bigger problem. (And not because heads are flying or there's blood everywhere, but simply, as I stated above, because it doesn't belong there.)

 

[AlNom]

The parental control should rather lock the console for a given game rating, and prevent anything else from running, would make much more sense.

I believe that on 360 the parental controls follow ESRB, so you can make a choice there. There is also a separate parental control for DVDs. To view/play such material, the user inputs a passcode.

But then those ratings would need be redefined, I for example don't care much about nudity in games, but violence is surely a much bigger problem. (And not because heads are flying or there's blood everywhere, but simply, as I stated above, because it doesn't belong there.)

Indeed, the ESRB is not quite perfect...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Just a premptive heads-up, this isn't a discussion on censorship. Such a discussion belongs in the RSPCA forum. Whether games should or should not be playable by minors etc. isn't the debate. Instead the thread needs to focus on existing measures used by the console companies to provide whatever services they feel are warranted, and how they can be levered in games to support those services. In this case, couldn't software be scaled according to parental control levels set on the system.

 

[Dregun]

Violence in games is the problem, I don't see how turning down gore does change the fact that you are advertising violence as a (good) mean to solve a problem. (Or worst, as entertainment.)

The parental control should rather lock the console for a given game rating, and prevent anything else from running, would make much more sense.
But then those ratings would need be redefined, I for example don't care much about nudity in games, but violence is surely a much bigger problem. (And not because heads are flying or there's blood everywhere, but simply, as I stated above, because it doesn't belong there.)

As with any subjective criteria, be it violence, language or nudity I think the blame lies solely on the parents. You might not think that having nudity in a game is a bad thing and would prefer it over violence; while some devout Christan's would rather have someone get shot then show any flesh.

Since what is acceptable for children (and adults) is subjective, we can't force our views onto others. I think our current system does not allow for the end user to make those choices as a game either has those themes in place or it does not. So if someone would rather have GTA with violence but no reference to sex they are left with no options but to not buy/play the game.

I personally think our society is too skewed on the acceptance of violence over sex in both movies and games. While I don't think we need games solely based on pornographic material its the idea that showing someone getting their head blown off is rated M (Mature) but show a topless woman and the game now becomes AO (Adults Only) seems unrational.

A movie can have excessive violence and be rated R, or can have nudity and be rated R and to me that seems unacceptable. I would like to see our consoles and other entertainment devices give more control over what is played in or on those devices. With that said if the end user has complete control over what is being displayed/heard then game developers should be able to put whatever they want in the game to fulfill the grand scheme they are pursuing.

 

[Dregun]

Just a preemptive heads-up, this isn't a discussion on censorship. Such a discussion belongs in the RSPCA forum. Whether games should or should not be playable by minors etc. isn't the debate. Instead the thread needs to focus on existing measures used by the console companies to provide whatever services they feel are warranted, and how they can be levered in games to support those services. In this case, couldn't software be scaled according to parental control levels set on the system.

Shifty,

I believe this is what I was/am trying to get at. How complicated would it be to have games that were scalable per the specifications applied to the system through parental controls? If I want my son to be able to play Uncharted 4 when he is 12 but would prefer the language to be toned down while he plays and reduced violence by having it be a paintball game why cant I? Honestly changing blood splatters to blue paint splatters and censoring the F-Bombs can't be that hard to do.

As technology progresses to allow video games to provide better visuals we will approach a time in the future that what is being played could be indistinguishable from real life. Meaning that when you shoot someone in the face with a gun you could potentially see what only certain people are witness to on a daily basis. When that time arrives if we do not have a better system in place it could spell doom for video games. I mean people where complaining that the primitive visuals of Doom where enough to cause kids to become violent, what will they do when accurate brain matter is displayed?

 

[patsu]

It may be too convoluted for the developers to handle. A GTA4 with paintball and free cars may not be as fun as a dedicated kids game (e.g., FreeRealm). Also, your child may end up playing a real version of GTA4 at his cousin's place if he thinks it's the same game.

I prefer to build my child's values by focusing on the positive stuff (e.g., What can he gain by doing such-n-such ?). Using this approach, the games designed for kids are usually the way to go.

If I want to show him the negative aspects, I'd "hand hold" him to interpret the scenes. In which case, the real GTA4 is better than a censored one.

EDIT: Come to think of it, the developers may also have unnecessary exposure if they use a software flag to change its filters. Should a child see obscene content, the developer will be preceived negatively (or even liable). May not worth the risk.


Someone posted parental control for 360 above. Here's the equivalent for PS3: http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/current/basicoperations/parentallock.html

You have 5 areas: Games, DVD, Blu-ray, Web Browsing, and PSN (e.g., Home).
The numeric scale is more fine-grained than ESRB. You can find the appropriate mapping in the game manuals.

Not sure if they filter content for YouTube on PS3. So far so good ! ^_^

 

[patsu]

SCEE just launched a site explaining PS3 parental controls:
http://www.ps-playsafeonline.com/