Why do you need to know my age to watch a trailer?

When we, as writers, are given these materials we're generally required to age-gate them. If we can't do it, we're directed to download alternate "clean" versions of videos instead. Age gating is simply a CYA move.

I have noticed that on games ranked "mature" or "AO" when I put in a fake age... and its not one over 18 years of age. Then it wont let me watch it. Furthermore.. some sites cookie that age.. so I screw myself over to watch ALL those vids until I correct it. Annoying.. yes. But its at least a moderate attempt to prevent underage kids from watching content not meant for them. *shrug* Prolly highly innefective, but its a legal disclaimer.

Is the issue that game developers are now releasing MA trailers for MA titles? Or has it always been this way and no one thought to age gate trailers until recently?

Oh - the children!!! Could it be a ploy around rating (since we're used to having to supply age for age appropriate content) just to get a bit of demographic info. Either way - I've never trusted it. I just pull down to a random year in the 70's then hit "OKAY".

From what I understand the age-gating is due to the ESRB rating of the games. Do you ever get age-gated for games that are rated E? Or are you just trying to watching Adult rated games ;) :P

Its asinine. Could just put a Over 18? with a yes or no prompt you'd think, if anything. Not like the kiddies aren't going to lie.

True. But putting in ages rather than a check box means they have to do some math, first. ;)

But, yeah. I always assumed that it was a legal thing, what with the ESRB. I honestly never gave it much thought, figuring that it was just a CYA thing for all parties involved.

Oh god forbid the kids watch something that is mature, When did the U.S. jump the shark and become pussies. It sickens me.

If i can go on YouTube and watch people drop the F-bomb, see bums fight, or watch a video of Megan Fox without age verif, then video games should be no different unless there is blatant nudity...

Well, speaking as a parent, not wanting your kids to see inappropriate stuff is not a bad thing. "Mature" encompasses a lot of stuff, some of which I have no problems with and others that I do. Plus, each parent has to take into account their own child's maturity level before exposing them to things, age aside.

Even though I know that these gateways are largely useless, I appreciate the thought behind them. I also am well aware that it is not the industry's responsibility to oversee my child's activity - it's mine. But, having that gateway or rating there is a red flag to me, the parent who is watching, to say, "Hmmm. Let me look at that, first." Then, I can decide whether my child is mature enough to look at/play whatever it may be.

That's not being a pussy. It's called being responsible.

Yea, it seems really odd to me. Why not just have a "Are you over 18?" message with yes or no. Is that no longer a valid way to legally confirm that your users claim to be an adult? I usually just put my birthday as 1900. Cause you know, I'm totally 109 years old. In the end, kinds are smart enough to know why they're being asked this and will do the same as I do...lie. Given, that's probably not a good reason to NOT ask...but they could at least keep it to a simple yes/no selection. 6 clicks to watch a video is just too much.

i always just scroll down and pick a random year. Most sites think i'm like 80

This is in no way designed to help protect children, it is to protect the company. If they lie about being 18, they break TOS and the company isn't liable for anything. The ESRB is the main reason behind it and they have the power to demand videos be taken down, even if they have an age gate. I think it is annoying but I just put any random date, I just wish sites like gametrailers would make it so users who are over 18 don't have to do it every time.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-ESRB-is-Digging-Up-the-Dead-Old-Game-Trailers-Pulled-58344.shtml

Here's an article about the ESRB randomly demanding videos be pulled and it isn't exactly a rare occurrence, members at gametrailers often bitch about the ESRB in their podcast.

I can't tell you how much I hate this. What is even worse is that sites like GameTrailers that lets me login and the site knows my age STILL asks me for my age. WTH????

I think another issue is that games that it is difficult to come up with the appropriate age group for a trailer in situations where the ESRB hasn't yet rated the game...this happens a lot with trailers that are put out far in advance of the product release.

@Wingman709 Sounds like lazyness on the part of that website. Hopefully gamerDNA can be a bit more clever when we start posting more trailers someday! :)

This is basically the fault of Tipper Gore, the ESRB, and the "think of the children" crowd.

Sure, there's the idea that the ever watchful parent might see this any think, "Oh no, we shouldn't have this on the screen" but its far fetched and unlikely.

I don't think anyone puts in a real age (under age or over age... I normally just click the year box and drag down to an arbitrary 18+ date), so its really completely useless.

I'd like to see a lawsuit successfully go through for a company having a game trailer available that didn't have an age warning on it. What are the "damages" for a child seeing a video game trailer?

Seeing something like this doesn't damage a person. Hell, I know the guy that runs 4Chan and he's mostly normal... and if the crazy stuff that he's seen on 4Chan doesn't screw someone up after running for for so long, then nothing can/will.

Does the ESRB really have power of censorship to say that a company can post on their privately owned website, or what they could produce as a trailer? If I post something that a small gamer designer posts to my blog can they force it off there? I smell a lawsuit that I'd win easily on grounds of free speach.

Oddly, most of these game trailers these days run on cable television. The V-chip doesn't screen commercials last I checked.

If these companies are so concerned, they should team up with one of the net-nanny companies and just have an XHTML attribute that they put on 18+ content. It doesn't do anything to those of us that aren't using the software, but would allow easily filtering/flagging of 18+ content without stopping the rest of the world.

@Wingman709 I agree with what you are saying. It's stupid that it would ask you if you have an account.

This has been going on at every we3bsite which hosts videos for years. As soon as one person flags the video as having mature or questionable content, it suddenly gets classified as a mature video until a moderator can examine it. At big sites like YouTube and Putfile, it usually never gets unflagged. This makes it great fun for trolls to go around flagging harmless content as adult. I even found a trailer for the Transformers movie which had been flagged as adult.

@SoulAssassin I once accidentally entered my birth year as 1868 and the website accepted it.

It's a very good ploy to see what your target audience is. If people don't lie and put in their actual ages you can get a feel for the audience your are building the game for and as previously mentioned it keeps kids from getting in if they are not smart enough to bypass it...

I'm basically repeating others here because they are right / I agree with them. :)

Because many other sites are terribly slow and/or host heavily compressed videos, I normally use GameTrailers for my video game video needs/wants. Videos that don't feature adult content don't get an age gate there, and I think other sites do the same. Maybe it slightly helps protect children against content that's not for them, but in all honesty age gates aren't exactly a huge challenge, even if you have to give your birthdate as opposed to your age. That just makes these things waste more of your time. I suppose it helps parents notice questionable content, but the videos themselves usually start showing a rating anyway, and a simple Play button preventing the video from automatically starting would also alert parents. I do think age gates are more about protecting the company that hosts the video than it is about protecting the children.

Passing through age gates I barely even look at the options. If "1" and "January" are pre-selected, I don't even touch those, and I pick the lowest number for the year, or around 1970 if I have to scroll manually and it would've taken longer to go all the way to the bottom. If I was too young to watch the video, I would've done the same thing. To children age gates only mean there is something extra cool behind it, so of course they will lie. Children that are too young to figure out how to pass an age gate really shouldn't be browsing the Web alone anyway.

As for GameTrailers specifically, I hate having to fill in my birthday (again, not really, just something that qualifies) even though I'm logged in and the site knows my age already. I saw one of their shows discuss, well, mention this, and basically they said they had were obligated to employ age gates. They didn't say why though, so no idea how that logic works. Maybe someone should ask them, or likely they already answered it somewhere.

Age appropriate content is kind of a hot-button issue these days. The publishers have the right to put up trailers for their product, but parents have the responsibility (which some wrongly think is in the content provider's hands) to decide what their children watch. The ESRB, while a voluntary industry association, still wields a tremendous amount of power through their ratings. If they feel that a trailer with age-inappropriate content is released, they can hint that if the trailer is not removed that it may negatively impact the final rating of the game, which can limit the number of retail outlets the game sees. It may not be completely kosher, but it is a sight better than the government doing the job. *That* would be the true tragedy, a loss of one of our freedoms by allowing the government to dictate what is okay for us to view. A big reason why I support the ESRB. As for the gateways, those are a CYA move on the part of the site hosting the video. Not so certain about its effectiveness as a demographic information gathering tool, given most people's tendency to lie.

I usually just put in the correct year (1977, getting old) and leave it at that. If I'm feeling especially generous, I might put in my actual birthdate. It takes a couple seconds, and in the long run is not a big deal. Besides, if that's the way the site wants to run their content, that's their right.

@kanashi what kid is smart enough to find the website and video but too stupid to bypass an age restriction?

In all actuality though, porn and/or gore websites rarely have age restrictions but video game trailers almost always do, it is just because of the ESRB.

@retodon8: Since when does logic enter into the mind of a lawyer? That's who makes them put those age gates up. The guys who run the site probably think it's as stupid as we do.

Did you know that you have to be 18 to watch a 16 year old minimum trailer? makes sense to me = P Also why have a 17+ and 18+ system?

I forgot yet again, Mishy, that you live in the land down under, and things work a bit differently there. Are there AU videogame sites that you use, or do you mainly surf the US ones? It is interesting to find that in Australia (where if a game isn't rated below 15 and under, it isn't released) that you can watch videos for games that couldn't be released without major content changes. Are you Aussie youths more susceptible to corruption? ;)

I use both and yes we are just look at me! jokes. Yes its odd that if a game can't be released here we can still watch them = P makes sense right? This place is probably the "name we shall not speak on this site" land

Yeah, Australian gamers are getting screwed at the moment with the current system with games getting banned left and right. Though even the US system isn't perfect, because if a game is 18+ instead of 17+ most stores refuse to carry it, so ESRB has more power than it really should have.

One thing I do wish is that sites with accounts would remember your age. I'm signed up and logged in to Gametrailers literally ALL THE TIME but every time I watch a video it asks for my age, despite having given it over a hundred times.

I never use my real age, I just leave it as Jan 1st and scroll the year down a few pages.
Age gates online are pointless because no proof is required.

Of course the flipside is that if they didn't put some sort of age verification on, parents could complain that there was no warning when their children watched something violent or with swearing or sex. Purely a legal necessity.

Does it really matter? Like the previous commenter said all you have to do is select Jan 1, 1980 and you should be covered no matter what your age. It takes 5 seconds and is not really that big of a deal. Stop complaining about stupid, p[ointless things.