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I have a confession to make: My 9-year-old spent about two weeks playing Modern Warfare 2 on the Xbox 360, and I had no idea he was doing it. More »
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Tea-Bagging! Salty language! Racism! There seems to be plenty of reasons why you shouldn't let your child go online to game until they're ready to drive.. or vote... or drink. But what about the benefits? More »
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The only way parents could possibly miss the ESRB Video Game Ratings Guide loaded onto the new PSPgo is if they never actually touch the system themselves, and what are the chances of that? More »
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Microsoft's second annual Play Smart, Play Safe campaign survey results are in, with UK parents overwhelmingly agreeing that video games have a beneficial effect on their children and families. More »
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Microsoft is teaming up with Best Buy to encourage parents and caregivers to talk about video game playing and ratings with their kids, Microsoft announced today. More »
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Those two great tastes that taste great together, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board and the Parent Teacher Association are gearing up for a big push towards educating parents about gaming ratings, parental controls, and video game safety in general. They're going to assault the epidemic of ignorant parents with a barrage of educational pamphlets, available both online and off, covering such topics as setting up parental controls, making sure your child isn't being solicited by perverts, and of course, the ratings themselves. Along with the pamphlets, there will be a free webcast on the 23rd of this month at 7 PM Eastern featuring ESRB president Patricia Vance and PTA president Jan Harp Domene, and GamerDad Andrew S. Bub covering all these topics and ending with a Q&A session with the trio. Hit the jump for the full press release, which includes information on where to get your hands on those lovely pamphlets and how to participate in the webcast, the audience of which will most likely be 99% gaming press, ourselves included. More »
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Global Consulting firm User Centric recently conducted a study on effectiveness of parental controls in electronic devices. 20 parents and 20 children were gathered, with the parents asked to set up parental controls and children asked to bypass them. The results will shock you. Well not really, I just wanted to feel like the nighttime news hook story commercial voice over guy. The results are pretty much what you'd expect. Confusion about ratings and how indeed to setup the controls themselves led to a 47% failure rate on video game consoles, with lesser degrees of failure for V-chips, mobile phones, and DVRs. I take two things from these results. First, parents need to better understand the ratings systems before they start trying to restrict access to them, and User Centric needs to perform another study on parents who aren't stupid. Hit the jump for User Centric's press release, discovered via GamePolitics. More »
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A new, relatively small update hit the Wii last night. After the download, the Wii informed me that Parental Controls were now active, but I believe they were active prior to the patch, so I'm not quite sure what the update was for. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=218203&view=rss&microfeed=true Hey, turns out Fox National still wants me on. If you're interested in round two of me embarassing myself in front of a Live national audience tune in about 10:40 p.m. EST. I'll be talking about how online gaming works on the Xbox and the console's parental controls More »
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