July 8th, 2008

Pros And Cons To Video Game Ratings

Every time I see a dispute over video game ratings, I get to the conclusion that some people really have nothing better to do than look for sexual innuendos in cartoons, inadequate content in games that even I wouldn't consider harmful for children, and so on. For example, let's talk a little about the power of the example - if, as a kid, you don't even get to play games involving beer, what could happen when you get to the legal drinking age, and your friends take you out? To be aware of how bad some habits could be for you, you have to experience them, and exactly when you can learn a lesson you won't forget too easy. Instead of telling you kids how bad is smoking, give them a cigar when they are young, best age would be 5-6 years. The bad mood given by smoking only a fraction of a cigar at that age is the best antitobacco message possible, but...what about beer?

Beer Pong, also called beirut, lob pong, and in other ways, is basically a drinking game in which players throw a table tennis ball across a table, with the purpose of landing it in one of the other teams' cups of beer. To make a long story short, the only rule is that, by the end, the losing team will probably get seriously drunk. OK, so this is taking us to a computer game...

...called "Frat Party Games: Beer Pong," and released by JV Games, which was rated to be suitable for children as young as 13. If you ask me, I've been drinking beer even before that age, and never got drunk because of it. Anyway, there's no such big fuss here about the legal drinking age and, before anything else, beer falls into the "food" category, and not that of "alcoholic beverages." Unfortunately, I am not Connecticut's Attorney General, to set things straight, and Mr. Richard Blumenthal says the ESRB made a mistake by giving the game its current rating.

While no one in the game was actually shown drinking beer, JV Games are already retooling the game, removing all alcohol references and renaming it into Pong Toss. Now, what if poor families ask the removal of all references to Santa, because they can't afford Christmas presents? The Inquisition held back this world for hundreds of years, and now are we going to do the same? Well, not quite, but still this leaves me with a bitter taste...