Bill saves kids from graphic video games

Do you want your pre-teen or young teenage child to be able to purchase a video game where the player has to kill police officers and bludgeon prostitutes to win? Are you aware there is a rating system for video games, just like movies? Games rated "M" for mature content are not supposed to be sold to children under 17.

One recent weekend, several 14- and 15-year-old members of Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE) put retailers to the test -- and they failed miserably. Twelve of 13 stores sold M-rated games to underage students.

Almost a decade ago the Entertainment Software Rating Board created a rating system for video games that would provide parents with information about appropriate age groups for game content. With new games simulating violence and sexual themes more graphically than ever, the board created the M rating for those games inappropriate for children under 17.

With manufacturers and retailers hungry for profit and children ages 5 to 14 spending about $28 billion a year on video games, the rating system proposed to add some much-needed good judgment to video game purchases.

The M-rated games that underage students were able to purchase included such content as soft pornography, adult language, hiring and beating of prostitutes and extremely graphic violence. SAVE members went into the retailers and attempted to buy the games like any other consumer.

Of the stores surveyed, only one store refused the sale. SAVE members bought the games at several mall locations, just as many parents drop their own children off on weekends for a safe place to hang out unsupervised.

SAVE doesn't blame the video game manufacturers. If Anheuser-Busch can brew beer and Hugh Hefner can sell pornography, there is no reason Nintendo should be stopped from developing adult games.

If Safeway cannot sell Budweiser to children and 7-Eleven cannot sell Playboy to those under 18, why can Blockbuster Video, Electronics Boutique, Fred Meyer, Hollywood Video and many others sell mature video games to anyone with a few weeks' allowance?

Parents generally can let their children go to the grocery store or newsstand without worrying they will come home with a six-pack and a Hustler, but malls, electronics stores and department stores are not following the same rules.

SAVE's most astonishing case arose when a member was returning a game after a successful purchase. When the student said she had to return the game because her mother would not allow her to have it, a store employee suggested the underage student should have "just lied to (her) parents and told them that the game was about entomology or something."

What would the community's response be if a grocery clerk encouraged a middle-school student to purchase beer?

In another case a store's computerized cash register prompted the sales clerk to ask the purchaser for ID, but the clerk elected to bypass the prompt.

Another retailer displays abundant signage noting the importance of paying attention to music with "explicit lyrics," but had no signs about video game ratings.

Currently, it is not illegal to sell M-rated games to underage consumers. However, the Washington Retailers Association and the Interactive Digital Software Association have a formal agreement indicating they will train retail clerks to ask for photo ID before selling such games.

Substitute House Bill 1009 would make illegal the sale and rental of video games that depict violence against public law enforcement officers to those under age 17.

It's clear that voluntary rules are not keeping games featuring soft pornography, prostitution, graphic violence and the mass murdering of police officers out of the hands of young children. This legislation is obviously needed because the voluntary agreement does not work.

Bravo to the Southcenter Mall "KB Toys" -- the only retailer surveyed that would not sell an M-rated game to an underage SAVE member.

David Simon, 23, is a founding member of the Garfield High School Students Against Violence Everywhere chapter. He is now the SAVE coordinator for Mothers Against Violence in America.

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