Tuesday, December 22, 2009

An Addendum to Yesterday's Blog

As if to prove my point about the mature "themes" in COD being a contributing factor to it's "M" rating, this article was published in The Boston Herald this morning.

Nina Huntemann, the article's feature, is a professor at my alum, Suffolk University (well, it's where I attended law school). Not only does she bring up the point that there are potentially harmful attitudes and themes in COD 2 (such as Americans being on the "right" side of the fight, and reinforcing war as an effective way to solve global conflict), but also that, when choosing a game for their children, the ESRB rating is a "good place to start." She goes on to say: '“Parents should learn what these games are about by reading reviews beforehand and then asking to see games demonstrated on store kiosks,” Huntemann added. If they do buy a game, she said, parents should be prepared to learn how to play it, even if in a rudimentary way.'

I won't elaborate any more because I do like readers to give traffic to the source site, but I would highly encourage you to read both the article and her work "Joystick Soldiers." I'm going to see if I can track down an email address for Ms. Huntemann and find out more about her work.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

most parents do not have a clue and seem uninterested in learning about these games - they should be more pro-active in their research