A new survey conducted by
Childcare.co.uk has revealed that most parents in the United Kingdom allow their kids to play games aimed at mature audiences without any supervision. Game ratings have been around for quite a long time but they have, almost always, been seen more as a sugestion rather than a prohibition—kind of like ratings in movies.
The study surveyed more than 2,000 parents on the Childcare platform and revealed that more than half of them allowed their kids to play games intended for audiences 18 and up. This also showed that parents didn't supervise their children when playing this game, as well as revealing that parents had no idea what the game was about before purchasing it. An eighteen percent of the surveyed parents also revealed that they were okay with their kids ages 10/14 to watch 18+ movies.
When it comes to age restrictions on films, a 23% of the parents confessed that they didn't follow age restrictions, as opposed to a staggering 86% of parents that admitted not following age restrictiosn in video games. What's even more interesting is that a 43% of the parents have actually seen negative effects in their child's behaviour due to playing games intended for adults—especially in regards to negative or offensive language.
Founder of Childcare.co.uk, Richard Conway, said that there's a very thin line when it comes to restricting video games to children.
"It’s difficult in this day and age to govern what your child is exposed to, because if your 10-year-old has friends who are playing Fortnite, which is rated 12, you want them to be included in the fun. However, it’s always worth looking into the game to see if it’s suitable rather than leaving them to their own devices". He definitely has a point, although this can also be attributed to the PEGI rating itself, which is slightly more restrictive than the ESRB—especially with the Teen category that includes ages from 10 to 17.
"What’s interesting is that the majority of parents follow film age ratings, but when it comes to video games they maybe aren’t as strict. It’s important to remember how impressionable children are; if they see behaviour or language in a video game or movie, they may mimic it".
Perhaps the reason behind parents following film age ratings comes from the fact that most of these parents are more involved when it comes to watching movies than they are about playing video games. The opposite could also occur given that maybe some of these parents grew up playing videogames themselves and see no wrong in letting their kids play games intended for adults, since it didn't affect them as kids.