Video Game Industry Vows to Develop Rating System : Technology: A spokesman for firms tells senators that standards will be ready by Christmas. Three retailers say they won’t stock unrated titles.
Leading makers of video games, seeking to avoid government regulation of their burgeoning $6-billion industry, pledged Friday to develop an independent rating system before next Christmas season in order to warn buyers of violent or sexually explicit content not suitable for children.
At the same time, officials of three retailers promised to keep unrated games off their stores’ shelves and to help consumers understand how to use the classifications to select products appropriate for youngsters.
The pledges were made at a hearing conducted by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Herbert Kohl (D-Wis.), co-sponsors of a bill to establish federal ratings of video games if the industry does not police itself.
“We’re making real progress,” Lieberman said after the testimony. But he said two Senate subcommittees would monitor the industry’s actions over the next few months and “keep your feet to the fire” to get results.
“If you rate a game as being OK for kids, and we still find blood and guts on the screen, then in my view the rating is meaningless,” Lieberman warned before the hearing. “If you didn’t put blood and gore and sex in the games, you wouldn’t need to rate the games.”
The viewpoint of the biggest game-makers was articulated by Jack Heistand, an official for an interactive entertainment industry rating committee.
Reacting to public outcries and Senate hearings last December that focused on such violent games as Mortal Kombat and Night Trap, Heistand said a rating system would be developed to advise consumers about the approximately 2,500 video titles that come on the market each year.
“We strongly believe that it’s time to put the game controls in the hands of parents and adult consumers through the creation of a universal, responsible, reliable, understandable and independent industry ratings system,” Heistand told a joint hearing of the Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee on regulation and the Judiciary subcommittee on juvenile justice.
“We have agreed to have a rating system in place by Christmas,” he said. “Products coming to market after Nov. 1 will, if submitted by publishers in a timely fashion, be rated under the new system.”
An independent rating board, acting anonymously, will be established to develop guidelines and categories, with symbols designating games intended for children and games suitable for teen-agers or adults, he said. Sanctions will be imposed on companies that withhold information or secure a rating through fraud.
But Heistand said the industry--which began in 1976 when Atari marketed a video game called Pong--is still rapidly changing.
“Originally, the predominant market for our products was children,” he said. “But as more sophisticated technology evolves, our market is rapidly attracting a more diverse and older audience.
“The Atari generation of the 1970s and the Nintendo generation of the 1980s have grown up and many young adults are using a wide variety of interactive entertainment software products,” he said.
Voicing support for an industry rating system, officials of Wal-Mart, Toys R Us and Babbage’s retail stores said they would not stock video games that did not carry a rating symbol in the coming holiday season.
