According to the FTC, it’s far more difficult to get an ‘M’-rated game than it is to get into an R-rated movie.
The US Federal Trade Commission recently conducted an undercover shopper survey to see how easy it was for minors to buy M-rated games and found that only 13% of minors were able to acquire ‘Mature’ products, a number that is down from 20% in 2009. Breaking it down by retailer, only 8% of minors were successful at Gamestop, and they didn’t fare much better at Target (9%), Toys ‘R’ Us (10%), or Kmart (also 10%).
The numbers once again demonstrate that – within the mass media – the games industry does the best job of enforcing its own standards, and the results compare very favorably to the enforcement rates for other media. 33% of minors were able to get into an R-rated movie, while 38% could buy an R-rated DVD and 64% could buy a CD with a Parental Advisory Label. All of the undercover ‘agents’ in the survey were 13-to-16-year old teens unaccompanied by parents.
“We are extremely pleased to see the Federal Trade Commission confirm not only that the video game industry continues to have the highest rate of enforcement at retail, but that it continues to climb higher than ever before,” says Patricia Vance, president of the ESRB. “The strong support that the ESRB ratings have enjoyed from retailers is crucial, underscoring their firm commitment to selling video games responsibly.”
Maybe someone should tell this to Fox News.
Source: USA Today