Should video games have exercise ratings?

I say it wouldn’t hurt to have these kinds of ratings on games. The only people it would hurt would be those who have paranoid parents who think anything not healthy is automatically bad (games aren’t healthy, typically, but they aren’t flat out bad for you either).

I don’t see why it would be a bad thing, necessarily. I just worry that some parents would start to place too much emphasis on a game’s capabilities to be solely responsible for helping their children lose weight. I see too many parents who don’t take an active role in maintaining the physical OR mental health of their children as it is. And these are often the same sorts of people who will make a big deal out of the fact that they feed their kid KFC every day, but he/she plays active games for three hours a day, so he/she should be thin and healthy and if he/she is not, then the gaming industry is just a big conspiracy that misrepresented the capabilities of games to help kids lose weight. Then there’ll be a big old special on Fox News about it.

Then again, when I used to work in the gaming industry, back when the ratings system was first implemented, it was blatantly obvious that parents never cared and would buy their seven-year-olds M rated games all the time, so maybe it would just be another label that nobody would pay attention to.

My hope is that parents will actually see games in a different light if they feel as though the industry is taking more of a responsibility for their children’s health.

Interesting points Tricia. I may use this for the Comment Highlight next week…

Thanks for a great time for posting this blog.Pretty good post .