There has always been controversy around the video game ratings system (and movies too). Many people disagree with the ratings games are given, or games have to be censored to reach a desirable rating, or retailers get busted for not being strict enough when it comes to who they sell the games to. Whether it’s a senator, the ESRB themselves, or more likely the infamous Jack Thompson, there is always enough blame being sent around.

But it seems that among the many groups that can help prevent children from accessing content meant for older and more mature audiences, there is one that is continually left off the hook and forgotten: the parents.

Rating systems only take into account age. While that is one of the only easily verifiable and simple ways to determine what is appropriate, age is only so much. The ratings systems cannot take into account personality, how much violence someone can take, and most importantly how impressionable they are. It’s not like a magical transformation happens every time you grow a year older. While you do mature and it definitely changes you, it is not clear cut year by year; there are some 17 year olds who are actually affected by certain games more than most, and there are others who have dealt with more in their lives already than most of us ever will. If the parents are doing their job, they should be able to make the distinctions the ratings system can’t.

Playing a violent game is not going to affect most people. However, if someone is already messed up and has a horrible life, games (and music, movies, even books) are much more likely to influence them. Only the parents can really know what their child can handle, and if they are doing a good job parenting chances are their child would have never gotten to that point anyway. The vast majority of people are not going to be affected by the games they play, and the few that are always have something else going on; even the worst games can only bring out what’s already wrong with someone, not create it, and even then that is incredibly rare.

Now, I’m not saying parents should closely regulate everything relating to video games, like the amount of time; that’s a completely different argument. I’m just saying that if the parents know their kids and know what content they can handle and how it will affect them, they can make important distinctions the rating system is incapable of. The ratings system is meant to be a guide, and the parents are the ones that need to decide how accurate it is for their specific children.

I’m not saying everyone else should get an automatic pass while all the blame is placed on the parents either. Each person, group, and organization has its place, and usually it’s not one single factor that leads to problems. The ESRB can make mistakes, developers can go too far with what is really necessary, and there are plenty of other errors that can lead to “inappropriate” games getting into the wrong hands. However, while these groups are consistently being attacked and attacking, I find it curious that the parents are rarely brought into the equation, despite the fact that they are the ones that should have the biggest influence.

So when 7 year old Timmy’s parents are busy at the movies or beating their other kids or having unprotected sex in the next room and Timmy is ripping someone’s balls off in the copy of Manhunt 2 he bought from the GameStop cashier who was too high to notice his age, who’s really to blame? Sure, maybe it wasn’t necessary for RockStar to implement virtual castration, and maybe he shouldn’t have been able to buy it in the first place, and maybe this is a greatly exaggerated scenario, and maybe this sentence has gone on for far too long, but if his parents had been doing their job it could all have been avoided.

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