{"id":1504,"date":"2008-11-18T10:38:34","date_gmt":"2008-11-18T16:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamingwithchildren.com\/?p=1504"},"modified":"2008-11-18T10:38:34","modified_gmt":"2008-11-18T16:38:34","slug":"beyond-the-esrb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/18\/beyond-the-esrb\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the ESRB"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Recently, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (the body that rates the games) announced that they would – finally – add more detail about why games get the ratings they do. This is something I’ve been advocating for my entire career and it took them 5 years, but they finally did it. So why didn’t I post about it? Sour grapes isn’t the right word and I don’t feel slighted or wounded really – I’m just disappointed. Here’s why…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As many people know, GamerDad.com was founded with three basic principles\/goals in mind. It’s a parental service but I’m also an activist, so GamerDad was going to change things. The argument has changed and I’ll leave it to others to estimate how much we are responsible for that but it’s well known that I wanted to:<\/p>\n

A. “Go Beyond the ESRB” by explaining the ratings and giving parents detail not found on the box.<\/p>\n

B. Convince the world and the ESRB that GAMERS & PARENTS should be rating the games.<\/p>\n

C. There should be a new rating between E and T and one between T and M.<\/p>\n

Point A just happened. Point B happened a couple years ago. Point C happened halfway, there’s an E-10+ rating now.<\/p>\n

So, I proved somewhat prescient and can pat myself on the back for that. What I want is acknowledgement. Simple courtesy. I’ve had long conversations with the ESRB where their rep argued that they couldn’t go into extra detail, they rightfully changed their mind but in their release they quoted WhatTheyPlay. There was no mention of me. Nothing. Despite my hammering this point home for 5.5 years straight now.<\/p>\n

I’m a simple parent. A parent who is a gamer and I’m trying to help people. If you could see my taxes for the past 5 years you’d know, I’m doing this for something other than money. But what’s most disappointing is that allies of mine – people who really know better – didn’t even bother to give me a nod when reporting the story. Outfits like Joystiq and Kotaku, and even Crispy Gamer, who I work for, didn’t mention my activism in this area. Not even GamePolitics and Dennis MacCauley definitely knows better…<\/p>\n

So that’s why I wasn’t doing cartwheels at last weeks announcement. I was pleased, very pleased, and proud too. It’s not really about me, seriously, this is a great thing the ESRB is doing. I guess I just feel I deserved some kind of credit. It’s lonely writing about games from Milwaukee Wisconsin and a little reflected glory can make a winter much warmer.<\/p>\n

Oh, wait, someone did mention me!\u00a0 I want to thank the Santa Rosa\u00a0CA Press-Democrat newspaper for being the only entity that I’m\u00a0aware of that mentioned me (and\u00a0WhatTheyPlay)\u00a0when they reported this story. Click here for the link.<\/a><\/p>\n

See?\u00a0I’m big in Santa Rosa. That’s something!<\/p>\n

PS: I want to thank my writers and remind them that they are part of this victory too. The mood is changing regarding videogames. We are making a difference. We will continue to do so. It’s what we do.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (the body that rates the games) announced that they would – finally – add more detail about why games get the ratings they do. This is something I’ve been advocating for my entire career and it took them 5 years, but they finally did it. So why didn’t I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}