FTC report: mixed reviews on industry's ability to self-regulate
by Ross Miller 
{ Apr 12th 2007 at 4:55PM }
The Federal Trade Commission in the U.S. has released a new report praising the games industry for making "significant progress" in decreasing both the sale of mature-rated games to minors and the advertising of mature titles alongside teen-marketed television shows, while criticizing them for failing to maintain similar marketing standards with internet advertising.Other interesting statistics and observations:
- In the five years between 2001 and 2006, sales of M-rated titles to minors have dropped 36% (from 78% to 42%). No other industry was reported to have such a significant decline and only the sale of R-rated movie ticket to minors is lower (39% in 2006, an increase of 3% over 2003).
- Of the parents surveyed, 87% are aware of the ESRB, 70% utilize it and 75% of those familiar with the content descriptors use them.
- Current ESRB regulations do not allow game publishers to advertise M-rated games on sites where 45% or more of the audience is under 17. The FTC report said that they are "not adequately enforcing even this limited standard." Our query, which is not adequately explained in the report's press release, is how the FTC is able to discern the demographic of a website (other than maybe content and grammar usage), and which is it following? Only MySpace and YouTube are specifically cited here. And, to be quite honest, if the FTC were able to effectively discern the demographics found on a site like YouTube, they could sell that data-mining algorithm and make quadrillions in profit.
[Via Game Politics]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
gir @ Apr 12th 2007 4:57PM
Meeeeeeeooooooooowwww
hvnlysoldr @ Apr 12th 2007 5:06PM
This shows that the games self-regulation is pretty good and in some cases better than the other media self regulators.
OhJustSomeRandomGuy @ Apr 12th 2007 5:14PM
Put descriptors on the FRONT of the box?
Are you fucking retarded, FTC?
http://www.amazon.com/Snakes-Plane-Widescreen-Line-Platinum/dp/B000JBXHQY/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-4333209-5270326?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1176412279&sr=8-1
Look at the box, do you even see the damn RATING on the cover?
Putting the ESRB rating AND the descriptors on the front would just increase the amount of crappy cover art we're getting. Especially on the shitty Witt packages where you are going to effectively lose the top, and now you want people to lose the bottom to the ESRB rating + descriptors and all the company logos.
What about on a DS game? There's not exactly a ton of real estate there anyway.
Basically, the FTC had NO valid complaints about the ESRB.
hilker @ Apr 12th 2007 5:20PM
The demographic data they used comes from Nielsen//NetRatings, as described on page 21 of the full report, which is linked from the press release page: http://www.ftc.gov/reports/violence/070412MarketingViolentEChildren.pdf
NeverSage @ Apr 12th 2007 5:57PM
Good, this dost bode well
Anonymous @ Apr 12th 2007 11:38PM
The government wants control, it's so obvious. All it's going to take is one activist judge and the American Video Game Industry is ruined forever.
Jin @ Apr 13th 2007 10:15AM
yay. the sniper kitty. ah...
hmm... i guess I ought to read what this article is about now.