Haninger Kevin, Thompson Kimberly M
Center on Media and Child Health, Children's Hospital, Boston, Mass, USA.
JAMA. 2004 Feb 18;291(7):856-65. doi: 10.1001/jama.291.7.856.
Children's exposure to violence, blood, sexual themes, profanity, substances, and gambling in the media remains a source of public health concern. However, content in video games played by older children and adolescents has not been quantified or compared with the rating information provided to consumers by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB).
To quantify and characterize the content in video games rated T (for "Teen") and to measure the agreement between the content observed in game play and the ESRB-assigned content descriptors displayed on the game box.
We created a database of all 396 T-rated video game titles released on the major video game consoles in the United States by April 1, 2001, to identify the distribution of games by genre and to characterize the distribution of ESRB-assigned content descriptors. We randomly sampled 80 video game titles (which included 81 games because 1 title included 2 separate games), played each game for at least 1 hour, quantitatively assessed the content, and compared the content we observed with the content descriptors assigned by the ESRB.
Depictions of violence, blood, sexual themes, gambling, and alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs; whether injuring or killing characters is rewarded or is required to advance in the game; characterization of gender associated with sexual themes; and use of profanity in dialogue, lyrics, or gestures.
Analysis of all content descriptors assigned to the 396 T-rated video game titles showed 373 (94%) received content descriptors for violence, 102 (26%) for blood, 60 (15%) for sexual themes, 57 (14%) for profanity, 26 (7%) for comic mischief, 6 (2%) for substances, and none for gambling. In the random sample of 81 games we played, we found that 79 (98%) involved intentional violence for an average of 36% of game play, 73 (90%) rewarded or required the player to injure characters, 56 (69%) rewarded or required the player to kill, 34 (42%) depicted blood, 22 (27%) depicted sexual themes, 22 (27%) contained profanity, 12 (15%) depicted substances, and 1 (1%) involved gambling. Our observations of 81 games match the ESRB content descriptors for violence in 77 games (95%), for blood in 22 (27%), for sexual themes in 16 (20%), for profanity in 14 (17%), and for substances in 1 (1%). Games were significantly more likely to depict females partially nude or engaged in sexual behaviors than males. Overall, we identified 51 observations of content that could warrant a content descriptor in 39 games (48%) in which the ESRB had not assigned a content descriptor. We found that the ESRB assigned 7 content descriptors for 7 games (9%) in which we did not observe the content indicated within 1 hour of game play.
Content analysis suggests a significant amount of content in T-rated video games that might surprise adolescent players and their parents given the presence of this content in games without ESRB content descriptors. Physicians and parents should be aware that popular T-rated video games may be a source of exposure to a wide range of unexpected content.
儿童接触媒体中的暴力、血腥、性主题、亵渎、毒品及赌博内容仍是公共卫生关注的焦点。然而，大龄儿童和青少年所玩电子游戏的内容尚未得到量化，也未与娱乐软件分级委员会（ESRB）向消费者提供的分级信息进行比较。
量化并描述分级为T（“青少年”）的电子游戏内容，并衡量游戏实际内容与游戏包装盒上ESRB指定的内容描述符之间的一致性。
我们创建了一个数据库，涵盖截至2001年4月1日在美国主要电子游戏主机上发布的所有396款T级电子游戏，以确定游戏按类型的分布情况，并描述ESRB指定的内容描述符的分布情况。我们随机抽取了80款电子游戏（因1款包含2款独立游戏，故共81款游戏），每款游戏至少玩1小时，对内容进行定量评估，并将我们观察到的内容与ESRB指定的内容描述符进行比较。
暴力、血腥、性主题、赌博以及酒精、烟草或其他毒品的呈现；伤害或杀死角色是否会得到奖励或是否是游戏进程所需；与性主题相关的性别刻画；以及对话、歌词或手势中亵渎语言的使用。
对分配给396款T级电子游戏的所有内容描述符进行分析显示，373款（94%）有暴力内容描述符，102款（26%）有血腥内容描述符，60款（15%）有性主题内容描述符，57款（14%）有亵渎语言内容描述符，26款（7%）有滑稽恶作剧内容描述符，6款（2%）有毒品内容描述符，无赌博内容描述符。在我们玩的81款游戏的随机样本中，我们发现79款（98%）涉及故意暴力，平均占游戏时间的36%，73款（90%）奖励或要求玩家伤害角色，56款（69%）奖励或要求玩家杀死角色，34款（42%）呈现血腥场面，22款（27%）呈现性主题，22款（27%）包含亵渎语言，12款（15%）呈现毒品内容，1款（1%）涉及赌博。我们对81款游戏的观察结果与ESRB对77款游戏（95%）暴力内容描述符、22款（27%）血腥内容描述符、16款（由20%）性主题内容描述符、14款（17%）亵渎语言内容描述符以及1款（1%）毒品内容描述符的匹配情况相符。游戏中描绘女性半裸或从事性行为形象的可能性显著高于男性。总体而言，我们在39款游戏（48%）中发现了51项可能需要内容描述符的内容观察结果，而ESRB并未为这些游戏指定内容描述符。我们发现ESRB为7款游戏（9%）指定了7个内容描述符，而在1小时游戏时间内我们并未观察到其中所指的内容。
内容分析表明，T级电子游戏中有大量内容可能会让青少年玩家及其家长感到惊讶，因为这些内容存在于没有ESRB内容描述符的游戏中。医生和家长应意识到，流行的T级电子游戏可能是接触各种意外内容的来源。
