Game Makers Push for Consistent Ratings on Multiple Platforms

Posted on November 16, 2012 at 3:59 pm

Television has parental guidance ratings that go from TV-Y (all audiences) to TV-MA (mature audiences). Movies have the MPAA rating system, from G to NC-17. The recording industry has a parental advisory label. Games are rated EC (early childhood) to A (adults only). All of these ratings have problems — for one reason, they are all imposed by the industry itself, which creates conflicts of interest. The procedures and criteria should be more transparent. And it is confusing to have so many different standards.But there was good news this week when John Riccitiello, the head of Electronic Arts, made a presentation to top government officials calling for a significant improvement in game ratings — consistency across all platforms. When the ratings were developed, games were played on computers and stand-alone devices. Now they are played on a much wider range of options including smartphones and social media. “We must move beyond the alphabet soup of game ratings and consolidate behind a single standard that consumers will recognize and, ultimately, demand,” he said. A good step in the right direction.

Do Video Games Cause Attention Problems? Can They Reduce Attention Problems?

Posted on August 4, 2012 at 8:00 am

Parents of children with attention deficit issues like distractibility often note that their children can become utterly absorbed in a computer game even though they have trouble maintaining focus in other environments. According to the Child Mind Institute’s Caroline Miller:

First, “there is no evidence whatsoever that TV or video games cause ADHD,” explains Dr. Natalie Weder, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Child Mind Institute who has treated many kids with the disorder.

That said, super-fast-paced TV shows and video games do have a special appeal for kids who have ADHD. “If you think about SpongeBob, or a video game, there’s never a second when there’s nothing happening on the screen,” Dr. Weder notes. “If you’re playing a video game, you have to immediately respond; otherwise you lose. You don’t have time to think. So kids with ADHD are very drawn to that, because it makes them have to pay attention. There are no gaps for them to start thinking about something else.”

Video games effectively hold the attention of kids who find it very challenging to concentrate in the rest of their lives. “In fact, a child’s ability to stay focused on a screen, though not anywhere else, is actually characteristic of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,” writes Dr. Perri Klass, a pediatrician, in the New York Times. “There are complex behavioral and neurological connections linking screens and attention, and many experts believe that these children do spend more time playing video games and watching television than their peers.”

But what’s happening when kids are absorbed in video games isn’t the same thing as the kind of paying attention that other tasks require.

“Continuous activity doesn’t mean sustained attention,” points out Dr. Ron Steingard, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Child Mind Institute. “It looks like sustained attention, but the truth is that the task is changing so rapidly, short bursts of attention are all that’s involved. These games are constantly shifting focus, and there is instant gratification and reward.”

It makes sense the kids with ADHD would find games more compelling than the average person. “It’s the perfect fit of the medium with the pathology,” notes Dr. Steingard. “Nothing else in life moves that quickly and rewards that spontaneously. For a person who’s into delayed gratification and a slower pace, they don’t have as much appeal.”

The makers of some new video games are so confident that their products actually help kids to learn how to focus that they are seeking approval from the Food and Drug Administration to market their games as a treatment for ADD:

Akili Interactive Labs Inc. of Boston, Massachusetts, which was created by start-up-creating firm PureTech Ventures, andBrain Plasticity Inc. of San Francisco, California are seeking Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for a videogame treatment they hope physicians will recommend before prescribing medicines for ADHD.

The companies’ projects are based on research, which suggests that action videogames can sharpen players’ ability to concentrate, and may have other medical or health benefits. Last April, University of Toronto researchers reported that action videogame play causes improvement in “visual attention,” which is needed to drive a car or track changes on a computer display. In 2010, University of Rochester and University of Minnesota researchers found that action videogames can train individuals to make the right decisions faster.

If proven effective, physician-prescribed video games could treat neurological illnesses without exposing patients to the side effects seen with today’s medications such as Ritalin.

The fast pace and continual positive reinforcement can be especially appealing to kids who are not comfortable in school and social environments. Miller notes that while the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends an hour per day of total media screen time (including computers and television/DVDs) for elementary school children, and two hours for kids in secondary school, the average is closer to six hours. Parents should make sure that kids spend at least as much time exercising and playing with other children as they do interacting with media.

Literary Video Games

Posted on February 25, 2011 at 8:00 am

Non-gamers tend to think of computer and video games as involving either shooting various targets, chasing some sort of prize, or some kind of dungeons and dragons role-playing. And Roger Ebert, perhaps with this idea in mind, has said that video games can never be art. But at least one game developer has taken a step closer to making games that resemble a more familiar art form, a book. And not just any book, a certified classic.
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s jazz age tragic love story is now The Great Gatsby: The Game.
Uri Friedman of The Atlantic reports that you can guide the book’s narrator, Nick Carroway, though the lovelorn gangster’s mansion, contending “with butlers, flappers, and gangsters at one of Gatsby’s bacchanalian parties (if you die, you’re told, “Game Over, Old Sport”).” While the game’s site cheekily claims it comes from a vintage 2D Nintendo game cartridge purchased at a yard sale, Friedman did some sleuthing and discovered it is the creation of Gatsby fan and programmer Charles Hoey and Pete Smith of Nerve.com. I was relieved that the game does not pursue some of the book’s seedier episodes, but it does make me wonder about other possibilities for turning novels into games, especially with the potential for alternate endings (a la Choose Your Own Adventure). Not So Gone With the Wind After All? Pride But No Prejudice? Anna Karenina’s Escape From the Train?

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Giveaway: 25th Anniversary ‘Back to the Future’

Posted on October 26, 2010 at 6:00 am

Go back in time with a sumptuous new 25th anniversary Blu-ray or DVD of the “Back to the Future” trilogy. Even Doc Brown could not have imagined that a quarter-century after Marty McFly got to meet his parents as teenagers and change the course of history the movie would be available with all kinds of fabulous extras including storyboards, interviews, and trivia. Can you believe that in Part 2, when he goes forward in time to an era with hoverboards and fuel made from garbage they’re in….2015?

I have two copies to give away, one DVD, one Blu-Ray. The first to send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with “Back to the Future DVD” or “Back to the Future Blu-Ray” in the subject line and your address and favorite scene from the movie will be the winners. Good luck!

And check out the new “Back to the Future” game with Christopher Lloyd providing the voice for Doc Brown and a sound-alike for Michael J. Fox.

Note: The prizes are made available by the studio. All opinions are my own. My conflict of interest policy is available.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Posted on September 15, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Roger Ebert launched a thousand blog posts with howls of protest by asserting that a video game could never be a work of art. I don’t say “never” when it comes to art, but by all evidence to this point, a video game does not make a movie. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who improbably turned a theme park ride into a phenomenally successful movie franchise with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, has not done as well by the Prince of Persia game, omitting the two elements that made the Pirates movies sensationally entertaining: a very good script and Johnny Depp.

Jake Gyllenhaal, newly bedecked in long hair, buff bod, and English accent, plays Dastan, a former street kid adopted by a king and raised as brother to his two sons. When he is framed for the murder of the king he must run. And since he has taken a special dagger that belongs to a princess, she has to come with him. She is the keeper of a sacred dagger, which gives everyone something to chase after, steal from each other, and almost lose many times.

The movie is about two-thirds action and one-third bickering banter. The action scenes are fairly good; the banter is below the level of chit-chat from Oscar presenters. There are winks at the game, with a lot of leaping between ledges and rooftops and the ability to rewind time. The story also has several distracting winks at current or near-current events, with complaints about taxes and a fruitless search for the ancient equivalent of weapons of mass destruction.

The settings are glorious. As swords are being wielded in a kaleidoscope of quick shots, we keep hoping for more of a chance to enjoy the scope and sweep and sumptuousness of the re-created ancient world of walled cities, palaces, and desert. Instead, it just serves to remind us of how undeserving the story that takes place there is by comparison.