[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 88 (Monday, July 10, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H4932]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        VIDEO GAME RATING SYSTEM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, the average time spent playing video games 
for the average young person age 8 to 18 years is 49 minutes a day, 
just a little bit less than an hour a day.
  Ratings of video games are made by the Entertainment Software Ratings 
Board, also known as the ESRB. The ESRB assigns ratings without first 
playing the games, based on surveys, which is really a rather unusual 
way of doing surveys.
  The ESRB is actually a part of the video game industry; so in 
essence, the industry is rating itself, which is inappropriate.
  Ratings are often used as marketing tools to increase sales. They are 
subjective. There are no quantifiable standards in these ratings.
  Research done by Dr. Elizabeth Caril of the American Psychological 
Association and other researchers indicate the following:
  Number one, exposure to violent video games increases aggressive 
behavior, thoughts and anger.
  Number two, sexualized violence in video games increases violence 
toward women and acceptance of rape.
  Number three, video games enhance stereotypes of minorities and 
women.
  Number four, violent antisocial behavior is often necessary to win 
the game, often with no negative results to the aggressor.
  Other findings were as follows: often these games employ stalking and 
killing of victims, and these videos are similar to what the military 
uses in training soldiers to kill enemy soldiers.
  The ratings for the ESRB are as follows: E is a rating which means E 
for everyone. Yet 64 percent of E-rated games contain violence that 
reward the player for injuring other people.
  T is the next rating, for teenagers, yet 48 percent of the videos did 
not describe on the label objectionable material contained in the game. 
And much of the material was as follows: it had violence, blood, sexual 
themes, profanity, alcohol use. Sixty-nine percent of those games 
required the player to kill people to win the game. The average was 61 
human deaths per hour in these video games.
  The next rating is M for age 17 and older, meaning mature. And these 
ratings contain profanity, drugs, sexual themes, violence, blood and 
gore. Eighty-one percent of such games did not describe content 
accurately on the label. Seventy-seven percent of boys under age 17 own 
an M-rated game, which, of course, would be against the rating system.
  And so the final rating is AO, for adults only. But we find this is a 
seldom-used rating, even though video games are more violent, sexually 
explicit and profane than ever.
  According to David Walsh, president of the National Institute on 
Media and the Family, psychological and behavioral studies show that 
violent video games increase real-world aggression in young people. And 
this is a little bit different than watching television or listening to 
music because this actually requires you to interact, to do something 
actively and play in the game. So it has a very definite impact on 
behavior.
  Such games are particularly damaging, as children are developing and 
maturing and their brains and emotions are maturing.
  As technology advances, video games are increasingly realistic, more 
violent and sexually explicit. More and more games will be sold online, 
making regulation even more difficult.
  So far legislative efforts to rein in the video game industry have 
been largely negated by the courts. First amendment, free speech, tends 
to trump the welfare of our young people.
  Walsh and others recommend this: they recommend one rating system for 
all visual media. As most people know, movies have G, PG, PG13, R and 
X. And yet video games have an entirely different rating system. So the 
current system is confusing, and each media outlet now has their own 
rating system, which is inconsistent and makes no sense.
  Secondly, the industry should label products harmful if so deserved, 
such as cigarettes which are harmful and are labeled as being so.
  Also, we need to keep M-rated, or mature, video games out of 
children's hands. As mentioned earlier, 77 percent of boys under age 17 
have M-rated videos, and yet there are no penalties at the present time 
for vendors of these materials if they sell to an underage young 
person. If you did this in the alcohol industry, of course, you would 
be fined or penalized in some way.
  Also, AO, or adult-only ratings, need to be used on explicit 
material, and they seldom are.
  Independent raters should validate ratings, not industry 
representatives. The industry should not be rating itself.
  And also, parents need to be educated about the rating system.
  So, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Baca and I have introduced legislation 
attempting to bring these rating systems into compliance with normal 
standards, and we hope that Members of Congress would be willing to 
take a look at this legislation.

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